LEONA - THE RADIANT DAWN

SO why would ANYONE play that many games on a single champion?

Because she fits my style.

I have over 500 games on 4 different champions.

Akali, Quinn, Leona, and Thresh

But this one's about Leona! I'll probably write the other 3 guides sometime soon. This one is gonna take some time to complete. So... What's so great about Leona?

She's a CC machine that's nearly impossible to take down. She can bait and tank a team of 5 champions, pulling them into an ideal location as the team closes in, and when the time comes, she can lock them all up at once. All the while amplifying her team's damage and having the availability to get to any spot in the fight in the blink of an eye and lay down crowd control for days and days and days...

Leona governs the entire flow of every fight in the game. Leona decides when teamfights happen by disengaging the ones she doesn't want and engaging the ones she does want. Nobody is going to decide when fights happen other than Leona if Leona is in a game.

She's absolutely amazing at keeping control of a game and with the new season jungle changes, she can even do it from the jungle, effectively adding an additional tank, an additional means of engagement, and an additional Sightstone to your team.

She brings more to a game than nearly any other available champion, in my opinion.

Engage

Disengage

Peel

Front line

Damage amplification

Objective control

Lane dominance

Wave clear (more than most tanky supports, at least)

Pick potential

Anti-Siege Comp

Anti-Poke Comp

Anti-Burst Comp

Anti-Dive Comp

Anti-Mobility Comp

Anti-Rotation Comp

Anti-Duo ADC Comp

Viable Sightstone Jungler

Sunlight is Leona's passive. All of your abilities apply a glow to any target struck. If an ally strikes that target, the target is dealt additional magic damage.



Shield of Daybreak is Leona's Q-based skill. It is a low-cooldown stun which modifies and resets your next auto attack and applies Sunlight. A handy thing to remember is that any ward can be destroyed before it vanishes by auto attacking it, bashing it with your Shield of Daybreak, and auto attacking it again. Always remember that if you're in range for a Q, you're in range for an auto attack. Your AA -> Q -> AA combo is something you need to perfect as a Leona player, and is one of those things that separates a good Leona from a bad one.



Eclipse is Leona's W-based skill. It causes her to be enveloped in a glow which amplifies her damage mitigation. It then explodes, dealing magic damage and applying Sunlight in a large area. It then persists as a damage soak for a while longer. This is a skill that you should use defensively, not offensively. Yet another one of those things that separates a good Leona player from a bad one. You're much better off soaking damage and baiting towards your team than you are if you try and kill something by yourself. Once you find your team.... Turn and burn, baby.



Zenith Blade is Leona's E-based skill. It is a mid-ranged gap closer which applies Sunlight, moves Leona to the LAST CHAMPION HIT, roots the target, and deals magic damage. Did you know that this skill is a form of hard CC? Many players don't. It doesn't just move you to the enemy, it roots them for about a second. Sometimes that's exactly what one of your allies needs to get a kill, or exactly what your carry needs to narrowly escape. Remembering that this is a form of hard CC will help you become a better Leona player. Additionally, remembering that it moves you to the last champion struck is important. Just because you have a tank in your face doesn't mean you can't get to a carry.



Solar Flare is Leona's R-based skill and her ultimate ability, not available before level 6. Leona calls down a thick pillar of light which slams into the ground after a short delay, stunning any enemies caught in the center and drastically slowing others caught in an area of proximity. All enemies struck are afflicted with Sunlight. This is your ace in the hole. This is how you start a teamfight correctly. If your favorite champion didn't know how (they don't.), Leona would be happy to show them.

The best part about Solar Flare is one simple thing - Bullet Time. No other champion in the game offers the phenomenon of bullet time. Thresh just about pulls it off, but the problem is that the entire enemy team has to walk through his ultimate for it to work the same. Leona's comes out of nowhere.

When a champion locks up an entire team with a stun (such as Sejuani or Malphite), it robs you of watching them act. You can't really determine what they're planning to do in a teamfight because they aren't moving.

However, when the entire team is massively slowed, you can see which way everyone is headed. you can sort of see the formation they're trying to follow and determine an intention.

It gives your team time to position. It gives your team time to think about who they want to focus. It gives your team time to notice that they're in range of a threat and MOVE. It gives you time to find your way to a priority target and lock them down. It gives you time to get to your carry if they're in immediate danger. Your team stays the same speed, the enemy team is entirely dragged down in reaction time.

You can't possibly ask for a better engage except for maybe off of Malphite or Vi, but Malphite doesn't amplify his team's damage and Vi doesn't affect an entire team.

If you want to be creative in your League of Legends experience and you were wondering about viability, the answer is yes. Leona can jungle.

She's not on any Tier Lists that I know of at the moment because she's really not considered a jungler, but if I had to place her in a Tier, I'd place her in Tier 1. She's certainly not God Tier, but she's super viable.

Leona is a Utility Tank Jungler. She falls in league with champions like Maokai and Nunu & Willump. She buys a Sightstone and provides direct support in fights rather than ambushing and killing oblivious stragglers. Since there's not much potential for true hard ganks, she makes up for this by bringing additional vision to the map to avoid the enemy jungler gaining overwhelming pressure or snowballing lanes.

basically, follow the mentality of "If I'm not ganking, neither are you."

If the enemy jungler does manage to find their way to a lane, peel them off of your laner rather than trying for a kill. Deny the gank. Try to do so before the enemy beats a flash out of your laner.

If an enemy lane is playing hyper aggressive, lock them up for your laners to secure the kill.

Just remember that you should never be entering a lane with the intention of ambushing and 100-to-zeroing the enemy by yourself. It just isn't ever going to happen.

However, I believe this is one of the BEST aspects of Leona jungle. Most popular junglers out there right now, in the hands of newer players, visit each lane and rack up a ton of kills they could have handed off to the lane. The jungler gets fed and tries to carry, but he can't because the rest of his team was starved of kills. Rather than snowball your team, you snowball yourself. Generally ONE snowball isn't enough to close out a game.

This is why I believe I have such a high success rate with Leona jungle. I get my lanes fed, rather than myself. I provide heaps of vision, which prevents the enemy jungler from snowballing their lanes as hard as I'm able to snowball my own. Later on in fights, my focus switches to reaping the fruits of my labor and keeping my snowballed carries alive longer than what would seem natural.

The carry potential of late-game Leona jungle is massive - and all you have to do is engage and peel.

Stages of the game

Early Game

You mostly want to be farming. Try to keep even in levels with the average of your team - You aren't really expected to do many early ganks, so don't feel too terrible getting some serious farm under your belt. You can't really gank at all until level 4 at the earliest. (If you take your entire kit at levels 1, 2, and 3 - you're going to have a hard time clearing. Do not take Zenith Blade until level 4.)

Ideally, you want to start on your duo lane's side at gromp. However, starting with gromp is way more important than starting on your duo side, so if gromp is on your solo side, do it anyway and just make sure you ward the river for a potential invade.

You want to go Gromp-> Blue-> Red-> Golems-> Back. Smite the ones in green. Smite immediately to acquire the bonus as early as possible.

Keep in mind that each camp does something different when the largest of the monsters in the camp is struck with smite.

Gromp - Damages monsters which attack you
Wolves - Reveals enemies in the wolf side of your jungle
Raptors - Reveals and allows you to destroy ONE enemy ward
Blue - Restores a large portion of mana
Red - Restores a large portion of health
Golems - Gives you an on-hit stun which procs periodically

After recalling and purchasing Ranger's Trailblazer, you'll want to go:

Wolves-> Gromp-> Raptors-> Scuttle-> Scuttle-> Wolves-> Raptors-> Golems

Scuttles are worth a lot of gold and experience and provide an excellent free source of vision that doesn't use up any of your ward cap (3 wards). Additionally, any time you smite the wolf camp, you gain vision in that area of the jungle for a period of time. Smiting the enemy's wolf camp is an excellent practice to get into.

Smiting the enemy's raptor camp will allow you to clear (and replace) any wards they have in that quadrant of the jungle.

In my opinion, once you get some items together, the very best camps to smite are the wolf and raptor camps for the sake of vision control.

Mid Game

To me, the mid game starts as soon as somebody on the map hits level 11. As soon as a team has a level 2 ultimate to work with, they should be looking for a fight as soon as possible. Generally this is when people start crossing over into other lanes.

You should have your Sightstone and your Greater Vision Totem by this time. Vision becomes critically important. It is best if you worry about one half of the map and your support worries about the other. Being clear in your communication of this to your support is paramount.

You should pack up with your team as soon as you accomplish some vision control and help them look for engagements. Be sure to keep eyes on dragon AT ALL TIMES. Even if the pit is down, if the enemy goes to check it you'll know where they are and can rotate accordingly. Vision at dragon pit at any period in time around when it would spawn is never ever wasted.

Pay extra close attention to your carries and the type of trouble they're getting themselves into. If you need to get to them, can you do it in time?

If the answer is yes, make sure that you're also still being productive and not just following a carry around aimlessly.

If the answer is no, make sure that what you're doing is worth being away from them.

If there's no action going on, keep updating your wards and farming whenever you have downtime. If you see a tower getting pushed by minions, go clear it.

Late Game

Keep the topside scuttle dead or keep a ward on baron at all times. Try to move all of your wards into aggressive territory and move your team off of your side of the map. You want to live in the enemy jungle for the end game if you're ahead or even if you're tied. With 2 sightstones on your team, there isn't much reason not to.

Keep your lanes pushed out and keep your team on the high ground.

If you're behind, you need to focus on escorting your carries around while they farm and securing objectives. You become a babysitter until your carries can catch up. Your job is to prevent ambushes, break sieges, and catch everyone up. Applying Sunlight to minion waves causes faster wave clear (and therefore more gold) in the late game, so sunlight the piss out of everything until your carries get fat.

Zone enemy carries out of engages. looks like they're preparing to dive or go all-in, even if you can't stop it you can at least keep the enemy carries from getting the ground they're looking to stand on. This could potentially keep YOUR carries alive or even flip the fight.

If you need to steal a buff at any point in time, activate Eclipse, use Zenith Blade to get over the wall if you can land it on a champion, use Solar Flare to stop the majority of the enemy team from collapsing on you. Wait for the buff to get ALMOST low enough to smite, and use Shield of Daybreak on the enemy jungler, and then smite the buff. This cancels any chance of a smite fight. Flash back out of the pit and run for the hills. Write Riot games about how everyone should have a Thresh lantern.

If that entire process takes any longer than 3 seconds, you're taking too long to do it and you should have waited longer to enter the pit.

Stages of the game

Early Game

Your job is to zone the enemy off of the farm completely. If you can't do it, you're not being ballsy enough. If you're ever going to be successful with Leona as a support, you need to unzip, pull it out, and just slap that bad boy right up onto the table for all to see. Just *whomp* there it is, right there on the table for ya.

Leona is NOT a passive support. She is NOT a "passively protect the carry" support. She is a "Get in there and wreak havoc and apply sunlight to ALL the things" support. She's all about getting in, blowing her entire load, tanking until the allied ADC is done blowing their load, and walking out like you just got a porn star to beg you for the D.

Leona is about making the enemy team know that if they get into range, they aren't going to get poked. They're going to eat EVERYTHING and they're going to LIKE IT. And we're not going to call.

Now... Occasionally the enemy team is going to have a player that's wise to Leona's shenanigans and kite the hell out of you and poke you down so you can't be an in-your-face 24/7 threat. This is what is known as "Someone who has played Leona before". It makes the lane a little more difficult.

In this scenario, the answer is very very simple.

Still do absolutely EVERYTHING mentioned above... Just wait until after level 6 and a few items to do it. Until then, apply sunlight to everything and hit 6 as quick as possible. Get all your relic charges. Try and keep the enemy off of your carry and try to cause them to be unable to find a place to "settle".

Leona is great at that - Do you have any idea how much harder it is to farm when you have to reposition constantly? It becomes kind of a dance. Just look at your minions, see which one is about to die, and pretty much stand on it. Don't stand on it until it is about to die. You basically want to pretend you're last-hitting minions with your feet.

The enemy has a choice to make - Stop for just a moment to kill the minion and probably catch a zenith blade to the face while your auto attack resets

Or poke Leona and miss the minion.

Keep wards on any path that the jungler could potentially ambush you from. If the jungler has a gapclose or a good block like Pantheon, this occasionally includes the bush on the wrong side of your outer turret, as well as bottom tri-bush.

Mid Game

I've always believed that the midgame, as mentioned in the jungle guide, starts as soon as somebody hits level 11.

Basically keep an eye on dragon at all times, try and ward the enemy's red or blue bushes, depending on which side of the map your team is active on, as these bushes reveal 5 paths at once. When in doubt, ward the entrances/exits to the enemy jungle and just outside dragon or baron pit. Keep your carry safe. Ping anything you see on the minimap that you think somebody might want to know.

Late Game

Just about identical to what your late game would be as a jungler (described above)

Let me know if you guys think I should copy/paste it again down here or just continue to refer people to the other section, yeah?