Morgana releases dark magic, which will damage and prevent the movement of any enemy it strikes.

Mana Cost: 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160
Damage: 90 / 150 / 245 / 315 / 440
Snare Duration: 3 / 3.25 / 3.5 / 3.75 / 4
Cooldown: 15 seconds
Ability Point Ratio: 1.2 (each Ability Point adds 1.2 damage)
Range: Very Long ~1000

This spell fires a projectile that snares and damages the first enemy it comes in contact with. This is what you use to start ganks, to set up combos, to stop fleeing enemies, and to stop chasers. It has a fantastic range, but it's also difficult to aim. By clicking on an area of the ground or an enemy, you set the point through which the projectile will pass. Once set, the projectile travels in a straight line through the point and never deviates, regardless of how enemies move after it is launched. The first enemy that is hit, including any minions, will be snared and damaged. To successfully hit a moving champion, you have to predict where they are going and aim ahead of there to give the projectile time to travel. Never EVER click an enemy champion directly to aim it, unless they are snared somehow. Always click the ground in front of where you think they are going. This just takes some getting used to, so practice, practice, practice! At higher levels, this spell can also pack a wallop of a hit too, especially since you get a better-than-normal bargain on the Ability Point ratio.


TORMENTED SOIL (W)

Infects an area with desecrated soil, causing enemy units who stand on it to be damaged over time.

Mana Cost: 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 / 160
Damage per second: 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 85
Duration: 5 seconds
Cooldown: 14 seconds
Ability Point Ratio: 0.2 (each Ability Point adds 0.2 damage)
Range: Medium ~600

This drops a patch on the ground that damages every enemy standing on it. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize this has perfect synergy with Dark Binding. Every time you hit an enemy champion with Dark Binding, drop Tormented Soil under them. This is also fantastic for farming minions once you raise it to Level 3. You can farm all 3 ranged minions with just one cast (though as they get stronger you may need to beef up your Ability Points or they'll be left with a shred of life). This ability makes it very very difficult for enemies to take down a tower when Morgana is around. Also note that even though the Ability Point Ratio is only 0.2, it occurs on EVERY tic of the damage, so you get a 1.0 Ability Point Ratio if you do the full 5 seconds of damage.


BLACK SHIELD (E)

Absorbs all incoming magical damage for target unit, until the shield's health has been reached. Removes debuffs when cast and prevents debuffs while active.

Mana Cost: 50
Shield Health: 100 / 200 / 300 / 400 / 500
Max Duration: 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8
Cooldown: 14 seconds
Ability Point Ratio: 1.0 (each Ability Point adds 1.0 shield health)
Range: Medium ~600

This is why enemies hate you and allies love you. You can turn any hero into an almost unstoppable force, fearless in all but the most concentrated counter-assaults. This is what makes Morgana an amazing support champion. The shield negates any debuffs on the character at the time of casting AND prevents debuffs for the duration. It also absorbs magical damage up to the Shield's health, which is pretty sizable at Level 5. Still, it's not godlike - enough focus will take the shield down, and it doesn't stop physical damage, so don't think you can wade solo into 5 enemy heroes and be debuff-proof for long. It is perfect, however, for so many situations - use it to stop Karthus's ultimate from damaging someone, prevent Ryze from killing someone with his combo, let enemies waste a crowd control ability only to remove it instantly with your cast, and you can even use it when you see Teemo put down a poison shroom - simply cast on yourself and walk on the shroom. It's important to note that even if the amount of damage an ability does exceeds the shield's health, any debuffs that would be applied are not applied even though the extra damage is still dealt to the shielded champion.


SOUL SHACKLES (R) [Ultimate]

Latches chains of energy onto nearby enemy champions, dealing initial damage to them and slowing their move speed by 30%, and then echoing the pain 4 seconds later and stunning them if they remain close to Morgana Le.

Mana Cost: 100 / 150 / 200
Initial Damage: 175 / 250 / 350
Movement Slow: 30%
Damage After 4 Sec: 175 / 250 / 350
Stun duration After 4 Sec: 2 / 2.5 / 3
Ability Point Ratio: 1.0 (each Ability Point you have adds 1.0 damage to both Initial Damage and Damage After 4 Sec)
Cooldown: 90
Range: 600

After looking at Black Shield, Morgana's Ultimate pales in comparison. It's still great, but it's very situational. You may notice that it stays grayed out most of the time. Don't worry, it isn't a bug. The only time you can activate her ultimate is when you are close to at least one enemy champion. You'll see the icon light up to indicate you can use it. When you cast it, it deals the listed initial damage to all nearby enemy champions. You will see a green line connecting you with every affected enemy champion. The line lasts for 4 sec and slows their movement speed by 30%, but if the enemy walks farther than 600 range away from you, it will break. If, however, you manage to keep a line active with any enemy champions for 4 seconds, those champions will be dealt the same damage again AND stunned for a short duration. 

Your first instinct might be to wade headfirst with your Black Shield into the middle of the enemies and cast this - WRONG! That's probably the worst thing you can do, as you'll be focused almost immediately and even if your Black Shield is level 5 you won't last long. Plus, good players will scatter when this happens, forcing you to choose who to chase. When the line breaks for most of them and they see who you are following, they will regroup and focus you to save their ally. Instead, you should selectively choose your targets from outside the battle, try to root them with Dark Binding, and then activate your ultimate while they are rooted from as safe a distance as possible. If you can grab 2 or more targets from a safe edge of the team fight, all the better. Keep in mind that most good players use Flash which will take them out of range and break the line. Try to make them waste Flash on your Dark Binding/Toremented Soil combo, then walk up and hit them with your ult. Flash will be on cooldown and you can chase them easily for 4 sec with the movement penalty they have. 

Alternatively, this ability is PERFECT for when you are being chased. Several times, I have found myself suddenly alone during a team wipe and in desperate need of retreating with 3 to 5 enemy champions chasing me. So I Shield myself and cast my ultimate. Their movement speed is suddenly reduced, and if they keep chasing me, after 4 sec they will be stunned and I can escape. If they don't chase me or turn around to break the line, I escape anyway! Win-win situation! 

Final note - don't be afraid to use this ability to finish off a low health enemy either - the instant initial damage is not small. For instance, if they are retreating to their tower with 100 life left, and both Tormented Soil and Dark Binding are on cooldown, just wade in an whack them with Soul Shackles for the kill, then get the hell out of dodge before the turret eats you. Ultimately (get it?), this isn't a game-changing ability. but it's still great to have and it's feared enough that people panic when they see that thin green line.


SOUL SIPHON [Passive]

Returns to Morgana a portion of the damage dealt by spells as health.

Returned Life: ~4% of damage

I don't know if this value is accurate. Based on my limited testing, it seems accurate, but if anyone has a hard value from Riot please let me know and I'll update. At first, 4% doesn't seem like much. But when you start adding it up it winds up healing you A LOT over time. If you farm the ranged creeps every wave, that's anywhere from 30-85 damage per second for 5 seconds on 3 targets (450 - 1275 damage total, 4% of which equals 18-51 life healed). That's nothing to scoff at, and that's just the heal from Tormented Soil. This is a very nice passive for Morgana to have, and it makes her an excellent laner all game long.

RECOMMENDED SUMMONER ABILITIES

TELEPORT

Take this ability. Trust me. It's fantastic for Morgana. She is an amazing laner, and the ability to hop back and buy stuff and get back to your lane immediately helps immmensely with keeping up in levels and ensuring your tower never falls early. You can also use it to help port in nearby to impending team fights. I ALWAYS get this when I play Morgana. I feel naked if I don't have it. If you aren't high enough summoner level to use this, select Heal instead.


CLAIRVOYANCE

If you are a support hero, nothing beats this. You basically get to look ANYWHERE for 6 seconds once every 60 seconds, with the right masteries selected. This will help both with ganks and counter-ganks, and gives you supreme map awareness. This is what I usually choose with Teleport. The only thing better than damage mitigation during a gank is preventing the gank to begin with, and Clairvoyance does just that! It used to be that you'd have to run around with Clairvoyance to pop wards down everywhere, but now you can help from anywhere on the map. Sweet!


EXHAUST

If you want to be more offensively centered, Exhaust is a great ability to use. You can cast it after your Dark Binding wears off to keep the enemy near you for just that much longer and score an early kill. You can also cast it on a chasing enemy to prevent them from killing you or an ally during escape. All in all a great ability, and it's my 2nd choice if I don't take Clairvoyance. Take this or Rally for sure if you are doing a ganker Morgana build.


SMITE

Smite? On Morgana? WTF!? But wait, there is a hidden synergy. First of all, it lets you farm that much better due to its insane damage vs minions and neutrals and its quick cooldown. Most minions die in one hit and you get the gold, plus the extra push or push prevention from taking out a melee minion. You can take out a cannon minion in one hit with it at higher summoner levels, which greatly increases the chances of your turret taking 0 damage when a creep wave nears. The hidden synergy is with Morgana's passive, Soul Siphon, however. At maximum summoner level (30) it deals 1050 damage which, due to Soul Siphon, heals you for somewhere between 40 and 50 health. If you want to focus on lane pushing and defending, this is the ability to get. Plus you can use it with your Dark Binding/Tormented Soil combo to take out Golem at any point for unlimited mana for a long time. Try doing it at level 1, heal, then teleport to your lane to gank the enemies with your unlimited mana.


RALLY

Rally is a solid support skill - 2nd only to Clairvoyance in my opinion. Your entire team gets a nice fat boost to damage, and if you use the related Mastery it increases your spell damage too. Since I like using 21 points in Utility, I can't get the Rally mastery from Offense utilities so I usually don't choose this. But if you are a ganker Morgana, this will definitely help, and it is worth going 21-0-9 for increased damage from both improved Rally affecting your mage skills and the final Offensive Mastery, Havoc, increasing your total damage by 5%.

ABILITY BUILDS

The general build I follow is as follows (tweaks to the build depending on team compositions are listed after):

1: Dark Binding
2: Tormented Soil / Black Shield
3: Tormented Soil
4: Black Shield / Tormented Soil
5: Tormented Soil
6: Soul Shackles
7: Tormented Soil
8: Black Shield/Dark Binding
9: Tormented Soil
10+: Any order you like... see below.

As you can see, basically I max Tormented Soil as quickly as possible while getting at least one level of every other ability by level 9. This is the way I build Morgana's abilities in 90% of the games I play. Higher levels of Tormented Soil will let you farm better AND provide a real threat to enemies. Even just 1 or 2 seconds in a level 5 Tormented Soil can do 200+ damage with Ability Points. If you use Dark Binding followed by Exhaust or Soul Shackles to keep them in there for longer, it's a serious damager to enemies. Also, enemies sometimes don't notice when you plop it down in the middle of a team fight, and you'll wind up scoring the full 5 seconds of damage sometimes even without a Dark Binding holding them in place.

ALWAYS get 1 level of Dark Binding first. If the enemy is stupid enough to try ganking, this can single-handedly save your ass or your ally's ass, and frequently it turns the gank into a counter-gank. It also lets you own n00bs who venture too close to the turret - snare them and let the turret wipe them out.

If you have a lane partner that can gank well early but face an opponent who can use crowd control, or if you are solo in your lane, get Black Shield at level 2 instead of waiting till level 4. Normally I get it at level 2 so I can cast and start regenerating mana. Otherwise all that mana regen goes to waste for a long time. If you ever have full mana as Morgana (other than when you are next to your fountain), it means you aren't doing your job right.

Once you hit level 6 and get your ult, you can potentially go for a kill. Coordinate with your lane partner if you have one or set up a gank with others from other lanes if you are solo. If you are facing one enemy or one of the two enemies in your lane has been playing risky and has less than half health, you can also try to gank by yourself even vs 2 enemies. Start with a Dark Binding - if you miss, abort the mission immediately. If you hit, immediately follow with a Tormented Soil. Walk up to the enemy to attack, then as soon as your Dark Binding is about to wear off, use Soul Shackles. If they are getting near their tower, cast Exhaust if you have it - otherwise use it after Soul Shackles if you still need to do more damage. Make sure you put a Black Shield on yourself if your target or his/her lane partner has any magic or crowd control abilities. With this combo, you should be able to kill almost any hero. In reality, you probably won't need all of this - don't target champions that will barely die to this combo. Target champions that are already low enough on health that you can kill fairly quickly. DON'T get hit by the turret ever if you are facing 2 enemies. It will surely mean your death. Let your enemy escape and continue farming - you'll outlevel them soon enough.

After level 9, you can build the abilities however you like. If caster enemies are becoming more dangerous, level Black Shield first. If casters and crowd control are not an issue, level Dark Binding and Soul Shackles.

If, however, you face a lot of casters and/or crowd control (which doesn't happen often, thankfully), then you should immediately switch to the defensive build:

1: Dark Binding
2: Black Shield
3: Black Shield
4: Tormented Soil
5: Black Shield
6: Soul Shackles
7: Black Shield
8: Tormented Soil
9: Black Shield
10: Tormented Soil
11: Tormented Soil
12: Tormented Soil
13+: Any order you like

This will maximize survivability for both you and your allies. You won't farm as fast, but you'll prevent the enemies from farming your team, which is infinitely worse than losing farming speed for a few levels. If you feel that you must farm faster, and a level 3 shield is enough (which it rarely is in this case), you can swap Soul Shackles and/or a level of Black Shield to get to Level 3 Tormented Soil faster. Remember, Level 3 Tormented Soil is the key to farming the ranged creeps in one cast. Until then, you'll be forced to add a couple hits per minion. Use your judgment. Playing more games will tell you when you can afford to forgoe Black Shield in lieu of more farming, and when you need to beef your shield up to the max asap.


RECOMMENDED MASTERIES

For support Morgana, I go 9-0-21 for masteries, and I take them in this order as I level (all Utility first):

3/3 Good Hands - In the rare occassion that you do die, this can dramatically reduce your time dead, and I get it first because as a new player you will probably die more often than at level 30
1/1 Spatial Accuracy - Better teleport, nuff said!
4/4 Expanded Mind - More max mana, yay!
3/3 Meditation - More mana regen, yay! you will REALLY feel the effects of this early game.
4/4 Awareness - Faster exp gain, score!
1/3 Perseverence/Utility Mastery - You need one more point in Utility to go to the next tier, so I choose either 1 point of Perseverence or 1 point of Utility Mastery. The former is a constant minimal bonus, the latter is a decent but situational bonus.
3/3 Quickness - Morgana is SLOW... so every little bit helps for movement speed.
1/2 Mystical Vision/Utility Mastery - Makes your clairvoyance that much better! If you don't have Clairvoyance, put a point in Utility Mastery instead so neutral buffs last longer.
1/1 Presence of the Master - Reduces cooldown by 15% for both your summoner abilities
3/3 Archmage's Savvy - Gives you 0.6 Ability Points per level, a total of 10.6 bonus Ability Points at level 18.
1/1 Cripple/Plentiful Bounty/Deadliness - If you pick Exhaust or Smite, choose the appropriate mastery here. If you don't, choose Deadliness. It's better than nothing and you have to get 4 points to go to the next tier.
4/4 Sorcery - You won't need cooldown improvement with your normal item build which gets -40% anyway (which is max) but you have to have this for the next ability, so take it.
1/1 Archaic Knowledge - This makes your abilities ignore 15% of the target's magic resist, increasing both the damage you do and the amount you heal from Soul Siphon. Very nice!

Even though this guide isn't focused on ganking Morgana, here's the masteries I use for that build:

3/3 Archmage's Savvy
3/3 Deadliness
4/4 Sorcery
1/1 Archaic Knowledge
3/3 Sunder
3/3 Lethality
1/1 Improved Rally/Cripple (whichever summoner power you take)
2/4 Alacrity
1/1 Havoc
3/3 Good Hands
1/1 Spatial Accuracy
4/4 Expanded Mind
1/3 Meditation


RUNES

3 Quintessences of Fortitude (total +122 Starting Health)
All 27 other Runes of Vitality (total +20.25 Health per Level = +364 Health at level 18)

Why? You need HP and pretty much nothing else is more important as a support hero. Your job is to stay alive to hinder enemies and help allies. By giving yourself more health, you make yourself a less likely target for focusing and you can prevent enemies from getting exp by killing you. You are also slow, so having a larger health pool helps infinitely when you are being chased. Mana or Mana Regen could work too, but if you are dead you can't cast anything. Cooldown runes are wasted after getting your 2nd & 3rd items (see below) since you will have already hit the -40% cooldown cap. Having +122 starting health is nothing to scoff at, especially considering that's anywhere from 20-30% of pretty much any champion's starting health. The additional +364 health at level 18 can also mean the difference between life and death, and helps you to push 3K hp in longer games.


ITEM BUILDS

I know the general concensus is that you should not use the recommended build for any character. However, the recommended Morgana build built into the game is actually remarkably close to what I normally build for her as a support character. The things you need to focus on are getting more HP so you don't get killed in 2 sec of focus fire, more Mana and Mana Regeneration so that you can spam your spells non-stop, and Cooldown Reduction to have abilities ready to spam non-stop to keep up with the aforementioned Mana pool and Mana Regeneration. Here is my normal build, and the path I take to get 
there:


FINAL BUILD (please note that I rarely get more than 4 of these items in a normal game, sometimes 5 if it's particularly long, so I didn't bother listing the 6th):

Sorcerer's Shoes
Frozen Heart
Soul Shroud
Banshee's Veil
Archangel's Staff

For a ganker morgana, you may want to replace Soul Shroud with Abyssal Scepter, and get your Archangel's Staff MUCH sooner.

Build them in this order, shown as "Cost - Item Name" (bolded items are recipes):

180 - Faerie Charm
400 - Sapphire Crystal
400 - Tear of the Goddess

180 - Faerie Charm
180 - Faerie Charm
115 - Mana Manipulator

435 - Amplifying Tome
350 - Boots of Speed
140 - Sorcerer's Shoes

975 - Sage's Ring
300 - Cloth Armor
400 - Glacial Shroud

700 - Chain Vest
425 - Frozen Heart

1150 - Giant's Belt
700 - Soul Shroud

500 - Ruby Crystal
400 - Sapphire Crystal
450 - Catalyst the Protector
740 - Negatron Cloak
650 - Banshee's Veil

880 - Blasting Wand
1050 - Archangel's Staff

My justification is as follows: 

Tear of the Goddess is first because you will be spamming your abilities a lot, and getting it early helps build a huge mana pool. Do not buy any health/mana potions. Simply purchase your Faerie Charm for increased Mana Regen (or Sapphire Crystal if you like) and go to your lane. Once you have farmed up 505 more gold (you start with 475) immediately go back and complete your Tear of the Goddess and teleport back to your lane.

Mana Manipulator is next because at this stage, you are impossible to kill IF you have mana for your spells, and this does exactly that. If you feel uncomfortable without speed boots, you can buy BOots of Speed before this, but I don't recommend it. Anyone foolish enough to challenge you will get destroyed unless you do something stupid. Hug your tower if they are aggressive, and use Dark Binding / Tormented Soil to whittle them down.

Sorcerer's Shoes are important here because of the Ability Power and movement speed they impart. Get the Amplifying Tome first because, around this time, the ranged creeps will beef up to withstanding a normal drop of your Tormented Soil and the Ability Point boost may be what's needed to push the damage over the edge and farm them.



After that, finish your Glacial Shroud and then your Frozen Heart to decrease your cooldowns and give enemies near you a -25% to attack speed. This is mid-game where a lot of ganking occurs and you want to be prepared to help your allies gank and stop enemies from ganking. The 110 armor points will also help a lot vs physical DPS, whereas before you were only protected against magic DPS with your Black Shield.

Finish Soul Shroud next to give you a dramatic boost to HP and reach maximum cooldown reduction (-40%). This will also reduce cooldowns for all your teammates. Your mere presence in battle now, even without abilities, can have a huge impact. Add in your support abilities and you are a monster to deal with, and you have enough HP that enemies will think twice about wasting attacks on you. Of special note is that Morgana's Black Shield with -40% cooldown has an 8.4 second cooldown, and level 5 Black Shield has an 8 second duration. Niiiiiiice....

You usually won't get any more items as the game is decided one way or another by this point, but in the rare chance that it prolongs and still seems like it could go either way, finish your Banshee's Veil for protection when you shield others. Then finish the Archangel's Staff to boost your damage dramatically and help finish off enemies.

If both teams are completely incapable of killing each other at this point and you still have enough money for another high end item, pick anything impressive you like. Warmog's Armor will make you invincible, Innervating Locket can give you a healthy boost to hp & mana, Sunfire Cape to stack with your Dark Binding/Tormented Soil combo ... hell go for a Rod of the Ages if you like, what's another 15 minutes to waste to see it's full effect? You guys can't end a game anyways so you'll be playing for another hour or so! (lol...)

LANE STRATEGIES

I usually take mid because I like it more. I can get anywhere fast, and I am almost never afraid of being ganked due to my accuracy with Dark Binding and Black Shield. It doesn't matter whether you lane with someone or not. You are equally effective solo as you are with a partner - it just shifts your focus.

If you are solo facing 2 enemies, don't worry about scoring any kills. Just farm, farm, farm the ranged creeps (starting at level 5) and you will soon outlevel your opponents. Try to push a tower - you can easily escape a gank with your Black Shield & Dark Binding if enemies show up to stop you. Always be on the lookout for potential openings to kill a low health risk-taking enemy with a combo, but don't count on it. Be patient, keep farming - you will soon become a monster and be able to gank anything anywhere with your teammates, even as a support hero (ganking Morgana is ridiculously good 
at this if you build her that way, even ganking alone). 

If it's 1v1, treat it the same as 1v2, but be far more aggressive. Try to land hits with your Dark Binding / Tormented Soil combo as often as possible, but not at the expense of farming the ranged minions. If you think you can get a kill, go for it - it just takes experience and knowledge of the enemy champions to know when you can do this.

If you have a lane partner, you can have fun. Be as aggressive as possible. You are arguably the best possible early game team ganker in the game because of your snare and ability to shield your ally - use it to your advantage and crush them. It doesn't matter if there is one enemy or two, you should be able to tackle any combo with a teammate who can deal damage.

I could go into a detailed list here of which champions are better to lane with, but in all honesty you work great with ANY other champion. However, here are some noteworthy combos:

JAX - With Dark Binding, Jax can immediately leap on the enemy and start beating them even if they are ranged with the added bonus of damage from your Tormented Soil. Plus if they fight back against him, his dodge may proc and tip the battle in your favor even further. Early game kills are quite easy.

KAYLE - What's better than magic debuff/damage immunity? Can you say magic debuff/damage immunity AND physical immunity? Kayle's invulnerability is taken to a whole new level with Black Shield preventing debuffs. Looks like the sisters DO work well together!

ANY STUNNER/SNARER - Stacking snares & stuns is fun! Try it! 

SLOWERS - Their slow effects keep enemies in your Tormented Soil longer, AND they stack with your ult to ensure a quick death for enemies who aren't careful. 

DELAYED CASTERS - They all have abilities that deal a lot of damage and have great effect, but have a delayed cast (Karthus, Cho'Gath, Veigar, etc). Dark Binding can keep enemies in place so that they are guaranteed to be hit by these.

... I could list every hero and how you augment them, but I'll stop here.

CONCLUSION

Morgana is a spectacular support champion and a huge boon to any team. Her Black Shield alone makes her worth it, but when built right and in the hands of a good player, Morgana can turn the tide of almost any battle and is rarely in danger of dying. Try to stay on the edge of team fights and use all of your abilities to augment your team and hinder enemies. Build items with auras and beef up your hp. You will find yourself on the road to victory more often than not.