(OUTDATED) How I play Janna

An in-depth analysis and guide on how I manage to play one of the champions that majority of League players underestimate.

that this is my post; therefore the content of this post will be based on my personal experience. Feel free to comment, positive or negative, but overly toxic, childish comments will be deleted to avoid conflict.

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･✧･✧･Table of Contents･✧･✧･

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♧Introduction♧

♡The Synergies/Mismatches♡

◇The Runes/Skill Paths/Summoners◇

◇The Builds◇

♤The Early Game♤

♤The Mid and Late Game♤

♧Closing Remarks♧

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Introduction

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Janna is a control that turns into a heavy CC if you know how to do her combos well enough. I will not be explaining her kit because for one, you could do it yourself, and two, learning how to use her kit effectively requires invested time on Janna which is something you have to do yourself.

Janna is beginner friendly. Understanding HOW to use her abilities should be easy enough for any player of any skill level; although understanding WHEN to use her abilities [releasing Q earlier] is what I [personally] think separates the “meh” Janna’s from the “how the fu-“ Janna’s.

Just like any other champion (or anything in life actually) you will not get any better with her unless you invest your time on learning her. This means understanding her potential, ing your healing and shielding values, knowing when to poke, and so on.

I hope by the end of this guide, you would have developed an interest in Janna and maybe add her to your champion pool. Seriously though, she is ridiculously fun to play, especially if you get to pull off keeping your entire team alive after a full clash. Satisfactory level 100 guaranteed.

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The Synergies and Mismatches

I have to emphasize the fact that the champions you are about to see under this part of the blog is based on my personal experience and completely biased on that alone. Please do try to respect my choices as I have had experiences with all champions shown.

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In an attempt to explain in a general form, any carry that is poke heavy, relies on auto attacks, or has any form of CC is a good pair for Janna. Poke carries pair well with her W, AA carries pair well with her E and carries with CC pair well with her Q and W.

Ezreal, Kai'sa and Caitlyn would be my best picks to pair with Janna because the trio has the highest potential to shred the opposing duo 100 to 0 if played correctly. Ashe is an honorable mention due to her ive, which allows you to land your Q easily with help from your W for a lockdown.

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I will tackle champions with the glare to shed some light as to why I consider these the highest threat when I play Janna.

Sivir is a huge pain in the ass because of her spell shield. If you are running Comet as your runestone, it gets irritating when she is able to cancel your poke with W if she is fast enough, and even if she is just delayed by a few seconds, she still cancels out the additional poke damage from Comet thus nullifying your keystone. You basically funnel mana to her and you do not get gold procs from spellthief's edge.

Naturally, Janna should be able to counter Pyke, but I just do not see how that is true. Sure, maybe if the Pyke is braindead, then obviously you would win that machup. But a good Pyke will just outplay and catch you empty handed for the majority of the laning phase. You cannot choose to focus him because his carry will be able to free hit on you and your own carry and he just regenerates his health when hidden. It is still a winnable lane, but ridiculously frustrating.

Alistar is honestly not a big threat if you know how to counter his engage. He still makes it difficult for me in some games because I cannot read the movement of Alistar. I do not play against a lot of Alistar's which is practically the reason why I still have trouble with this matchup. Ultimately, this just boils down to a skill matchup, and whoever gets to bait out the Q of the other first, wins.

The others should be obvious as to why I have put them there. Long disables, chain CC's, tankier, ridiculous damage, etc. I did not include Morgana in the list as she is my permaban on ranked. That should explain her standing for me.

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The Runes, Skill Paths and Summoners

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And this is my recommended Skill Path for these Runes:

This setup is mainly for learning how Janna works with her shield, the value of her shield, and being able to maximize her protective nature. I personally use this if the opposing duo has way more early kill pressure.

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And this is my recommended Skill Path for these Runes:

Quick explanation: the reason why I put an extra point on Q at lv10 is mainly to dish out a bit more damage in the mid game. It is not that much of a factor, but sometimes I end up being the last person alive after a clash and the additional 5% AP:damage ratio helps me in said scenario.

Arcane Comet is what I normally run as Janna due to the fact that when you hit your Q or W on the enemy, it is a surefire way to get additional poke since your autos do not deal much damage until you get to ramp up your W. This is also the best rune setup [in my opinion] to practice being more aggressive with Janna once you have gotten more comfortable with how she protects her carry with her E.

Kleptomancy on the other hand is when I know I can get free poke against the enemy duo, or when I have to rush items whenever the enemy team is stronger in team fighting. I do not recommend this setup for people that are not 100% comfortable with Janna as you lose general poke damage in the early game. This is a setup you would want to run only if you have gotten familiar with how she works and knowing what her limits are in the early game.

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The Builds

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No matter what setup I am running, I always start with Spellthief's Edge, 2 potions and a warding trinket. After that, you aim for your first item:

If you get to linger in lane long enough without running out of mana or rather dying because of over aggression, the ideal back is achievable. You can adjust the Forbidden Idol to whatever your team needs first, but I normally rush Ardent since it is such a good buy for Janna in general.

If there are no tragic moments in the game for my team, I normally build into this. Redemption and Locket are more than enough for team fights, Ardent for the bonus attack speed and Unholy Grail to push out a bit more healing from your shields.

This build path is what I go for in full premades. The goal of this build is to throw out as much skirmishes with your team as possible to gain a number advantage in team fights. I run this with exhaust to maximize the potential of our skirmishes.

When there are way too many assassins in the opposing team composition [and especially if they get fed] this is the build I go for. Sacrificing more healing and shielding for more damage given to whoever you're linked with through Zeke's, you rely heavily on your team to be able to wipe the opposing team fast enough to minimize casualties on your own.

It rarely happens, but when my carry is just a mong and does not know how to play at all, [or someone decided to lock Yasuo ADC] this is the build I go for. You gain additional survivability through Seraph's Embrace and try to put the weight of your carry on your own shoulders. Crucible to be a bit more useful in team fights and compensation since you would be using your shield for yourself a bit more; this works, trust me.

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The Early Game

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Once you get in the Rift, you have four things to keep in mind:

Stack your Manaflow Band runestone and Spellthief’s Edge as fast as possible.

Manaflow Band is the easiest rune to stack before 5 minutes provided that you go smart-aggressive when you choose your moments to poke with W and follow up with [at least] 1 auto; realistically speaking you could chunk out the 3 Spellthief procs once you throw out your first W.

The moment you get to use W, you have to watch your Spellthief stacks carefully. I often force myself to poke when it hits 2 stacks to avoid downtime on my income. The only downtime you should have is when you recall and make your way back to the lane; otherwise you are wasting your farm and will have a harder time to get your first item. to keep watch of your Manaflow Band cooldown as well since you want to stack that as fast as possible without having to recall early for mana. If you are running the Comet runestone, it is ideal to pair the two together whenever you throw out your W for maximum efficiency with stacking and poke.

Let there be light! Ward IN STRATEGIC LOCATIONS when you see an opportunity and buy control wards whenever you recall.

As Janna, you are naturally given an additional percentage of movement speed provided through your W accompanied with the celerity rune and your ive. This is the reason why I love Janna so much; warding is a lot faster and I am a lot more comfortable to go deeper into enemy territory as compared to other s, and even if you do get caught while warding, you have slightly higher move speed advantage to reposition yourself and use Q and E to save yourself.

If you are new to Janna, or maybe even new to ing in general, this would be the only time that dying for vision control is a valid reason. If you get caught while warding and you are not able to get out, that is fine. I want you to die as much as possible while warding AND analyze why you died in the first place. Is it because of your pathing? Wrong time to leave your lane? Was not paying attention to where the enemy jungler was? LEARN FROM YOUR DEATHS, it will help a lot with your pathing, ward placement and KDA.

With regards to early gank opportunities while venturing out to gain vision, Janna is also a great pick for an early 3v1 in mid; probably 8/10 times (I’m making a horrible statistic here, please forgive me) that you gank mid with your jungler and actually hit your fully charged Q on the enemy mid laner is converted to a kill.

Whenever you are in lane with your ADC, ALWAYS stay adjacent from them to ively create pressure on the opposing duo.

This should be applicable with any you use. The chances of the enemy duo going all in on you or your carry when you are adjacent from your own carry greatly diminishes. If you think about it, if you stay AFK in the brush or even stay behind your carry, they would have a window of opportunity to poke out your ADC with minimal threat of being punished for their decision. If you were adjacent or actually nearby and they still decided to take the small window, you would be able to at least even the grounds and turn their free poke into a fair trade.

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As Janna, this is very important to execute in the early game because of your Q. If they do all in with their jungler, a properly calculated and timed Q could catch them. In a situation like that, being able to catch all 3 would be tricky while in reality being able to catch at least 2 would suffice for both of you to get out in time. If you get lucky and any of the 3 decide to go full brain dead on you, shield yourself or your carry (whoever is being focused or is closer to death) and throw out your W. If you get the kill(s) then good for you, but if not, it is still a beneficial play for your entire team as you were able to remove the pressure created by the enemy team and turn it into gold on your side.

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You serve as the eyes for both you and your ADC; this includes smart pinging as well, and try to think ahead.

Your carry has enough to worry about, so it becomes your job to pay close attention to the mini map. If your mid, top laner and jungler wards well enough, you could catch a glimpse of the enemy jungler and be able to see his potential pathing. You get to ping whoever is threatened by the enemy jungler’s position and potentially save them from an unnecessary and ugly death.

Thinking ahead with Janna is a bit tricky if you are not used to the timer on her Q and how far it is able to travel. Your goal with Q for the most part is to be able to fully charge AND land it on the enemy. Landing your Q's consistently takes time and a higher level of foresight. The more you understand the build up and timer on your Q, the better you get with it, and the higher chances that you could make a play for your carry to follow up on. The cooldown timer on it at level 1 is disgustingly long, but being able to land it consistently adds up.

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The Mid and Late Game

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Games nowadays rarely go past the 30 minute mark and the things to keep in mind on both parts of the game are fairly the same, so I fused both in one.

There are only two things you have to keep in mind for the mid-late game:

Abuse your move speed advantage! Gain vision and clean their own.

This entirely depends on what build you are using. If you are using the high roam build then you have much more room for error. Even if you do get caught, it would be near impossible to catch you. If you are using the other builds however, you would need to pick your janitorial moments wisely. Dying for vision control is NEVER a valid reason! [Excused if you are new]

As you get comfortable with using Janna, you will start to notice how fast it takes for you to get from point A to B. Having this knowledge will allow you to slightly abuse vision control for your team a bit more. I also use myself as a roaming human ward on the lighter side of the map whenever no one shows up on the mini map. Chances are that someone is farming a camp or travelling through without ing by the warded areas and I do this because I know the limits of Janna.

During clashes, to change your focus depending on the situation.

Mid game is normally when I start going insane with Janna due to the fact that my mentality during clashes is “no one is going to die on my watch” which is a ridiculous thing to expect, especially if I am playing solo. Regardless, the recent change to Janna’s shield allows you to be a pest during clashes. As long as you hit your skills, the cooldown on your shield goes down allowing you to protect multiple targets at once IF you are able to maximize your potential with Q and R. Stopping aggro on the enemy team to reposition for a more effective Q is also something I often find myself doing, even if it means losing a member of the team for the current fight.

Pairing your actual shield with Locket of the Iron Solari and Redemption, your potential for protecting your entire team is monumentally high. I always find it satisfying to watch when I throw out Redemption paired with my R and see my entire team go from 20-70+% in health. Whoever is being focused by the enemy team is who I would normally protect, but I also throw out shields on any "foresight moments" I may have during a clash.

Bonus: Intentionally look for 1v1s to sharpen your skills.

I always do this at least once every game. It does not matter who I get to face, for as long as I can improve in an aspect that I find myself rusty at. Whenever you get to pull off a 1v1 against [example] Zed is actually really fun. Being able to pull off a 1v2 against [example] the enemy mid laner and carry is goosebumps factory. If you are able to pull off a 1v3 against whomever the hell, then you are actually a god on Janna in my opinion.

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The goal for this bonus objective is to improve how you handle high pressure moments in games as Janna. that you are using her for her huge “nope” potential, so capitalize on it whenever you have the opportunity!

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Closing Remarks

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Highlights:

Learn her protective nature

Learn her aggressive nature

Ward intelligently

Abuse your movement speed

Consistency is key for more shields

Learn from your mistakes

For f**k's sake, have a great time!

Janna is an amazing champion to add to your pool. If given to the right player, she could easily be the MVP of the match. Being able to save your teammates while at risk of being killed yourself but still managing to get out and potentially turn the fight in your favor is amazingly satisfying. Janna is by far, the most fun champion to play for me. I urge you to give her a try for real, study her a bit and I promise you loads of shitsngiggles.

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Sorry for the long post. If you did manage to read all of it, I would like to thank you for lending me your time! :blush:

#FlurffeeBlogs

Side note: Bard is the next I plan to pick up.

Sources: Game client, Phy, all photos personally edited by me and videos are my actual replays.

Posted July 12, 2019