Supporting and YOU: Leona the Radiant Dawn

Hey all and welcome to my very first guide! I have decided to do a guide on my favourite support and my main when I first started playing League of Legends; Leona!

Leona hasn’t got a lot of competitive screen time, even though we did see her a little bit in the season 3 and the start of the season 4 LCS. However, she has been shadowed by Morgana mostly who is now seen as a counter to the all in champions like Thresh.

So does this mean she has fallen out of contention? NO!

I think she is extremely strong and can easily carry a lane and a game. I guess one of the only issues that people find with her is that she is very all in which can be risky, especially if you miss her ultimate.

So what does Leona bring to the game?

Leona brings in a great way to initiate on a target with her E: Zenith Blade and stunning a high priority target like a Marksman or AP Carry to allow your team to jump in and blow them up and then the rest of the team. You can also choose to initiate with her ultimate R: Solar Flare but I will cover that in the abilities section of this guide.

Apart from great initiation and a huge tanky front line, Leona provides a lot of peel for her team and Marksman too. In the current meta of big top lane tanks that can dive onto your carry and AP assassins being fairly strong in the mid lane with AD assassins such as Talon showing prominence, being able to provide a tremendous amount of peel for your carries with keep them alive and keep them dishing out a tonne of damage.

Let’s take a look at her abilities…

Passive: Sunlight – Damaging spells afflict enemies with Sunlight for 3.5 seconds. When allied champions deal damage to those targets, they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal additional magic damage.
Q: Shield of Daybreak – Leona Uses her shield to perform her next basic attack, dealing bonus magic damage and stunning the target.
W: Eclipse – Leona raises her shield to gain Armour and Magic Resistance. When the duration first ends, if there are nearby enemies, she will deal magic damage to them and prolong the effect.
E: Zenith Blade – Leona projects a solar image of her sword, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a line. When the image fades, the last enemy champion struck will be briefly immobilised and Leona will dash to them.
R: Solar Flare – Leona calls down a beam of solar energy, dealing damage to enemies in an area. Enemies in the centre of the area are stunned, while enemies on the outside are slowed.

The laning phase and ability use.
Okay, so this is where I may differ from other Leona players or just general guide on Leona. Most people would say to start with her E at level 1 however, I disagree with this. Yes while this offers an opportunity to dive in on top of your opposing laners and get in the face of champions such as Thresh, I personally don’t think it is the best choice.

I start with her Q for level 1 laning phase as this allows me to get right up in the face of the enemy. It deals a lot more damage than her E and it helps to use the stacks of Relic Shield if you choose to use that starting item. I find as well that especially in the lower ELOs and even in some of the higher ones I have played against, people get a bit unnerved by a champion standing right in their face and stunning them whenever possible. Like I said above it deals more damage than her E and applies her Passive allowing your Marksman to deal some extra damage to them. I use this early on to harass out the enemy support from to gain bush control which is really important for Leona early on.

If you are able to push out the support and even deny them from placing any wards in the bush then the lane can be yours almost from the start. Face checking for them will become dangerous as you can insta-Q to the face and your Marksman will (hopefully) follow up with some nice damage.

Out of laning phase and teamfights

This is the part where your kit comes into play. If your team is ahead then feel free to blow all your abilities in a team fight, however if you’re behind may I suggest holding onto a Q or even R till later on in the teamfight. Doing so will either help peel for your retreating team if the teamfight went bad or it will turn a bad teamfight around. If you decide to initiate I think the best course is going in with E and trying to land a Q stun on either the Marksman, AP carry or the team initiator. This will apply your passive allowing your team to get an extra burst of damage and melt them.

There are certain situations that this won’t happen though… With champions such as Tristana, Corki, Lucia, Ezreal that can jump away from you, it will be harder to smash them in the face with your Q. Don’t let this deter you however as you can still E into a team, if they jump out, that is their escape down…

PERFECT.
ULLTTIIMMATTTE!!

Your ultimate can be used from a fairly decent range and it will allow you to lock down the target from afar with their escape down. These are ideal situations but of course not everything goes that way.

Finally…Itemisation.
Item builds on Leona are fairly straight forward and generally come down to your team comp and the enemy too. Generally I like to start with Relic Shield as it gives you so much tankiness from early on especially with your E.

My build generally looks like this:

Obviously you want to build items that best serve your team and what will be most effective against your enemies.

To explain the boots choices: I like to get Boots of Mobility early on to roam and make plays across the map and try to make plays in other lanes and even the jungle. However, if the enemy is ahead or they come with a tonne of CC I prefer to go for Mercury's Treads or if they have high or all AD then Ninja Tabi. I generally switch to one of these later on anyway when the enemy starts to get more damage.

I love the combo of the Face of the Mountain and Locket of the Iron Solari. The shields that this gives you and your team mates are unreal and can save lives. Literally.

My final other "quirky" choice is sunfire cape. You are diving into the enemy and dumping magic damage onto them, why not rbing some more? Another option for this reason (even though I do not include it) is Thornmail. This is especially affective against AD Assassins.

Almost forgot…runes and masteries.

I feel supports can generally run most things depending on the champion. However with Leona I go full tanky with some points in the Utility tree:

This is my adaptation however feel free to experiment and find the best fit for you. This is how I have been playing Leona since I first picked her up and I will continue to play her like this into the future, unless there are some major changes!

Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to read this guide, I hope that at least some of you have found it useful! This is my first guide here and if you did enjoy it then I will surely do more in the future!