Rona

Attack Type: Melee
Position: Jungle
Role: Warrior


Hit Points (HP): 799 (+90)
HP Regen: (+)
Energy Points (EP): (+)
EP Regen: (+)
Weapon Damage: 88 (+6.2)
Attack Speed: 1 (+0.012)
Armor: 20 (+6)
Shield: 20 (+6)
Attack Range: 1.8
Move Speed: 3.3

Berserkers' Fury
Slot: Heroic Perk

Rona attacks 50% faster than most heroes, but she deals 80% damage with each attack.

Additionally, Rona's abilities use Bloodrage instead of energy, a unique resource that is generated from basic attacks, abilities and taking damage from enemies. This caps at 100 and decays when Rona leaves combat.

Into the Fray
Slot: A

Rona leaps into battle, gaining fortified health for 3 seconds based on the number of enemy heroes she hits. After a short delay, the ground ruptures for 3 seconds, slowing enemies who pass over it for 35%.

Foesplitter
Slot: B

Rona lunges to her target, landing a basic attack and granting herself increased movement speed for 2 seconds. After using this ability she can briefly reactivate it to attack again, applying a mortal wound to her target, and granting her 25% additional attack speed for 2 seconds. The damage of the second attack is increased by 0.35% for each point of bloodrage consumed. Additionally, the cooldown for this ability is reduced by 1 second with Rona's basic attack.

Red Mist
Slot: C

Rona begins an axe-wielding whirlwind, continually dealing weapon damage to nearby enemies. During the whirlwind she can move freely but at reduced speed, and gains fortified health each second. She can cancel the ability at any time by reactivating it or using another ability. Red Mist requires at least 75 bloodrage to activate. Deals half damage to minions.

RONA

Red Mist leaves Rona exposed from range, so now she can properly soak up some damage while using her ultimate. —Zekent

RED MIST

Fortified Health gained per second up from 40-60-80 to 40-70-100

A small little buff. I doesn't make a huge difference, but it helps nonetheless.

There aren't many other changes that affect Rona much, so she remains her position as a mid-tier jungler. She's definitely viable in soloQ, just not top notch in competitive play. One thing to note is that roam Adagio has made a return, and he is an exceptional ally for Rona, so there's that.

Rona is usually played as a jungle carry. The support takes damage for her and Rona dishes it out. Therefore, you should always stick with your support when jungling. Gain gold and experience as fast as possible so you can buy better items and upgrade your abilities. If you can get ahead of the enemy team early on, Rona will be nearly unstoppable in the late game.

With crystal items like Aftershock, Rona's playstyle becomes more that of an assassin than a tanky damage dealer. It's fun to experiment with different items and playstyles and find your own preferred build. Don't exactly follow this build, but try to find alternations that fit you best. Make your own playstle!

Ability Overview

Berserkers' Fury

Rona's perk grants her extra attack speed, at the cost of less damaging attacks. She also gains bloodrage from being in combat.

The biggest advantage of this perk is that Rona can proc items like Bonesaw and Alternating Current really quicly. Not having energy is great too, because you will never run out. However, it's important to keep your bloodrage up, otherwise you won't be able to use red mist.


Into the Fray

Into the Fray is Rona's A ability. She leaps at the selected location, dealing damage and rupturing the ground. it deals damage, slows enemies down and it reduces damage Rona takes.

Into the Fray is used as an initiator, or as an escape. Use Foesplitter to get close to an enemy, and then jump over them with Into the Fray. Be sure to not completely jump over the enemy, or the fortified health won't activate. The ground will rupture behind the enemy, cutting of his escape. This is especially effective in shallow 'corridors' in the map, because the enemy will have nowhere to go.

You can also use Into the Fray as an escape. The ruptured ground slow makes escaping really easy, and you can even use the slow to let your allies escape. You can jump over walls with ItF, which is useful for when you find yourself in a dire situation. It can also make for some flashy surprise attacks, but that only works if your team has proper vision.


Foesplitter


Foesplitter is Rona's B ability. She dashes to the targeted enemy and slashes it with her axe, dealing damage, granting extra bloodrage and giving a speed boost for a while. Foesplitter can be used again shortly after the first hit, dealing even more damage and applying a mortal wound to her enemy. After using the second hit from this ability, Rona will gain extra attack speed for a small amount of time. Using basic attacks decreases the cooldown of Foesplitter.

It's hard to describe what Foesplitter really does, because it is useful for a multitude of things. First of all, it really helps with early jungle clear. You can just spam Foesplitter when you are farming, you don't have to worry about running out of energy.

In combat, Foesplitter is usually used as Rona's first initiator. You can use the speed boost to run after the enemy and throw some basic attacks out to do damage and generate bloodrage. When the speed boost ends, you can jump over the enemy with Into the Fray to set up for Red Mist. The speed boost can also be used to evade dangerous skillshot abilities like Core Collapse or Rocket Leap.

The second activation of Foesplitter applies a heal-reducing mortal wound. It's great on characters with good lifesteal, like Krul or opposing Rona. The second activation does use up half of Rona's bloodrage, meaning that she cannot use her ultimate right after. You have to decide whether you want to use your bloodrage for applying a mortal wound and gaining an attack speed bonus, or to use your bloodrage for Red Mist.


Red Mist

Red Mist is Rona's ultimate. She begins spinning with her axes, dealing weapon damage to all enemies around her. She keeps spinning until she runs out of bloodrage, but she can cancel it at any time by reactivating it or using another ability. Using Red Mist grants Rona fortified health every second.

So this is basically Twirly Death on steroids. Rona gets so much lifesteal when she uses this in the middle of a teamfight, and it deals tons of damage. Use it after you get into the fight with Foesplitter. Throw some basic attacks out first to generate bloodrage and to apply Shiversteel. You can either start spinning right after applying Shiversteel, or you can use Into the Fray to set up for Red Mist.

Always cancel it whenever your target runs out of the whirlwind. Rona moves very slowly when using Red Mist, making you even easier to kite. Not canceling it also wastes precious bloodrage. Remember that you can also cancel it by using another ability. For example, you can spin for a moment, and when the enemy boots out, you can use Into the Fray to land right on top of them again.


How to string abilities together?

Rona's abilities can combo into each other quite well, which is what makes her so fun to play. Her most commonly used ability combination goes like this:

first activation of Foesplitter (with Shiversteel) -> AA until the speed boost runs out -> Into the Fray -> Red Mist/second activation of Foesplitter

Whether you want to use Red Mist or the second activation of Foesplitter depends on level. In the early game, you don't have your ult available, so you should use Foesplitter. Whenever you are in a 1vs1 or 2vs2 against an enemy with good lifesteal or another healing ability, you should use Foesplitter too for the mortal wound. Remember that Foesplitter is counted as a basic attack, thus being able to apply Shiversteel. If you have your ult available, it´s usually best to use Red Mist instead because it deals more damage.

You can also use Red Mist before using Into the Fray, like this:

first activation of Foesplitter (without Shiversteel) -> AA until speed boost runs out -> AA again, with Shiversteel -> Red Mist -> Into the Fray -> multiple AA's -> first activation of Foesplitter again -> AA until speed boost runs out -> second activation of Foesplitter.

You can mix it up a bit of course, and you'll likely not get to pull of such a string in a real game, because the enemy (or yourself) would probably be dead shortly after using Into the Fray, But's it's good to remember how you can string your abilities together for maximum damage output.

Red Mist does weapon damage in a rather large area. With a Serpent Mask, Rona will get tons of health back by spinning through multiple enemies. Serpent Mask also pairs really well with Rona's perk: faster attack speed = more lifesteal.

This item will increase your overall damage output greatly. Both Foesplitter and Red Mist have high weapon scaling, and the high weapon power this item provides also makes up for Rona's lower damage on basic attacks. Rona can deal immense damage with Red Mist with a double Sorrowblade build. You can get this instead of, or alongside Serpents Mask. You can also skip it altogether to build more tanky with defense. Additionally, you can even build TWO Sorrowblade, absolutely decimating entire teams at the expense of lower sustain.

Breaking Point has always been a good item on Rona, but now it's probably even better. It doesn't take her long to gain stacks anymore, she only has to use Red Mist for a little while to get to max stacks. After that, her damage output will be increased a lot. It's pretty powerful even without much weapon power.

Red mist is easy to avoid by just walking out of it. With a Shiversteel, Rona can slow enemies down for a short period of time. Combined with Red Mist, this is a brutal combo on characters without an escape option such as Adagio or Skaarf, as they are forced to stay in your twirling onslaught.

You need defense to sustain. Crucible is for when against balanced teams, Aegis and Metal Jacket are for when the enemy builds mainly shield or armor respectively. Both Fountain of Renewal and Atlas Pauldron are great options too. FoR escpecially helps Rona Sustain, and she'll become a nightmare to take down if she has Adagio as her support.

No real explanation needed here, right? Boots are necessary on every character, especially on Rona. You should always closely look at the scoreboard to see if the enemies have higher tier boots than you. If that's the case, you should upgrade your boots as quickly as possible so the enemy will not be able to outrun you.

War threads grant more health than Journey Boots, making it a good option for tanky bruisers like Rona. Get this over Journey Boots if you don't need the extra mobility from JB. Don't even consider buying Halcyon Chargers though. Rona can't make use of the energy stats at all!

Bonesaw shreds armor with every basic attack, so it's synergies very well with Rona's perk. Rona can shred armor like crazy, dealing much more damage the longer she is in battle and ultimately increasing her lifesteal even more. This is a definitely a great option if the enemy build lots of armor.

Get a Weapon Infusion when you need temporary boost to your overall performance. This is great when pushing with the kraken, or in those extremely long matches that don't seem to ever end. Get this in the mid to late game, when you are sure you can make use of the stat boosts.

Alternating Current gives Rona some nice sustain Damage, as well as extra attack speed. AC is a rather average choice on other characters, but it works wonders on Rona because of her perk. Get it rather early, along with some extra crystal power.

At first, I thought Broken Myth was better than Shatterglass, because it has more damage potential. But Rona really can't wait for broken myth to stack up, so a Shatterglass is better, because it allows Rona to hit hard right of the bat. It also has great synergy with Alternating Current.

Aftershock makes Rona much burstier. Extra lifesteal and cooldown reduction are nice to have too. It has absolutely amazing synergy with Foesplitter, because Rona can proc AS with both hits from her B ability. Aftershock is especially strong against high-health enemies such as Glaive and Fortress.

Frostburn adds crystal power and a slow to Rona's attacks. Rona is generally really easy to kite, and she has trouble sticking to her target. Frostburn remedies this, and it also gives Rona even higher damage. Use this instead of, or alongside Shatterglass, or not at all if you don't need a slow.

You need at least one defensive item to survive. Same as with the weapon build, Crucible is for when against balanced teams, Aegis against crystal, and Metal Jacket when against weapon. Get a tier 2 defensive item rather early, Rona is squishy without it.

...

Broken Myth is a must on almost every crystal build. It grants so much damage, it's even stronger than Shatterglass. But! it takes a couple seconds too reach that power. Rona can't wait for those couple seconds, because she is a melee character. Only get this when you reeaally need shield pierce. It does work great with Red Mist though, allowing Rona to actually deal damage with her ult if you have some stacks.

Note: Broken Myth is much better on Rona as of 1.16. It now stacks up faster, so you can do your major burst damage first and then clean up with a stacked up ultimate.

You can use Shiversteel instead if you like, but don't get it when you already have Frostburn. It's harder to use than Frostburn though, and Rona's damage will not be as high. I recommend Shiversteel over Frostburn if extra health is more necessary than extra crystal power. You might want to skip both of them, because crystal Rona doesn't need a slow as much as weapon Rona.

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