Season 6 Orianna Guide – Patch 6.18 – League of Legends

In League of Legends, champions fall in and out of meta fairly regularly. With the meta consistently changing, it’s almost impossible to be well practiced on every champion for every role. However, there are some champions that you’ll always be able to pick in solo queue no matter what the meta is. If you’re looking to climb League of Legends solo queue ladder, you’ll want to start practicing Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork.

Personally, I believe that everyone (no matter what role you main) should learn Orianna.

Why? 

For a few reasons:

• She’s a great pick into almost every team composition.
• Has a safe laning phase and mild counters. 
• And the most important reason, you learn positioning and spacial awareness.

Abilities

Skill Max Order: R>Q>W>E

Q – Command: Attack

This is Orianna’s main ability to freely reposition her ball to any area around her. When moved through enemy units it will deal damage. The damage will decrease by 10% for each enemy hit, up to 40%. If you have Orianna’s ball in the wrong position, you will get punished in some way. 

Quick Tips:  

• Your Q is on a low cooldown (especially when maxing it first), so remember to consistently reposition your ball to harass your enemy in lane and zone them from minions and experience.
• Once you have a couple levels into Q, you can kill the caster minion wave with two Q’s, which will cost less mana than using one W. 
• The ball grants vision, so before facechecking a bush, remember to move your ball through it first to check if the area is safe.

W – Command: Dissonance

Command: Dissonance once activated, creates a circular pulse around the ball’s location dealing damage to everything around it. You cannot freely control where this ability will be activated, as it will always be cast around the ball so you always have to be aware of the balls positioning.

Quick Tips:

• The pulse creates a field around it that slows enemies and speeds up allies. Keep this in mind if you need to speed up an ally to help them secure a kill, or slow an enemy to help an ally escape.
• A safe way to proc thunderlords in lane and trade with your opponent is AutoAttack-Q-W, then shield yourself with E right after to minimize the amount of damage you may recieve in return.

E – Command: Protect

Command: Protect will shield yourself or an ally on cast, and move the ball to follow the target. Additionally, if the ball passes through enemies on the way to shield your target, it will deal a small amount of damage to them. 

Quick Tips:

• You can shield allies and your abilities will be used around them, since the ball will follow them upon cast. 
• A great way to combo Orianna’s ult is with the shield. There are many champions who have an easy time getting to the enemy team. Example: Shielding Malphite while he ults into the enemy team will allow you to get a nasty wombo combo ultimate off yourself. 

R – Command: Shockwave

Upon cast, the ball will windup for a brief moment then pull everyone caught towards the middle of the ball. After using your ult, use Command: Dissonance and Command: Attack right after to deal massive area of effect damage to everyone you caught with the shockwave.

Quick Tips:

• To make a flashy play, you can shockwave first, THEN flash onto an enemy to catch them in a very surprising shockwave. Note: You’ll probably want to try this in a custom or normal game first; not a ranked.

Item Builds

Standard Build

In most cases, this is the build you’ll want to follow. Start Doran’s Ring, and you’ll want to rush a Morello’s to help with mana problems and cooldown reduction. As your second item, you’ll want to grab a Needlessly Large Rod item – Rabadon’s Deathcap, Luden’s Echo, or Rylai’s Crystal Scepter. Personally, I prefer grabbing a Rabadon’s as you typically use a whole combo very quickly, meaning that multiple abilities benefit from the added AP Deathcap provides, and you’ll use all your abilities before you will get a second Luden’s proc.

Build vs AP Assassin’s

This is the type of build you’ll want to take when vsing someone like Leblanc or Syndra. Grabbing an early Catalyst/Negatron Cloak in lane will help greatly to survive lane phase. Note: Your damage really won’t kick in until your Rod of Ages starts stacking and you have an Abyssal Scepter. 

Build vs AD Assassins or Fizz

Grabbing a very early Seeker’s Armguard then rushing a Zhonya’s Hourglass is pretty much essential vs Zed, Yasuo, or Talon. It allows you to trade with them more effectively as you’ll take less damage. The reason why it’s mandatory against Fizz is that when Fizz land’s his shark on you, he will use his trickster to land on you the same time that the shark comes up. With a well timed Zhonya’s, you can block the damage from Fizz’s shark and his trickster and he’ll be right in your vicinity allowing you to trade very aggressively back to him. 

Masteries

You’ll want to go 12/18/0, making sure to grab Thunderlords in the Cunning tree, and Oppressor in the Ferocity tree as the last slots. Thunderlords is the best mastery for Orianna as you can easily trade in lane and proc it every time it’s available. Also, when you catch someone in your ultimate, you can easily just W and Q after to proc it.

There are one or two masteries that you can switch around for personal preference. For example, you can switch Feast for Expose Weakness if you do not need the extra sustain in lane, as Expose Weakness will allow your team do deal more damage. Typically, you’ll want to keep it as this setup. 

Runes

If you have limited rune pages and do not have the IP for multiple pages or runes, you can never go wrong with this standard AP Page. Ability Power Glyphs, Magic Pen Reds, Armor Yellows, and Magic Resist Blues.

Another option here is to swap the Armour Yellows for either Flat HP, or Scaling HP, whichever you prefer. Scaling HP evens out with Flat HP at level 6. This is only advised if you’re versing a team comp that has an AP Mid and AP Jungler.

Thanks for reading! Here’s a quick summary for reference.

Skill order: R>Q>W>E. Make sure to use your Q to harrass/zone enemies in lane. Q gives vision. All your damage is AoE. You can R then flash to surprise someone. You’re usually pretty good to bring standard everything (quickly see everything above for a quick example). Always bring thunderlords.