The Ultimate League of Legends Janna Guide

Do not underestimate the gentle breeze for this might foretell the arrival of the raging storm. Janna has been one of the most popular enchanters in League of Legends which has kept many champions alive. As the ultimate protector, Janna is able to make even the most fragile champions durable in the face of the strongest champions in the game. In this Janna guide, we’ll be looking at the different ways beginners can learn about the best way to master this champion as their support of choice.

The Storm’s Fury & Gentle Breeze

For hundreds of years, the seafaring people of Zaun have believed that a wind spirit has kept them safe and delivered omens to prevent them from travelling through stormy seas. When the more ambitious modernists of Zaun decided to mess with the canal, a cataclysmic event caused the city to drown under debris and water. However, Janna manifested herself and protected a great portion of Zaun from the disaster… even though, not everyone survived that day.

Among all of the enchanters, Janna has seen a lot of popularity because of her ability to protect champions from harm. In this Janna guide, specifically, we’ll be talking about some of the popular uses that players used to do when playing this champion. When played professionally, she uses a lot of tactics that make it difficult for teams to engage onto the enemy or deal a lot of damage during a siege. While her popularity has gone down recently, she’s still one of the more timeless champions in the game.

Janna General Gameplay

Janna is an anti-engage support champion that tries to prevent enemies from walking into your team without punishing them significantly. She has a lot of protective abilities and can sustain her allies, especially during teamfight situations. On her own, she doesn’t do anything special but her mere presence makes the enemy think twice about whether to use all of their abilities in one go. This Janna guide will try to explain the best ways for beginners to abuse this playstyle.

Janna Guide: Skills and Abilities

Janna has a lot of abilities that help protect the ally from enemy aggression. She doesn’t like to play in the frontline so her abilities mostly rely on her being at the very back of the teamfight. Most enchanters like to play aggressively and try to harass the enemy bot lane using your range advantage. Our Janna guide on skills and abilities will explain how further.

Passive: Tailwind

Innate – Janna gains 8% bonus movement speed and grants the same amount to allied champions moving towards her.

Janna’s on-hits from attacks and Zephyr deal bonus magic damage equal to a percentage of her movement speed.

Tailwind allows Janna to have the positional advantage because of her ability to kite enemies and move towards a safer position during teamfights. While in lane, Janna should always position herself in a way that allows her to share her bonus MS with an ally attempting to do a gank. When running away, Janna should walk ahead of the allied champion so that she can share her passive bonus unless she needs to block incoming skillshots for her allied teammate.

Q: Howling Gale

Active – Janna summonds up a small tornado at her current location which she can charge up to 3 seconds, increasing the range, speed, damage, and knock up of the ability the longer she charges it up.

Janna can recast this ability anytime during the rotation to immediately send it towards a location.

Recast – Janna sends the tornado towards a direction over 1.5 seconds, dealing magic damage and knocking up all enemies hit by this ability depending on the duration that it was charged.

Howling Gale is Janna’s main CC ability but it’s one of the hardest skills to land in the game. Janna players should always be intuitive so that they know when to start charging up her ability. Try to time using this ability in-between phases when the Duo Partner in the bottom lane doesn’t have to catch some important CS like cannon minions so that when you land the ability, they’ll be able to follow up the play. Remember that you don’t have to charge it up to the full 3-seconds since it’s better to time it right and hit than charging it up just miss.

W: Zephyr

Passive – While Zephyr is available, Janna is ghosted and gains bonus movement speed.

Active – Janna summons an air elemental at the enemy target, dealing magic damage, and slowing them up to 99% for 2 seconds.

Zephyr is Janna’s main ability which she uses to harass the enemy and apply slow. This helps really well to set up Howling Gale since it’ll be more difficult to dodge this ability while they are slowed. Use this ability in lane often to bring the enemy ADC down a significant amount of HP since it has a really decent range when used inside the bush. When being chased by one or more units who are of equal distance, it’s better not to use this ability for the bonus movement speed instead.

E: Eye of the Storm

Active – Places a shield on a target allied champion, turret, or herself that decays over 5 seconds after the initial 0.75 seconds.

While the shield is active on the target, the target gains bonus attack damage.

Whenever Janna’s abilities slow or knock up one or more enemy champions, this ability’s cooldown is reduced by 20%.

Eye of the Storm is Janna’s main defensive ability. Always apply this onto an allied AD Carry or AD Assassin right before they attempt to go onto an enemy. This will not only protect them from a lot of damage but also give them extra damage to help burst down the enemy champion. Remember that you can use this ability to protect Turrets so that you can prevent the enemy champion from destroying your structures quickly which denies them bonus gold.

R: Moonsoon

Active – Janna unleashes a blast of air that surrounds her, knocking back all enemies up to 875 units depending on their proximity to Janna but doesn’t knock them through terrain.

After the blast, Janna creates an area of gentle winds which she channels up to 3 seconds, healing allies every 0.5 seconds.

This is an extremely useful ability that protects your teammates from harm. Make sure to time it well to knockback enemies when they’re trying to dive onto your team so that you either send them back or let them hit a wall. You can also use it offensively by flashing into the middle of the team to displace them all but this is a very risky application. Make sure to go exactly at the center of your team so that you can heal as many of your allies for the duration of this ability.

Janna Guide: Items and Builds

Next up on our Janna guide, we’ll be looking at some of the items that make her an efficient support. She likes to prioritize items that increase her movement speed. healing & shielding power, and some additional Ability Power since it scales well with her abilities’ effects.

Starting Items:

Spellthief’s Edge – An excellent item to use for enemies that like to harass the enemy. Since it’s easy to harass using Zephyr, make sure to land this skill often so that you can quickly upgrade this item. To get as much gold as you can, you need to continue hitting your enemies with your abilities. Once it becomes upgraded, you can place more vision wards around the map.

Core Items:

Shurelya’s Battlesong (Mythic) – An excellent item to help Janna maximize her damage and give her allies the advantage when engaging onto the enemy. The passive ability is the real star of this item so make sure that you apply your shields and healing to the ally that needs to kite the most.

Ardent Censer – This item is an important one to build because it activates the true power of your ADC. As mentioned before on this Janna guide, you should apply your shields before the allied ADC goes into battle which will trigger this item’s passive too.

Recommended Items:

Chemtank Putrifier – An excellent item that gives a good amount of Ability Power. This also removes the need for your Duo Lane partner to buy a Grievous Wounds items because it shares the effects when shielding or healing another ally.

Redemption – More healing and shielding power to increase your ability to protect allies from harm. This also adds a layer of healing so that you’ll have a better chance to win in teamfights due to the increase in sustaining power.

Staff of Flowing Water – This item gives you the backup of being relevant when shielding or healing AP champions so that they’ll gain bonuses as well. Ability Power also benefits some AD Carries because of the hybrid damage for their abilities.

Mikael’s Crucible – Buy this item when the enemy team has a lot of CC abilities. This will alleviate some pressure when the engage power is too strong on the enemy team so that you can turn it around.

Rabadon’s Deathcap – Just buy this as your 6th item. It gives you a ton of ability power to increase the effectiveness of your other abilities and make you more useful in fights.

Zhonya’s Hourglass – A bit of survivability for when you are really fed and the team relies on you too much. Be careful, the stasis will immediately end your channeled abilities, such as your Moonsoon ability so time it really well.

Janna Guide: Runes

Primary: Sorcery

Keystone: Arcane Comet – A lot of people like to go Summon Aery but this rune helps Janna more threatening during the laning phase. Since she prefers to harass, it won’t be as useful defensively anyway. This way, your duo lane will be more effective during trades.

Manaflow Band – Since Janna tends to spam her abilities, having this rune will help a lot in replenishing her resources. Don’t be afraid to spam your abilities in lane so that you’ll be able to stack it immediately.

Celerity – More movement speed means better damage and your abilities scale better. Make sure to abuse your Tailwind ability as often as possible and be active moving around during a fight.

Scorch – This increases your trading power so that you’ll be more devastating during the laning phase. Spamming Zephyr should do the trick and put the enemy marksman really low early on during the lane.

Secondary: Domination

Taste of Blood – Walking up to the enemy player has some consequences because the enemy will try to deal damage back. Having this rune will help get Janna some HP back and trade more effectively.

Relentless Hunter – More movement speed means that Janna will be more powerful. Anytime you have the option to get free movement speed, you should always take it.

Janna General Overview

Janna has some of the most defensive abilities that helps if your duo lane partner is too aggressive in lane. You can use her in games where the enemy has a lot of engage potential and CC. Using her requires learning a lot of timing and positioning so players will be able to learn more about those skills when playing this champion. Hopefully, this Janna guide will help players have a deeper understanding of how to use this champion in their ranked games.