Is it better to initiate with her ult, or with her E+Q combo?

I want to learn her, and this would really help me in doing that.

I'd recommend the combo, and then use the ult to lock their team in place.

If you use your ult first, you'll see flashes and seperation to avoid it, making your combo harder to land.

If you use the combo first, you'll lock one in place, putting yourself in the middle. Their team will jump on you. You can shield and ult to lock them all in place to let your team pick up.

Depends on what you need to have happen, really. If you can initiate with your faceroll basic ability combo and save your ulti in case you really need to make sure someone stays disabled if they Flash away, that's always preferable.

Depends entirely on the circumstances. If you know you can land the ult, do that, run up and q, and then e right as that stun runs out. Or if you want to engage but don't want to chance missing the ult, try using e, if it hits great do the combo, if not just wait and try again. This seems like the basic idea, but I'm not exactly a expert with her. You can try looking up xpecials video of his leona commentary. He just uploaded it a couple days ago.

1. press w to start shield + slow timer
2. press e and fly to them while stunning them for duration of flight
2a. if they flash away, use ult to stun
3. press q to stun
4. by now shield will have exploded slowing them
5. use ult to stun
6. if still alive, repeat weq
7. by now u got penta kill

Alright, so I gather that my basic combo should be top priority over my ult, and that I should intead use my ult in the heat of a team battle.

Thanks, guys! Also, I'll check out Xpecial's commentary, didn't realize he made one recently.

R should be reserved if possible, but sometimes it's the only reasonable option. R can be great to initiate on a really kitey team that's smart enough to stay out of your E range, but you should try to keep R available if at all possible, and hit as many as possible with it once the team fight starts in earnest. I've also been known to use R to initiate ganks, depending on the circumstances again. Sometimes it's the only way to lock something down or keep it from escaping before you get the kill.

Lots of combo orders have a pretty good argument for them.

When it comes to an E versus R question, it can be good to base it on how grouped together enemies are. Jungle initiates just love a ult to start so that your whole team can rush in on everyone, though in more open battles leading with E to Q then and ult can make sure that dangerous targets are stuck with you for as long as possible.

When you're lucky enough to get close to a good target who has wandered out of position, going Q > Autoattack > E > possibly your ult can actually be surprisingly effective.

It's really all situational. Opportunity to stun their whole team? Ult. It's just one champ and you're in range for combo? Combo.