I think if Leona's passive were buffed it could make her logically powered. Maybe make it so her attacks apply sunlight and her abilities proc it? I don't know, but something that makes sunlight worth having on an enemy. As it stands now it's completely negligible as an ability.

Perhaps lowering all cooldowns on ability level ups? I'm mainly thinking of Eclipse here, because as someone stated earlier, once Leona does her initial combo, she's useless. She needs to be able to do something else, which brings me back to the whole sunlight thing. She needs to be able to proc that in some way, either on her attacks or making her next ability deal more damage.

At the moment I have so many suggestions to help make Leona better, including ones that involve herself proccing her own passive. If she could, she could potentially jungle or solo top. My personal favorite ideas are that she cannot proc her own passive, but that targets that have her passive on them have a bonus effect from Leona's spells, whether it be longer stun duration, or percentage damage increase. Also, for her ult to be like Lux, that it procs her own passive and re-applies it (the only way for her to proc her own passive, if this set was used). And that her team would get a percentage damage increase to the targets hit from her ultimate and herself double the amount. That way, she can at least do some decent damage in team fights, whether it be bursty or sustained.

Thread Bump

Great read

May I give another suggestion for her W?

Simply make it a toggle which costs mana all 3/4 seconds and produces an explosion every 3/4 seconds. Each cycle, while toggled on, costs a bit more mana. Toggling it off lets the current cycle finish and gives her the additional 3 seconds of shield if it hit something, and lets the ability go on cooldown.

You know, like this:
Toggling W on, costs 60 mana, gives defensive buffs
Delay
Explosion
New cycle start: costs 60+x mana
Delay
Explosion
New cycle start: costs 60+2x mana
Toggle off, cycle finishes
Delay
Explosion
Defensive buff stays additional 3 seconds if something was hit.

Maybe they could even make Leona a bigger threat with this, too, by giving each additional explosion more damage based on the number of champions hit in total (like, +10% per champion hit in last or ALL explosions before, caps at +100%, resets if an explosion hits nothing).

I used to think she was pretty bad off, but I now think the extra damage from Sunlight is much better than you'd perceive without really thinking about it.

So, I don't really think she doesn't need all that much. But she does need a bit more CC, because Blitzcrank is frankly a better tank than her later in the game with his superior single-target lockdown and very significant durability with just a Frozen Heart, making any team that wants their carry to actually autoattack have to deal with him first, which is basically tanking in a nutshell. Oh yeah, and Blitzcrank is pretty much just as scary in lane. I would say to lower the cooldown on Leona's Q by a second or two and increase the stun radius of her ultimate so it's more liable to hit at least two people, which is currently is only going to happen if those two people are making out for some reason. Even either one may be all she needs to feel like a fully competitive tank outside of the laning phase.

Leona really needs help. When Riot designed her, you could tell they did not have the current meta in mind. As people have said, she sucks in other lanes and jungle, so she can't get items that would make her much better. Worst of all, she's actually outdone by people like Alistar and Nautilus, both of which can go in other roles, and actually excel at them. Her passive is fairly strong, but without the ability to get it off consistently, in a team fight, it's not very helpful.
I'm going to post this in every Leona thread I can find in the hopes that Riot will at least respond or say something like "yeah, we may not use your idea, but we've got plans for Leona".

Her base stats need to be a bit higher. Previously mentioned in the thread, she needs to go into the enemy zone to do her stuff, and being as squishy as she is, it's incredibly hard to do so. A tank without items just doesn't cut it, and she needs a higher defense to do what she needs to do.

Make her abilities have a much lower cooldown. Decrease Q by 2/3 seconds at each level, W by 5 seconds, E by 4 seconds. This may sound huge, but this can be balanced. Leona should be encouraged to chain spells together and get her passive off as much as possible, so other aspects can be lowered. Make her spells less damaging for a start, and possibly make her cc numbers a bit less if the changes are too much.

Make the passive true damage. Riot, you've most likely heard this request before, but hear me out. Lower the damage on the passive by a substantially large amount. In the end, it should do less damage to carries than before, but more damage to high resist targets, going very well with her new spell-spam vibe.

I don't know if a MUCH lower cooldown is good, but I'll certainly say that I do have times where I can't do my job because I don't have the cooldowns.

It's really hard to peel things like nocturne off a carry that eat your first spell.

I can agree with most everything you say. Leona is so much fun during the laning phase, but her damage kind of in melee is pretty sad. once your abilities are spent you feel like a walking health bar. almost worse than Sejuani who reminds me of Leona. lots of fun very tough to one v one. but meta wise she doesn't fit in at all to a team fight.

Here's how you fix Leona to make her viable outside of Bot lane.

Sunlight (Passive)
Current
Leona's damaging spells affect the target with Sunlight for 3.5 seconds. When allied champions deal damage to those targets, they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 (increasing every 2 levels) additional magic damage.

Suggested
Leona's damaging spells affect the target with Sunlight, dealing 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 / 95 / 110 / 125 / 140 (increasing every 2 levels) over 3.5 seconds. This affect can stack up to 3 times. When allied champions deal damage to those targets, they consume the Sunlight debuff to deal additional magic damage equal to the remaining affect.

This lets the designers cling to the faulted concept of wanting her abilities to promote "team play" when LoL is already a team based game and the same concept is not applied to ANY champ in the game. But it would then give her the ability to solo/jungle so that she's not left in the pigeon hole she currently is in as aggressive quasi-tank support for bot lane.

Zenith Blade (E)
Current
Leona projects a solar image of her sword, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a line. When the image fades, the last enemy champion struck will be briefly immobilized and Leona will dash to them.

Suggested
Passive: Leona's basic attacks deal 10/20/30/40/50 + 20% of AP bonus magic damage. This affect does not apply Sunlight.

Active: Leona projects a solar image of her sword, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a line. When the image fades, the last enemy champion struck will be briefly immobilized and Leona will dash to them.

Again a small buff to address the fact that outside of her cooldowns, Leona does no damage. Again combined with the suggested change to her passive, would allow her to be a viable solo/jungle choice without overpowering the things about her that make her good in Bot lane.