Janna is an incredibly powerful support with great babysitting and peeling potential that scales very well into the late game. Although she may seem like a straightforward champion when compared to other popular supports, such as thresh or lulu, her kit has hidden depth that allows her to have very few true counters. I started playing Janna at the start of season 3 and at that point I was totally clueless. Now with over 130 ranked games on her, I feel as though I am qualified enough to write a guide on how to play her correctly.

The runes I take on Janna provide 12 Magic resist, 9 Armor, 3% Movement speed and 10 Ability power. Many Janna players take mana regeneration runes however I find it to be rather redundant as it is easy to itemise and Janna's large base mana pool is forgiving early on with correct ability usage in lane. Ability power is a good stat on Janna because all of her abilities scale with AP and Movespeed quints synergise well with her kit.

The masteries are fairly typical 0-9-21 masteries that provide good utility whilst giving some defensive stats.

Out of the 3 items spanning from 500-800g, being the Nomad's medallion, Forbidden idol, and Sightstone, which is best to get first off?

When playing against a lane with high burst and all in potential such as a Braum/Leona, rushing sightstone is a good option. This gives you essentially free wards to make sure that you can see when the enemy support wishes to initiate. Sightstone also gives you additional health in order survive their all in. As a rule of thumb, these supports start with a Relic shield.

When playing against a poke oriented lane, you will want to use your Eye of the Storm more than in any other lane. Supports such as Nami/Sona are poke reliant and to counter this purchasing an early Forbidden idol is optimal. They're less likely to all in you and as such the early mana regeneration and cooldown reduction are very useful stats. As a rule of thumb, these supports often start with Spellthief's edge.

When laning is quite safe (without too much poke/all in potential), getting an early Nomad's medallion is the best course of action. It gives you some mana regeneration however, the increased passive gold generation is far more useful in this sort of lane. As a rule of thumb, rush this when the enemy support starts ancient coin.

Tailwind:

Tailwind, Janna's passive, gives her and all allied champions within an 1000 range radius movement speed buff equal to 5%. I would consider this to be one of the best passives of any support, as it helps greatly both to peel and to help your team mates secure a kill. Generally speaking, try to keep your ADC within its radius at all times (including on the way to lane to minimize potentially lost gold and experience).

Howling gale:

Janna's Q ability, Howling gale, is a really strong piece of hard CC (crowd control) that is both useful in peeling and when trying to catch an enemy player out of position. By pressing Q, Janna charges up a tornado at her current location ready to be activated in the direction of your target. By pressing Q again, or after 3 seconds, the tornado is sent out as a linear skillshot. It is important to note that the longer the tornado is charged, the further it will travel, the longer it will knockup and the more damage it will deal. This ability can be used to help push the wave for your ADC and also to zone the enemy from receiving creeps or even experience.

Knowing when and how to use this ability separates a good Janna from an amazing one, potentially nullifying the effect of the enemy support throughout the entirety of the laning phase or ruining the enemy jungler's gank. Unlike a stun, a knockup can interrupt many dashes or gap closers. In most cases, this not only uses their cooldowns but also often stops the associated CC. This leaves many melee champions at the mercy of you and your ADC's ranged damage if timed correctly. Abilities such as Shyvana's Dragon's descent, Leona's Zenith blade, Tristana's Rocket jump, Lee sin's Resonating strike or Safeguard, Wukong's Nimbus strike, and Xin zhao's Audacious charge may be interrupted. With a bit of game experience, the use of such abilities are generally predictable. As such, game experience and good reaction times are needed to maximise the potential of this ability.

Zephyr:

Janna's W ability, Zephyr, is a strong targeted slow that also passively gives Janna movement speed when not on cooldown.

It's low cost and strong slow % means that it can be used often in lane in order to help land an effective Howling gale. Due to its passive ability, it is often better to not use the ability when being chased by multiple enemies. If one enemy is much faster than the others, or is simply closer than the others, cast your Zephyr on that enemy. An udyr is an example of a champion with high movement speed that you should use this ability on over others.

Eye of the storm:

Janna's Eye of the storm is, in my opinion, the best part of her kit. It not only shields your target by a large amount, but it also gives them bonus AD (attack damage). At rank 5, it gives your carry an extra 50 AD which is the equivalent of a B.F. Sword (which is worth 1800g for its active duration). It is for this reason that you should max this ability first. It may also be used on towers and allows you to effectively hold lane 2v1 if your ADC has to back in laning phase or to protect against sieges. This allows Janna to gain a kill if an enemy dies tower diving her.

Eye of the storm is incredibly useful when trading in lane and brilliant to increase the damage of your carry or anyone with strong AD ratios on their abilities. Use this ability early on in laning when either you or your ADC wants to trade an auto attack. Generally speaking, if you shield your ADC before they receive an auto attack and they auto attack the enemy ADC afterwards the shield will not be broken. This almost always means that you will win the trade even if your ADC has lower range/AD than their carry. Even if your ADC does not trade an auto attack, using Eye of the storm to allow your ADC to get a creep will become worth it in the long run especially if your ADC scales well into the late game. It is by using this ability that a good Janna can win against poke lanes by timing her shield correctly and winning trades.

Out of laning, this ability can be used both to reduce the damage your jungler takes from a camp and helps them clear it faster. Because a shield behaves like health, allies with high armor and magic resist make the most efficient usage of the shield. Also, because it gives your target additional AD it is incredibly useful on champions with high AD ratios. Champions such as Kha'zix, Riven, and Jarvan IV make very good use of this bonus AD. I often shield a bruiser/tank with good AD ratios first in a team fight and then shield my ADC as they begin to output damage. By this stage (also depending on your team composition), you are likely to have built ardent censor which applies a 6 second AS (attack speed) buff to any shielded or healed target other than yourself. Because of this, your shield not only gives an AD buff but also an AS buff. Many melee champions benefit from additional AS much like ADCs such as Shyvana, Darius and any jungler that purchases feral flare including Master Yi.

Monsoon:

Monsoon, Janna's ultimate, is a game making (or breaking!) ability that heals all allies for 3 seconds and knocks back all enemies in a radius of 725 units. This is probably the best peeling ability in the entire game and now casts instantly (it used to have a slight delay prior to season 4) making it much more forgiving to use. Because it functions as a heal, it will activate the passive of Ardent censer potentially giving your entire team a 25% AS buff for a total of 9 seconds.

Janna can use Monsoon to save an ally from an otherwise certain death with the potential to knock back all 5 enemy players and the constant heal AoE (area of effect) heal. Quickly casting it and cancelling it by right clicking is a good way of quickly disengaging an unfavourable fight although using it for its full duration allows your allies to gain an advantage in a teamfight. By using janna's Howling gale and then flashing in front of your enemy and casting Monsoon, you can execute a fancy combo that leaves the enemy out of position. This can be used to push enemies into your tower or fountain for an easy kill. Because Janna is rather squishy and her ultimate can be cancelled by any form of hard CC, it is best to stand in the backlines of your team next to your ADC ready to use this ability. This gives your allies the chance to back out of the fight with the extra health they will receive and allows you to peel for your ADC. If you need to, you can cast exhaust whilst channelling her ultimate for further peeling. Janna's ultimate, just like Janna's Howling gale, can be used to interrupt a dash or a gap closer. Using it at the correct time not only heals your ally, but can also ensure their immediate safety. There is no greater sense of satisfaction than saving your ADC by an excellently timed ultimate to help win a teamfight.

When levelling up abilities on Janna, the skill order is generally Monsoon>Eye of the storm>Howling gale>Zephyr although some players like to use the skill order of Monsoon>Eye of the storm>Zephyr>Howling gale. I prefer to max Howling gale over Zephyr as it provides Janna's best CC ability (apart from her ultimate) with a shorter cooldown giving her maximum disengage potential mid game. This however requires mana regeneration (even if it is easy to itemise) as the mana cost of her Howling gale is rather high at higher ranks. The argument for maxing her Zephyr before her Howling gale is that the extra passive movement speed buff is useful and the slow amount at higher levels is also rather potent. It also has a lower mana cost than maxing Howling gale first. It is important to note that Janna's Howling gale will function in the exact same way regardless of its rank and will knockup for the same duration.

My 5 favourite lane partners for Janna are Draven, Vayne, Caitlyn, Quinn and Lucian. By shielding them as they use their high AD ratio abilities and peeling, Janna enables these champions to be played to their fullest potential. Experiment by playing with other ADCs and you'll begin to understand how to play out each of your lanes. With Janna's superb versatility and the price of 1350IP/585RP she is a must have in any support player's arsenal!

Thank you for reading my first article and feel free to ask any questions that you may have!