Lissandra Build Guide : Lissandra Support - A generous Queen that helps + Warding guide!

An introduction

Hello there, my name's Ivan. I've been playing League of Legends since the end of Season 6 and my go-to role is support. I started as a - main and got bored of it eventually. So I decided to go for off-meta way. If I can play it as a support, I will.

My first exposure to support was a bet in uni. I was thinking about Lissandra and asked a friend what he thought about Lissandra support. He told me "it probably isn't possible, I bet you won't make it work".

He dared a beer - I won that beer as I got to diamond with Lissandra support. Ever since then I've been testing several champs as a support. From to and eventually . With this guide I want more people to discover Lissandra and give her more love - if at the very least it will result in more fanart and fanart.

This guide is meant to be sort of like a university book but nicer to read and written by an amateur. I want to share my experience and knowledge and always add examples on what I mean. As much as I am not a fan of university math, I have to say that the german book "Teschl & Teschl Mathe für Informatiker Band 2" (Teschl & Teschl Mathematics for IT students volume 2) is a big inspiration for parts of my structure (and some quirky jokes) and if you are ever forced to do university math about integrals and derivaties in german, I can recommend the book.

In turn, this means that my guide will look less fancy, although I am trying to make it look a bit nice, and that I put more emphasis on presenting information and wanting you, the reader, to form your own opinion in what you prefer in each segment. For example, are you more of an player and disregard the cyan tree or can you, unlike me, not say no to since you don't like ?

In any case, you can find a Keyword Index at the bottom of the guide. While yes, you could just go to a wiki to look up the words, I thought it'd be more convenient for you, the reader.

Also, one thing I want to preface: Thank you very much Katasandra for donating parts of your guide's code. A few Mobafire veterans will probably notice that parts of the guide look like their guide, and that is because it is from their guide! I seriously cannot emphasize how thankful I am. That is why I will thank them two more times in this guide :p

That being said, I hope you will enjoy reading my guide as much as I enjoy writing it!

PS: Since Katasandra doesn't update her guide anymore, I'm taking it upon myself to, at some point, make a mid Lissandra guide. I've recently been practising mid a bit and builds similar to mine have been working out well so far.

Table of Contents

1.1. Why Lissandra?

1.2. Why Tank?

2. Summoner Spells + Runes explaination

3. Abilities + Skill order

4.1. Item explaination

4.2. Sub-optimal items

4.3. Sample builds

5. Support upgrade - Which one do I choose?

6.1 Playstyle - Laning Phase

6.2 Match-Ups and Synergies

6.3 Playstyle - Roaming & Ganking

6.4 Playstyle - Mid- and Lategame

7.1. Warding - Basics

7.2. Interjection - Major Objectives

7.3. Warding - Why, when and where

7.4. Warding - Tips, tricks and quirks

7.5. Warding - Addendum

8. Fun facts

9. Closing thoughts

10. Currently testing

11. Personal skin tier list

12. Changelog

13. Keyword Index

Why should I even play Lissandra as a support?

Pros

❄ Lots of (Instant) Crowd Control
❄ Flexibility
❄ Teamfight/AoE Prowess
❄ Mobility Tool offers non-committal Mobility + Blink

Cons

❅ Low Range + Low Damage
❅ High Cooldowns
❅ Weak Early Game
❅ Very Predictable Engage

is a very flexible champion. In terms of playstyle, she can be played aggressively as well as defensively - being the engage is just as viable as waiting for the enemy to make a mistake. In terms of builds, she can opt into AP items as well as tank items, with a personal bias towards the latter. Her entire kit contains AoE Crowd Control in the form of slows, a root and a stun, making her superb at controlling a (team)fight. Her engage tool is one of the few abilities in the game which offer to not commit. This can come in handy when an engage looks good, but a second later it isn't due to unforseen circumstances. It also is a Blink, which can be used to dodge certain spells.

However, all of these positives come at a price: has quite low range with low base damage. This makes her susceptible against poke champions, of which bot lane offers quite a few. What's more is that she does not have any built-in sustain, needing help from Runes to fix this. Add high cooldowns in the early game and simply is quite weak in that stage of the game.

But if you are able to get out of laning phase, can give you one thing: Control. You control the enemy's movement, you control if a fight should happen, you control the enemy's success within a fight. And with every second you survive, you only make it more difficult for the enemy, especially when they start to fall.

A friend of mine once described her as an "AP mage version of " and while I don't 100% agree with it, I have to admit that he as a point. However, is more about general disruption and has more of an instant effect than . Both are good in their own way, but I thought I would give the reader a broad idea of what one should expect from .

_{credit goes to my good friend Rio}

This part will be slightly more informal due to this being a more personal matter that I've been fighting other Lissandra mains over ever since I've brought this up.

Burst vs Tank - Explaining the gist of burst mages

Let's start by looking at a few other champions people consider to be burst/poke mages:

All of these champions have one thing in common: They have range with which they can (usually instantly) pepper the enemy from afar and/or disable the enemy in the process, thus in theory not really needing defensive stats. This means that the champions's defensive stat is their range with which they can avoid damage in the first place:

's entire kit has at least 800 range (excluding her R ) and her E as a superb "get off me" tool due to its knockback.
's gimmick is her ball that has superb range in general; while she has no "get off me" tool, she has a ton of range to offset that weakness.
follows the same idea - lots of range, root on E and a delayed knockup on R .
's Q and E have plenty of range to pepper for some all-ins for your R .

All of these champions have the trait of a lot of range to wittle down their enemy, thus enabling successful all-ins/burst combos.

Let us look at another batch of champions that can build burst items/are classified as burst mages that do not necessarily have a lot of range:

doesn't need a lot of introduction: Once she gets her R , she can easily avoid a lot of skillshots and even stop dashes with her E .
has her damaging blink W . This basically ensures that she can go back to safety after a trade.
, just like Ahri, needs no proper introduction. She is the blink-everywhere-before-you-know-where-she-is champ.
While 's dash isn't anything to write home about, his W ensures a healthy trade if he goes in.

These champions either have blinks/dashes to get to safety, some sort of healing and/or minor dash to emerge victorious out of a trade or just mobility in general. This is similar in terms of advantages to range where mobility/sustain is meant to offset squishiness.

Suppose the following burst mage items:

All of these items are meant for burst mages and their stats reflect that: They all give AP. Some offer mana, one Ability Haste and two flat Magic Penetration. And they all do their job well - they are meant to aid burst mages do their (burst) job better in exchange for no (proper) defensive stats.

In turn, due to the lack of defensive stats, you are very squishy and have to use the defensive stats/methods you are given quite well. Otherwise you will die over and over again or...

...you fix the issue with defensive/utility items.

This is where items like , , or tank items in general come into play since they offer survivability to offset a lack of mobility/range.

Now, let's look at Lissandra

Does she fit into the category "Range"?
Not really:
Lissandra's Q has no respectable range, including the extention on hit. Her W has a laughably low range. should not be seen as a damaging spell but a one way blink, so we can't really see this as a reliable tool to poke from range. And 's range is roughly auto attack range, so again, not that much range.

Well, can we put her into the category "Mobility/Dashes"?
Again, not really:
Besides 's one way blink, Lissandra has no mobility whatsoever. 's cooldown is too high to be considered a proper defensive tool* and 's 1.1 to 1.5s root are not enough. Since only slows the first target hit with a miniscule slow, kiting is out of the question.
_{*I am not saying that Lissandra's Frozen Tomb cannot be used defensively. In fact, it is a superb defensive tool. But in comparison to LeBlanc's blink or Sylas's Kingslayer which are on a way lower cooldown, it pales.}

Burst vs Tank - The contradiction in Lissandra's kit

First, let's analyse 's kit, look at a few basic combos read out of her kit's idea and eventually point out the contradiction:

First we notice that E might have the higest range, but a very high cooldown; it also is her mobility tool, so we need to use it whenever it counts. It synergises well with her W which basically has melee range. This means that Lissandra, combined with R , would like to all-in at some point. But when is that at some point?
That is where her Q comes into play! With its range being extended upon hit, it is meant to poke the enemy down for the eventual all-in and a kill!
So basically:

into

until low,

into

and

Another very similar interpretation of her kit would be a short combo of , followed by and an for good measure, until low enough to commit to the first combo's second half.
In summary:

into

until low,

into

and

These are the most common bread and butter combos on , regardless of which lane. Of course, you can mix these up in any way you want. Sadly, there is but one issue...

To help convey my point and get a feel for my argument, I will again look at a few champions that are meant to be good in short trades and have means to still emerge victorious:

I again am using here as he is quite good in short and even longer trades thanks to his W .
Anyone who has ever played against a (good) knows that wittling him down is out of the question, especially if he uses his E to soak up damage, with to regen back any damage and hits his Q ; let alone the fact that his damage is to be respected due to and his high base damage.
, while also good in long trades thanks to his microwave , can win trades simply by timing his W well after laning his E and landing Q since his W provides shields based on tamage taken and damage dealt!
goes in with W , empowered by , stabs with Q and safely disengages with directional damage immunity spell . No need to add a lot here.

You might have noticed another pattern I want to be noticed:
All of these champions have some sort of spell/tool to ensure that they win the trade by either having a bit of sustain or damage mitigation in form of a shield or damage immunity, despite engaging into melee range. The champions in the category mobility, especially and , could also fit into this category due to their mobility.

Let's take another look at Lissandra:

What in 's kit will ensure that she emerges victorious out of a short trade?
...well, that's the thing: There really isn't anything in her kit to aid here as her passive only works once an enemy champion dies and nothing besides her R provide any sustain, let alone defensive capabilities. If was a stun, then I could see it work out, but a root still means that the enemy can fight back.
So combo 2, in the long run, will cost us trades unless we manage to pick really good trades.

So what about "combo" 1 that is about poking the enemy down for a good all-in? For this, let's compare these 3:

's Q has 800 range which is 25 less range than 's extended . However, the key differences here are that Syndra Q is quite fast (0,6s) and can be placed on an area of your choice while Lissandra's Q originates from herself and, quite frankly, takes a bit to reach its target, let alone no guaranty that the range will extend. So in terms of poking an enemy down, Syndra Q is superior in basically every way.

's Q has the same range as Lissandra's extended Q and is considerabely slower with a difference of 800 units/s. However, 's ball range is 1290 units, thus enabling you to use in cheeky ways, besides the fact that, if you hit your Q, you can instantly activate W to deal way more damage than any Lissandra Q.

Now a bit of experience from my part: Hitting a Q is only really reliable on people not respecting you or melee champions. Once you need to deal with ranged champions, especially champs like in mid or on bot, hitting a Q only happens if they need to go for farm or misposition hard, and even then it is not that hard to dodge.

Now, I am aware that my explaination is basically "dude trust me" in regards to Lissandra Q, but even when looking at other spells that are meant for poke like Q or Q, we can safely assume that it is quite unreliable

This shows that combo 1 isn't as reliable as it'd need to be to ensure a lot of successful all-ins.
_{I want to mention that I am NOT saying that it is impossible to poke your enemy down, otherwise high elo Liss mains wouldn't manage to do it. But it is quite hard to do and thus unreliable}

So, to recap:

Lissandra has no proper tools to survive a trade as she lacks lane sustain in comparison to champions like Mordekaiser, Ahri or Sylas
She also lacks some sort of safety-mobility since her Glacial Path is a one-way blink in comparison to champions like LeBlanc or Katarina
Ice Shard is a spell that feels slow due to it originating from Lissandra, only having respectable range once it hits a target and being quite predictable, therefore being quite unreliable to hit
Ice Shard pales in comparison to other poke tools like Syndra's entire kit
Ring of Frost in combination with Glacial Path and Frozen Tomb imply a short trade/all-in playstyle due to their ranges, synergy and cooldowns

As you can see, combo 2 will result in too many losses in the long run while combo 1 is too unreliable/short range to even get a winning all-in/short trade going.

This is the contradiction in her kit: Her W-E-R are short trade/all-in spells that are meant to get prepped by Q, but Q is not reliable enough in most match-ups

_{This is especially true for botlane where basically every lane has ranged champions that outrange you all the time ( Caitlyn, Jinx, Ashe), ignoring how a bad Ice Shard on bot lane can make your lane so much more difficult}

Within this chapter, we will go over the viable summoner spells, explain them, and then do the same for runes. There, we firstly go over major runes/keystones. Secondly, we will go over each tree's minor runes.
In these two segments, smaller icons mean less optimal choices and greyed out runes being unviable in my opinion. The reason for this is to explain the viability of choosing the minor runes in the second tree.
Finally, I will show two viable rune pages I personally use and explain what each rune page excels at.

Summoner Spells

There are a total of three viable Summoner Spells: , and .

is a short distance blink and is a no-brainer. The amount of possible plays due to having the blink are endless: Extended engage range, flashing over walls, dodging skillshots, etc.

reduces an enemy champion's damage (excluding true damage) and slows them for 3 seconds. This is the defensive minded playstyle's default summoner spell, as it can help shutting down a particiular enemy for a bit. At the same time, the slow can help you getting in range for an enemy, enabling a few offensive plays here and there.

deals a respectable amount of true damage and applies Grievous Wounds (healing reduction) over the course of 5 seconds. This summoner spell is for the aggressive player, aiming to make all-in plays matter even more. In addition, it can act as a budget healing reduction substitution, if buying items like or are not a possibility yet. As a result, in the early game, it can be seen as a soft counter to .

Personally, I always go with due to the flexibility I mentioned compared to the straightforwardness of . An argument in favour of would be the snowball potention from the additional damage and healing reduction, though since most enemy ADCs pick , it has lost a bit of its advantage on botside. It also enjoys a one minute lower cooldown, meaning a higher uptime. Whether that is worth the massive damage reduction and thus a consistently useful Summoner Spell is up to you.

One important thing to mention: counters and : It removes enemy Summoner Spells while also providing 75% Tenacity (reduces the duration of Crowd Control excluding airborne, drowsy, nearsight, stasis, and suppression) for 3 seconds. In the case of , it removes everything the spell has to offer. With , it only removes the true damage portion - the enemy will still have reduced healing until the 5 seconds are over. As a result, you should ideally try baiting somehow before or in a fight.

Major Runes: Keystones

is one of the two core keystones for support. You get a lot of temporary armour and magic resist (scaling with armour and magic resist respectively), stats you might need to survive an engage or disengage. After a few seconds, a short emmission removes the stats and deals damage to enemies around you (scaling with HP), similar to . I recommend if you either value survivability or want to get a feel for the pick first.

is the second core keystone for support. Upon rooting an enemy with or stunning with , ice fields form around the target(s), slowing them. The slow amount scales with AD, AP and Healing and Shielding Power. Additionally, any enemies standing on the ice fields deal 15% less damage to your teammates. To me, this is my personal choice of keystone due to its focus on teamfighting prowess and disruption capabilities, giving even more disruption tools to control a fight with.

instantly deals additional damage in a small area around a target that has been hit by 3 seperate instances of damage. follows a similar idea, dealing additional AoE damage to a target hit by an ability after a short delay. The cooldown of gets reduced by hit abilities.

and are both lane focused runes that I recommend for Lissandra players that want to push a lead early into the game or prefer the minor runes in the or tree. However, for these runes to stay relevant, building AP is a must, limiting the items you can build.

Minor Runes: Resolve

provides you and a teammate a short heal upon slowing, rooting or stunning an enemy (20s cooldown). As a ranged champion, only heals for 70% of its effective value.
will deal a sizable amount of physical damage to a turret after an auto attack if standing close to one for a while.

is the best rune in this row, as is way more niché and relies on you being near enemy turrets. should not be pick due to the lack of shields has in her kit.

temporarily increases health regen upon being damaged by an enemy champion. provides flat damage reducion from the next three damage instances after being damaged by an enemy champion for 1.5 seconds. provides additional armour and magic resist after 12 minutes.

is by far the best rune in this row as it provides the sustain her kit desperately needs. comes as a close second and is better if the enemy has burst damage in several instances (e.g. Q + + ). If you are absolutely certain that you can survive lane without any sustain/damage reduction, is the best choice due to the free stats.

provides additional permanent HP based on the amount of dead minions/monsters around you, with certain thresholds providing a percentage boost. grants additional armour and magic resist upon being (soft) CC'd for at least 2 seconds.

is the best default choice all around, as is more lane focused and requires enemies to have CC. is never worth taking in any case (Small slow increase on ).

Secondary tree: Overgrowth vs Font of Life

Minor Runes: Domination

Using , every (dis-)engage with gains a lot more oompf by giving you 20-50 true damage in laning phase (assuming level 1-9). With the right ADC, for example , , ), this rune will synergise very well.
Alterntively, if you think there will be longer fights, is a viable alternative due to its lower cooldown and value. Starting level 2, 2 procs of deal more damage than (2 * 12 = 24 > 1 * 20).

If you'd rather have a bit more sustain than damage, is never a bad call due to its consistency and ease of application, as even an auto attack is enough to proc it.

provides additional trinket cooldown reduction based on the amount of takedowns, with trinkets being either (NOT by support item!), or . empowers wards placed in enemy territory by granting them +1 HP and 30-45s additional life time; starting level 9, this includes the rivers as well. In the case of the trinket , the additional life time changes to 30-120s. pings a hidden ward around you every 250s; reaching level 11, it also reveals them for 10 seconds.

The choice for the runes here depend on preference, as all runes are really good. means higher uptime on , maxing out your dewarding capabilities. Contrary, maximises your warding capabilities and rewards your map awareness, as walking into the enemy jungle can be risky. is in a weird spot, as it can help spot wards you might've missed on a very high cooldown, but only reveals them later. This rune can help you learn typical warding spots or spot wards by enemies that use peculiar warding spots.

Each hunter rune works with stacks gained upon unique takedowns, maxing out at 5. With , you gain Ultimate Ability Haste per stack. provides out-of-combat Movement Speed. grants additional gold once.

Generally, you want for the ult cooldown, as more s mean more lockdown. However, if you prefer a more roaming focused playstyle, provides very good value. might provide gold, but doesn't provide any additional value after getting 5 stacks. At the same time, it can be argued that reaching items sooner helps be online earlier.

Minor Runes: Inspiration

After finishing a legendary item, returns a percentage of its total gold cost... so like IRL Cash Back. disables the ability to buy Tier 1 boots, but you get for free after a certain amount of time, which is lowered with takedowns. replaces your flash with Hexflash. In short, it is like flash but you need to charge it to gain a blink, with additional charge time meaning more range.

While I initially considered to be better than due to the movement speed and additional gold you get (300g + 120g (10 MS worth of gold)), I now consider it to be the other way around. While the amount of gold you get back is lower, for a support, means that upon finishing a legendary item, you have enough money for 1-2 s, guaranteeing objective vision control. The downside to is that if you face a match-up where dodging certain spells (e.g. hook, hook, etc) is mandatory, lacking the 30 movement speed from boots early can be more of a detriment. can enable a few quirky plays that, like bush hopping without wasting flash or enabling additional angles for .

provides three one-time use potions: at level 3, at level 6, and at level 9. gives you 40% of a potion as well instantly while still providing the regular effect, giving you 40% more value out of a potion. gives you 3 at 2, 4 and 6 minutes respectively. These cookies heal based off of missing health and grant 30 permanent HP per used cookie.

is hands down the best option in this row, as it fixes 's lack of sustain without the need to buy additional pots and should be the priority choice. However, if money isn't a concern, makes potions more cost effective while giving a health boost most advantageous when trading. 's potions are very niché, helping either push waves a tiny bit better, gain stronger trade potential for a minute or a skillpoint.

grants Summoner Spell Haste as well as Item Haste, enabling more frequent // and active item usage. grant Ability Haste depending on the amount of different stats your items have; at certain thresholds, you gain Adaptive Power, usually AP.

we can't make use of: the only time you could use it would be when running away (where the rune won't do its thing) or when you are already in your enemy's face. Therefore, the choice for this row boils down whether you prefer raw stats (AH, AP) or difficult-to-obtain Summoner Spell and Item Haste. In order to get the most out of , one would have to build items that might not be ideal: Assuming a regular build of , and (8 different stats), we'd then need to opt into either or . No bad items by any means, but if you would need more armour, we would not get the 10 different stats benefits. At the end of the day, you still get a sizable amount of Ability Haste and AP.

Minor Runes: Sorcery

, on , will deal more damage and reduce the current cooldown of her by a small percentage. increases your maximum mana pool by 25, up to 250 (15s cooldown between procs). After that, you gain 1% of your missing mana as mana regen. gives you a surge of movement speed whenever you use an ability.

is the clear winner in this row, as 's abilities can cost quite a bit of mana if not used sparingly. In my case, where I dont use too much mana, might be a better rune, as resource management isn't a pressing concern anymore; the additional damage and cooldown reduction on can make a difference in consequent fights. While isn't a bad rune, usually when utilising well enough, bonus Movement Speed isn't necessary.

gives 5 Ability Haste at level 5 and 8 respectively. At level 11, the current cooldown of basic abilities (, , ) gets reduced by 20%. grants pasive Movement Speed and increases every Movement Speed bonus by a small amount. provides a sizable amount of Adaptive Force, usually AP, given your HP remains above a high threshold.

is the only viable option in here, as 's cooldowns are fairly high. isn't as good due to the same reasoning as , though it synergises well with or . Still, even then provides more value. sound good in theory, but due to 's low range, she won't be allowed to stay healthy when playing botside.

deals a bit more damage to the first enemy when hit by an ability (10s cooldown). grants a bit of Movement Speed but a sizable amount of (AP by default) when standing in the river. grants increasing amounts of (AP- you know the drill...) the longer the game goes (10 minute intervals).

is a good Epic Monster focused objective (s, , etc) that also aids a roaming playstyle. is an alright rune if you get a lane where can reliably hit your abilities, mainly . can provide a bit of AP, but only becomes really useful past 30 minutes, making it, in my opinion, the least useful of the three options.

Minor Runes: Precision

This tree I will go over very briefly. First off: There is little to no reason to opt into this tree. The only useful runes, the ones not greyed out, are present in a better way in other trees: If you have mana issues, instead of is more useful. And if you are picking , you can also replace with Transcendence.

Just do yourself a favour and pick any other tree. Not even one of the keystones is favourable on support.

Minor Runes: Shards

Lissandra benefits from Ability Haste way more than raw AP because more Ability Haste means more and , thus more flexibility on what we can do.

As hinted at, raw AP doesn't benefit us that much. Hence, we prefer the more defensive stats. In this case, this is either 2% Movement Speed or scaling HP (10-180). Math dictates we, if no Movement Speed buffs apply, get between 6.5 and 7.4 movement speed. This hardly matters due to , so the only viable option is the scaling HP.

In this row, we have nothing but defensive options: , and . If the enemy has a lot of slows or stuns, pick the . If not and you need the HP for lane, go for . Otherwise go for the . I made an amateurish decision tree diagram in the spoiler below.

Decision tree last row

Example Rune Pages

Aftershock Rune Page


		This runepage I recommend to people who want to start playing Lissandra support and get a general feel for the champion that isn't damage-focused. It has all the essentials: Defensive stats to aid in an engage/trade; Sustain to survive enemy poke; Lower cooldowns on Summoner Spells.

Glacial Augment Rune Page


		This runepage essentially flipped the Aftershock rune page and uses Glacial Augment instead to double down on Lissandra's ability to keep enemies in place while providing ample sustain to survive the lack of defensive stats in the laning phase.

Passive: Iceborn Subjugation

While is alive, if an enemy champion dies within a 1350 unit radius, that enemy turns into a frozen thrall, chasing nearby enemies, slowing them and detonating to deal damage. You can think of them as exploading zombies, chasing their prey until they die. The following video shows the passive in action:

official text + 1350 radius visualised

's passive is a great tool to assert pressure in a fight once the enemy has suffered casulties. It slows and deals quite high damage, but only procs if you are alive, so try to stay alive for as long as possible to get the most out of your passive!

Q: Ice Shard

Straightfoward ability: In a direction of your choice, will throw one big icicle. If it hits a target, its range extends. In any case, it will slow every target and deal the same damage to every enemy hit. You can use it to push waves, poke enemies and slow them at the same time. synergises very well with this ability.

Original text

W: Ring of Frost

Instant AoE magic damage root. Simple, but effective and is the entire reason hardcounters . With its now mana cost and conservative usage, you will never need a mana increase. Due to its effectiveness, this ability is your bread and butter if you don't enjoy maxing .

Original text

E: Glacial Path

's core mobility spell. She casts a claw in a direction of her choice that goes up to 1025 units. She can recast the ability to blink herself to the current location of the claw. This spell can be used in a lot of different ways: Offensivly to engage/close the gap or defensively disengage/rush to your allies's position. It can also be used to do some sneaky engages by casting the claw into the wall, making you pop out next to it. Also, due to it being a blink, abilities like or don't stop . Besides this, never use for damage unless you are absolutely ceratin that you cannot get punished for it/the additional damage is necessary.

Original text

R: Frozen Tomb

Arguably the most iconic ability that has to offer: Point and click stun on a very low cooldown in auto attack range (550 units) or a 2,5 seconds long statis with healing. Once cast, the floor iteratively turns into breaking ice, damaging any enemy touching it and slowing them. It is strong due to its simplicity and flexibility, enabling all sorts of plays. An enemy needs to stay put? that guy. Slow the entire enemy team for your team? yourself. Getting tower dove/performing a tower dive? ! Due to it being one of the very few point and click stuns left, the enemy has to either build instead of more cost efficient items or choose instead of or .

It is also worth noting that is first a knock-down, then a stun and finally generates the ice floor. This is great to stop enemy dashes. It is also worth noting that casting on herself heals her, scaling with AP.
_{Some useless knowledge: Unending Despair still procs, even when in stasis. Make of that what you will}

Original text

Based on this information, what would the optimal skill order be?

There are 2 skill orders:

Defensive/Engage:

>

With this skill order, you're putting more emphasis on engages or disengages as the root duration scales with level. You will also have to worry less about mana consumption in the early game as only costs 40 mana in comparison to 's incremental cost. might sound good due to its high cooldown getting lowered per level, but there is more value in going from 1-2 important uses to 2-3.

Damage/Poke/Aggression:

>

This skill order focuses more on poking the enemy down in lane and having more DPS than a few good engages. This can work well when trying to apply more often or if you want to build more AP items than tank.

_{Some Mobafire veterans will notice that the ability headers and structure are very similar to somebody else's guide. This is because I am using Katasandra's headers which they generously gave me the code for. I am eternally thankful for that and if you read this Katasandra, shoutouts to you! Even when their guide is outdated and not updated, it is without a doubt the magnum opus of Lissandra guides.}

The following items are being ordered by how common they are being built

Quintessential

might just provide movement speed for a low price, but the reason they are so important are their upgrades.
The only question that remains is: When should you prioritise over other items?
Movement Speed is a very flexible stat and can help when you need to either get away or walk towards someone faster. Example situations for this could be playing against a , or . Dodging their key abilities with Movement Speed is more beneficial than more HP or resistances.

Quintessential

provide more Movement Speed, Armour and a damage reduction against auto attacks, making it ideal into AD compositions.

Quintessential

Offering Magic Resist, increased Movement Speed and Tenacity, these boots are an ideal choice into teams that rely on a lot of stuns and roots. One key information about Tenacity: Suppressions (e.g. 's ) and knock-ups ('s ) DO NOT get affected by Tenacity.

Basically always

is no more, now has taken the place of the default first proper item. The reason is simple: Every single stat you can use well: HP, armour, MR and Ability Haste. This alone makes it a good all-rounder, but the active, giving everyone around you a good shield, makes it the item to aid your team.

Pretty common

You get all the things Liss would need: AP, AH/CDR and mana (as mana regen but it's still good).
You also enable more damage for your allies with your entire kit which fits with a more aggressive minded playstyle.

Pretty common

Abyssal Mask is a very good default MR choice, providing a decent amount of Magic Resist, Health and Ability Haste and a damage amplification passive:
With your presence alone you increase the magic damage dealt to enemies from all sources, including your own. This item you should only build if your team has either a magic damage champion that carries you or if your team has a lot of magic damage.

Pretty common

Highly recommended against mostly AD comps. Mana, Ability Haste, armour and attack speed reduction - good allrounder item. You should build this item over if the enemy doesn't have a lot of crit. For example:
, , , (Lethality) , is a team where is a better idea as noone in the enemy team builds crit.

However, a team like , , , , would be a good team to get into

(Don't ask why the enemy would pick 4 AD champs, you know how soloQ goes...)

Situational

Highly recommended against crit AD comps. Slows, a ton of HP and crit damage reduction - what else would you want in that case? (A Lissandra dakimakura that I actually own kekw)

Situational

I've said it once but I'll say it again - these items are extremly underappreciated and are worth their gold. Dont rush them but keep them in mind.
If you definitely need to ward a bit more often, build this item sooner. Alternatively, build this item if you have enough money for it, you cannot finish an item you were aiming for but you desperately need more stats.
(An example I've run into: I have built , aiming for , but the next fight might decide the game, but I do not have enough money to finish . In this case it might be good to get the decent amount of general defensive stats)

Otherwise it should be the last item to finish.

Situational

The Anti-Heal choice if isn't effective (e.g. enemies not attacking you). Cheap and effective. Also helps with the AP as well as any skill rotation due to the Ability Haste.

Situational

Now, I know what you might be thinking. "Why Thornmail? Applying Anti-Heal with is way easier than forcing the enemy to auto attack you!". And you are right Jimmy! However, consider the following:
What if the enemy has a lot of healing champions that are AD based and you desperately need armour but anti-heal is a priority? (consider against , , ).
In these cases, it is actually worth going for .

Situational

Only if there is some CC your carry cannot avoid and you need them to survive. Synergises very well with due to the Healing & Shielding Power.

Situational

There are 3 key situations when you'd consider over :

Your team cannot gain any value from reduced magic resist (e.g. ally full AD team)
The enemy team has so much magic damage that getting Kaenic Rookern after Abyssal Mask increases your survivability tenfold
You don't like Abyssal Mask and want the generally good option

The first two situations are fairly niché with the third being personal preference, making a situational item

Situational

Zhonya's is a good recommendation on Lissandra into certain matchups due to the vulnerability. Mentioned matchups would be , and similar snowballing ults. Not recommended against , and champions who can trap you while you are immobile.
Other than that, due to its cost, it has become very situational, but can still be built if just like its active.

Uncommon

A very good idea if you have a carry that needs to survive and you need armour, although the survivability of your carry is the main reason to buy . Fairly situational, but also quite good in that very situation.

Very uncommon

The selling point of these boots are the Ability Haste and the Summoner Spell cooldown reduction, enabling more frequent usage of and and every other ability except . These boots should be bought when and aren't viable options. An example would be a team with very little stuns and roots and very little auto attack based champions.

Very uncommon

/ should only be build if you cannot rely on your lane partner at all and/or would like to affect the map instead of your lane. The risk with these boots is that you have to generate a lead on the other lanes that cancel out a very behind bot laner. If Alicopter is your favourite streamer and you're confident, choose /. For more details, I recommend the Permaroam subsection in chapter 6.3.

These are items that sound good on paper, but have some sort of drawback to them or are outclassed by other items to make them viable on Lissandra support. Each item has a fitting reasoning

Too expensive

Jak'Sho would be a very good allrounder item as it gives you armour, MR and Health. With its passive, you gain even more stats! So what's the catch?

The price tag keeps it from being a valid support item. 3.2k for nothing but stats on a support's budget is only possible if you get a ton of kills - and we aren't trying to get kills. gets a similar effect to Jak'Sho, but is less expensive and gives a good shield.

Underwhelming

The stats on this item sound decent: 400 Health, 25 armour, 25 magic resist and 10 Ability Haste. And its passive sounds nice: Dealing damage and healing 250% of the amount of damage dealt ensures a bit more survivability.

However, the passive feels a bit too underwhelming, especially with the low base damage. If you wanted similar stats but for less gold and be more supportive to your team, look no further than or .

Extremely situational and underwhelming

I was looking forward to this item. It seemed to fit a niché I was looking for: Healing and Shielding power + AP increase for fairly cheap (2500G) to increase 's slow. Due to its stats, this item would only be good as a third item to buy as we first need some sort of tankiness. However, with a standard build of "Support upgrade -> -> ", we only get to around 38,6% slow on (see math below if curious). In that case, one should consider : While it may provide a smaller slow, it has better defensive stats.

And even when considering an increase to 's shield, the increase of shield goes from anywhere between up to 239 to 454,1 (implying 5 people are shielded).

Math

Doesn't work with Font of Life

In theory, this item could help Liss out in the healing niché with : A bit of healing, some damage when healing a teammate and stats that Lissandra can use. However, ever since Riot removed the interaction of working with , this item has sadly lost all its viability on support.

Passive doesn't slow on Lissandra + awkward with Glacial Path

The stats on are alright on - the best would be the Movement speed. And its passive gives you even more, making it easier to get in range for if an engage didn't go as planned. However, the passive only slows people when you are melee. We therefore are missing out on one of the bigger benefits from the item.

Moreover, the acceleration trail only works on area you walked on. And since is a blink, it creates this weird gap that doesn't really do much. We might as well get if we want more impactful speed _{(not that I recommend either...)}

Too underwhelming without AP

While the magic penetration would be a fairly wasted stat (we aren't focused on damage here), the AP, Ability Haste and its passive sound worth a try. However, with a base heal of 115 (100 + 15 from the item itself), one should ask why should be built if does the same job as the passive but way better: At least 200 shields per teammate compared to at least 85 healing.

However, if you were more interested in building more AP items like , or , I could see it being a good combination with . But realistically, does a support have that budget and enough item slots?

Slow doesn't stack with Frozen Tomb + better alternatives exist

The price for its stats is good: 2.2k gold for quite good stats. And the passive dealing up to 150 magic damage with a 30% slow sounds like a good piece of utility. Yet there are a few issues:

If you wanted an armour item with a bit of ulility, why not get or ? The former has 40 more armour, the other 5. If you wanted Ability Haste, delivers an equal amount, merely 5 less. If you needed mana... guess what, ! And if you wanted an armour item with HP, again, exists.

Now, the second main selling point besides the stats are its passive which procs whenever you ult. Here comes up the next issue: 's base slow is 30%, equal to . And in League of Legends, slows don't stack. Using your self cast R will do nothing but add the puny damage in a small area around you. The "best" use case would be to use it on an enemy and moving away, but if you have aura/AoE items like , , you might be missing out on crucial area coverage.

The item sounds nice, but underdelivers in every way for support.

Outclassed by Kaenic Rookern

This used to be the number 1 Magic Resist option. So why has taken its spot, moving down to sub-optimal?

While can provide up to 125 Magic Reist, it needs to proc its first passive, requiring you to get hit by up to 8 abilities. Otherwise, it can only offer 55 Magic Resist until then. In comparison, offers 80 Magic Resist from the get-to and offers a strong magic shield, scaling with HP.

From experience, I can say that by the point you'd get the 125 Magic Resist, the shield from has provided way more value. Reasons are that tends to either go in at the beginning or stay back and peel for her carries. In either scenario, an up-front shield will help more than more Magic Resist over time.

The only stats has going for itself are its up to 10% Movement Speed. This could be useful if you intend on moving around a bit more between teammates, but even then would the massive magic shield provide more value.

In general, I found that feels the best if you want to support your teammates as the heal and movement speed can help in either offensive plays (getting faster to your enemy) or defensive plays (getting away from your enemy + healing). Due to everything but proc'ing the item, the item has constant uptime. You cannot go wrong with this upgrade.

However, if you are looking to survive an engagement for a bit longer, will be right up your alley. It is like a weaker version of 's passive and acts like a budget . Due to this, I feel that it is overkill with and works really well with .
You also cannot go wrong with this upgrade.

is for the aggressive minded player. With a budget and damage amplification passive, this item was practically made to snowball the lane. In practise, I have noticed however that this isn't made for teamfights as hitting 5 enemies with 1.5s of delay is not only unrealistic, but extremely difficult. Due to this, this item is more situational and less of a general upgrade.

is the mage support's option and provides nothing but damage. This alone makes it the least interesting upgrade _{(to me)} as I feel that does the same job but better. The only thing it has going for itself compared to is that it has 3% max health damage and AoE, making it marginally better in teamfights.
Least supportive upgrade and outclassed by .

doesn't work with , so this support upgrade is not worth it in any case.

Default builds

I suggested this build as the "default" build as it covers you against most things that might happen:

- is the default option for the support item upgrade, giving you healing and movement speed whenever you hit an enemy champion

- will help whenever the enemy has some sort of hard crowd control excluding airborne and suppression.

- is the best choice for the first item due to its superb stats, providing HP, Armour, Magic Resist, Ability Haste and its team-wide AoE shield

- with healing being a norm in most games, getting anti-heal with armour isn't a bad call and will cover your armour needs

- covers any Magic Resist needs and will aid any magic damage dealers (including you) in your team

- will give you stats for carrying s and increase its cap

Very similar to the default build with the exception of swapping with and with

- are more useful if the enemy has little to no dangerous stuns but a lot of auto attack based champions

← instead of will be more useful if you already have plenty of anti-heal in your team and would instead get the attack speed slow

→ Alternatively, if the enemy has a lot of crit based auto attack based champions, getting instead is more valuable

Personal recommendation against very heavy AP teams

- are good here as a lot of AP champions tend to have stuns in their kits. Besides the tenacity, the 25 Magic Resist are always welcome

- Rarely will there be a team without any magic damage, making not only a cheap, but also team-oriented buy that will provide a lot of bang for your buck

- , as previously mentioned, will make you almost unkillable with the amount of HP this build already has. This is due to the HP scaling on its shield and solid base stats

Personal recommendation against very heavy AD teams

- provides armour and damage reduction on auto attacks. At least one of these attributes is always welcome

← As previously mentioned, is good against non-crit teams and → against crit teams

. will usually be effective into these teams as well as most AD champs will weave in auto attacks against you, applying the anti-heal

Here, we decided to add to the mix

- greatly boosts the damage of your teammates with whatever does that has crowd control or slows

The build on the ← left is more focused against AD teams and the build on the → right is more balanced

Situational builds

In this build we decided to insert into our build due to a fed carry in our team

- With being the designated cooperation item, these builds focus on keeping one of our carries alive and getting healed in return

- The build on the ← is focused on AD teams, while the build on the → right is more balanced

A snowballer's build across the map, relying completely on AP and to carry fights

- will aid in your teammates dealing more damage and adding your auto attacks a bit of oompf. If Movement Speed for easier follow-up is prefered, can be chosen instead

- boosts your team's damage, as previously mentioned

The previous build, but the boots have been swapped for a more lane/lower half focused playstyle

These builds will be useful when you need anti-heal and the enemy will generally not auto attack you, making useless.

The build on the ← is focused on AD teams, while the build on the → right is more balanced

NO.

In this section, we will go over the playstyle of support in the laning phase

For warding specific playstyle tips, check 7.2. Warding - Why, when and where

Disclaimer: Since reading text in dark red for small text is bad for your eyes (or at least mine lol), I'm using this tone of orange instead. Looks nicer, doesn't it?

As per usual with botlane matchups, there is no simple answer as just play safe or just go in. Rather, the question on how to behave in lane depends on several factors; to list the most important:

What are my strengths and weaknesses?
What are my ADCs strengths and weaknesses?
What makes me and my ADC strong?
When are we at our strongest?
What are the enemy supports strengths and weaknesses?
What are the enemy ADCs strengths and weaknesses/weakest?
When is the enemy at their strongest?
Who is the enemy jungler and what does that mean for my lane?
Who is my jungler and what does that mean for my lane?

Questions like these dictate what the League community likes to call win conditions, or win cons short and winning lane specifically for lane. As the name implies, these are conditions that enable your team to win the lane/game.
_{A well-known example for this would be getting a Draven unbelievably fed due to his gold generating passive, enabling him to get more items before anybody else and turning that into a win.}

Due to the sheer volume of possible bot lanes, explaining every single bot lane matchup in full detail would be extremely time consuming. Therefore I will attempt analyse a few match-ups, answer a few of the questions above in each and attempt to present guidelines to follow at the end of this section.

Match-Up number 1:

vs

What are my ADCs strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very good slows due to
+ Decent poke with
+ makes her strong in longer fights
+ Strong initiation with past level 6
+ High auto attack range (600 units)
+ Synergises well with
+ makes scouting the map easier

Weaknesses

- No mobility whatsoever
- Low upfront damage
- requires Ashe to stack first
- Ganking her is fairly easy
- No sustain

When are and the strongest?

It goes without saying that these two gets their biggest powerspike at level 6 - Getting someone locked up for up to 6.5 seconds is nothing an enemy can take easily. starts with her and follows up with + for to clean up with her buffed up auto attacks (). Of course can also initiate the entire combo

What are the enemy bot lane's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very strong poke
+ Good follow-up thanks to and
+ Easy way of scouting bushes with and
+ Strong pressure when you are low ('s 4th shot)

Weaknesses

- Low mobility
- Mediocre in longer lasting fights ( needs to reload)
- No sustain (Unless Jhin uses )

What makes the combination of and strong?

Due to the sheer amount of CC these two have, setting up ganks is very easy. Whoever you jungler is, a gank is bound to at least burn the enemy summoner spells.
Any mispositioning mistake by the enemy can be abused to a fatal degree - abusing mispositioning is one of their strengths as either can make it easier for the other to keep an enemy in place
Sort of related to the second point: Once Ashe is able to activate Ranger's Focus, unless she gets hit by some sort of CC, she will melt (ha) any enemy foolish enough to be in her range; Lissandra will make sure of that. And if Lissandra picked up Font of Life, Ashe can even take riskier fights thanks to due sustain
Even the decision making is aided by Hawkshot: Often enough, fights are lost due to the jungler convenientely showing up when going in. This makes it easier to prepare whatever you are planning: Poking down the enemy, reading an enemy's bluff... And in the best case, Hawkshot makes the enemy jungler drop the idea of ganking you as you already know that they are botside anyways

Who is my/the enemy jungler and what does that mean for my lane?

Ally vs Enemy

tends to perma farm until he reaches his necessary items and/or levels, with the earliest good gank timing being once he reaches level 6 or the enemy heavily mispositioning/overextending. Therefore, you shouldn't expect to gank your lane, even if the enemy is touching your turret. However, if he does decide to gank bot lane, your roots, slows and stuns, especially past level 6, should result in either kills or wasted summoner spells.

, on the other hand, can gank as early as level 2 and delivers knock-ups/-backs with almost every spell in his kit. Due to the nature of his , he can throw himself onto you from less common positions (Behind walls, tri brushes, etc) . Unlike , you therefore have to ward mentioned positions or ideally play according to your game sense and not engage if you suspect that is nearby.

If the enemy is , regular warding spots (shown below) will do the trick.

How should and play the lane and what is their wincon in this lane?

and should ideally use their slows and roots in order to punish the enemy's bad positioning. In that case, a longer trade is prefered if allowed to. should attempt to poke the enemy down with or auto attacks . Because of the enemy's lack of sustain and low mobility, this should be easy, presuming that roots by Zyra and Jhin can be avoided.

If longer trades don't work out , e.g. due to jungle or mid attention, waiting it out for level 6 and taking as little poke as possible is the safest bet as you unlock your strongest phase with and .

Match-Up number 2:

vs

What are my ADCs strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Strong pressure when you are low ('s 4th shot and )
+ Good follow-up thanks to 's root in medium range and from long range
+ Easy way of scouting bushes with
+ can slow enemies down, adding flexibility
+ He yells four

Weaknesses

- Low mobility (Movementspeed from )
- Mediocre in longer lasting fights due to low DPS ( needs to reload)
- No sustain (Unless Jhin uses )
- Ganking him is fairly easy if didn't prepare defensive traps ()
- Bad synergy with
- Annoying if you don't like the number four

When are and the strongest?

Starting level 2, there isn't really a time where they aren't strong. While they don't have as much synergy as +, Jhin can follow up any play due to and at the very least chunk the enemy quite a bit, though short trades are prefered due to the lack of sustained damage by both. Starting level 6, can ease 's ability to confirm hits in : Be it keeping the "meat shield" or the desired target in place.

What are the enemy team's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very strong poke
+ Very high range (Minimum of 700 units range on and 's 650 auto attack range)
+ High kill pressure once rooted (++'s plants), especially when low ()
+ Quite good in longer fights ('s plants + )

Weaknesses

- Low mobility ()
- No sustain (Unless uses )
- Without seeds, does not offer much besides and 's delayed knock-up

What makes the combination of and strong?

Jhin's ability to follow up to any play with Deadly Flourish is the core reason they work so well since it keeps enemies in place for a bit longer, potentially enabling up to 5.4 seconds of crowd control ( Ring of Frost 1.65s + Frozen Tomb 1.5s + Deadly Flourish 2.25s)
Especially with Aftershock, Jhin and Lissandra can take short trades and emerge victorious due to his high damage potential with Whisper's 4th shot, only getting better if the Jhin player planned accordingly with additional Dancing Grenade bounces and Captive Audience traps
As previously mentioned, Lissandra can help a Jhin hit the right targets when Curtain Call is cast
While Lissandra's ability to deny a gank is good, with a few additional Captive Audience traps by Jhin can make it even easier and even provide vision at key point

Who is my/the enemy jungler and what does that mean for my lane?

Ally vs Enemy

If there is one thing both of these junglers want to do, it is ganking a lot early in order to get ahead. Both deliver a good amount of CC ( and ), but in the case of , their engage is more telegraphed since he needs to start his charge from a distance. , on the other hand, is more simple and arguably more telegraphed as 's engage as her options to gank aren't any different than most of the jungler roster.

In 's case, she should attempt to ward spots where a might start his - around pit, the Blast Cone on either side, the enemy / or even the area between tier 1 and tier 2 turrets. If the enemy was the , the regular warding spots will do the trick.

How should and play the lane and what is their wincon in this lane?

and should attempt to get an early lead by reaching level 2 before the enemy to abuse their roots and high frontloaded damage in order to keep the enemy low and prevent the enemy from taking longer fights. However, due to the enemy's high poke, high range and ability to punish bad engages, every engage afterwards has to count. If the enemy missed their abilities, a short engage to punish is a good idea.

This is one of those match-ups where you will definitely have to consider asking your jungler to help. The low mobility of the enemy team and your ability to follow up an engage are very good reasons for your jungler to help you out.

This playstyle doesn't really change past level 6 with the exception of getting aid by with , either slowing enemies down or killing low health targets.

Match-Up number 3:

vs

What are my ADCs strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very high damage ()
+ VERY high snowballing potential ()
+ Good follow-up (++)
+ Very good in medium length fights
+ Good synergy with
+ DRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVEN

Weaknesses

- Alright mobility ()
- Very predictable fighting pattern ('s catch area)
- No sustain (Unless uses )
- Besides , delivers nothing but damage
- Bad from behind

When are and the strongest?

Even at level 1 are the two fairly strong, although is the core reason why. As long as it gets some sort of advantage or kill, he will only get stronger. Their level 2 spikes insanely hard due to being able to run faster towards the enemy and getting her proper engage tools. The last proper spike is at level 6 as can keep enemies locked up even longer, increasing the potential for kills

What are the enemy bot lane's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Big cheese potential ()
+ Camouflage can enable escapes ()
+ Good shielding () and buffing ('s attack speed + 's additional damage)
+ Good disengage ('s polymorph + 's knock-up, slow and HP buff)
+ Exceptionally good in longer, clumped up fights ( + + + )
+ Flexibility in build ( can go either AP or AD)

Weaknesses

- Low mobility
- No sustain (Unless uses )
- Fairly predictable if anticipated (Infamous + combo)
- s reveal camouflage
- Mediocre neutral game
- is a very good sustain counter when only 1 stack of is applied (Exception: AP )
- I WAS HIDING! HAHAHAHA GR

What makes the combination of and strong?

With Draven's lack of crowd control, Lissandra compliments that well due to her abundance of crowd control
Similar to Jhin, Draven can follow up your engages well by running faster towards the enemy with Blood Rush and keeping them slow a bit longer with Stand Aside
If Draven wants one enemy dead, Lissandra can tell that enemy to not move
Once Draven is ahead, he will be focused down. Yet again, due to Lissandra's crowd control and potential item choices, she can keep him alive

Who is my/the enemy jungler and what does that mean for my lane?

Ally vs Enemy

Similar to the last match-up, both of these junglers aim for early advantages in order to snowball. In this case, the difference is that scales well but doesn't have to win the early game as hard as . also doesn't scale well at all. As a trade-off, can see hidden enemies with , use to knock enemies up and gank from uncommon angles with her , similar to .

In 's case, he needs either evolved , overextention or a CC-heavy teammate to successfully gank, potentially giving the enemy team time until level 6 before he ganks.

Warding against is similar to other junglers. In the case of , uncommon ganking spots where she can use her should be warded.

How should and play the lane and what is their wincon in this lane?

One word: Aggression. relies on him cashing out from his passive and getting as much gold as possible to buy as many items as possible soon as possible possible, thus snowballing the game. It does not matter if dies in the process, it matters that gets ahead and uses the item advantage to dish out tremendous amounts of damage.

In order to do that, a level 2 push is mandatory as every single advantage in lane needs to be grasped. should be throwing s at the enemy whenever possible while can throw a few 's at the enemy. Rinse and repeat until an engage is possible.

Despite this clear game plan, they should not fall for any cheese tactics by and . Ideally, 's mana pool should be depleted by forcing her to shield frequently or the shield might prevent a kill. Even engages have to be thought out because of Lulu's Whimsy polymorph, otherwise she can prevent from dealing damage.

Most importantly, the enemy cannot be allowed to reach the mid to late game as and scale really well because of Spray and Pray and the buffs Lulu can provide.

Match-Up number 4:

vs

What are my APCs strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very good DPS with into s
+ grounds enemies, denying movement abilities
+ Good defensive tools (+)
+ Very good in long fights
+ Above average sustain (+)
+ Snek

Weaknesses

- Modest mobility ( + )
- Extremely mana hungry/useless without mana
- Cannot buy boots and its upgrades()
- Sustain requires AP ()
- No synergy with

When are and the strongest?

Level 2 enables to deal proper damage as 's empowered damage only applies on targets poisioned by either or *. Aided by 's , will have an easy time hitting mentioned poision spells and unleashing 's onto the enemy. It is important to mention that this has to be done sparingly before has respectable amounts of mana since spamming costs 50-42 mana each cast.
It is thereby advised to either turn in a win with this risk or wait for to return with enough mana from items or runes; around level 6 onwards tends to be when she has enough mana for longer fights. So either small engages/punishments or any plays from level 6 onwards, provided enough mana.
_{*Technically any poision will do, so either Teemo, Singed or Twitch can help out as well}

What are the enemy bot lane's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ High DPS ()
+ Very high backloaded damage ((
+ Lots of lockdown (+++)
+ Save potential + low shielding ()
+ Very good in longer, clumped up fights (+)
+ Untargetability on + feathers
+ never becomes useless

Weaknesses

- Low mobility ()
- No sustain (Unless uses )
- Missed removes a lot of damage
- has a fairly high cooldown early

What makes the combination of and strong?

As per usual with DPS powerhouses, they need peel and/or lockdown to enable dishing our their damage. Lissandra can provide these necessary attributes
Due to AP items being more versatile than crit items, Cassiopeia can afford to build defensive items like Banshee's Veil, Zhonya's Hourglass or Seraph's Embrace, giving Lissandra a bit more time to react to all kinds of plays by the enemy
The combination of Miasma onto any target hit by crowd control by Lissandra can secure kills due to Miasma's grounded effect

Who is my/the enemy jungler and what does that mean for my lane?

Ally vs Enemy

's gameplan is to be at the right place at the right time in his own way - saving a teammate with and or being a general annoyance with or . With the low cost that enchanter items come with, he can help out the team fairly early and arguably way more than more raw damage.

, on the other hand, is interested in scaling up 's strength with stacks and on-hit items to provide her tremendous amounts of DPS in the late game. Post 6, her goal is securing void objectives like or because of . Her empowered form enables her to spawn her (cute) little minions, giving her a ton of pushing power. Regardless, she has fairly little interest in ganking early, although if obvious ganking opportunities arise, she can provide plenty.

In both cases, the usual warding spots should help out.

How should and play the lane and what is their wincon in this lane?

The core idea is surviving the laning phase and getting into the mid to late game. needs gold to buy items in order to furnish her high amount of possible magic dps. This does not mean that early fights cannot be taken: Given enough mana, into spam hurts even early on - add the inability for the enemy to use movement abilities and maybe a bit of jungle help and impossible laning phases can turn into exceedingly good laning phases.

Mentioned situation will sadly rarely happen - with 's identity as a hook champion, bad positioning or engages will be punished severly, guaranteeing kills or wasted summoner spells for the enemy. Even seemingly good engages can be foiled because of Xayah's untargetability or Thresh's Dark Passage. The only saving grace is that and get denied by the grounded effect by .

As formerly adressed, the amount of match-ups are endless*. The aim of this segment was to give a rough idea of analysing a match-up and deciding what the game plan for laning phase is - knowing your lane partner's strenghts, weaknesses, strong phases, power spikes and assumed behaviour. The same deal goes for the enemy and their behaviour. This knowledge should aid in knowing what the goal of laning phase is and lead to a winning lane.

As shown by the stark contract between the and the lane, a winning lane can change drastically: wants aggression to snowball, wants to survive laning phase. Having a combined bot score of 2/1/5 for your bot vs 3/1/6 for the enemy bot does not mean that you have lost your lane. To use the comparison again, the lane might not be as successful as the lane as the goals of "lots of kills early" versus "survive laning phase" differ.

In any case, laning phase tends to end after turrets have fallen and people roaming across the map, eagerly awaiting either 5v5 teamfights, rigorous splitpushing in a 1-3-1 fashion or getting objectives like , or . This is around 15-20 minutes, plus/minus 2-3 minutes.

With this chapter, I'm hoping that you, the reader, have seen the basics of how to identify strengths and weaknesses of each laner (and potentially every champion!), how to behave in a lane and identifying what the win con of each respective lane is.

This concludes the "Laning Phase" section of the Playstyle chapter. In the following chapter, we will go over the topic roaming as support.

*amount of match-ups

Match-Ups

As we have discussed, Support/Bot Lane match-ups are not as easy to determine as mid or top lane. Nevertheless, there are a few champions that is a bit better against. In the following tables, you will see every ADC, APC and Support champion I have encountered, ordered in segments and the degree of difficulty to lane against. This of course makes this list subjective as some players might not have problems against certain champions I have. Champions highlighted in red are champions that I personally deem banworthy, with deserving the "honour" of being my personal permaban.

TL;DR:

has the hardest time against lane bullies and/or high range champions. She also has problems with champions that have a very strong response to her engages.

_{Disclaimer: As explained in the previous chapter Playstyle - Laning Phase, match-ups aren't as clear-cut as I am explaining them in the following segment. For example, fighting Miss Fortune- Blitzcrank will have conflicting ways to play against, but that does not mean the information provided doesn't apply. For example, in this match-up, while Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab is on cooldown, you can play the way explained against Miss Fortune. This segment is meant to be detailed summary and information dump to get a better understanding to execute the previous chapters}

Easy matchups


		Rakan
		Shaco
		Sivir


		Renata Glasc
		Kai'Sa
		Sona


		Pyke
		Rell
		Samira


		Smolder
		Lissandra

Descriptions (1st and 2nd columns)

Descriptions (3rd and 4th columns)

Even matchups


		Nami
		Miss Fortune
		Leona
		Nilah
		Ezreal
		Jinx


		Aphelios
		Braum
		Bard
		Blitzcrank
		Morgana


		Senna
		Thresh
		Yuumi
		Vayne
		Taric


		Swain
		Twitch
		Zeri
		Kog'Maw
		Tahm Kench

Descriptions (1st Column)

Descriptions (2nd column)

Descriptions (3rd column)

Descriptions (4th column)

Hard matchups


		Kalista
		Milio
		Karma
		Lux
		Ashe
		Heimerdinger
		Tristana


		Nautilus
		Varus
		Zyra
		Brand
		Seraphine
		Draven


		Xerath
		Alistar
		Zilean
		Lucian
		Caitlyn
		Janna


		Lulu
		Xayah
		Soraka
		Jhin
		Hwei
		Mel

Descriptions (1st Column)

Descriptions (2nd column)

Descriptions (3rd column)

Descriptions (4th column)

Now, looking at the amount of hard match-ups in comparison to easy and mid match-ups, a valid question would be:

Why should I even play Lissandra?

Remember, these match-up list is about the early game, 's weakest part of the game. Of course it makes sense that a lot of champions, especially champions that are strong early, will have an easy time with . However, she makes
up for it once is unlocked.

Synergies

The following statement might sound a bit weird, but I personally think there is no champion does not synergise well with. My reasoning is fairly simple: Any champion can use Crowd Control, especially when it is easy to apply. Still, there are a few champions that synergise a bit better than others. In the following table, you will see how well each champions I've played with synergises with . I split up the table into Superb, Good, and Default syngery. Default synergy does not mean they synergise badly with , but rather that the synergy stems from them being able to use Crowd Control well but have otherwise no other synergy.

Superb Synergy


		Lissandra
		Miss Fortune


		Jhin
		Ashe


		Kalista
		Xayah


		Swain
		Seraphine

Descriptions Superb Synergies

Good Synergy


		Nilah
		Caitlyn
		Lucian


		Ezreal
		Zeri
		Samira


		Jinx
		Hwei
		Vayne


		Varus
		Tristana
		Senna

Descriptions Good Synergies

Default Synergy


		Twitch
		Kai'Sa


		Draven
		Aphelios


		Smolder


		Sivir

Descriptions Default Synergies

Why Roam?

To understand why we should roam, we will first go over what roaming is using a generally accepted definition:

Roaming is the act of leaving your lane to be elsewhere on the map with a specific map-oriented objective in mind.

Looking at the definition, we notice two key terms: map-oriented objective and leaving your lane. The former includes major objectives like , s or, but also setting up vision control, or ganking another lane. Logically, to aid with these objectives, the support player cannot remain in his own lane, bringing in the latter term.
_{For further details about the major objectives, feel free to skip to chapter 7.2 Interjection - Major Objectives.}

In short, the reason you should roam is to help out on the map - be it through vision or presence.

When to Roam?

So major objectives, vision control and presence in fights outside of your lane are valid reasons for a roam. But roaming whenever and however long you feel like it will do more harm than good, especially if the enemy knows you are gone. Let's go over the most common opportunities that enable a roam, assuming you are situated in your lane:

Opportunities to Roam

Your wave just crashed into the enemy's tower, but you cannot tower dive.

Your laner is willing to stay safe for a while and they wouldn't be bleeding too many resources.

You roaming is short enough to be back shortly while the wave control state is neutral/in your favour.

When a wave gets pushed into the enemy turret, you keep the enemy busy for a while, as they will focus on getting the wave; the bigger the wave, the more time it buys. Assuming a Tower Dive is not viable, this gives you ample time to roam a bit to set up vision, help out in the river or even gank mid lane.

Sort of connected to the previous point: Given a situation in which a swift roaming response is needed, telling your laner to stay safe for a while is viable. As a consequence, the enemy laners will either follow up on the roam or pressure your laner, thus making them lose resources they need. Thus, the return to your lane should be just as swift.
However, given a less aggressive enemy lane or even a favoured wave state, the amount of time is lengthened, enabling more lengthy roam plays.

Now, one additional concept that should have emerged from these points is that a roam's success is also dependent on its duration. The longer a roam takes, the higher the chances that your laner will be in a bad situation, it can make the difference between saving your getting tower dove and the enemy getting a free kill. This is why Movement Speed and/or Mobility are key stats for a successful roam and why e.g. and are superb at it. If the plan is to roam more, early are a great idea.
_{And yes, Lissandra is also superb at roaming. :p}

So the question is: When should you not roam?

When not to Roam

If your prolonged absence results in too much lost farm for your laner.

If the enemy is pushing to you.

If your absence enables an easy tower dive for the enemy.

If you lack the resources to roam (E.g. No mana, no HP)

If the enemy jungler is nearby, especially when wanting to aid the last two points.

If your laner is not allowed to farm for a while by getting zoned, at best they will still gain solo-XP and at worst they will be denied gold as well. In any case, your laner will be behind and need extra time farming up in the mid-game to match the enemy's strength.

With an enemy pushing towards your tower, they have control over the lane. This, in turn, they can use to exert pressure in numerous ways: matching your roams, zoning off your laner from XP + gold, warding your jungle or committing to a tower dive upon the wave crashing into your turret.

Not being able to cast spells or survive ample amounts of damage while roaming automatically dooms a roam. Not being able to cast at a crucial moment because of a lack of mana or having to waste it on yourself are such scenarios.

These consequences only get amplified with the enemy jungler nearby. Tower dives become easier, 3v1 ganks usually result in a dead bot laner, etc. And in the worst case, you get caught off guard, giving the enemy a free kill.

In short, a roam has to be as short as possible. Control over the lane dictates the duration and viablity of a roam. Always be mindful of the jungler's position.

Following the theme of the previous chapter, I want to go over a few situations to determine whether it is a good idea to roam or not:

Example 1:

and just killed the enemy wave and pushed the wave into the enemy tower. If and were low, a tower dive could be considered using and 's CC.

However, let us assume that both are healthy and a tower dive is not a possibility. In that case we can see that a fight is brewing in the river - will need some help against . In this case, both of you can roam and help her to win the fight. Afterwards, could use the way back to ward the river; if she feels frisky, she could also ward the enemy botside jungle, knowing that is too weak to fight. Though she should keep her eyes peeled for potential bot roams to counter her warding.
Assuming is roaming as well, having low mana isn't as much of an issue: 40 mana for is enough, though an additional 80 for is prefered. In the case of low HP, a bit of caution is advised due to 's gap closers, though your presence alone might deter him.

Alternatively, if the fight is looking bleak ( is way too strong, has backup from mid lane or is low HP), could consider roaming on her own and CC the enemy to buy time to escape while backs off to avoid getting hit by .
In this case enough mana for at the very least to escape herself and to CC the enemy is completely necessary (40 + 80); approaching with low HP is not advised as could die.

Example 2:

_{Green arrows indicate friendly movement, red arrows indicate enemy movement}

This example requires explaining the situation on the map. First off, our is 5/0/0 and insanely fed, with being those 5 kills. We know (thanks to superb warding by ) that is planning to gank and afterwards likely move to aid taking s. Our is planning to take s soon with his allied (not visible on the map). just recalled, thus being full HP and mana.

Now, while helping getting more kills isn't an inherently bad idea, he is more than able to take on the Kai'Sa on his own. Thus, he is not in any danger, giving the opportunity to roam.

Instead, roaming to either mid lane to arrive just in time to prevent the gank by is a better use of your time. Depending on 's HP state after this, she can then go towards s to aid and .

Interjection: Ganks

Now that we have covered the basics of when to roam, I want to go over the goal of getting other lanes ahead by using Ganks. This interjection will be kept short for overview purposes. I recommend looking up a dedicated Jungle guide for more in-depth information (ideally on Mobafire!).

Ganking is the act of entering a lane, ideally by flanking, to create a fight with a numbers advantage.

The goal is a gank is to create an unfair fight for the enemy and make them lose resources, ideally resulting in some resources for your team. This means either lowering the enemy champion's HP, forcing the enemy to use summoner spells, or ideally score a kill.

A gank has been successful if the enemy lost more resources than you had to use. Examples can be as simple as getting more kills than you have had deaths or the enemy using all of their summoner spells compared to only one flash from you.
But they can also be a bit more nuanced: Assume a 2v2 fight in mid lane in which you, the support, have died and the enemy jungler is very low, forcing them to recall. Meanwhile your jungler has been fighting , which the enemy jungler couldn't have contested.
_{It would've been more advantageous if you had survived of course...}

Generally speaking, a gank requires the enemy to not be close to their turret, as a turret is a significant threat in the early game. As a result, the further the distance to their turret, the higher the chance a gank will work out.
_{An exception of course is if you have the capabilities to tower dive safely.}

The success of a gank relies on a few factors, ordered by significance for each side.

Positioning

Your Team

❄ Crowd Control
❄ Health
❄ Damage
❄ Mobility/Range

Enemy Team

❅ Mobility
❅ Health
❅ Crowd Control
❅ Damage

In order to keep the enemy away from their turret for as long as possible, CC can buy you precious seconds, with stuns and roots being preferable. Obviously a gank will need your laner to be healthy enough to mitigate losses, and the more damage they deal, the more dangerous a gank can be. Mobility and Range can help when following up , but aren't as important as the other points.

A very mobile enemy can very easily retreat to safety, with 's being a good example of an ability that can make or break a gank. A healthy enemy will be less inclined to spend precious resources to escape, especially if they have CC to buy themselves time. While I put Damage lowest for the enemy team, I don't want to undersell it: being a prime example.

One thing that needs to be mentioned is that in order to gank a few champions, one has to wait for key abilities to be used. In the case of , she is very immobile without . For it is , for it is , etc. The idea is that these abilities are either their "Get-Off-Me" tools or their core mobility. The course of action in these cases is to either play around them or have your laner bait the ability. A gank's success chances increase the more abilities are on cooldown.

Let us _again go over a few examples in which we assume that is roaming. We go over each champion's strengths and weaknesses first and see how those could benefit a gank. Then we analyse how a gank should ideally go, first assuming the champion on blue side is our ally, then the same for red side. We assume that everyone is at least level 6, even in terms of strength, a roughly equal minion amount on each side.
_{The reason for all of these assumptions is that I want to teach the approach to analyse a ganking approach. I talk about this in a tiny bit more detail at the end of this interjection.}

Example 1:

Ally Syndra:

Our is facing an . has good gank setup thanks to her + combination, being able to stun . also deals a lot of damage, especially with . She lacks mobility, but makes up for it.

is fairly immobile, with the only mobility being a Movement Speed increase on , which can also be used as a slow. The shield and resistances from in combination with roughly 40% of her HP remaining are not healthy enough to survive a coordinated effort by and . could use to keep you away from her, but it would put it on cooldown, giving an easier time after the gank. However, if is not cauteous, she could still die easily, as 's damage output is fairly high and quick.

The plan is as follows: Either starts the gank by using between and her tower. This will cut off her most direct escape path, as can greet her with and if needed; this is only possible because of how far has pushed in. Alternatively, can use her + stun combo, granting a guaranteed CC chain. In any case will be forced to either or spend abilities to survive, if she won't die. A visualisation can be seen below:

Ally Orianna:

Given the wave state, ganking from the river isn't a possibility, as is right up to her tower. However, thanks to we can gank from the Raptor camp. locks down with and , with following up right after, securing the kill. If done correctly, won't even have time to use . Very important: Ensure that the CC combo gives no time for to potentially away. Spell weaving is mandatory in risky situations like this.

Example 2:

Ally Teemo:

Our is facing . In terms of gank setup, offers next to nothing. Even though can slow a bit , it is too unreliable. 's and 's HP is quite low; this alone would make the gank quite risky. However, offers good consistent damage and has a Movement Speed buff to follow up on a gank.

However, ganking here is essentially impossible. While he has no dashes and "only" a slow, he is very healthy and can deal some serious damage in a longer fight if underestimated. What's more is that he denies the first instance of CC with and heal a ton with .

This is a lane that isn't worth ganking and shouldn't be approached, especially when looking at the wave state combined with the aforementioned points. If were to force a gank, it would very likely lead in a lot of wasted resources and up to two kills for . The only time it would be viable ganking this lane would be if an allied jungler was nearby, say right after slaying s.

Ally Dr. Mundo:

This, however, is a lane worth ganking. Considering that is on blue side, can cut off the direct path to his turret using into/over the terrain next to it. Afterwards, and on will give plenty of time to dish out the damage to secure the kill.

Example 3:

Ally Ahri:

is facing . has decent gank setup with her , but is limited by the wave state; unlike 's CC combo, it can get blocked by minions. is full HP and deals a decent amount of damage, though the combined damage of and might not be enough to kill in time. However, is able to follow up on the gank with , so a successful gank is possible in theory.

However, is fairly close to his turret, though not too close to essentially be a tower dive. As previously mentioned, has some strong mobility with and can easily avoid the gank. He might only have a small slow on his , but can dish out a seriously high amount of damage. If he also reacts in time, can avoid or with .

As previously mentioned, needs to be baited for the gank to work out. If has just used it to trade with by engaging her, he cannot blink back to his original cast location; if used for poking, he can blink to the shadow's location.
In any case, the usual procedure is trying to cut off as many escape paths as possible. In the first instance, using towards is a safe play as cannot blink back; with being full HP and , she should be able to survive the engage onto her.

The second described usage of requires either for to initiate the fight or to use from Raptor Camp, as is fairly slow and gives ample time to respond.

Afterwards, the combination of the CC chain and damage from and should do the trick and kill swiftly.

Ally Zed:

One big factor against ganking is . Even if would get close enough, if the + combination is not timed correctly, she can very easily escape. Thus, clever usage of that cuts off an escape path but doesnt leave a lot of room to manouver is important. This gank isn't impossible like the previous example, but certainly difficult.

Possible entrances can be seen below. The general idea, as per usual, is to cut 's shortest path to the turret off. If manages to then CC chain , can easily follow up on the gank and deal tremendous amounts of damage to secure the kill. Just be wary of , as that could prevent from even casting her spells, thus foiling the entire gank.

So as we have seen with these examples, the idea is usually the same: Observe the wave state/position of both laners, analyse the match-up, and wager if a gank will work out. If so, deduct the point of entry and do the usual + combo.

These examples have always assumed that everyone has their ultimate ability and that the waves are of equal size. Of course, some ganks become way easier without them: For example, without will likely have to burn ; and of course a laner with no and no mobility is a sitting duck. Some ganks are easier when your laner is fed: Given the - example, a gank would be viable if is tremendously behind (feasability is another topic alltogether). Of course the opposite goes if the enemy is very far ahead: Say was very far ahead and barely deals any damage because of that. The best CC combo cannot fix that.

The execution of the other goals gets covered in other chapters:
In chapter 6.1, the basics of how to analyse your course of action in a fight have been covered.
The basics of Warding as well as the significance of the major objectives will be covered in chapters 7.1 - 7.4.

Tips and Tricks

In this segment, I want to go over a few specific ganking/roaming tips utilising and explain the reason for using them. Some I have already shown before, but I want to show them off again in their own segment.

In the following tables, the filled circles resemble places where can be in, with the outer circle being a somewhat accurate estimation of the cast radius of . The striped segments are places can land on if she casts into the wall, though these require a tiny bit of accuracy to pull off.

Mid Lane:

Spots on the map	Reasons
	❄ You suspect the enemy has warded the river bushes ❄ Your teammate has been shoved up to their turret ❄ You have a bit of space to hide Glacial Path's claw, but isn't of utmost importance
	❄ Your laner has been shoved up to their turret ❄ The enemy warded more than just river bushes ❄ You absolutely want to hide the claw indicator
Small sidenote about these two spots: The reactivation timing as well as placement of Glacial Path matter a lot here. Reactivated too early and it places Lissandra close too the tower or the bushes. I recommend practising these spots in the Practise Tool.

Top Lane:

Spots on the map	Reasons
	❄ The river pixel brush is warded ❄ Your laner is pushed up to their turret ❄ You want to cut off the enemy's escape path to their tower ❄ You came directly from base
Obviously you can also position Lissandra closer to the rock instead of the bushes.
	❄ Your laner is pushed up to their turret ❄ You want to cut off the enemy's escape path to their tower ❄ You know tri brush is warded and come from base/an invade

Bot Lane:

Spots on the map	Reasons
	❄ The river pixel brush is warded ❄ Your laner is pushed up to their turret ❄ You want to cut off the enemy's escape path to their tower ❄ You came directly from base
	❄ You want to hide the claw while standing in the alcove ❄ You want a less predictable way to cut off the enemy close to their turret ❄ You want to cut off the enemy's direct path to their turret
These two spots are less about ganking, but can come in handy once in a while

Miscellaneous

Spots on the map
	These are just a few handy wall jumps using Glacial Path for some ganks, escapes, saves, etc. Red indicates a one-way trip, with blue indicating that either direction is possible. For topside, just mirror the map, excluding the spots shown in the previous Top Lane segment. Some of these wall jumps are fairly difficult to pull off and require a bit of an understanding of Glacial Path's reactivation timing. I recommend practising in Practise Tool.
Feel free to share any additional wall jumps spots I've missed! Also thank you Katasandra yet again!

The Forbidden Tech: Permaroam

Now... to every rule, there are exceptions. In the When to Roam? segment I talked about how leaving your laner in danger for too long should be avoided.

But what if you just cannot rely on your laner? What if, despite your best efforts, you cannot exert any pressure in lane and are essentially a sitting duck? Or what if your jungler is really ahead and you are certain he can carry the game?

In that case... I have some forbidden, almost shunned technology for you:

Now, let me preface something about this strategy:

This strategy is incredibly risky

If done wrong, this strategy will cause more harm than it does good. It will not only put your laner behind by getting continuously zoned and likely killed, you will also lack XP and gold. In the worst case, it might even make your laner ragequit. You have been warned.

Now, what do I define as Permaroam?

Permaroaming is the act of a support abandoning their lane, acting as a second jungler by permanently roaming across the map.

Two prerequisites for the success of this strategy are to have proper map awareness and game sense*. I will cover these topics very briefly due to a) the sheer size these topics have and b) how much they rely on experience.
*_{We've already gone over the basics of Game Sense in the previous chapter by analyzing each duo's strengths and weaknesses!}

Prerequsites for Permaroaming

Map Awareness

Map Awareness is all about knowing what is happening on the map, mainly knowing the enemy champions's as well as your teammates's location and their anticipated course of direction.

For example, if you know that the enemy jungler is currently fighting in a healthy state, it is not too far fetched to assume that he might either be ganking bot/top or fight a major objective soon (assuming it is alive). A response to the former might be a countergank, to the latter a collapse with teammates.

Game Sense

Game Sense describes the general understanding of the game and being able to apply that knowledge. It includes knowing the powerspikes and strengths + weaknesses of each champion within the game and acting accordingly. Even simple things like checking items is part of Game Sense.

As an example, ganking your against a is very difficult pre-6 unless is heavily out of position, is low HP, and/or your jungler is nearby.

The goal of this strategy is to get your other lanes/teammates more ahead than your bot lane will be behind. This is accomplished by constantly ganking mid or top lane, setting up vision around objectives or to scout the enemy jungler, or sticking to your jungler and helping him with objectives/gank/fights. Essentially, you become a second jungler but without the income and a timer.

Now, permaroaming doesn't mean that you never return to botlane. Sometimes there is no objective on the map, lanes are ungankable or you just set up vision. In that case it is viable to return to bot side and soak up a bit of XP before you decide to venture off onto the map again.

The final thing I want to mention about Permaroaming is the boot choice: and .

grant a solid amount of Movement Speed as well as out-of-combat Movement Speed. Upon having treaded 150.000 in game units, they evolve into , giving vastly more out-of-combat Movement Speed and most importantly a permanently empowered recall, equal to the one granted by .

The out-of-combat Movement Speed and empowered recall are the core reason why these boots are necessary for this playstyle. While provide more Movement Speed early on, upon getting this dynamic flips quickly; they are also more expensive than .

For warding specific playstyle tips, check 7.2. Warding - Why, when and where

Past level 6, I want you to think about a job that we all tend to forget, never want to do but we secretly all respect:

The trusty janitor. A janitor's job is to keep a building clean and intact, repair things if needed, keep bugs out and keep things in check. This tends to include some dirty and unfun work including talking with potentially rude people, but they are basically keeping the building afloat. And the worst of all? Not a lot of people tend to even acknowledge the janitor!

As Lissandra support, you are the janitor of your team.
Your job is to keep the team together, to check on your enemies and holding them at bay for your team. You will do all the warding that maybe your teammates won't even see and take for granted; and if you are lucky, maybe a teammate will notice your work and praise you for it.

You might need to your teammates with , stop the enemy with , lock the enemy up with by engaging with or just keep your carry alive by ing and using and .

support is the swiss army knife of your team:

She excels at locking enemies down
She can play aggressively aswell as defensively due to Glacial Path's flexibility
She is one of the best anti-carries and being behind on Lissandra doesn't mean much as 3 seconds of hard CC will always be relevant, no matter the circumstances.
Tank items are very flexible and due to their sheer amount, as long as you roughly know what you need, you can never really go wrong with them
And if you need a bit more damage, Lissandra's superb AP scalings enable her to get the most out of the AP you get

is extremly flexible in how she can be played aswell as built. As long as you don't build AD items, you can never go wrong with an item or playstyle on Lissandra.

No Patrick, we will not consider Experimental Hexplate a viable option just because of its ultimate haste

To use this flexibility, we again need to ask ourselves a few questions:

What is my team's composition?
What is the enemy team's composition?
What are my team's strengths and weaknesses?
What are the enemy team's strengths and weaknesses?
How does my team want to fight?
How does the enemy team want to fight?
What is the relation of damage types in the enemy team?
Who is the most fed in either team?
Which items will I have to build?
What is the priority of the items I will need?
How will I have to play then?

In order to show off this flexibility in playstyle, we'll go over a game's teamcomp on both sides, similar to the laning phase segment, try to answer a few of the questions.

Teamcomp example:

vs

What are my team's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Very high amounts of crowd control
+ Good engages and peel
+ High physical and magical DPS
+ Good follow-up to any play
+ Good amount of damage
+ makes scouting the map easier

Weaknesses

- Ashe is the only physical damage dealer
- Alright poke
- Very low sustain
- Only 1 shielding instance on a high cooldown
- Without or , you have little damage

When is your team's plan in terms of fighting?

Your team is as traditional as it can get: Lots of crowd control, two damage dealers with good DPS of each type, a solid frontline and follow-up. 5v5 front-to-back teamfights and picks are your forté as whoever wants to reach your damage dealers will get denied from doing so. Reaching the backline will be difficult, but that isn't a priority as with all the DPS and frontline your team has, getting rid of and will leave the rest open for your splendid engages.

What are the enemy team's strengths and weaknesses?

Strengths

+ Strong poke
+ Long range engage
+ Frequent team wide shielding and in-fight healing
+ Unattended at 5 stacks will destroy anything in his path
+ Good front- and backloaded damage
+ Long range capabilities

Weaknesses

- Bad DPS
- Mediocre peel
- No out-of-combat healing without backing
- Not that good at reaching your backline without sacrificing frontline

How does the enemy team want to fight?

Their plan is simple: Poke your team down, get picks and get ahead before your team can muster up their strength; essentially a snowballing composition. Alternatively, they could attempt to give enough leeway to reach 5 stacks on and wipe out your team. Their team would want to avoid even/behind 5v5 teamfights and rather get picks on overextending teammates. Of course when ahead, 5v5 teamfights aren't a problem.

What is the relation of damage types in the enemy team and what items will I have to consider?

- High physical and true damage

- Medium magical damage

- High magical damage

- High physical damage

- High magical damage

As we can see, the enemy team has lots of both types of damage, meaning we will have to consider both types of defensive stats. Their physical damage is mostly backloaded (,) with some potential healing by and 's .

Therefore, in terms of armour, we will have to consider either , or if one of our teammates is ahead.

Most of the enemy's magic damage is frontloaded, with some continuous magic damage with 's plants and 's and .

Therefore, in terms of magic resist, we will have to consider either , or if you want to help out 's damage.

What is the priority of the items I will need?

Let me preface this by saying that is the first item you build in almost every scenario due to the mixed resistances and the shield it provides. This means that the following items will likely be bought after the support item and .

This question requires you to examine the current game state. Let's go through 2 different scenarios. The bigger a champion icon, the more fed they are:

Scenario 1:

vs

As we can see, our is very ahead, while and are doing alright. and managed to get out of with a small lead. In the enemy team, is definitely the biggest threat, with the rest of the enemy team being minor threats. We need magic resist as soon as possible, with armour being the lower priority.

In the last section, we concluded that valid magic resist item choices would be , or .

The choice of magic resist item then boils down to a few factors: Are you interested in aiding 's damage with and having a fail safe against and 's damage? Do you believe that by keeping locked down longer, the rest of the enemy team will remain weak? Or do you think that you will not be allowed to get close to the enemy, prefering due to its high base stats and magic shield?

All three items are solid choices and depend on how your team will play the rest of the game and personal preference. In my case, I'd rather choose over for 2 reasons:

Kaenic Rookern costs 2900 gold, meaning that as a support after your first item ( Locket of the Iron Solari), you are committing to magic restist for a while. By the time you can afford it, the enemy's AD sources might've caught on.
Abyssal Mask enhances your fed Brand's damage

With the choice of a second item, we still need an item against the enemy's AD choices: , or .

Unlike the previous item, the choice here boils down to whether you need anti-heal or you trust enough to carry. If you need anti-heal, the choice is . If you trust , consider to keep him alive a bit longer. Otherwise, as the default choice.

Scenario 2:

vs

Laning phase was quite rough for you, as and are quite weak. and managed to leave the early game fairly unscathed and took a few too many kills. On the contrary, and the enemy bot lane managed to get ahead quite well, making those 3 the prime threats in this case.

In terms of magic resist, would be a good choice again due to the previously mentioned reasons, though it might be a good idea to buy a and finish an armour item prior. With around 150 magic resist being a high amount already and no magic damage ally that is very far ahead, armour is the higher priority.

and are the only two viable item options in the armour category. The choice depends on whether you need anti-heal () or not(). is not a good idea right now because of 's lack of damage capabilities. An exception would be if, 5 minutes later, or managed to get like 5 kills, increasing their value to the team exponentially.

How will I have to play then?

This is where 's flexibility truly shines: Due to her ability of being a CC powerhouse, she can fulfill practiacally any role the team will need that requires her area of experise.

Assume Scenario 1:

The obvious plan is to lock Lux and other sudden threats down for the rest of your team to eliminate, assuming they are in range. In this case, your role is to be an engager besides Shen and Galio.
Another plan is to let the engagers do their job and engage in peel duty for your Brand. Darius and Zac still have high base damage and have the option of either flanking or ignoring your frontline to beeline towards Brand. Keeping them away with your abilities until the rest of your team handles the other 3 is a viable option to play the game out.
If your vision game is on-point, you could even plan some excellent Gorgonzola cheese by picking out singular members of the enemy team that are out of position, ensuring a numbers advantage for the time being.

Generally, playing for is the better option as he is your main damage until can follow up in terms of damage; and are already quite good at engaging. I chose the wording "playing" and not "peeling" as peeling for him can be just as detrimental as keeping important targets in place for him to melt.

Assume Scenario 2:

Engaging onto Jhin and/or Zyra when on their own can turn the tide. With follow-up by at least 1-2 of your comrades, getting picks until your team is on even footing with the enemy should be a priority
At the same time, keeping those very targets away from your damage dealers can mean just as much as picking off targets. Brand and Ashe's immobility have to be offset by your stuns and roots
Both plans are made easier with proper warding

In any case, you have to aim to abuse the enemy's weaknesses and keep their strength low: Engaging is a good idea due to their mediocre peel; if misses her and , she will have nothing to keep you away from her. This is generally good against their team due to having to leave his team open in order to reach your backline. Then again, an unattended and can wreck enough havoc in your backline, putting your focus onto peeling.

As you can see, making the correct choice isn't that easy. In each scenario, the playstyle boiled down to what the team needs and how they play. It obviously should not make any sense to force engages onto if the rest of your team isn't interested in joining in; or continuously stick with in a teamfight when the rest of your team struggles with or (although it could be argued that locking those enemies down in a fight is just as much peeling).

While this chapter might be shorter as the previous and arguably more important, it isn't any different. The same principles apply:

Identifying each team's strengths and weaknesses
Basing a default fight plan based on that
Identifying each character's role in- and outside of a fight
Your role based on these factors
Builds and the priority of each item

It's the same idea but scaled up to 5v5s instead of 2v2s with a jungler sprinkled in.
I want to emphasise that this is by no means easy to do. In my case, it took me over 4-5 years to gather the necessary experience and apply it. So do not feel bad if you make mistakes. To quote : "Learn from your mistakes."

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." - Sun Tsu

Let's face it: We all know that wards are not just some fancy +30 gold for the enemy and we all know that we should use them more often. Vision wins games and can prevent an unfortunate engagement or enable picks since if you know where the enemy is, you can plan opportunistic strategies to get ahead and eventually win the game!

So, let us start with the very basics then by explaining what wards are, what they are capable of and what their limits are!

Disclaimer: The following segment is about the very basics of warding. If you are already familiar with these basics, feel free to skip to the more nuanced segments.

Setting up vision, ward limits and coverage

Stealth Wards - League's CCTV

The good old trusty . The bread and butter of warding and the support's favourite object to put up and clear. The very basics of being a support.

A ward can reveal a circular area around itself with its radius being fairly big. They remain on their spot for 1,5 - 2 minutes, have 3 AAs worth of HP and after a delay of 3 seconds, they will remain camouflaged/invisible until they expire.
You can, by default, place a ward by pressing 4 on your keyboard and clicking wherever you want to place it. By default you will get 1 ward in your trinket slot with a limit of 2 wards available to place. You can place up to 3 s (by default!) and the game will show you how many of your wards are active.
On the right you can see the game showing how many of your wards are currently active.

How to get wards - earn 400 gold, get wards for free!

Wards are all fine and dandy, but how does one get these beautiful things? If you play support, you usually are meant to buy the tier 1 support item: . This item has a quest on them that either is sharing a ceratin amount of minions with a teammate nearby and/or poking the enemy consistently. After this, they upgrade, turning into the tier 2 support item and eventually into .

Congratulations, with the second tier, you can now place wards wherever your heart desires! Be wary that can store up to 3 wards at once. The tier 3 support items , , , , and can store up to 4 wards. This does not increase your maximum amount of placable wards on the map!

Replacing wards - lim(wards)=3

Now, you might have noticed that if you place a ward in the 3/3 stage, something appears to have broken. That was your ward number 1! Each ward has a number assigned to it which (by default!) will be 1, 2 and 3. If you decide to place a ward in this stage, ward number 1 will be destroyed, previous ward number 2 will now be ward number 1 and previous ward number 3 will be ward number 2. The newly placed ward will then be ward number 3.

So what happens ingame is this:

Notice how the first ward I placed got a red 1 once I wanted to place my 4th ward and how that very ward got deleted and replaced by the 4th ward. This process repeats until you have no more wards left.

I have also made a short animation that might help with the numbers:

Wards and bushes - Watching grass grow

As you probably have guessed and noticed, wards can be put inside of bushes! The relevancy of this statement? Wards can only reveal what's in a bush if it is in the bush itself.

In the following video, you will see that I have put an enemy inside of the three bushes near Lissandra to illustrate what I mean:

Video from previous season. Still just as good, but not fresh

As you can see, the first ward I placed did not reveal the enemies inside the bushes, while the 3 other wards I placed inside of the bushes did reveal them. Have another edited screenshot that shows what the wards reveal. The red area is the left ward's vision coverage while the green area is the right ward's vision coverage.

Old screenshot. Again, just as good, just not new

Now that we have covered what wards are, what they can do, how many we can usually carry and how far they can reveal the map, let's talk about vision denial, a concept as fundamental as vision setup.

Vision denial and control wards

Oracle Lens - Become a walking radar!

Before I explain , I should briefly explain what it is:

The gist of vision denial is destroying the enemy's wards and denying the enemy vision with s, the latter I will explain in the next segment.

In the section about s above I mentioned that they are camouflaged/invisible. So how is one supposed to clear them, let alone see them? Simple:
! It reveals anything around your champion as a red silhouette that you cannot target, unless it is a Stealth Ward or a trap! s get revealed, made targetable by which you can then destroy by auto attacking them up to 3 times and prevent the ward from revealing vision around it. This, in turn, means that the enemy has no more vision in that area and you have successfully applied the idea of vision denial!

To illustrate, I decided to get a friend as a paid actor to help out:

_{I asked my friend to put a Stealth Ward into the bottom bush, a Control Ward (Check the paragraph below) into the middle bush and to camouflage himself with Ambush.}

As you can see, the is targetable, stopped revealing the area around it (as seen by the two red eyes below its HP bar), the is just a silhouette and aswell is being shown as a silhouette.

Control Wards - Purchasable wards???

Why would I ever buy a ward for 75 gold if I get them for free from either my trinket or my support item? What a scam!! - Timmy "Naive" Johnson

That is because you actually get something in return for buying this beautiful, extremely useful red ward! s, formerly known as vision wards or pink wards, are a mix of and s. They are a type of ward that have the vision capabilities of s, 90% of the uncovering capabilities of and disable enemy s to reveal the map; they however do not show a silhouette of an enemy nearby and only reveal a silhouette when seen by . You can usually only place one and buy up to two. They also reveal camouflaged enemies like past level 6, in his Q or in and do not get disabled by any means.

I again got my paid actor to help out with this:

_{Once again, Twitch is in his Ambush, being camouflaged. There is an enemy Control Ward and an enemy Stealth Ward in the same bush.}

This means that Lissandra herself cannot see him. Yet I see him because of the I placed in the bush. You can also see that the enemy does not stop working, while the does.

s are paramount to a support's success, unless you are The Tank Man who rarely buys them, since they are crucial for denying enemy vision since they disable s.

This covers the very basics of vision setup and vision denial. The following segment will be a short interjection and will act as a setup for the next Warding chapter.

Before we continue with the next warding chapter, I would like to take a short break to go over the major objectives. This includes s, s, , and . I am not including s as destroying them to reach the enemy Nexus is self-explainatory. We will go over each major objective and explain them in detail. This chapter is meant to not only explain the major objectives, but also act as a motivation why these objectives are worth (de-)warding.

Void Grubs

s are, next to s, one of the first major objectives you will see in a match and spawn at minute 8. They spawn in batches of three in the top side pit, have a decent amount of health, and continously spawn little s upon being in a fight every 12 seconds. At 14:55 , they get replaced by the (which we will cover in a bit). Below is an image of their spawn location.

Upon slaying a , the killing team gets a stack of , granting a small trickle of true damage upon damaging an enemy turret. The damage stacks additively per stack, with a maximum of 3 stacks. If your team has 3 stacks of , you get your own s that act as timed s when attacking turrets.

is a very potent buff, especially with 3 stacks, as it can extend pushing a turret. This can mean the difference between getting a turret and it surviving with around 100-400 HP. Even without that, it can help champions without AD or AP (for example, you!) by giving them a decent amount of turret pushing power. It also counts as one of the three Feats of Strengths if at least 2 s have been slain.

Elemental Drakes

Elemental s are the second early major objective in a game. A single drake will spawn at minute 5, with a new one spawning 5 minute after slaying one. They have a high amount of HP and, depending on the differing defensive stats. There are 7 types of dragons, of which each kill grants a different stacking buff:

Types of Drakes/Dragons

Chemtech Drake's attacks damage a single enemy. It gains more attack speed depeding on how low its HP is. Upon killing it, your teams gains Tenacity and Healing and Shielding Power.

Cloud Drake damages a single enemy and while its attacks deal less damage, they are more frequent. Upon kill, it grants Slow Resistance and out-of-combat movement speed.

Hextech Drake's attacks usually damage a single enemy, but every 4th attack chains to other targets, slowing by 40%. Upon kill, it gives Ability Haste and Attack Speed.

Infernal Drakes deal damage to a single enemy and pack quite a punch. Upon death, they grant increased Attack Damage and Ability Power.

Mountain Drakes target a single enemy, but have AoE damage. Their attacks also hurt the most while having the lowest Attack Speed. This Drake's buffs grants increased Armour and Magic Resist.

Ocean Drakes attack a single enemy and slow by 30%. Their buff restores a bit of your missing health every 5 seconds.

Elder Drake spawn after either team has killed 4 drakes. Due to its special status, it gets its own section down below, but is mentioned here for completion sake.

s can be found in the Drake Pit in the river between mid lane and bot lane, as seen in the map below:

As previously mentioned, each killed dragon grants an additively stacking buff. These buffs don't have to be by the same dragon, as the first, second and third s are different. Starting at the third , the type of remains the same (excluding ). Upon receiving the fourth buff, the team also gains a Dragon Soul that depends on the last killed (Note: provides no soul).

Dragon Souls

While below 50% maximum health, gain percentage based increased damage and damage reduction.

Grants a bit of bonus movement speed, increased by a lot bonus movement speed for 6 seconds after casting your ultimate ability (30 second cooldown).

On a low cooldown, dealing damage to an enemy shocks them, dealing a bit of true damage and slowing them for a good amount, similar to . This effect then spreads to up to 3 other enemies.

Dealing damage to an enemy creates an explosion around the target, dealing a bit of adaptive damage on a very low cooldown.

After not taking damage for a few seconds, gain a sizable shield.

Dealing damage to an enemy heals you for quite a bit as well as restoring some mana over 4 seconds. This also applies to minions and monsters, but at a much lower rate.

Dragon buffs (and soul) are more stat focused buffs. While some individual buffs are less useful than others, their souls make up for that. For example, while 's buff is not as impactful as the Tenacity from , the healing effect from its soul is extremely valuable in mid- to late game teamfights. In any case, buffs are more focused on the later sections of the game, compared to or .

Rift Herald

, also known as Shelly, is, ignoring respawning s and s, the third major objective. She spawns at 15 minutes and in the same camp where s spawned before. While her most obvious feature, the big eye on her back, deals quite a lot of damage to her when attacked, she is a fairly tanky objective: She has a ton of HP and good resistances. Below is an updated image of the map, assuming is still up:

Upon killing Rift Herald, your team gains a one-time empowered recall. At the same time, she drops an Eye of the Herald that needs to be picked up by either member of the killing team, as can be seen on the side. It needs to be mentioned that the enemy team cannot steal the Eye, but can try to deny the enemy a chance to pick it up.
Once picked up, it will be placed in the Trinket slot, replacing Stealth Ward, Oracle Lens or Farsight Alteration, as can be seen on the side as well. Note: Keeping the Eye of the Herald in your inventory grants the empowered recall until it has been used!

Similar to the recall, can only be used once and spawns your own Shelly that will march down the nearest lane until she meets a turret. Once in range, she will charge against a Turret, dealing a good chunk of damage, usually around half to 3/4 of its HP.
Optionally, Shelly can also be ridden and steered similar to 's .
In this case, she will knock any hit non-friendly entity up, dealing a bit of damage. When hitting a turret, the rider gets ejected with a shield while a swarm of s spawn and attack the affected turret.
Important Note: Shelly can be rammed into a wall, thus denying the charge.

Similar to , the point of is to push the enemy turrets, whereas Shelly is way more direct and blunt with her approach. Nevertheless, it can open up the map a bit or apply a ton of map pressure on an unattended lane and should be a prefered choice for snowballing teams.

Atakhan

is the fourth major objective that can spawn in the game. The first part of it are the Blood Roses you see spawning around the map. Hitting a Blood Rose rewards your team with stacks, granting permanent XP and Adaptive Force. The second part involves its spawning location. This changes based on the amount and location of fights and damage dealt to enemy champions on the map. Minute 14:00 decides which form spawns at which location. The locations can be seen below:

Atakhan's Form

Thornbound Atakhan

Its special ability involves casting slashing rings around itself, similar to 's passive in looks. This ring appears at the outer edges of its arena and deals damage based off of level and current health and reduces both resistances by 5 respectively. After 0.36s, another ring gets cast with a smaller radius. This effect repeats until 8 rings have appeared.

Killing Thornbound Atakhan collects every Blood Rose on the map, turns Blood Rose stacks into Spirit Petals, granting 25% more XP and Adaptive Force. It also grants the Spiritual Purification buff: Upon killing an enemy champion, the ground around them (500 units) exploades, dealing 15% adaptive current max health damage. Afterwards, for 1,5 seconds, every enemy traversing this ground is slowed by 60%. You also gain one more stack of Spirit Petals.

The spawn location of depends on which side of the map had a higher fight counter. So if there were more bloody fights on top side, will spawn at location A; otherwise it will spawn at location B.

's buff is one of the more prevelant group-/teamfight buffs due to its AoE effects. Outside of that, a boost in XP and Adaptive Force is always desired. All in all, is a worthwhile, but also difficult objective to take.

Baron Nashor

is one of the last two major objectives you might encounter in a game. It spawns at 25:00 and respawns after 6 minutes. Considering it is meant to be one of the two game deciding monsters, it is associated with a lot of risks.

It has a lot of HP, Armour, Magic Resist and Health Regeneration.

Similar to , the target it has most recently basic attacked will deal 50% reduced damage to it.

Baron's basic attacks hit up to two targets and has a lot of AoE abilities: It can knock up enemies with a tentacle, spit acid pools/projectives or use another ability depending on its form (will be discussed shortly, all AoE). Standing behind Baron is extra dangerous, as it can also stun every champion hit.

Baron's basic attacks and abilities reduce resistances of any champion hit/affected, similar to .

is located in the same pit as :

There are a total of three versions of :

Hunting Baron is best recognised by its horn. Its special ability summons lighting strikes on enemies fighting it. It is the only form of Baron Nashor that does not change the pit it is in.
All-Seeing Baron Nashor has an eye on the center of its forehead. It can summon special temporary void rifts on the floor, dealing a high amount of magic damage over its entire duration. It opens up the pit on the sides, as seen in the image to the right:
Territorial Baron Nashor is the most basic form, neither having an eye or a horn. If it desires, it can use its hands to pull enemies closer to it, dealing a bit of damage but most importantly pulling them closer to it. The changes to the pit can be seen to the right:

Taking is a high-risk high-reward team effort that should be planned carefully, since fighting it will leave your team bruised and weakened. However, this is also the case for the enemy, if they are fighting Baron. In any case, the winning team's alive members will receive a hefty buff called . This has the following effects:

1.		Your teams gains a solid amount of Attack Damage (12-40) and Ability Power (20-80)
2.		Your recalls are empowered, reducing the recall time to 4 seconds down from 8
3.		Most importantly, it empowers each friendly minion around the buff bearer; for details check out this link

Just like and , this buff is meant to help push the enemy's base, helping more directly with roided up minions or indirectly with bonus offensive stats. is usually considered the second most valuable epic monster buff in the game.

Elder Drake

is the final major objective in the game. Unlike other objectives, it does not have a set timer for its first spawn: it spawns 6 minutes after either team has secured a Dragon Soul/killed its 4th dragon. In terms of stats, it has more Armour and Magic Resist than and vastly more Health Regeneration (250 compared to 15). Otherwise, it has inferior stats to its counterpart. resides in the Dragon Pit, as seen below:

For completion sake, we will briefly go over 's battle behaviour:

Elder Drake attacks one enemy at a time and deals damage in a cone similar to . It has the same amount of AD as with the Attack Speed of the .

The reason Elder Drake's buff, Aspect of the Dragon, is superior to Hand of Baron is its potency in teamfights:

Upon dealing damage (excluding ) to either an enemy champion/minion or neutral monster, it takes anywhere between 75 to 225 True Damage over 2.25 seconds.

If an enemy has less than 20% of its maximum HP within the 2.25 second period, any damage (including ) will execute the enemy. The only exceptions are if the enemy is invulnerable (e.g. 's or 's ), in stasis (e.g. ) or has a minimum HP threshold (e.g. 's ).

The stength of this buff makes the more appealing major objective if is the alternative, as most games get decided by one big teamfight instead of sieges using minions. Of course, both and simultaneously are desired and usually result in the victory of the buff bearers.

This covers the short interjection about the major objectives. The following segment will explain:

1.		Why you should setup and deny vision
2.		When you should ward and deny vision
3.		Where you should ward and deny vision

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” ― Benjamin Franklin

Now that we have explained what a ward is, what they can do and what dewarding is, let's go over why we even need these cute little buggers, when we should use them and where to put them!

Why to (de-)ward and its benefits

Reasons for warding - Paint your minimap!

Let's start off a with an example IRL: Why would one want to set up a camera in their shop, their parking lot or in their room?

To feel a bit safer that if someone were to steal some of our goods, break into our room or ram our car, we know who it is, when it happened, where it happened and maybe where our criminal has gone to.
Setting up wards is like setting up cameras: We want to ensure that we feel safer traversing the map by knowing where the enemy is (going), ideally when they were at the ward's location and which enemy is/was at the ward.

Another reason to ward is deeply related to the first reason:

Suppose your team plans on doing drake soon since it would be soul. However, the enemy has managed to steal two drakes off of you. Since you are a good support, your goal is wanting to stop him. While is superb at that, it would be better to know where actually is to make stopping him so much easier. Basically: You also ward to make it easier to prevent the enemy from stealing objectives/securing objectives for your team.

Yet again, another reason is related to the first reason:

Let's assume that the enemy got fed. Like, really fed. Noone can fight him and even when ganging up as a group of 3, there simply is no way to fight him. So, the best course of action is to avoid him until your team can face him. But how do we ideally do that?

By knowing where he is!

With a properly placed network of s and deduction, avoiding should become easier.

One reason is related to the role of the jungler:

You are minding your business on bot lane with , wanting to abuse your range to punish the enemy under their turret. You decide that you can towerdive them, use and -
The enemy decided that she wants to gank bot side. Double kill for the enemy team.

Just like you wanting to know where the enemy jungler is to avoid stealing objectives, knowing where he is to avoid getting ganked is just as important if not more.

One of the last main reasons to ward would be about planning:

Let's get back to the example in the second reason: You are planning to get drake for soul and the enemy knows that. Yet, you also know that your team could absolutely wipe them in a teamfight. If you set up a network of wards beforehand, you can know your enemy's moves and perhaps bait them into your + , thus leading to the enemy being severely crippled and you either winning the game after that, get soul or just get back into the game.

There are many, many more reasons as to why one should ward, but these are, in my opinion, some of the most relevant reasons. Most reasons are derived of the very first reason, as knowing the enemy's moves and location enables planning. And a solid game plan can always push your lead or get you back into the game. The possibilities are endless.

Reasons for dewarding - An eye for an eye

After covering the reasons of why to ward, you should be wary that the enemy is very likely planning the same thing as you are - they themselves want to deny your stealing an objective, to avoid your and to enable plays that ensure their win.

To avert that, we want to deward using and s in key positions when it matters, the details for those I will explain in the next segments.

When to (de-)ward

Timing of warding - When warding gets tense

As I have mentioned, warding should be done to secure major objectives like s and or to ensure safety on the map.

A good rule of thumb:
Try to ward a minute before an objective spawns. In order to know when an objective spawns, hold (by default) Tab and look at the top of your screen. The closer it is to a minute, the more you should start considering to ward key points around the objective. However, if you want to be somewhat technical, you would be alright warding objectives anywhere between 1:45 minutes in later stages of the game and 1:15 minutes in earlier stages of the game before an objective spawns since s last anywhere between 90 seconds and 120 seconds.

Holding Tab should reveal this at the top of your screen:

_{Relevant objectives are highlighted in red.}

However, if there is no objective in mentioned time, just keeping up ward uptime is just as important. Basically, you should be warding whenever you can, but prioritize objectives and key targets/win conditions in your team.

Now, warding should be your top priority, nevertheless:
Playing with your team should be more important! Do not tunnelvision too much into warding and instead learn when warding does not compromise your teammates. Some examples would be:

You know the enemy Nidalee is currently topside, the enemy Zed is shoved into his turret and your Ezreal is aware of you needing to ward, so he plays a bit more defensively.
You have a feeling that the enemy Nunu & Willump really likes to gank botlane and your Rek'Sai can't help. Putting down a few wards into bushes nearby while the enemy wave is pushing into you could prevent him from getting you killed.
You just got out of a good teamfight and your team can secure Drake without your help. Putting down a few wards around Baron Nashor while they fight Drake to get control of Baron Nashor right after would help a lot here

Timing of dewarding - Lowering intensity

Knowing when to deward is just as much of an experience thing as warding.
Generally though, you can follow the same ideas as in the "when to ward" section, but in reverse. Examples would be:

45 seconds before Drake spawns, your plan is to ward asap. However, you just saw the enemy Bard go from bottom river to mid. This is a clear indicator that Bard just warded around Drake.
Let's use the first example from above again: The enemy Morgana noticed that you left to ward, so she decided to ward around bot lane to prevent your teammates from helping you out. While on your way back, you should consider dewarding likely warding spots.
You are contesting Baron but you notice that the enemy is playing a bit too coordinated, you feel like you are being watched. The enemy very likely has a few wards near your team's position.

Where to (de-)ward

Location of ideal wards, early game - The early bird...

Covering the "when" aspect kind of also covers the "where" part since they are deeply related. As an example, if you know that is spawning in a bit, warding around it is a great idea. However, I will first cover some basic spots that you can never go wrong with and then slowly explain a concept about knowing where you can safely ward without risking too much based on the game state.

Recommended warding spots in laning phase(~15 minutes):

Each yellow dot represents a possible and viable spot to ward but just like with cooking, timing matters as well. For example, warding the rightmost brush as red side isn't all that worth if you are pushing into the enemy. Instead, in this case, it would be more adventagous to ward these spots:

Now, why would you want to ward those spots? I'll pull up another image:

_{Let's assume that the blue dot called "J" is the enemy jungler. If he plans on using the red route, he will be spotted, thus making his gank harder. Same deal with the blue path the green path.}

But what do we do if we are the blue team and we get pushed in? Where should I ward if I can?

The following spots are advantageous:

_{Reason being: If the enemy jungler decides to lane gank (blue path), we will know where he is and thus can plan around that. Due to having warded the red route, no surprises can come from tri-brush. Same deal with the green path.}

The following image will cover a few more examples on red side and other game states that can happen early with blue dots being blue side wards and red dots being red side wards:

_{The upper wards are all meant to cover ganks from river/jungle, the ones in the center to protect against immediate threats from river, while lane wards are generally used to prevent lane ganks and general knowledge of the location of the enemy support}

A few wards that are a bit more risky but are worth it if you pull it off are shown in the image below. They are meant to spot the enemy jungler at his camps which might be the only way of spotting them (Looking at you ):

_{Be wary that the pixel brush in river is a good ward for both sides! The wards that are not in a bush can, of course, be put into nearby bushes aswell.}

This should cover the early game. Of course, putting some wards into bushes on bot lane or the alcove can be a good idea aswell (for baits, etc). But these are the main wards I do in the early game to help me out as much as I can.

Location of ideal wards, mid and late game - ...catches the Baron

Luckily, mid and late game are a bit simpler, but still follow the same ideas of prevention of ganks/flanks and securing area for your team. Just like before, I will show a few images, optimal warding spots and explain their reasoning. Since there can be a lot of wards, I will cover red and blue side seperately:

Drake Pit/ Atakhan:

Red side:

As you can see, there are a ton of wards around dragon pit, mostly in the enemy jungle that touches pit. As mentioned in the "when" section, this is to know where the enemy jungle/team is and to play accordingly. I decided to place this many potential wards since you will always have to play around enemy s, but I will cover this in more detail later in the dewarding section of this guide. For now, know that if the enemy put a somewhere, you will have to act accordingly.

Blue side:

_{This might seem like a ton of wards, but in reality it's almost as many as red side. I just decided to show more options here aswell.}

This follows the same idea as red side, except you ward red jungle instead of blue jungle. The wards close to mid are meant to spot enemies from mid lane/mid jungle, while wards deeper in the enemy jungle/closer to bot side are meant to spot them there. Same deal for bot side wards.

Since is right next to Drake, the wards are essentially the same, with a focus more on tri-brushes and the river itself.

Territorial ("Normal") Baron Pit:

Red side:

_{A lot of wards, but again, it depends on the game where warding is necessary and where it really isn't. Take a high amount of wards as suggestions}

For this specific image, I deicded to add blue arrows to show where the enemy could go and thus get spoted by your well placed wards. There isn't much that needs to be said here, as we are trying to accomplish the very same thing as in pit.

Blue side:

Similar to the last image, red arrows indicate movement by red side.

The following images will show warding spots for the 2 other types of that can appear:

All-seeing ("Eye") Baron Pit:

Red side:

Blue side:

Hunting ("Horn") Baron Pit:

Red side:

Blue side:

Now, what if there are no objectives up? In this case, we look at the turrets on the map. To explain the idea of this, I want you to think of the game Risk (or Empire Earth II if you ever played that). You know, the game where you let dice decide whether you own a country? Yeah that one.
In Risk, the area you own covers the area you can move reinforcements to, move freely without worrying about attacks and plan on attacking neighbouring countries. Some areas even have designated paths to send soldiers across as seen below:

Now, let's try to apply this to Summoner's Rift:

At the beginning of the game (until a turret has fallen), the map is sort of split even for red and blue side. If you for example, as a member of the blue team, move in blue territory, there is fairly high chance that no bad thing will happen. This also means that warding in blue territory is fairly safe and should not get you killed.

In return, this also means that moving into red territory has a higher risk of getting caught and getting you killed, but also means that the chances of spotting an enemy are higher.

Now let's assume that red side outer turret has fallen. The map's control now shifts a bit in blue side's favour, see the image below for a rough idea:

_{In the context of Risk, this means that we have taken over an enemy's country.}

As you can see, blue team now has a bit more safety on moving on the map as the enemy's turret has fallen. This does not mean that it is 100% safe to move in the newly "aquired" area, but it does mean that it is safer to ward in mentioned area. This idea of painting the map can work with every turret and every team.

However, what if both mid turrets are down? In this case, we get a sort of "No Man's Land" where it is neither safe nor unsafe to move in. These areas could be declared as minor priority warding spots, especially if it's the jungle that turns into No Man's Land. 2 images to illustrate:

_{The left image shows if both outer mid turrets are gone, while the right image displays every outer turret having been destroyed.}

But Ivan, why explain the basics of tactics?
Assume we are in the case of the left image. We want to get closer to destroying the enemy nexus and in order to do that, we need to get turrets. How do we, as a support, ensure getting them? By warding around towers of course! Have another illustration to see a potential course of action:

_{Just as before, blue dots are potential blue side wards and red dots are potential red side wards.}

Whichever of these wards you place down depend on your game state. Is your just barely beating the enemy , but the turret is down soon? Consider warding topside so that can get the turret safely. Is your doing work and you could get the bot lane turret? Ensure safety by placing wards in the enemy jungle to prevent the enemy from ganking you!

Later stages of the game follow the very same idea and are sort of easier as the closer you get to the enemy nexus, the less safe area the enemy has, thus less area in the No Man's Land you need to ward.

Where to deward - A Control Ward's favourite activity

Before I start to explain where, let me give you one word of advise. If you, the reader, are going to take one thing away from this guide, it should be this:

Always have at least one in your inventory for objectives like or . If you have none, at least have ready.

_{Unless you want to be featured in a montage about objective steals}

Similar to "why to deward", "when to deward" is just as short as, yet again, dewarding is just the inverse action of warding. A few examples of where dewarding is a good idea:

Let's get back to that Bard from earlier: Dewarding these spots would be a good idea:
_{The red area means potential ward locations, while the blue dots resemble a high chance to find wards (from my experience)}
Baron Nashor is up soon and you want to set it up for your team. However, you remember seeing the enemy Zyra recalling in your topside jungle, so there is a good chance that the enemy has warded your topside jungle and maybe even their own! Thus you decide to deward in your own jungle. Another illustration of where Zyra could've warded:
You just saw the enemy Morgana leave for one around 10 seconds but come back to lane. This not only could mean that the enemy jungler might consider ganking you soon, but it could also mean that she just warded tri brush, river bush, etc. If it doesn't compromise your ADC too much, consider going to those places and deward her wards.
Remember the enemy Lee Sin in one of my first examples, the one that stole two drakes? Now let's assume that is now our teammate and another fight at drake is brewing. Placing a Control Ward at the spots in the image below (indicated by red dots) will help your Lee Sin a ton in stealing another drake!

_{If you are the red team here, a Control Ward in dragon pit should suffice to keep the Lee Sin from knowing the dragon's HP (Unless he hits his Q Sonic Wave on the Dragon as that ability provides vision on the hit target).}

And most importantly:

You are currently doing Baron and you know that the enemy has vision of the pit since there is a ward in it. Drop a Control Ward to deny the enemy vision or use at least Oracle Lens and stand close to the enemy wards so that the enemy has a harder time stealing Baron.

Again, if you are going to take one thing away from this guide, it should be that you should always have a ready for objectives. I can't stress this enough.

And now we have covered the most important things about warding! In the next and final section about warding, I will talk about tips, tricks and quirks I have noticed and learned about establishing vision; be it simple warding spots, how I see s as nothing but instant and which items to watch out for!

Similar to the upcoming Fun Facts section, I will make this a list in which I sum up things I've learned and what to watch out for.

Let's start with the elephant in the room: In my Basics section, I kept mentioning how you usually can only place up to 3 Stealth Wards and only 1 Control Ward. And in my item section I praised a certain item in the situational tab.
I of course am talking about one of my favourite items:
and its predecessor

Now, what does it do? It increases armour, MR, HP and AH which is nice. But the main reason you buy Vigilant Wardstone is the increase in placable Stealth Wards and Control Wards by 1. This might not sound like a lot, but being able to place one more Control Ward can mean a ton. It also means that instead of a maximum of 4 wards, you can now place up to 6 wards!
Stealth Wards and Control Wards have a radius, as mentioned. But knowing how far that radius goes can make the difference between disabling a ward and keeping it alive. See the image below as an example:_{I got another paid actor to help me out. As you can see, her ward has not been disabled by my Control Ward as the radius (white circle) of the Control Ward does not reach the ward.}
Talking about the radius, be wary that walls can stop you from seeing certain angles. An example of such walls obstructing vision can be seen in the video below: A few more examples of where placing your ward can make a difference; due to the high amount of images, I decided to post the collection on imgur(While the specific ward spots are partially outdated, I still feel that the main lesson of being wary of geometrical vision is being taught):
https://imgur.com/a/oK3j2Kt
Be cautious when attacking a ward! Attacking a ward will reveal your position to the enemy team for around 1-3 seconds after your auto attack lands!
Don't necessarily see Control Wards as a Stealth Ward, but see it as the instant, paid version of Oracle Lens. Their main purpose is to deward and deny vision, so you should rather see them as such. While it is viable to put them down in a certain spot (like pixel brush), I personally think that using them to deny vision is ultimately more useful.
If you are in a bush that has been warded by the enemy, minions will likely decide to walk into the bush and attack you. So if minions go towards your bush instead of attacking other minions, be careful as the enemy knows you are in that spot!
While Control Wards do deny Stealth Wards, be wary that if you place any ward into a Control Wards radius, the Stealth Ward will work for about 1-2 seconds before turning off. This can be crucial when you decide to fight at Baron or Drake and need to see the objective's HP or the enemy's exact location. So don't be shy to use them for a quick glimpse!
While this doesn't apply to Lissandra as building it on her is not a good idea, Umbral Glaive is the ideal dewarding item as it can instantly kill an enemy ward and reveal wards around you! Control Wards are the exception, needing up to 2 auto attacks. Truly a beautiful item, I wish it would be viable on Lissandra...
Deep Ward is ideal if you want to make the most out of your wards and your own warding skill, rewarding deep warding in the enemy jungle. Sixth Sense is a good introductory rune to learn the fundamentals of dewarding. Grisly Mementos will make the enemy support hate you, as you will be dewarding the entire time.
The most important stat to me: Vision Score! In short, Vision Score shows you how well a player has kept up vision throughout the game; the higher it is, the more a player managed to keep the map warded. But how exactly does it work?
If you kill a ward, you get +1 vision score. Per 60 seconds of a ward's lifespan that you denied, you gain +1 vision score. In turn, this also means that per 60s of ward lifespan that was not denied, you gain +1 vision score.

So, to recap:

The whats

Stealth Wards reveal an area around them for up to 2 minutes
They are camouflaged and are only revealed by Control Wards or Oracle Lens
They have 3 auto attacks worth of HP (RIP Jhin)
You, by default, get Stealth Wards for free in your trinket slot with a maximum of 2 at once
Otherwise, you get Stealth Wards by reaching the 500 gold mark on your tier 1 support items
You will get 1 Stealth Ward upon upgrading, but to a limit of 3 when reaching your own fountain
Tier 3 support items store up to 4 wards
The default limit of placable wards is 3 and your first placed ward will get destroyed if you place a ward in the 3/3 stage
Wards cannot reveal things behind a wall aswell as what is inside of a bush
...unless you place a ward inside of a bush!
Oracle Lens is the inverse trinket of Stealth Wards as they can reveal and disable Stealth Wards
Oracle Lens also shows the silhouette of enemies aswell as Control Wards
Oracle Lens also counter traps like Shaco's Jack In The Box, Nidalee's Bushwhack or Teemo's Noxious Trap. It won't stop them from working, but it will reveal them, thus enabling you to destroy them.
Control Wards are superior wards as they are a mix of Stealth Wards and Oracle Lens; however, they are not camouflaged
Unlike Stealth Wards, Control Wards are something you need to buy for 75 gold each
Control Wards, just like Oracle Lens, disable enemy Stealth Wards and Farsight Alteration
They also reveal camouflaged enemies like Twitch in his Q Ambush or Evelynn past level 6
Buying Vigilant Wardstone increases your placable ward limit by 1 for Stealth Wards and Control Wards. It's predecessor Watchful Wardstone only increases your Control Ward carry capacity.

The whys and whens

Warding is done for the same reason as cameras IRL: You want to ensure safety in important locations to plan your next moves
This involves preventing ganks by the enemy team, enabling ganks by your team, securing objectives, picking off enemies or baiting them into advantageous plays
Dewarding follow the same idea, except in reverse: You want to make it harder for the enemy to plan accordingly and have more control over the map
This results in the enemy having to ward more, make objectives harder to contest/steal and go for riskier plays
It is generally advised to ward a minute before an objective like Baron, Drake, Rift Herald or Atakhan spawns, although one can make an argument for 1:45 later on and 1:15 early into the game
Keeping warding uptime up in case of no objectives is just as relevant, so ward whenever you can

The wheres and relevant tips

Warding should be done around key points on the map
This generally involves big objectives like Dragon pit, Baron pit, turrets, smaller objectives/win conditions like turrets or the safety of your splitpusher, or places where you can expect enemies like their jungle (camps) or the entrances of their base
Don't just ward the same spots! Sometimes you need to abuse the range of a Control Ward to still have vision of the area by warding just outside of its denial zone. Being flexible is key
Always have a Control Ward ready for objectives and see them as more of instant Oracle Lens than glorified Stealth Wards
Auto attacking a ward reveals your position, so be careful where you go after clearing the ward

Now, let me adress another big elephant in the room: I mentioned exactly theice (now quadruple!) in my guide. The reason being:

As a support, your key trinkets are before your first base and later on. Generally, you have to expect your teammates to not know how to properly deward, so you have to be the one to do it. For this very reason, for supports is far superior to .

This section is mostly about adding a few fun facts I have discovered:

Lissandra Frozen Tomb is not only a stun, but also a knockdown! Great to annoy dash users. Examples of dashes would be:
Sejuani's Q Arctic Assault
Rengar's passive (and thus Thrill of the Hunt aswell) Unseen Predator
Irelia's Q Bladesurge
Tristana's W Rocket Jump
People can see your claw...well, not always. If the claw is within 600 units of a champion within a wall, the enemy team can see the claw. However, beyond the 600 units your claw cannot be seen.
How much are 600 units to be exact? I will add a screenshot to illustrate:_{I chose Ashe here as he has exactly 600 auto attack range}

This also means that the closer the enemy is to your red side turret, the higher the chances that the enemy won't know that you are pulling off the Lissandra special!
Adding to the last point: You can use Liss Glacial Path into a wall. As long as the claw indicator is positioned more towards the end of the wall you wanna get out of, you will pop out of that wall. I'll drop a picture to roughly illustrate what I mean.
Rakan W Grand Entrance can be stopped with Lissandra W Ring of Frost. If Rakan hasn't reached his destination yet, he can be stopped with any kind of CC. Neat thing I found out on accident.

This is all I have on the pick that I love! I will try to keep this guide updated for the future and the guide has sort of become my pride. What started as a spite project towards other Lissandra mains ( will always be viable on her!!!) slowly but steadily became a passion project. Granted, my guide could probably look better, but I have always been more of a person that prefers to read information, have images illustrate things and generally explain things from the ground up. It probably also shows that I am not the most literate person as I have never been much of a reader besides books for university (e.g. Teschl & Teschl for maths), but hey, it is a passion project after all :)

I hope that by reading this guide, I have given you a few tools to improve your warding, get a better idea of tank items and give a bit more love. And most importantly, widened your horizon in terms of what is viable. After all, some off-meta strategies became meta because someone was crazy enough to try it!

For example, remember ? He used to be a top laner before he became a support! Or AP support after it was played in World's. And if tank support ever becomes meta (which I doubt, but hey, a man can dream), you know where you saw it first :p

That being said, I hope you enjoyed reading the guide. Have a good one and obey our ice queen - and most importantly draw more art. She deserves more fanart.

Thanks a ton to MOBAfire for giving my guide an honourable mention. I didn't actually expect to get anything, but hey, I can't complain!

HUGE thanks to @SubjectRina for giving me the old beautiful chapter seperator seen in the support item section, to all the "paid" actors that helped me out setting up videos/screenshots to explain some concepts and Katasandra again for donating parts of their marvelous mid guide's code. I would also like to thank my good friend Flipper for proofreading my guide and HUGE thanks BoarAnon for giving me the beautiful paragraph and chapter separator.You all are truly wonderful. Take care and have a good one.

This segment is about things I'm wondering about and testing. I will add my thoughts into the corresponding segments.

NOTHING!!!!

In this order:

Now, how does one have to understand this tier list?
To me, there is no "best skin". I, instead, judge skins based on how often I feel like playing that very skin. In my case, I prefer to use Prestige Porcelain Lissandra the most, with Porcelain Lissandra and Space Groove Lissandra being very close seconds.

Less frequently, but still often, will I play the skins in the second tier. And the least often I will pick Bloodstone Lissandra and Blade Queen Lissandra.

The reason are obviously looks, but I personally prefer the sounds of Space Groove Lissandra as I really love that kind of music and the goo sounds. It doesn't help that self-ult has a disco ball and REALLY funky music going on. That, and the duration of the music helps me weave into my combo as I can tell how much Tenacity "will play in the song".

The skins in the second tier are definitely still very good, and I'm sure I might be making a few enemies by putting Coven this low. I just don't like how looks and sounds more like spears. Now, one could argue "What about Porcelain? Those are also sort of spears!!". The sounds in that are simply why I enjoy them more. Porcelain in general is something I've always admired and really enjoyed. Add the synergy of blue and white and boom, you've basically won me over already.

And even besides this... this is just my personal opinion. And you know what they say: Opinions are like backsides - everyone has one, but mine stinks :p

Now, why is PROGRAM Lissandra in the second tier? Well...
Let's say my favourite game has an AI as one of the best antagonists of gaming history and PROGRAM Lissandra kind of resembles her, in tone and in looks

26.7.2021 - Added opinion about Anathema's. Added explaination when to prioritize the Wardstone items. Polished the guide a bit. Added a few synergies/threats. Changed the title to something I feel like fits more.
3.8.2021 - Added further details about Zeke's. Updated Testing tab.
11.8.2021 - Added opinion on Mobi Boots. Updated Testing tab.
14.8.2021 .bat gnitseT detadpU . Tidied up the Items tab a bit.
11.9.2021 Tab testing updated. Added more details on when to build the wardstone items. Added more details on when is a viable buy. Added counter trick.
19.10.2021 - Added opinion on vs.
20.10.2021 - Added a tab about Season 12, being about my thoughts on the new items and runes
21.10.2021 - Changed opinion about Lucian and potentially more to follow. I dont want to see him again...
18.11.2021 - Added runepages, added explaination for the runes in the inspiration tree
11.8.2022 - Added "rarity" to how often one buys which item, excluding mythics, Updated testing tab again.
16.8.2022 - Tidied up the introduction to the guide a bit, added a sketch by @cosmicbim to fun facts
18.8.2022 - More tidying up. Prepare for a warding and match-up section aswell as a general outline for the guide!
19.8.2022 - Added segment "Warding - Basics". Will add additional chapters soon.
19.8.2022 (at night) - Added custom made seperator by my friend and expanded on "Warding - Why and When". "where" will follow tomorrow.
20.8.2022 - Further expanded the "where" section. Will add tips, tricks and quirks later.
21.8.2022 - Added a tip and tricks section, expanded on a few chapters aswell as more seperators, thanks to my "paid" actors and artist friends
22.8.2022 - Fixed a few tiny things.
6.9.2022 - (nice) Added a personal segment: Burst vs Tank and why tank is prefered
7.1.2023 - Expanded the "Why tank?" segment
12.1.2023 - Moved up to situational tier
14.1.2024 - I'VE BEEN UPDATING THIS GUIDE EVER SINCE, I FORGOT TO ADD DATES
20.1.2024 - Shuffled a lot of items around, added the Suboptimal Items section
22.1.2024 - Updated the Support Upgrade section properly
24.1.2024 - Adjusted minor runes, added as a viable alternative to , changed to be the only viable option in its row.
26.1.2024 - Moved into the suboptimal segment
9.2.2024 - Big overhaul of synergies and threats, added parts of the update on the playstyle segment. THAT PART ISN'T DONE YET, BUT I NEEDED TO UPDATE THE GUIDE SOMEHOW SO THAT PEOPLE DON'T THINK I DROPPED THE ENTIRE THING
16.2.2024 - Big overhaul of the Playstyle chapter. Added early game and WIP notification about mid- to lategame
19.2.2024 - Addition of text to the Playstyle - Mid- and Lategame. Not done yet!
21.2.2024 (at 6 ******** AM) - Added chapter "Sample Builds"
22.2.2024 - Fleshed out the Abilities chapter, added pictures by my friend Rio (@Vaileigh) on Twitter (Im not calling it X), added skin tier list
15.5.2024 - Removed as a viable item choice. Commented on 's (horrendous) change. Removed a spoilered section in the section because of that. Removed in the runes. Commented on and in comparison to . Added segment about vs .
16.5.2024 - I FORGOT ABOUT
10.1.2025 - New Season. Added disclaimers for under construction segments. Redid math on . Finally took care of the old S12 support items in the warding segment
15.1.2025 - Rework of the Runes section (Thanks again Katasandra for the code/inspiration!!!!!)
16.1.2025 - Addition of Summoner Spells in the Runes section. Addition of Intersection - Major objectives (not done yet...)
1.2.2025 - Added and finalised the new chapter 7.2 - Interjection. It goes over the major objectives to try to understand why warding around them is important
5.2.2025 - LITERALLY JUST UPDATING SO THAT THIS GUIDE STAYS UPDATED. THE MATCH UP SEGMENT IS HELLA UNDER WORK LMAO
16.2.2025 - Updated Match-up and Synergy segment (Still work in progress, please be patient)
19.2.2025 - Fully added the chapter Match-Ups and Synergies. My hands hurt.
22.02.2025 - Added two example rune pages. Made the guide look a bit nicer. Reworked chapter Why Lissandra? with some fancy pros and cons
23.02.2025 - Changed titles like this to fancier titles. Added a new separator by BoarAnon
1.5.2025 - Changed s, Shelly and 's description to the new (thematic) season's... stats thing. Im tired ok
30.5.2025 - Added new section focused on roaming and ganking. Added another segment at the end focusing on explaining certain terms briefly.
6.6.2025 - Finished section on roaming and ganking
10.6.2025 - Finished the final touch-ups in the Roaming and Ganking chapter. Added a few more keywords into the Keyword Index.
15.6.2025 - Tidied up the guide at points

The following rant was written a few years ago, but I deem it to be relevant enough to keep it up for archival's sake. Enjoy the ramblings of old man Ivan from a few years ago lmao

Damn, you read things this far? Coolio! Here, let me tell you something:
If you read this far, you probably share my sentiment/opinion of tank Lissandra and why she is better suited as a CC bot. I keep seeing people desperately trying to rework her into something that she isn't anymore or push her into a direction that she isn't doing well into. Some people want more damage, I ask "why not play a burst mage then?". Some people want less CC to free up some of her power budget, I ask "what will differentiate her from other mages?"

If you want my honest opinion, in case it wasn't clear yet: I think burst Lissandra is dead and has been for a while. I don't blame the people that fell in love with that playstyle and, if anything, I feel sad for them. Lissandra simply is an anti-carry and she always has been and always will be unless they change her kit drastically which, frankly, I doubt Riot will do. I understand that her kit incentivises her to build AP, but as described in my introduction (WHICH BY THE TIME OF WRITING I STILL HAVE NOT FINISHED), her kit contradicts the items's purpose.

However, be wary that I will always stand by the principle that one should play whatever the fish they want. If you want to play burst Lissandra, go ahead. If you want to play AD lethality Lissandra, go ahead. If you want to play tank Lissandra, go ahead. The beauty of League of Legends is that one can play the way they want and make it work if they have a good plan in mind. Let noone tell you otherwise.

To any Lissandra mains reading this: Please, stop trying to force Lissandra into something that doesn't apply anymore. Her main builds revolve around utility () and double pen. I think that is a wasted item and Liss should rather go into further utility with plenty of items (looking at you ) as her main strength is being an anti-carry exactly due to her utility and CC. Lissandra is fine as she is and is still just as viable. The attempts I see trying to rework her or give her a new passive or whatever the fish, followed up by begging Riot to rework/change her just sadden me and it feels too desperate. Please, adapt. Her WR is at 49% and that is perfectly fine for a champion that is a pro play champion due to her reliable CC. Her main identity is being an anti-carry by being a CC bot and a burst champion second. It's not like I don't understand the concerns and complaints (I personally really loved the old scholar/arcanist in FFXIV but they changed it to something that doesn't feel like the classes I loved anymore), but please. It's been years. I hate seeing all of this and just want to have some fun without seeing people chase a dream that has long gone.

To the people who read even this far: Thank you for reading my guide and this segment. I guess I just felt like ranting a bit.

Stats

❄ Ability Power (AP) - Offensive stat that scales with certain abilities and items, typically associated with magical damage
❄ Ability Haste (AH) - Stat that decreases the time until the next possible usage of an ability. Formerly known as Cooldown Reduction (CDR).
❄ Attack Damage (AD) - Offensive stat that increases auto attack damage and enhances the potency of certain abilities and items, typically associated with physical damage. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Attack Speed (AS) - How fast a unit can attack something, measured in attacks per second. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Attack Range - The radius in units in which an Auto Attack can be used
❄ Armour - Defensive stat that decreases physical damage by a percentage. Scales with certain abilities and items. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Armour Penetration - Aggresive stat that ignores a certain percentage of Armour when calculating damage dealt. Not to be confused with Lethality
❄ Base Ability Haste - Ability Haste only affecting Basic Abilities
❄ Base Health Regeneration (HP Regen) - Amount of Health gained over a period of time. Measured in HP/5 seconds. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Base Mana Regeneration (Mana Regen) - Amount of Mana gained over a period of time. Measured in Mana/5 seconds. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Gold Generation - Amount of gold generated over time. Measured in gold/5 seconds.
❄ Healing & Shielding Power - Stat that increases healing and shielding multiplicatively. Measured in percent
❄ Health (HP) - Stat that determine if an unit is alive or not. Upon reaching 0, the unit dies. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Lethality - Aggressive stat that ignores a flat amount of Armour when calculating damage dealt. Not to be confused with Armour Penetration
❄ Magic Resist (MR) - Defensive stat that decreases magical damage by a percentage. Scales with certain abilities and items. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Magic Penetration - Aggressive stat that ignores a certain mount of Magic Resistance (flat or percentage) when calculating damage dealt
❄ Mana - Stat that is needed to cast most spells. The amount needed for a spell gets deducted upon usage. Base amount set sparately for each champion. Increases with gained levels.
❄ Movement Speed (MS) - How fast an object can move. Measured in units/second
❄ Tenacity - How resistant a unit is to certain Crowd Control by lowering the duration. Measured in percent.
❄ Ultimate Haste - Ability Haste only affecting an ultimate ability.

Concepts

❄ Ability - Action tied to a champion
❄ Griveous wounds (Anti-Heal) - Effect that reduces healing and health regeneration, usually tied to items
❄ Area of Effect (AoE) - An entity (ability, Auto Attack, etc) affecting an area
❄ Auto Attack (AA) - A champion's basic attack
❄ Base Damage - The damage of an ability excluding scalings
❄ Basic Ability - Ability that isn't tied to levels 6/11/16.
❄ Bad Match-Up - Match-Up that describes one champion's interactions with another champion to be generally negative
❄ Being Behind - Having less items (and usually a lower level) than the opposed enemy role
❄ Being Ahead - Having more items (and usually a higher level) than the opposed enemy role
❄ Blink - Mobility that instantly teleports an entity somewhere else
❄ Burst Damage - Frontloaded damage that gets dealt quickly
❄ Crowd Control (CC) - Statuses that remove control over a champion in one way or another. A detailed list can be seen here.
❄ Dash - Mobility that quickly moves an entity somewhere
❄ Damage Reduction - Amount of damage (Either flat or percentage) reduced from incoming damage sources
❄ Dewarding/Denying vision - Removing enemy wards to reduce enemy vision
❄ Disengage - Getting out of a fight
❄ Damage Over Time (DoT) - Backloaded damage that is dealt over a period of time instead of upfront
❄ Damage Per Second (DPS) - Amount of damage dealt per second
❄ Early Game - Lane focused part of a round of League, usually ends shortly after the first tower has fallen.
❄ Engage - Starting a fight with the enemy
❄ Experience Points (XP) - Points required to level up
❄ Farming - Killing either minions or neutral monsters to gain gold and XP
❄ Fed - Describes a champion that is ahead in gold, usually in the form of items and/or levels
❄ Gank - Act of entering a lane, ideally by flanking, to create a fight with a numbers advantage.
❄ Gank Setup - Attributes speaking in favour of setting up a Gank
❄ Good Match-Up - Match-Up that describes one champion's interactions with another champion to be generally positive
❄ Grounded - Hard CC that reduces Movement Speed and prevents the usage of mobility spells
❄ Hard Crowd Control (Hard CC) - Crowd Control that removes major control aspects of a champion
❄ Jungler/Jungling - Lane independent role that gains XP and gold through slaying neutral camps. Focuses on slaying Major Objectives and Ganking lanes.
❄ Late game - Final part of a roung of League, after the mid game. Defined by fights that can easily decide the game
❄ Level - Number that, upon increasing, grants a skill point and additional stats
❄ Level up - Increasing the current level of a champion
❄ Magic Damage - Damage Type, reduced by Magic Resist
❄ Major Objective - One of the major neutral monsters: s, , , , ,
❄ Match-up - Confrontation between two (in the case of bot lane four) champions, usually describing the interactions as well
❄ Mid Game - Part of a round of League, after the early game. Lasts until roughly 30 minutes
❄ Macro - Understanding and application of map-specific objectes
❄ Micro - Understanding and application of mechanics of a champion
❄ Passive of a champion (Passive) - Ability that gives persistent effects, either through conditions or permanently. Unlocked by default. Not to be confused with Passive Effect despite the same naming.
❄ Passive Effect of an Ability (Passive) - (Part of an) Ability that gives persistent effects, either through conditions or permanently. Difference to Passive of a champion is the requirement to invest a skill point.
❄ Passive Playstyle - Behavior of a player that is avoiding confrontation
❄ Physical damage - Damage type, reduced by Armour
❄ Point-and-Click (PoC) - Type of spell that requires the caster to click on an entity
❄ Poke - Damaging the enemy with no retaliation, usually from a longer range
❄ Roam(-ing) - Act of leaving a lane to be elsewhere on the map with a specific map-oriented objective in mind
❄ Silence - Soft CC that prevents the usage of spells
❄ Skillshot - Type of spell that requires the caster to aim its trajectory/placment
❄ Soft Crowd Control (Soft CC) - Crowd Control that impairs an enemy champion.
❄ Summoner Spell - Special champion-independent spells that are chosen in champion select. A detailed summary can be found here.
❄ Tank - Playstyle that revolves around soaking a lot of damage thanks to items offering defensive stats
❄ Tank Items - Items that primarily offer defensive stats
❄ Tanking - Soaking up damage for teammates
❄ Tower Dive - Act of attempting to kill enemies below their own tower using engages
❄ Trade - An exchange between (part of) your and the enemy team, usually being kills, summoner spells, etc.
❄ True Damage - Damage Type that cannot be reduced
❄ Ultimate Ability (Ult, Ultimate) - Strong ability tied to levels 6/11/16
❄ Warding/Setting up vision - Placing wards in Fog of War to reveal parts of the map

Lissandra Support - A generous Queen that helps + Warding guide!

Lissandra Support - A generous Queen that helps + Warding guide!

Recommended Items

Runes: Aftershock + Domination

Spells:

Exhaust

Flash

Items

Ability Order Skill order

Iceborn Subjugation (PASSIVE)

Ice Shard (Q)

Ring of Frost (W)

Glacial Path (E)

Frozen Tomb (R)

Threats & Synergies

Soraka

Caitlyn

Hwei

Heimerdinger

Draven

Janna

Kalista

Milio

Karma

Lux

Ashe

Nautilus

Varus

Zyra

Brand

Seraphine

Xerath

Alistar

Zilean

Lucian

Jhin

Lulu

Xayah

Nami

Miss Fortune

Leona

Nilah

Ezreal

Aphelios

Braum

Bard

Blitzcrank

Morgana

Senna

Thresh

Yuumi

Vayne

Swain

Twitch

Zeri

Kog'Maw

Shaco

Sivir

Renata Glasc

Kai'Sa

Sona

Pyke

Rell

Samira

Rakan

Lissandra

Lissandra

Miss Fortune

Seraphine

Ashe

Kalista

Taliyah

Xayah

Swain

Nilah

Jhin

Caitlyn

Ezreal

Zeri

Jinx