The Fallen rises from her slumber to deliver her own brand of justice, away from what’s expected from her as a celestial being. Morgana has always been one of the most powerful enchanters supports in League of Legends that provides a flexible utility and an array of crowd control to pressure enemies in lane. This Morgana guide aims to help new players get a bit of an introduction on how to use this champion so that they can easily pick her up in their ranked games.
The Path of the Fallen
Morgana is a celestial being tasked to bring justice upon the mortal races alongside her sister, Kayle. However, as she witnessed how they cast judgment upon the people, she questioned if their so-called “justice” was bringing about more injustice instead. So, she broke away from her duties and hid her wings so that she can live among the people. She delivers her own brand of justice, away from the chains of her celestial roots so that she can save the people who suffer by her kind’s hands.
Morgana is has been around since the early days of League of Legends. She has been a popular choice as a support because of her kit that allows her to protect her AD Carry from game-breaking picks and put a lot of pressure against the enemy laners. This champion has also often found herself in the mid lane because her kit is powerful enough for her to function as a support mage. We’ll be talking about that a bit more in this Morgana guide.
Morgana General Gameplay
Morgana is an enchanter whose biggest purpose is to protect her ally from danger. However, due to her unique kit, this champion also provides a lot of damage utility that allows her to help the AD Carry clear the wave faster or harass the enemy. Her abilities’ long-range make it difficult for the enemy laners to get close enough to her ADC without taking a lot of damage first. This Morgana guide will explain how she does all of that later on so that players will know how to do it.
Morgana Guide – Skills and Abilities
Morgana’s abilities are really good at what they do which makes her an excellent champion to use. However, a lot of her abilities require a lot of skill and mastery so don’t expect to use them right without learning about how to use them first or practicing for a bit. Luckily, this Morgana guide on skills and abilities will help you get a better idea of how to use them in the game.
Passive: Soul Siphone
Innate – Morgana heals herself for 20% of the post-mitigation damage dealt by her abilities to champions, large minions, and medium to large monsters.
This ability is pretty simple but is very useful when laning. This essentially means that you shouldn’t be too afraid to walk up to the enemy and try to harass them as often as possible during the laning phase because you get a large portion of your HP back when you land it. Try to use this advantage to pressure the enemy bottom lane by constantly getting in their face until they fall into their towers. Just don’t be reckless by abusing the healing too much that you end up getting outdamaged instead.
Q: Dark Binding
Active – Morgana releases a sphere of dark magic towards a target direction, dealing magic damage to the first enemy hit and rooting them for a duration.
Dark Binding is a really strong crowd control ability that Morgana should often spam to catch enemies. This ability is one of the best crowd control abilities in the game because the duration of the root is absolutely ridiculous. One thing to keep in mind when using this ability is that it’s fairly slow so if you cast it from a distance, enemies have a chance to react to it properly before it reaches them. Try to predict where the enemy will move or you can close the distance between you and your target if you think that it will guarantee a kill.
W: Tormented Shadow
Active – Morgana corrupts the target area with dark magic, creating an area of blighted earth for 5 seconds. Enemies within the area are dealt magic damage every 0.5 seconds, increased based on the enemy’s missing health percent. The first tick of damage is deal instantly upon casting the ability. This ability deals 155% damage to non-epic monsters.
The cooldown of this ability is reduced by 5% of its maximum cooldown timer every time Soul Siphon is triggered. Multiple triggers will also stack this effect.
Tormented Shadow is a really good harassing and wave clearing ability. Use this ability to force enemies away from an area while dealing damage to the enemy minion wave. This helps your allied AD Carry clear the wave faster, which is important in wave manipulation because it pushes your allied minions to die from the enemy tower so that the enemy won’t get gold. You can also use this ability as a zoning tool to prevent enemies from moving towards you easily.
E: Black Shield
Active – Morgana shields a target ally or herself for up to 5 seconds, which absorbs magic damage and makes the target immune from crowd control effects for the duration.
Unlike most spellshields, Black Shield doesn’t just block the first crowd control ability that hits the target, it nullifies all incoming crowd control effects while the shield is active so the ally is safer for a longer duration. However, if the target consumes all of the magic shield instantly, the spell shield will also break. Casting this ability requires a lot of focus and attention because you’ll want to use this ability on ally just before they are hit so that the enemy can’t work around it quickly.
R: Soul Shackles
Active – Morgana reveals her true form, latching chains of dark energy onto all nearby enemy champions within an area around her over the duration of the cast time, dealing magic damage and forming a tether between her and all the champions affected for 3 seconds. Enemies that are tethered are slowed by 20% and revealed for the duration.
Morgana gains bonus movement speed when moving towards an enemy she is tethered to.
If the tethers are not broken by the end of their duration, the tethered targets are dealt the same amount of magic damage again and stunned for 1.5 seconds. Enemies can break the tether by moving outside her area of influence.
This ability is extremely powerful but also really risky. This ability requires her to jump right into the middle of the enemy team and as close to the enemy targets as possible so that they can’t break the chains easily. To use this successfully, players often combine it with items like Zhonya’s Hourglass so that the enemy team can’t burst her down quickly enough that she dies before the ability’s cast time is completed.
Morgana Guide – Items and Builds
In this Morgana guide, we’ll be building her as a support but the unique thing about this champion is that she usually builds magic damage items after her usual support builds. This is because Morgana has an extremely powerful kit that allows her to contribute a lot of damage to a fight.
Starting Items
Spellthief’s Edge – This item is the best starter for supports that like to throw out their abilities. Since Morgana likes to harass her enemies in lane, this item allows her to gain gold really fast while maintaining her ability to pressure the enemy lane. Try to use Tormented Shadow on enemy champions so that you gain gold from this item because Dark Binding may be too difficult to hit.
Core Items
Shurelya’s Battlesong (Mythic) – A great mythic item to provide Morgana and her ally more mobility. This item’s passive is activated when using her Black Shield on an ally, which allows the target to gain more movement speed. The activated ability is also a great way to engage an opponent and make it easier for Morgana to use her ultimate ability on multiple enemies.
Zhonya’s Hourglass – This is Morgana’s primary survivality tool and will serve as her lifeline throughout the game. This item is usually used in combination with her ultimate ability if she’s trying to hit more than 2 enemies at once. Be careful when using this item because if you put yourself into stasis at the wrong time, you’ll end up being an easy mark for your opponents.
Recommended Items
Chemtech Putrifier – This item is Morgana’s primary anti-healing option that she can share with her AD Carry. It also provides a really large amount of ability power despite being a support item so even if your opponents doesn’t run a lot of healing, it’s still a relevant choice as a third item.
Rylai’s Crystal Scepter – This item makes Morgana’s abilities even more of a threat since it slows them down for 1 second when it hits. This is most useful with her ultimate ability since it becomes a lot harder to escape with so much slows stacking,
Demonic Embrace – As a 5th item, Demonic Embrace becomes really powerful because Morgana has stacked up so much HP that this will allow her to become a little bit tanky but also convert all that survivability into damage output so that she doesn’t lose her damage threat in the late game.
Banshee’s Veil – This item prevents Morgana from being caught out. Build this item only if the enemy has a lot of game-breaking CCs that are difficult to dodge consistently.
Void Staff – If you want to deal more damage, Void Staff allows Morgana’s abilities to hit a lot more even if they build a lot of magic resist. Build this item 4th or last depending on how far ahead your team is in the game.
Morgana Guide – Runes
Primary: Sorcery
Keystone: Arcane Comet – This rune allows Morgana to deal more damage to her enemies and force them to move away from the minion wave more because they have to dodge out the comet when they are hit, wasting a few moments that might cost them gold from minions.
Manaflow Band – Casting abilities can really run your mana pool dry so take this rune so that you’ll be able to cast your skills a lot more often without worrying about running out of mana.
Transcendence – Ability haste can be a real lifesaver in most situations because it allows Morgana to spam her abilities more, which can be really impactful for her Black Shield ability.
Scorch – This rune allows Morgana to deal more damage in the early stages of the game. As mentioned multiple times already, try to spam your abilities during the laning phase to push your advantage. This rune doesn’t have a heavy impact in the late game because of its damage cap.
Secondary: Inspiration
Perfect Timing – This item provides Morgana with a stopwatch which she can use in early teamfights in combination with her ultimate if she hasn’t built Zhonya’s Hourglass yet. Morgana can purchase an additional stopwatch while Commencing Stopwatch is still active so that she gains maximum value.
Biscuit Delivery – This rune will give Morgana more sustainability in the laning phase in terms of both HP and Mana.
Morgana General Overview
Morgana as a support champion doesn’t use the conventional strategies that most champions of the same class do such as maintaining distance and playing safe. She can be really tough to master and an even great challenge to learn if you haven’t tried playing other roles. If you want to play Morgana, you have to remove the mindset of being just a support and start thinking like you’re a mid laner who’s trying to get kills for their team. Hopefully, this Morgana guide has explained how you can do so effectively.
How to counter Morgana?
Morgana is extremely tough to lane against because she’ll try to bully you away from the wave. However, you should try to keep your ground while avoiding all her abilities. Try to hide behind minions to prevent her from landing her Dark Binding ability. Once she expends her Dark Binding, you and your ally can try to play aggressively and take the chance to take her and the enemy ADC down.