Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork Guide

Hi all!  Enryuu here to bring you another guide for League of Legends and I apologize for the delay of this posting.  The guide will revolve around on how to play Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork.  Orianna is a support nuke mage.  Orianna’s abilities are a bit different from her mage counter parts because all the abilities revolve around her ball.  This ball is similar to a pet that you need to keep track of based off location so you can deal damage.  This adds for more concentration and intuitive gameplay by making the player aware of his/her positioning to maximize his/her damage output.  In this guide I will be explaining how I play Orianna, which is more of a mage nuke instead of as a support as I prefer to deal damage.


Champion Spotlight by Phreak of Riot Games.

Abilities:

	Clockwork Windup Orianna uses her ball as a focus for her spells and attacks. Orianna’s ball automatically returns to her if she is too far away from it.Orianna’s autoattacks deal additional damage plus 20% of her Ability Power in magic damage. Subsequent attacks against the same target within 4 seconds deal an additional 15% magic damage. This bonus stacks up to 3 times.
	Command: Attack Orianna commands her ball to fire toward a target location, dealing magic damage to targets along the way (deals less damage to subsequent targets). Her ball remains at the target location after.
	Command: Dissonance Orianna commands the ball to release a pulse of energy, dealing magic damage around it. This leaves a field behind that speeds up allies and slows enemies.
	Command: Protect Orianna commands her ball to attach to an allied champion, shielding them and dealing magic damage to any enemies it passes through on the way. Additionally, the ball grants additional Armor and Magic Resist to the champion it is attached to.
	Command: Shockwave Orianna commands her ball to unleash a shockwave, dealing magic damage and launching nearby enemies towards the ball after a short delay.

Orianna’s passive is good for when you want to build her as a mage as it scaled with her ability power fairly well.  However, this puts her in danger as you have to be fairly close to sustain auto attack damage for the full effect of her passive.  This provides a risk and reward type of situation for Orianna.  Orianna’s Q ability is a relatively short cooldown ability that is used in order to move the ball.  This allows for good lane harassment as well as repositioning for Orianna’s other abilities.  Orianna’s W ability Command: Dissonance is Orianna’s bread and butter spell.  This ability does the most damage and provides the most support that in my opinion makes Orianna shine.  This ability allows Orianna to speed up her teammates and slow down enemies similar to Nasus’s Wither ability but with the opposite effect of it being the max slow or speed at the beginning.  Orianna’s third ability Command: Protect is another support ability and if used for damage relies on proper positioning.  This adds to Orianna’s gameplay by giving the player a sense of strategy by planning who you want to use the ability on for positioning.  Orianna’s ultimate Command: Shockwave is similar to a gravitational pull ability where it pulls enemies towards the ball’s location after a short delay.  Her ultimate is great for CC and for capturing enemies that run away.  This brings great utility to the team as well as an escape mechanic on top of her W.  Her ultimate also does a fair amount of damage for a champion that is able to play a support role as well making her a capable mage if built in that fashion.
Runes:

These are the runes I use for Orianna.  I take Magic Penetration Marks, Ability Power per Level Seals and Glyphs, 2x Flat Ability Power Quintessences and 1 Magic Penetration Quintessence.
These runes allow for Orianna to deal the most maximum damage possible, but the drawback is being squishy and having poor mana regeneration making you extremely reliant on blue buff or on mana ability power items such as Rod of Ages or Archangel’s Staff.
Masteries:

I build Orianna using standard caster masteries going 9/0/21 grabbing Archaic Knowledge for Magic Penetration in the Offensive Tree and grabbing Utility Mastery in the Utility Tree as well as Blink of An Eye for increased buff duration and reduced cooldown on Flash.
Summoner Spells:
Flash/Ignite
Ghost/Flash is another set up one could use as a squishy caster to allow for more escape potential.  However, I feel that Ignite will net you some good early kills whether you are in a duo lane or solo, while your W makes up for not having Ghost as a summoner spell.  Flash allows you to pull of some nice escapes as well as some good initiations on champions as well as catching up to them.
Skill Order/Priority:
R>W>Q>E
Level 1-6:
Q>W>W>E>W>R
Items:

These are the end game items that you should have by the end of the game with substitutes being made depending on what you need and the team composition of the opposing team.  The first item you should start off with is a Mana Crystal and 2x Health Potions.  This will give you some lane sustainability and a bigger mana pool to allow you to cast and harass bit.  This will aid you in your farming and is a good item to start into for turning it into Catalyst of the Protector on your first trip back.  Grabbing Catalyst of the Protector as soon as possible is great for lane sustainability, which helps further with creep farming and gives Orianna a nice bump in health.  Afterwards you should back and grab boots and finish off Rod of Ages as soon as possible so that you can let its passive kick in.  Sometimes however it is best to instead go quickly for a Rabadon’s Deathcap and grab a Needlessly Large Rod instead.  This allows for a quick AP boost and increases your burst damage significantly, but that all depends on how you game is progressing.  After Rod of Ages or Rabadon’s Deathcap buy a Void Staff then begin finishing off Zhonya’s Hourglass and Lichbane in whichever order is necessary.  Lichbane synchronizes greatly with Orianna’s passive due to the proc effect of Lich Bane when you cast your spells.  Another good item in place of Lichbane is Will of the Ancients for Spell Vamp and Ability Power for yourself and your team.  Ionian Boots of Lucidity are the best boots in my opinion for Orianna because she requires cooldown reduction to be effective since this allows her Q ability to be on a 3-4seconds cooldown if you are cooldown reduction capped.
Laning Phase:
During the laning phase Orianna should be harassing every now and then with her Q due to it being a low mana cost ability.  This should be used to harass minions as well as the champions if possible.  This will help Orianna with last hitting with her passive a bit.  It takes a bit to get the hang of Orianna’s auto attacks on top of her passive’s damage for last hitting minions for farming.  Therefore, I believe you should practice this to maximize your farming capabilities early game as it gets extremely easy to clear creep waves at higher levels with her W ability maxed out.  The best way to harass in lane is to first Q to move the ball into position and then staying relatively close so as to move your ball in short distances so the enemy champion can’t easily dodge the ball.  This will allow you to hit them with your W as it has a fairly short radius.  If you are getting harassed don’t forget to use your E ability to bring the ball back to you for damage if possible, otherwise use it for shielding yourself and giving yourself bonus armor and magic resist so the damage being dealt to you is minimizes as much as possible.  Always remember this as Orianna is a very squishy champion like any other caster especially with this guide and rune page.  Keep an eye on your mana as you harass and strategically plan whether you should go all in or just harass in lane for kills.  Orianna can deal a surprising amount of burst so once you learn how much damage you can deal you will be grabbing kills easily and escaping with your life intact in no time.  Towards end game the best combination I found to use Orianna’s abilities in is to initiate with Q then use her ultimate for a quick CC and burst damage followed up with her W for more burst damage.  Then, if there is anybody in line with your ball for damage from your E ability use that for even more damage.  In most cases you should have landed yourself a kill on a squishy AD Carry or AP Carry or brought most of them to low health for your team to finish off.  This guide pertains to you grabbing a solo lane so you become the AP Carry for your team as well so be sure to call for a solo lane.  If you are in the side lane this laning phase portion doesn’t change much but you may need to play a bit more defensive and supportive.
Conclusion:
Overall Orianna is a high skilled cap champion that takes a little while to get used to.  But once you get the hang of her you will be enjoying her mechanics and dealing damage like an AP Carry and aiding your teammates to victory.