[Champion] Janna - Page 11

Right now I just want to talk about Ardent Censer, might chip in later, but overall you can build whatever the hell you want on Janna, it's much more how you play than what you buy on her. My biggest 5cents is to just support your playstyle with the items, and hear out everyone, but don't copy anyone. Nagul says coin is superior, I say the same, but there are still d1/challanger Jannas who go knife 0-24, and arguements can be made that it can be better. Put 10 Janna mains in one room and ask them what boots should you buy and when should you buy them, and I guarantee you shit will get lose. Anyway, not what I want to talk about now...

... but Ardent Censer!

Definetly my favourite item on Janna. I'm playing her utility heavy, sacrificing ap and tankiness. But first, let's get the boring stuff out the way. Is it too costly for what it brings? Let's check it with lolwiki's stats:

40 ap = 870 gold // 25% attack speed on one person = 750 gold // 10 % cdr = 317 gold // 8% movement speed = 476 gold // 10 manaregen = 600 gold // all of this = 3013 gold for an item that costs 2200 gold. You can pretty much remove a whole stat or the passive from it and it would be still cost-efficent. Sure, if it was to give 30 ad instead of 40 ap it would probably worth the same or even more but would be much less useful, so let's take a look at stats individually.

Take into account that I will rate the stats as I rate the item as a whole, according to MY playstyle, which you can decide how close or far it is to you.

10 manaregen: The thing is, after chalice, you will rarely have mana problems with Janna, and when you finish with Mikael's and get some levels, you won't even realise you have a mana bar, unless you rush to 40% cdr. BUT! I don't always rush (or get) chalice, and the forbidden idol recipe for Ardent makes it a viable substitute for early manaregen. Hell, you can even finish Ardent before Talisman, forbidden idol being a common recipe. I love Talisman, but if we have a huge lead bot, sometimes I go for Ardent to cement it. Bigger shield, more damage, aspd boost for my carry and an excuse to spend money on boots a little bit later? O.K.

10% cooldown reduction: Cooldown reduction is probably the only thing I would argue with every Janna across the board being the most vital stat on her. As I said, a Janna player is defined by how well she can handle and utilize Janna. She is difficult, but extremely rewarding, and the more skills you can pull off, well, obviously the better. The nerf to Talisman's cdr means no more cdr cap after just 2 items, so the stat became more valuable. Also, this stat is the worst gold-wise but the best in actual use, which goes to show that you need to go deeper to see how good an item is.

8% movement speed: First of all you play a support, so the more movement speed you have, the better. I always emphasize if you have such a movement speed advantage playing with Janna, you should heavily utilize on that. Others say you should use it to skip boots and get ahead in items. Whoever's theory you like better, this item is actually good for both, as it can substitute boots longer or give you an even bigger edge. Also, with an early Ardent you might switch up your mobis with boots of swiftness. Thanks to the movement speed soft cap you will get more net ms by that and boots of swiftness can be a godlike teamfighting item not to mention how well it synergizes with captain's enchantment. Hah, I always forget to test the bad boy! Anyway, movement is good, mhkay?

40 ability power: +14 damage on instant Q (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!); +~1% movement speed bonus, + 20 damage + 2,4% slow amount on W; + 4 AD, + 28 shield amount on E; +12 health per every half second of channeling per injured teammembers, up to a possible total of +360 health restored. Don't forget that AD worths more if your shielded ally has more attack speed and/or crit chance or if he's an ad assassin. If you plan to get a deathcap, than that 40 ap worths even more. Sure, these numbers are nothing huge, only the extra slow and shield could be noticeable (remember, the harder to break the shield, the longer your base ad buff remains intact!), but don't forget it's just a semi-stat for an item that gives much more, and this 40 ap can be really valuable if you don't plan on buying ap heavy items, and you only have ap from runes, this, and maybe twin shadows, another utility item.

Your heals and shields on another unit grant them 25% attack speed for 6 seconds: Oh boy, here we go now!!! I'm pretty sure the only reason Nagul seem to detest this item is because the aspd passive is overhyped. Man, even if this item did not have this passive, it would still worth it (would be much lower on the priority list), so I find the hate uncalled for. Anyway, talk about it! Before analyzing the attack speed boost, let's talk about the regular mentality of someone who reads this passive. The guy starts thinking how could he give it to the most people, and then makes his conclusion: this item is op on Sona, Janna and Alistar. Rip Thresh. Now, this mentality is flawed for so many reasons. First of all, why the fuck would you want to give it to everyone? "Hey, hey Karthus, here, take this!". Nope. Also, Janna can not reliably keep it up on all of her teammates, Alistar could, but he usually peels for one or initiates, and pretty much Sona is the only one who can always reach her teammates and give it to them with her aoe aura.
To me, these people are totally off-tracked. I view it as an item, that let's you focus on someone, and give even more power to him, while trying to keep him alive. It wasn't even a question I will regularly get this item, because I chose the utility playstyle for a reason. I really like the 2v2 at botlane, and I like to keep the bond intact throughout the rest of the game, so unless my adc sucks, we should be able to conquer the world with all the stupid ass extra cc, steroid, shields, get out of jail card attached to my kit. I don't care if we have a full ap comp and no one else benefits the aspd boost. First of all, I'm sticking to my carry (the ad boost on your shield will be just as useless in a full ap comp, so why do you pick Janna if you bitch about Ardent being useless on someone like Karthus in the first place?), and secondly, I have nothing to compensate for. The item worths its' cost, I don't have to sweat blood to keep the aspd boost on 2-3 of my teammates all the time so I can sleep well knowing I put my money to good use. No, as long as you don't play with Ezreal (why the fuck would you pick Janna to an Ezreal anyway...) or Corki, the aspd boost will be great.
But what is that 25% aspd anyway? Goldwise it worths 750, but that doesn't tell us much. Your shield without ap is - almost - a BF Sword (1550 gold), now throw this to it and it's 2300 gold put on your adc discounting the shield. Sure, free 2300 gold worth of combat stats just might be useful, but look beyond that! Attack speed scales with critical strike chance and attack damage. Now, only if we had a champion who can give extra ad to her... oh, wait! So Janna has a skill that gives bonus ad and is better if the target has more aspd, and here's an item that gives bonus aspd and is better if the target has more ad. Well, this is clearly a useless piece of junk! But it's not over, champions like Twitch, Varus, Ashe, (useless) Vayne or to name a few bruisers, Jax, Irelia, Gnar (I'm up to date as fuck!), Aatrox has additional benefits from attack speed. Just Imagine the look on the enemy team when that Jax with Trinity, Bork (yeah, btw, any additional aspd to bork users is hella useful as well) and Randuin, Grandmaster's Might active effect, Eye of The Storm's active effect and Ardent Censer's passive effect. Shit is zipzapping around the guy like crazy and I definetly would not want to be the first one to greet him.
I trust my abilities to keep someone semi-decent alive, and as long as he can right click, I'm perfectly fine with Ardent Censer. In a serious teamfight I will shield my adc anyway, if I trust him - don't have much choice, haha -, so in my case, there is no such arguement as "but what if you use your shield on xy instead?". Also, with max cdr your shield is on a 6 seconds cooldown. Ardent Censer's aspd boost remains active for 6 seconds. Yeah, infinite ad and aspd boost on someone only killable by retarded champions like Fizz or Vi. Good luck with that!
Your ult triggering it for your whole team is cute, but unless you do some clutch mlg play with flash-ult barely reaching your adc who survives a 1v1 with 1 hp, it will remain just cute. If you happen to do it though make a shoutout to me pls!

When I pick Janna I only look at the opponent's teamcomp and my adc. I don't care about the three other picks in our team, unlike when I'm playing Leona for example. Still, in my last Janna games I almost always had at least one other guy that could benefit from my aspd boost as well:
1: Nidalee
2: none
3: Irelia
4: Jax
5: Gnar, Jarvan (unless he built tanky)
6: Warwick, Jax
7: Gangplank
8. none
9: Rengar
10: Nidalee
11: Tryndamere
12: Rengar
13: Shaco, Nidalee

Blah blah, so as you can see, it is quite rare that you can't use it on anyone but your adc, even if you want to neglect Nidalees. But as I said, it should be the absolute last thing you should consider whether you should buy the item or not.

Conclusion? One thing is for sure, this item is nothing close to bad, even with Ezreal or Corki, this item still remains good. Bad for your playstyle? Maybe. Assess how you play, and the answer should be obvious if you want this item or not, but aside from certain teamcomps where Sona could shine with it, this item is the best on Janna, hands down, simply because of how painfully obvious who she should shield almost everytime, whether she's ap or not. Support Lulu comes second because her shield is so useless lategame that she can just spam it on her adc for the aspd boost basically - funnily enough Lulu's passive (which is transferred with her shield) is decent, especially with more aspd, so she's another case where good abilities make each other even better. I hope after 46 Janna games with such nice win ratio you know how you like to and/or want to play her, so you already got an answer to the question whether you should buy it or not.