I Know What Makes Them Tick - Orianna Analysis

Introduction

I’ve been here before, and I want to touch on this subject because I remember a professional League player state that because of what happens around the nerfs and bans of other mid laners, there’s one mid laner in particular that rises to power at the end of each split. While I believe there are quite a few issues with the mid lane, the champions, and not least the mid lane itemization, there’s one champion that somehow always seems to fit the game quite nicely, no matter what champions rise to popularity. This champion is of course Orianna, the Lady of Clockwork.

Sporting an 8% pick rate, a banrate of not even 0.5% and a winrate of roughly 50%, Orianna is a very special kind of mage. Similar to Syndra, she doesn’t work with her abilities like normal mages do, as in, she doesn’t have abilities that do cool stuff on their own. Instead, Orianna’s abilities utilize The Ball, a non-targetable unit that functions as the primary focus of all her abilities. A quick overview of her abilities:

Orianna’s innate ability, Clockwork Windup, adds some bonus magic damage to her abilities which stacks and multiplies on consecutive attacks on the same target. While the damage isn’t all that big and her abilities are way more important, this passive does help a lot during early game trades, and it’s a nice help for last hitting.

Orianna’s Q, Command – Attack, sends The Ball to target location, dealing magic damage to all units along the way, lowered by each unit struck. This ability serves, and pretty much is, the gate and key to all her other abilities and the prime way of repositioning the ball. The Ball itself has quite a leash range, but actually getting The Ball somewhere is an entirely different story Orianna’s W, Command – Dissonance, sends out a pulse that deals magic damage to enemy units struck. Then a field is left behind that slows and hastes enemies and allies respectively. The damage is pretty good, and if you pair it with an initiator, this can certainly make some deadly engages. Orianna’s E, Command – Protect, shields a target allied champion from some damage. The Ball travels to them, dealing magic damage to all units struck along the way, and then sticks to that unit, providing some additional armor and magic resist as long as The Ball sticks. Pretty neat ability as most mages don’t have access to shields and resistance buffs. Ori has them both. Then prime time talking, Command – Shockwave. Units near The Ball take magic damage after a short delay and are flung a set distance towards the ball. If that distance is larger than their distance to The Ball… well, then they get flung over it! Yay. Pairing this with an in-your-face initiator is the best way of utilizing this ultimate since it nearly guarantees hitting lots of enemies.

Orianna’s hidden power, in my opinion, lies in her deceptiveness. There are many things about Orianna underneath the surface, because she doesn’t look like a stereotypical mage, not in the slightest. I’ve touched upon Kassadin previously, and his kit has a total added damage ratio of 2.1AP and at least 0.01 mana. Orianna has, if you would utilize a E-Q-R-W ability combo with there being no minions around, a 2.2AP ratio. Suddenly, she becomes a mage. Then to factor in that her Q has a base cooldown of 3 seconds at rank 5, which makes her damage very versatile as far as positioning goes. Repositioning The Ball on her own accord every 3 seconds is pretty strong, but she also has the ability to put The Ball on an allied champion until further notice, which is equally strong if paired with an initiator. Putting The Ball on a Jarvan IV, for example, suggests that J4 is getting ready to initiate. This alone is often enough to scare people off from objectives or have people on the back foot.

So how to play Orianna? Well, aside from needing quite the mechanical knowledge about her – she’s one of 4 champions that have a 10 difficulty rating from Riot’s standpoint - she utilizes a new mechanic for casting spells, namely The Ball, and it takes some serious time to get used to it. Getting used to her is best done with a proper setup. I recommend using one with either Magic Pen. Marks or Hybrid Pen. Marks since especially in the early game, there’s going to be a lot of auto-attack trading, but late game, there’s going to be next to no auto-attacking and pretty much only spell casting. After the nerfs to Armor Seals, I like running Mana Regen Seals and abandon the one mana potion I usually get. A split between Magic Resist and Magic Resist/Lv. Glyphs as per usual, I just like those, and then Flat AP Quints because there’s nothing stronger than some early game oomph. Masteries go 9/0/21 most of the time because I like to get 40% CDR with Athene’s, Brilliance Pot and Masteries, but 21/0/9 with as much AP influencing as there is.

Item wise… I’m kind of a strange bird as far as items go. I’ve had a history of running out of mana and as a result, I’ve kind of liked going both Tear of the Goddess and Chalice of Harmony on Orianna. I have tried only the Chalice into Athene’s Unholy Grail, but I ran out of mana at a point and I don’t like that. Plus, the unique passive on the Athene’s works well with the 1000 mana the Seraph’s Embrace gives. So first items are Doran’s Ring and two (or three) pots, pretty standard. I myself like to go base at around 1100-1200 gold getting a Tear of the Goddess and another Doran’s Ring, as well as a few pots and/or maybe a ward.

After that, I like to rush my Athene’s Unholy Grail. Gives a vast amount of stats, the most important of which is the mana regen and the most lackluster of which is the AP (a measly 60AP), but the item altogether is pretty amazing. Sorcerer’s Shoes if I’m up against something with not too hard crowd control – if there’s a Fiddlesticks or Rammus, chances are I’d very much consider Mercury’s Treads – and then to complete my Archangel’s Staff, round about the time where it’s going to transform into Seraph’s Embrace. Orianna is a strong zone control mage, and as such, there’s a fat chance you’ll get focused. Let me tell you, you don’t want it. Seraph’s to the rescue.

After that, most of the time, it’s Deathcap time. Vast powerspike, about 450AP at that point, which is nice, and a Void Staff straight after for additional Magic Pen. paired with that good AP and low cooldowns. Last item is debatable. Fed physical damage caster or ADC? Zhonya’s Hourglass. Fed enemy mage that has the ability to oneshot you? Guardian Angel or Banshee’s Veil or even Abyssal Scepter. Need overall teamfighting presence or do you just want to become even more annoying? Rylai’s Crystal Scepter.

I don’t think Orianna needs nerfs, even though she’s strong. Not having high base damages on her kit is largely offset through her amazing amount of crowd control, utility and team fighting presence. Sure you’re able to lay some pain on your lane opponent, and sure you can kill them, but the purest of mages will have little trouble getting through her damage and killing her in return. Catching 5 people in a beautiful Shockwave-Dissonance combo is more than most traditional mages can do though.

Nigel Wiersma