How do you play Leona support?

Question

Been trying Leona support lately and every game I play ends up in a loss with my adc feeding the enemy.

Btw is it ok to get kills with support? We all know EDward does it.

Answer 1

Leona excels as an aggressive support, but she is prone to dying due to her having to go all-in to do anything. Here are a few tips for Leona:

Laning Advice

• As Leona, aim for bush control. Consider starting with a Vision Ward; my starting items on Leona tend to be Rejuvenation Bead, 2x Health Potion, 2x Sight Ward, and a Vision Ward. By maintaining bush control, you keep the enemy laners on their toes, worrying about when you may strike.

• Assert lane dominance. If you are confident about being able to take the enemy's poke, walk up to them a bit to scare them off. Try not to do this unless you have all three skills though in case you get into a sticky situation (or in case you find an opening to engage!).

• Engage intelligently. If you find both yourself and your carry at Level 2 while one or both of the enemies is still Level 1, strongly consider engaging; you will have the upper hand. If you miss this window of opportunity, look again at Level 3 (when you have all abilities) and Level 6 (when you have your ult).

• Absorb skillshots. It's usually better if you take the enemy Ezreal's Mystic Shot instead of your carry, since you should have higher health and regeneration, at least in the early game. It's even better if you can take a Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab — it's like a free E in!

• Don't be scared of taking kills. Ideally, your carry will get every kill. However, your W deals a deceptively high amount of damage at higher ranks; don't beat yourself up if you accidentally take one. In addition, if your carry is dead or is otherwise unable or unlikely to take the kill, don't be afraid of taking it! It's probably better for you to take the kill and have some extra gold for that Sightstone than it is to let them get away.

General Advice

• Delay picking your first skill. You should typically take either Shield of Daybreak (Q) or Zenith Blade (E) first, the other of the two second, and Eclipse (W) third, prioritising your Solar Flare (R) and your W. Take E first if you find yourself in a Level 1 teamfight where multiple enemies may be hit by your Zenith Blade; otherwise, if nothing happens and you just go into lane normally, take Q.

• Be willing to sacrifice yourself for your carry. Once Leona gets off her E and R, she becomes significantly less useful. At this point, if the enemies have kill potential on your carry, consider leading them away from your carry to have yourself killed instead. However, be careful about this: do not sacrifice yourself if your carry will surely die, nor should you sacrifice yourself if your carry is likely to live.

• Do not E in every time. Sometimes it's better to stay in the back line.

• Do not be afraid to ult. Leona's Solar Flare has a relatively short cooldown. You don't always need to use it aggressively; you can use it as zone control to stop or delay enemies from chasing you.

• Try to stun-lock. If you happen to catch onto their carry with your Zenith Blade, follow up immediately with a Shield of Daybreak (Q) to stun, then centre Solar Flare on the carry. This will lock them up for almost 3 seconds, which is plenty of time for your team to blow them up.

• Be familiar with your passive. Leona's passive, Sunlight, allows her team to do additional magic damage onto the tagged targets. This can be useful for taking Dragon. Since Sunlight does not stack, try to not blow all your abilities at once if it can be avoided, especially against Dragon and Baron. Instead, apply a stack of Sunlight onto the target, wait for a teammate to proc it, and then apply another. This really helps with burning down the high HP. Caveat: if enemies are approaching, leave your skills unused in case they attempt to engage a fight.

• Know whether you need to initiate or peel.

  • If your team comp has nobody to start fights, you may be expected to initiate. In this case, consider building Randuin's Omen. Position yourself in the front line, and when the time is right, either use your Solar Flare or your Zenith Blade to initiate. When you Zenith Blade into the enemy team, use Randuin's Omen to decrease their damage output.
  • Alternatively, if your team already has initiation, you should be a peeler. In this case, build more support-oriented items like Locket of the Iron Solari (which fits thematically as well :D) and stay near your carries. If any threats approach, dissuade them with your Q and your R.

Above all else, practice! With time, you'll notice yourself getting better and better.

Answer 2

In lane, you primarily have two jobs:

• Jump on the enemy and stun them until they die. The key is that you must do this only when your team is actually likely to win the resulting engagement. Making that sort of judgement can be extremely difficult and is mostly a result of experience, but in general you're looking for some combination of these factors:
  • They have low health, you don't.
  • Their cool downs (particularly escapes and summoner spells) are down and your team's are not.
  • One of them is isolated; your AD could be in range much sooner than their partner, giving you a 2v1 for a short amount of time.
  • Their jungler is not near
  • Your jungler is near
• Threaten to do the above. Even if they're playing too cautiously for you to have a chance to actually go in, you still exert a sort of pressure, so try to be as threatening as possible (without actually putting yourself in undue danger). This means control the bushes, try to keep them away from your minions and so on. If they can't farm because they're afraid of you, you still win the lane without a single kill.

As for taking kills, your ultimate goal is to get your carries more kills, and so you should back off if the enemy is clearly going to die. However, if you think they might get away, or they might otherwise kill one of your team before they go down, then definitely you should risk taking the kill yourself- remember, assist gold is 70% of the killer's award. People who talk about 'killstealing' are generally just being childish.

Note that this does not mean you should actively be trying to take the kill for yourself rather than have another team member get it- rather that it's okay that occasionally you'll accidentally get the kill because you were both attacking the enemy and your hit happened to be the last.