We knew a little bit about Leona thanks to Riot’s presence at E3, but most of that information was speculative, pending some internal playtesting. It looks like the League’s first female tank is nearing completion, so Riot has released a preview of her mechanics.
It sounds like Leona is going to be a crowd control bot – she has a low cooldown stun, a skillshot gap closer, and a defensive stance. She doesn’t have a traditional taunt or positioning skill like Alistar or Rammus, but apparently uses fairly sizable damage to encourage players to either get out of her way or focus skills on her in a fight.
Here’s the official word from Morello:
Leona does this by providing a low-cooldown, low-duration, single-target stun with a skillshot gap-closer to start. After she closes the gap to the enemy, she’ll be performing regular single-target stuns that really disrupt the fight or peel off a target from an ally once a fight has begun. Additionally, she has a defensive stance that allows her to soak up punishment pretty effectively and also discharges a wave of sunlight outward that causes significant damage. This mechanic acts as a sort of “soft taunt” that causes her to have some threat when she’s about to unleash a big chunk of damage, and makes her an attractive target.
Finally, her passive, Sunlight, causes all of Leona’s spells to debuff the target, causing the next attack from an ally to do additional damage. This really encourages Leona to mark high-priority targets and let her set up opportunities for her teammates. Her power increases with the length of the fight, a common tank trait (like Singed’s Poison Trail or Amumu’s Despair, for example).
I’m guessing her ultimate has some sort of channel component, something sort of like a Nunu ult, though maybe more mobile. It would encourage players to save a stun for her or stay out of her range, which pretty much achieves the taunt function. I’m definitely glad to see a pure tank instead of the tanky DPS that has been filling the role. I just hope she doesn’t deal too much damage.
Posted in: Champions, league of legends, News
Tags: fire mage, fire tank, leona, leona ablities, leona mechanics, leona radiant dawn, leona skills, sun tank
I’ve spent a lot of my time in this game begging people to buy wards.
This toon sounds interesting; I’m eager to see her ult. But the “charge up over time and then blow up stuff” mechanic sounds like it’ll blow up lanes that don’t ward.
Lol, I wondered where you were going with that
Haha well it’s true; and I’ve seen games where people responded to you saying “get wards please, they’re ganking you hard” with a terse “stfu noob;” she sounds like a toon that’d capitalize on that
Or the “don’t tell me how to play scrub”.
Lane tanks don’t really have a place in our current metagame unless they can go solo top. Since she appears to be the traditional tank, I don’t think she’ll be able to 1v2 or solo top consistently like Jarvan or Cho’gath can.
Hopefully with Leona we can have the metagame shift back to traditional roles and places in lane for tanks to go. I’d like to see junglers be more of gankers than a spot to play the tank so he doesn’t get in the way.