Hey guys, this is my first build guide. I'm not a high elo player, however I do tend to play Leona with higher frequency than other supports in ranked queue.

I play rather aggressive as Leona as the zenith blade allows good gap closing ability followed by the stun and shield AOE damage. Her ult is one of the more useful offensive ults in the support character realm, however the timing of it to get stuns instead of slows is crucial to team fights and securing kills early on. Leona overall has great cc and ability to be a beefy tank. With the new support items available she is an excellent choice for anyone playing support as she can tank damage, allow the AD Carry safe range to poke and secure kills, gap closing ability, good pursuit potential, and decent support damage characteristics.

While her abilities say she scales well with AP I prefer to go AD Tank with her specifically due to the larger potential she has for enabling the carries on your team to become extremely fed.

So a tip of advice, be aggressive, but also smart about aggression. Be very aware of what is going on on the map and know when you can win trades against the enemy.

I edited a few things on the page, but overall the guide is pretty much the same.

I like to start with 2 MR blues to allow early game sustain against the possible AP support/jungle, then scaling MR blues to fill the rest out for late game as they will provide more MR when its more necessary. I run standard Armor yellows and reds for tanky support as I plan to be more aggressive in lane and use my combo to harass the enemy ADC to deny farm. I prefer gold quints, however with the new global gold distribution in place I am sure you could sub out these for armor quints and be just as effective rushing a philo stone.

I prefer to run one point in offense to allow the AD Carry to gain the advantage from the exhaust, hopefully they are running a point in summoner's wrath also to double the effect with an ignite. I run basic tank masteries in defense and enough in utility to gain the starting and global gold as well as experience boost to get the early lane edge. I don't max this mastery because these points are useless end game and really don't help much other than getting to ult for supports. The gold is self explanatory supports don't farm thus more gold is needed. I don't max starting gold because its only 50 gold, 25 should be enough to get 3 wards + 2 hp pots. I don't like the new masteries biscuit and explorer because they are essentially wastes of points other than in ranked to detect invades and very early survival. This survival issue can be addressed using the flask and the wards with the sightstone. The early ward is only really useful if you are playing draft or ranked and can anticipate an invade.

Pros
+Robust tanking ability early and late game
+Gap closer
+Lots of CC
+Solid support harasser
+Extremely fun to play in lane due to aggressive nature

Cons
+Early game she is a little bit squishy
+A little bit slow movement speed
+Gap closer is a skill shot (if you are bad with skill shots then don't play Leona)
+No Heal (biggest complaint, however if you are good at harassing then you'll not have to worry much)
+Cooldowns are a little bit on the long side

Leona is pretty versatile, however she does have some drawbacks. You need to have an AD Carry with either incredible range and mobility or a dash skill. This is vital due to your ability to engage instantaneously. If you lack this ability, then don't bother with Leona as the support, remember you are NOT the CARRY you are the SUPPORT, thus compliment your CARRY.

Good examples of compliments would be:
+Graves
+Sivir
+Ezreal
+Corki
+Tristana

Decent picks for Carry to use Leona with would be
+Vayne
+Urgot

Leona will perform best if she feeds the AD Carry kills early on with aggressive play as well as having a jungler with a solid engage ability as well.
+Hecarim
+Shyvana
+Maokai

This will allow the highest efficiency of teamwork coupled with a dps killer in back.

All in all if you want to play Leona you have to be prepared to get zero credit for the wins, but be smart enough to engage when the opportunity is right. You must be a smart tank in order to get your AD Carry to late game early on.

Eventhough Championselect.net says Taric beats Leona I select Leona into it everytime just because it allows me the most amount of CC while being effective at what I need to do and tank people and die. Not killing people is the goal of Leona and making your death as worthful as a minion wave is not necessarily a bad thing if your team is winning team fights.

First I grab one point in stun to ensure survival in lane. Escapes are made easier if someone is stunned, and also early kills are secured easier with stuns.

I grab one point early in Zenith Blade to allow early harassing from the bushes. Most effective way to shut down an AD Carry is harassment from the support. Also if your lane partner is too passive to come up and engage, the stun will allow you to escape without taking too much damage.

I max Eclipse first because it allows me to sustain in lane while also providing a nice bit of AOE damage and marks on all enemies hit by the AOE so that killing the enemy team is much easier. I max Shield of Daybreak because it is guaranteed damage while Zenith strike is a skill shot. If you are really good with skill shots you can probably be just as efficient with putting two points in Shield of Daybreak then maxing out Zenith Strike.

While it might seem like an incomplete build the last two slots are really late game, so depending on who your team needs to focus you could change your last few slots in the build. Usually I build a sunfire cape and finish off with a frozen heart, but if you want to stack more MR (I don't recommend because if your team is smart you will have 2 runic bulwarks and already have 90 MR + Runes). I prefer to go with Aegis of the Legion first as a rush item because it allows a high advantage to the AD Carry with the armor and health regen buffs. I then pursue Randuins because it allows me to get really tanky really fast and also the item effects are really nice when chasing or escaping. Finally I pick up Zeke's if the team needs to trade and sustain longer in team fights, but usually I won't get that far into the build.

I prefer to build AD Tank simply because I can always throw in a combo of items such as AOE Sheen + Atmas, Warmogs + Atmas, Sunfire Cape + Atmas, or really any combination of health and damage. If you go the AP Tank route you can always use Rylai's Scepter and then scale that way, however your tanky side will take a while to build up as AP items are generally more difficult to complete with little to no farm.

DONT ALWAYS USE THIS BUILD, USE IT WHEN THE SITUATION IS RIGHT AND YOU NEED TO TANK DAMAGE NOT MAGIC.