Sup mates and welcome to my first guide, where I'll talk about the newest addition to the League of Legends... Orianna \o/

I'm just going to start by saying that regardless of how you will play Orianna, I can promise you that you'll have a blast. Her steel heart brought me to my knees the moment I saw her and I can't say I'm sorry she did. <3

All jokes aside, this is in no way me telling you how to play or not to play Orianna. See it as me sharing my own experience with her (as small as they may be) and allowing you to take part of the amazing Ball-Queen her own fantastic way :D

This guide is going to cover the hybrid version of Orianna and how you will use her passive to your advantage.I decided not to cover the most common build, where you build her like a regular ap/caster since there are plenty of guides doing that already. You'll still deal tons of damage with your spells, just not as much as you would if you went all out ap.

So why should you play Orianna?

She does quite the amount of damage, but don't tell anyone. We don't want to feel the wrath of the nerfbat DD:

There once was a Piltovian man named Corin Reveck who had a daughter named Orianna, whom he loved more than anything else in the world. Though Orianna had incredible talent for dancing, she was deeply fascinated by the champions of the League of Legends. This fascination compelled her to begin training to become such a champion. It is unfortunate that her sheltered, wide-eyed naivete led her to take unnecessary and dangerous chances which ultimately led to her tragic demise. Orianna's death shattered Corin, driving him into deep depression and an obsession with techmaturgy. He could not stand the void his daughter's death left in his life, so he decided to build a replacement – one that would complete Orianna's dream of joining the League. What was created is the clockwork killing machine that Corin named after his daughter. Knowing that she was destined to be a champion and seeing the way the times were changing, he created The Ball as her pet and protector. This nearly symbiotic creation uses a different type of techmaturgy, relying more heavily on electricity than clockwork.

Orianna and The Ball now fight as Champions in the League of Legends, using the Clockwork Girl's sometimes misguided morality as a compass. She tries in earnest to fit in with those around her. However, no matter how hard she tries, Orianna can never be human and there is always something unnerving and alien about her. Though she attempts social interaction with other champions in the League of Legends, there are few who can get past her exotic nature. To many, it's as if there's nothing inside, that Orianna is just a soulless clockwork shell – a dangerous and deadly one at that. However, all along she remains the perfect daughter in her father's eyes.

“Dance with me, my pet. Dance with me into oblivion.”

All the skills (Not the passive) has an ap modifier of 0.6 magical damage per ability power. The only exceptions are the damage from Command: Protect which has a 0.45 modifier and the Command: Shockwave with a 0.7 modifier


Clockwork Windup (Passive): Orianna’s autoattack deal additional 5/10/15/20/25/30 (+0.2 per ability power) magic damage every hit, subsequent attacks on the same target within a few seconds will add 15% more damage per hit. This bonus stacks up to three times.


Command: Attack Orianna commands her ball to fly towards target location, dealing damage to targets hit but doing reduced damage for each additional target hit. Her ball remains behind at that location afterwards.

- This is your main ability and it is used for three things, attacking, controling lanes and scouting. When I say controling lanes, I mean that you can place the ball pretty much whereever you want and therefor controling your opponents movement (great for when your ally is ready to gank in the bushes). Finally the scouting, just like my ex-girlfriend Lux, we can use the ball to reveal areas of the map that were previously "hidden".

Command: Dissonance Orianna commands her ball to emit a magnetic pulse, dealing damage to units around it. Afterwards, the ball leaves a field behind for a few seconds that speeds up allies and slows enemies. Speed Modifier: 25/30/35/40/45 %

- Fantastic ability, with tons of uses. AoE, -speed, -slow and -damage is something we wouldn't want to turn down. The easiest way to use it is, when moving from point A to point B quicker, this might make the difference of getting back to your lane in time to save your partner/tower. it is also a great way to both chase down enemies and escape them, seeing as you boost your speed whilst (hopefully) slowing your enemies down.

Command: protect Orianna commands her ball to fly to and attach onto an allied champion, dealing damage to enemies it passes through and shielding the allied champion when it arrives. The allied champion the ball is attached to gains bonus armor and magic resistance.

- A shield, that absorbs damage (note: it only shields damage for 4s) and gives the targeted ally magic resist and armor for as long as he carries it. On top of that.. It deals damage to passing enemy units, somg!?

Command: Shockwave Orianna commands her ball to emit a shockwave after a short delay, flinging affected enemies in the vicinity into the air a set distance towards, and possibly over, her ball.

- The cherry on top, fantastic skill that will save your *** and win games for you countless of times. Throwing enemies together, with good communication this will lead to a huge amount of oppertunities for your teammates (and for yourself ofcourse) to finish them off. (I have some interesting ideas about this skill and will do some more testing when I get time.)

Her ball can stay within a radius of 1125 before flashing back to her.

You can actually throw the ball into objects and walls, keeping it hidden until you're ready to strike.

As most of you probably already figured out, there'll be indicators telling you when you are moving too far away from the ball. In shape of an arrow with three shifting colors, green indicates that you're close to the ball, yellow indicates that you are in a fair distance away from the ball and red indicates that you are too far away and thus will make the ball flash back to you.

These are basically the most standard caster runes, which I tend to use on most of my ap champions.

Magic penetration for a caster, herp derp. :D

I prefer getting as much ability power as possible with Orianna early on, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't abuse your skills to the fullest just because you don't have greater seal of replenishment(which ofcourse are still viable choices). It just means that you should use them more wisely. You should be fine with mana regardless, since you'll want to snatch the blue buff early, which can be done without any problems. ;)

Who doesn't like ****loads of ability power to start off with? I feel like an early game dominance is the key to victory (besides common sense ofcourse).

Regardless if you pick or , you'll start with one hell of an amount of ap. Especially since we're taking Doran's Ring right away.

Self explanatory "Cookie-cutter" caster build, with points in improved ghost and flash since those are what I prefer to use.

I believe that summoner spells that provides mobility is alot more of value to Orianna rather than spells such as ignite and exhaust. Ignite is a skill I tend to use alot and it made me get that first kill countless of times, but I have started to lean more towards ghost as a hybrid. I still decided to recommend ignite for that sick extra true damage early on.


Summoner spells, the good and.. the less good.

Good

Being able to flash over edges and bushes, is pretty much like having another skill in your arsenal. This is a must have, since it will go you a sick advantage.
Mobility and movement will open lots of possibilities, regardless if you use it to escape or chase down enemy champions.
The extra true damage and healing reduction is amazing indeed, so it's definitely not a bad choice.
I suppose this is more in favour for the ad carries, but it's still a nice summoner spell that can determine whether you can land that last hit or not.

Doable

Since she is still classified as a supporting champion, clairvoyance is an amazing spell if your team doesn't already have it.
Not something I would use, but it's incredibly useful since you'll be targeted alot (especially since we don't like to build ourselves fat and bulky).
You will need alot of mana early on, which is why this could be the better choice for some people that like to harrass alot.

Was rather unlucky with people leaving the game during mid session, which made us lose team fights late game.


I think that playing hybrid is the way to go as Orianna, you'll still have alot of damage with your spells while having almost 2.0 in attack speed. Making every second that they are keeping you alive during team fights lethal, you'll never be useless between CDs and this way you can be more independant. So I suppose this build is focused more towards normal games rather than ranked games.

I want to start off by saying that the build order is just a guideline of how you should think when building Orianna. This is how I aim to build her in every game, every game looks different from eachother which will result in you building her differently. So try to adapt and overcome!

So let's start off with her passive Clockwork Windup :



I'm quite the scrub when it comes to theory crafting, but this is quite sweet to say the least. You start off by building up your ability power and attack speed with items such as Malady and Guinsoo's Rageblade, and before you know it your Q will be down to about 2.5s and that together with Lich Bane is just freaking amazing. You will pretty much have the Lich Bane procc up constantly, while you slow them down and boosting your own speed. Let the hunt begin!

You'll probably end up getting Rylai's Crystal Scepter (even though I've stopped using it since I don't feel like I need it anymore) for that extra everything, which we all love. And slows are incredible for this build, since you want to be able to ditch out as many hits as possible without having to chase too far, durrr. With the short cooldown of Orianna's skills this will end up in a never-ending slow fest. I was considering the Frozen Mallet, but seeing as her skills has such short CDs I don't think it'll turn out alot better.

And if yet another Amumu (or anyone else that's fat and annoying) feels like carrying his team, just get Madred's Bloodrazor and watch him melt.

In almost all games I've started using Wit's End and I just love it, first the magic resist which helps alot in it's own way.. Then the extra magic damage together with your passive and malady is just amazing.

P.S Don't forget Crest of the Ancient Golem!.. I mean, the blue buff. :)

I could mention all items that are viable in it's own way, but that would feel rather unnecessary (unless there's like a huge demand for it, lol :P)

This is a fantastic item which gives you so much for so little in return, damage, hp and mana regen. Just aces.

Boots are usually part of every core build and even though you have alot of choices here. I would strongly recommend these, since they will speed up your early farm.

We all like spell pen and it boost the damage of all our skills, this is indeed viable but less useful on a hybrid build rather than a full ap/support build. I did however add this to the standard build since some people tend to feel obligated to get it as magic penetration will indeed help your damage along.

Facing a heavy CC team ? Sure you'll lose attack speed, but you're no good if you're dead and these boots are pretty awesome.

My personal favorite tied with Wit's End, it's cheap and provides you with extra magical damage, reduced magic resist on enemy champion, attack speed and ability power. Once you have these you'll see a crazy amount of numbers whenever you're attacking (Your regular auto attacks, your passives magical damage and malady's magical damage). You've got to enjoy the little things ;)

This is pretty much the mother-Malady in terms of attack speed/damage, but instead of getting the 20 extra magic damage and reduced magic resistance you get quite the amount of cooldown reduction and mana regen, which we'll gladly accept.

This is another amazing item which I pretty much just found out about. It's cheap and gives you defence, attack speed and even more additional magic damage with your auto attack. Freaking brilliant :D

As mentioned earlier, with such short cooldown on your abilities you'll be able to use this item to it's fullest. The extra stats such as, movement speed, mana, more ability power and magic resist will come in handy now that the build is probably starting to take shape.

Just a flat out amazing item, pure ability power.. And lots of it, can't get much better than that. I highly suggest you get this as early as possible if you're doing extremely well, I had a recent game with 10 - 0 before it reached 20min and picked this up straight after Malady which made it pretty easy to eat squishies with your Command: Attack + Command: Dissonance. Well fed ftw \o/

Slow, ability power and health. This means means hella lot more of survivability in all forms (besides getting the slow and health, the ability power will obviously boost your shield and more damage will mean you having a better chance at killing your opponent thus ending with you surviving :D)

The Jax killer. A cheap item with lots of potentional, especially if you're up against champions with alot of dodge. 100 extra magic damage every 4th attack will come in handy together with the other bonus damage you get from items, not to mention the crazy 60% attack speed.

Getting nuked down instantly, are they wasting all their ultimates just to get your *** down? This item will not only provide you with extra armor for those pesky ad carries and the ability to make yourself invulnerable, but also providing you with a woopin' 100ap that will keep your damage up even though this is considered a defensive item.

Facing a heavy CC team and/or going up against pesky ap nukers such as LeBlanc, Annie, Veigar etc. The extra magic resist, plus being able to block an incoming attack every 30s will give you a sick upper hand.

If everyone is fed up with your ownage and started stacking resist in hope of ending your streak. Get this item, it's percent based magic resistance which means it'll only get better and better the more they stack resist.

If you're up against a bunch of fat champions and/or a silly Amumu that decided to carry his team, this is the item for you! Omnomnom their health down in a matter of seconds.

I know some people might find this item a wise choice, but I feel like it's inferior to in every way. Especially since you have such amazing abilities which you should take advantage of. This is more or less the lazy way of slowing down enemies, auto attack slows sure is nice but you should be able to keep the enemies slowed without it.

The Harrasser: > ( > )

You don't always have to use protect to harrass even though it does damage, sometimes it's better to let the ball stay for a shorter traveling distance for your next .

The booster:

You guessed it! Just keep the ball on yourself and use to give yourself a boost, roaming anyone!?


The Savior: > ( >) >

You see your friend struggling against two nasty assassin's who are just about to deal their final blow and you ask yourself what you can do!? The answer is simple, hella alot mate!
You aim your ball against the unexpecting pair and you either start of with your shockwave to knock those poor guys away from your friend. Or you start with protecting your friend, shielding him and then using your to speed him up and slow them down.

The predator: > > > >

Land the ball and CC him/them with your ulti, then use and again slightly infront of him, then use for that extra fun damage and shielding. Imagine this when you are well fed with , poor guy :<

The build is only a guideline to follow, you have to adapt according to the team you're up against. Get magic resist if up against mostly casters and armor items if up against mostly ad carriers.

Make sure to get the blue buff as often as possible! It'll really help your mana problems out.

If it's going extremely well, jump the build order and get an expensive item like Rabadon's Deathcap to get an even extra advantage.

The lore explains that she's a robot that was built in order to replace this scientist's deceased daughter, and he made her awesome so she could follow her dream and join the League of legends.

+ = your best friend.

I hope this wasn't too much of a mess to go through and I sincerely hope that this will help or atleast get someone excited about this champion. I also hope that you all understand that this guide will surely be updated soon enough since I don't have nearly enough experience of her as I do with other champions (and ofcourse the inevitable nerfbat that will make us fanboys and girls cry).

I will make sure to keep this guide updated and I will add more sections explaining everything more thoroughly. I welcome all sorts of feedback regarding the build and the guide in general, this is my first guide and I would love to hear what the community thinks about it.

So just keep those balls coming! Cheers o/

#June 5th
Plenty of changes during these last days, but now I've had the chance to test more builds and changed the original build I had. Where I removed Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Nashor's Tooth and gave Guinsoo's Rageblade a chance.

I also decided to give a short summary of why I find hybrid to be the superior way of building Orianna. This can be found in the "The Build" section. :)

Added the Sorcerer's Shoes to the core build since some people tend to want to go for the extra magic penetration. My respons can be found in the comment section. <: