Talk:Leona/@comment-3578129-20141222094343/@comment-8506165-20150116122252

Okay, an answer from someone who hates Leona with a burning passion:

Against Leona, you cannot make a mistake. Ever. Didn't dodge E? If you're squishy, you're probably dead, or at the very least you've lost a huge chunk of health. Did she E your lane partner? Can you interrupt it? If you fail at interrupting Zenith Blade, they're probably dead, unless you can get her carry CC'd immediately. Or if you're Morgana with good reflexes on Black Shield. Sitting under your turret just trying to farm because they've got the edge? She's going to use that R at some point because she can dive ridiculously early with W, and if you don't dodge the stun then again, you're probably dead. This is fun, isn't it?

This doesn't just extend to your defense. Land a CC on the enemy carry? Think it's a good time to go in? Beware - one of Leona's specialties is engaging back, and engaging back harder. Even if you hit a perfect Sona ult/Thresh hook/whatever, if Leona lays both her CCs on your ADC then they can probably win the fight even though you shot first.

That said if you do manage to dodge every E/R or cockblock her engage every time she tries for one, she won't be able to do much. She'll just kind of stand there and maybe spam /dance. And a non-snowballed Leona isn't that scary: probably still too strong given how ludicrous her early game is, but she will have failed in her one job.

If you can lay poke onto her, great, but it's not as effective as people make out because 1) her health regen is bonkers (nerfed once, practically reverted in 4.20), 2) she'll just W if you really manage to go ham on her while her E is down and mitigate a huge chunk of your damage and 3) the two support items she buys give her health for either whacking a minion every so often or just standing around while her carry CSes. So yeah, dat counterplay potential. If you can lay enough down (which is a pretty huge amount, if I remember rightly you have to do 100 damage to Leona within a minute at level 1 just to cancel out her regen, never mind Relic Shield procs or health pots) then you can look towards actually snowballing over her, but I would not count on it. And whatever you do don't go ham trying to poke her - you just get yourself out of position and E and R have sufficient range to catch most people using their poke abilities. And then you're dead again. Notice a pattern yet?

tl;dr: like NeonSpotlight I hate her, think she's currently OP, but there are ways to deal with her provided you don't screw up ever. Kind of gotta learn them seeing as Riot seem determinedly turn a blind eye to her, and as she's often picked and rarely banned.

also pick Alistar if you're in draft, he's probably the easiest counter as you just headbutt her or her ADC away when she engages and he's super tanky so he can actually survive some of her shit. Morgy takes good reflexes on E and a good Leona can still bait it, Janna needs to be quick enough with Q to interrupt E, ditto Thresh with Flay. Alistar's just the easiest one imo.

Zyra is a weird one because she's one of the few people with the sheer amount of poke required to actually make Leona flinch, but she's also got super low MS and some of the worst base health, so she can easily get deleted. I would only recommend her if you're experienced.