Janus IS a support!

Oh hey! Dacoqrs here with a guide about Janus Support. This guide all started when a certain member on the forum foolishly challenged me to make a guide, and here it is. I hope you enjoy, and please remember you do not need to follow this word for word.

Janus Support in general is not extremely popular. People see a high damage high mobility mage and do not see any support potential, because tanks are the usual support in the current meta. However, since Janus has lots of hard and soft cc, area lockdown, and capable of providing team mobility, Janus is able to be played this way, and quite effectively. Keep in mind that attempting to play Janus support will get you screamed at, so I recommend you lane with a friend or clanmate.

In addition, Janus support is not just about cc, it involves mobility in the form of Portal. Therefore, if you are, for example, playing with a friend over VoIP, you can tell them to take your portal and coordinate better.

Janus is quite unique in that his Portals allow for team mobility. He also has a banish ( Portal), a slow ( Threshold), a speed buff ( Threshold), and a global ult ( Through Space and Time).

For people who are new to Janus, let's look at his skills.

Passive: Passages

With Passages, each time you use a Portal or Threshold, you gain additional magic scaling on your next cast. This is not extremely useful for Support Janus, unless you decide to pick up an Ethereal Staff later on.

First Ability: Portal

Portal is the jack of all trades. These cute little buggers can be put on the ground or on a wall.

If you place it on the ground, enemy minions and gods alike will fall through, banishing them temporarily and dealing damage to them. This can be useful for wave clear, if you place it right in front of a line of minions that are running forward. In addition, you can fall through your own portal, banishing yourself. This does have uses that I will explain later.

If you place it on a wall, any ally (Including yourself) can step through and be transported to the other side. These DO have range limitations, however. Thanks to Threshold's passive, allies who take these portals will have their speed increased. I level this twice early, then leave it for last. This gives me moderate waveclear without stealing from my ADC.

Second Ability: Unstable Vortex

This ability shoots out two portals that deal damage to enemies they hit. Nothing special here, useful for damage and waveclear. I alternate level this with Threshold, that way I do not steal from my ADC but still have good damage.

Third Ability: Threshold

Ah, this is the hyped up ability. Threshold buffs allied speeds and slows enemies, along with making enemies that pass through it take more damage from your abilities. Placing it in vital spots during teamfights allows you to hinder enemies and buff your allies. Late game, if you decide to pick up some magical power, try to place Threshold in front of moving enemies and then hitting them with one of your abilities for higher damage. Although it would make sense to level this first, I alternate this with Unstable Vortex so I still have moderate damage output. (If you don't agree with it, you don't have to do it.)

Ultimate: Through Space and Time

Through Space and Time shoots a gigantic ball of energy out in front of him. This ball travels until it reaches the end of the map. The ball does damage with increased magical scaling the farther it goes. In addition, it will burn a Portal onto every surface it hits. Not a big deal, unless you realize that these portals can be used multiple times. This means you can transport your entire team all the way across the map in maybe 5 seconds. Your team's mobility and ganking potential when you use this ult is endless.

These two builds don't really have 'Pros and Cons'. The first build is meant for when laning against either a 1 physical 1 magical lane, or a double physical lane. If you are laning against a double magical lane, simply refer to the second build.

First Build

Spawning In

At the start of the game, you should be picking up 2nd level Guard Boots, Level 1 Hand of the Gods, and two Healing Potion and Mana Potions.

What Boots do I get?

This depends on how the other lane is playing. Are they really aggressive? Get Reinforced Greaves. Are they holding back? Get Midas Boots (M).

Early On

My top 3 choices for early game here are Sovereignty, Breastplate of Valor, and Void Stone. If you are having mana issues, pick up Breastplate. If you are getting ganked by magical lanes, consider the Void Stone. If neither is occurring, Sovereignty is always a safe bet. Use your best judgment. In my opinion, you should always get a Sovereignty. So, if you want to play it safe, get either Void Stone or Breastplate of Valor depending on the situation, and perhaps pick up Sovereignty 3rd item.

Roaming Phase

Here, it's all about choices. Hide of the Urchin is a safe bet that gives you a lot more tankiness overall. Mystical Mail is nice against a physical heavy team. Against magical teams, Bulwark of Hope and Stone of Gaia are always nice options. Gem of Isolation will apply large slows, and is highly recommended.

Teamfight Phase

At this point, you should be extremely tanky and still have OK damage output. 3 of my favorites picks are Bancroft's Talon for sustain, Magi's Blessing to help against those pesky tanks, and Ethereal Staff, if you have a lot of health. Rod of Tahuti IS an option, but I really don't recommend it. If you got Midas Boots (M), replace it with the shoes (Or Greaves) of your choice.

Build 2

Spawning In and Finished Boots

Same as the first build.

Early On

Against a double magical lane, Bulwark of Hope gives you a huge early boost to protections and mana. Void Stone provides decent powers and protections, and Stone of Gaia gives you good sustainability in lane.

Roaming Phase

Hide of the Urchin is a good all around tanky item. Sovereignty is a must, providing protections and health. If you need MORE magical protection, which you shouldn't but you never know, the only item out there to save you is Pestilence, which may also be good against healers. Once again, Gem of Isolation will apply mass slows and is recommended.

Teamfight Phase

Same as above. However, the magical protections build has less health (3380) than the physical protections build (3530)**, so Ethereal Staff may not be as effective as Bancroft's Talon.

**Both of these numbers were calculated using the 'ideal build' including Ethereal Staff.

Level 3 Hand of the Gods is a must! No exceptions! This section will cover your 2nd active item!

Your 3 main options here are Greater Purification, Greater Providence, or Girdle of Support.

Greater Purification is useful against cc heavy teams when you failed to pick up Magi's Blessing.

Greater Providence is good when you cannot or do not want to buy wards.

Girdle of Support gives your team increased power in teamfights.

Now, we are going to get into how to play support Janus.

First of all, remember that during the laning phase you shouldn't be stealing from your adc. Use either Portal or Unstable Vortex first to weaken the minions, then your adc can use their waveclear ability to finish off all of the minions.

Be aware of potential ganks, and if your adc is being chased down, either place a portal to get them out of there, or use your Threshold to speed them up a bit.

If you want to interrupt the other team getting the blue buff, it's smart to place a portal leading right into it for your adc to take.

If the jungler is ganking your lane, make sure to banish the enemy support right away with Portal that way your jungler and adc can kill the enemy adc without the hassle of the enemy support. Use Threshold to help your allies chase after him, if he uses an escape ability.

During your roaming phase, you are going to want to assist in ganks. The best way to do this is to give your jungler (Or, yourself, in case you're ganking alone) a Portal into the enemy lane. This allows you to show up at a moment's notice and quickly gank.

When you're ganking, be sure to place your Threshold onto the enemy, that way they are slowed. You can then proceed to smack away at them with Unstable Vortex. Although Through Space and Time is a nice way to pick off a running enemy, it also puts your major team mobility ability on cooldown, so only use it if your adc can't get it.

I highly recommend you upgrade your Hand of the Gods to level 3 at this time to assist with Fire Giant.

In a teamfight, you are going to want to be using your abilities as often as possible, as long as you are using them wisely.

Portal can help with chasing efforts, and placing it on the ground during a teamfight can help disrupt the enemy team.

Unstable Vortex should be spammed for maximum damage.

Threshold should be used for pushing and retreating during the teamfight. Try to line it up to get as many gods as possible affected.

Through Space and Time is useful for chasing, although it can also be used to snipe gods running away. Only use it for kills when someone else can't get it.

As with most tanky gods, you will be expected to bodyblock. Make sure to cover low health teammates, and block ults by taking it for them.

When trapping a god within a Portal, you have plenty of time to position yourself. Remember these tricks:

1. If you are right next to a god, Unstable Vortex hits twice, so when possible, get really close to the portal as the enemy god is falling.

2. Placing a Threshold where the enemy god starts running is an effective way to lock them down, especially after you use the first trick if you bought Gem of Isolation

3. Shooting out Through Space and Time while you have Passages up and the enemy is affected by Threshold allows you to maximize your damage. As always, only use when necessary.

This is a neat little trick I like to call Portal Evanescence.

Remember how Janus can fall through his own Portal? This trick can be used to dodge enemy abilities.

Technical Explanation:

While Janus is falling through his own Portal, he is considered banished. While you are banished, you cannot do anything, but you are also invulnerable.

This means, with the correct timing, you can dodge almost anything. Personal favorites of mine are Mummify and Searing Pain. Just keep in mind that this means your Portal will be on cooldown after this, so only use this when you know you won't need to Portal anytime soon.

Note that this trick does require a lot of timing skills, so you may need to practice. Only use this method when, for whatever reason, you cannot manually dodge.

A real game example: You are in a teamfight, and they've widdled you down to a small amount of health. The enemy Anubis runs at you and hits you with Mummify. You see the enemy Ra charging up Searing Pain, which would surely kill you, so you pop Purification Beads and place a Portal at your feet. The Ra ult hits you while you are falling through the Portal, so you take no damage.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you learned that Janus support is a viable (and fun) option. If you enjoyed this guide, please check out my other ones.

Special shout out to HolyPudding for challenging me to make this guide, the silly duck :P

7/10/14: Published.
9/4/14: Added more stuff under "Author's Note"