Fiora Build Guide by renegade12

Introduction

Hi guys, ReNeGaDe12 here, this is my Fiora guide! - Here to give you insight on how I play Fiora and how playing the way I play can improve your game with her as well. It took me a long time to create this guide for all you guys so please bare that in mind and give a reason before you -1 my guide, but i will welcome all feedback, positive or negative. Now without any further ado, thank you for taking the time to read my guide, and I hope it helps or gives you new ideas on how to play Fiora.

Note: I am not going to link or post any videos that show unbelievable scores because that won't always happen and I don't want to mislead people, everyone plays differently and what might work for one person might not work for another. The only videos I will put up are tutorials on how to effectively use a skill or a starter on how to play/ jungle.

Pros / Cons

Pros + Very Fast + Quite Mobile + Great gap closer + Can Jungle + Fast Jungler + Can survive longer early game + Mana is less of an issue late game if roaming + Can tower dive early game with high effectiveness + Insanely powerful if fed

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Cons - Cannot 1v2; too squishy - Often Focused - Take time to master - No CC - AP Carries can kill her fast if they are good - Requires more mana for roaming

Masteries

I have chosen a 21/9/0 setup for obvious reasons, seeming as Fiora is an AD Carry, she will benefit the most by using offensive masteries such as Sunder and Executioner . Also as stated above in the pros/cons chapter, she is a bit squishy so the extra health and armour boost from Hardiness and Veteran's Scars are a big help.

Jungler Masteries

Again I chose the same offensive masteries as before, except I swapped the extra health for Summoner's Resolve , Tough Skin and Bladed Armor for the better effectiveness against minions/ monsters early game.


These masteries can be changed to whatever you feel is best for Fiora, its really player preference and these arn't set in stone.

Runes

Jungler Runes

Summoner Spells

Flash is very useful to any champ because it allows them to escape ganks and is a great tool for offensive and defensive play.

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Ignite is a good spell to use to finish off opponents that you can't get to or to stop champions like Sion or Vladimir.

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Ghost can be a very good tool to escape, provided you don't get slowed or to quickly get to a lane for a gank or to protect your team or team's lane.

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Smite This is an obvious choice for jungler because it allows you to finish monsters alot quicker and allows you to survive longer, can also be used to steal monster buffs/ dragon or baron.

Alternative Spells

• Cleanse: Can be more effective to escape ganks than Ghost if they have heavy CC, alternatively you can just buy a Quicksilver Sash.
• Exhaust: This can be used to help someone escape a gank, to escape a gank or to create an opportunity to gank, but it only lasts for 2 seconds so you must be within range to make maximum effectiveness.
• Heal: Can be used to an effect in the jungle instead of buying health pots, it can also be used to have more survivability and to trick your enemy that you are weaker than you actually are and trick them to turret dive and secure the kill.
• Teleport: This can be used to move around alot quicker incase you need to protect a lane, this could be used to set up a gank if they are behind your wave of minions so you can strike from behind but usually they will see you coming. Alternatively, if they see your teleport when attacking a turret, they will most likely back off.

Less than useful Spells

• Clarity: You may perhaps need a little more mana at early game but late game this is no longer an issue and this can be replaced with a more useful spell such as Flash or Ignite.
• Surge: This is pretty much useless with Fiora because the only ability that increases effectiveness with AP is Riposte and the improvement would be too small for anything worth while.

Ability Explanation

• Duelist: This passive allows Fiora to gain health over 6 seconds after attacking minions or champions, attacking champions makes the passive stack up to 4 times.
• Lunge: This ability is a great gap closer and allows you to Lunge to the target and then lunge again to the same target or a different one within 2 seconds without going on cooldown.
• Riposte: This ability allows you to reflect damage back at the attacker if they hit you with a basic attack, which can be very useful against Nasus' ability: Siphoning Strike and gives you a passive damage increase.
• Burst of Speed: Gives you extra attack speed to harass your enemies and each time you attack, you gain movement speed to further chase down your enemies and finish them off or harass them more.
• Blade Waltz: This Ult allows you to jump around hitting all enemy champions in the area which deals reduced damage if you hit the same target more than once.

Tips and Tricks

Ability Sequence

We want to level Blade Waltz at levels 6, 11 and 16 because it is an ult - nuff said ;). Secondly we want to max out Burst of Speed because its our main harrassment tool and is really useful to chase down near death opponents. After that we want to max out Riposte because it is very useful because of its quick cooldown and allows you to keep enemies at bay or just inflict large amounts of damage and give you an edge at the beginning of the fight. Lastly, we want to max out Lunge because it does not deal very much damage and is only used to close gaps.

Jungler Ability Sequence

For jungler, we switch around the Burst of Speed and Riposte abilities because Riposte has a faster cooldown and is more useful against monsters in the jungle because you will be able to survive longer and deal damage at the same time, you don't need the movement increase.

Items

Core Items

• The Bloodthirster: This item is irreplaceable, Fiora gains so much effectiveness from this item because it, combined with her passive Duelist, allows you to survive alot longer than other champions. Also this item can save your life so many times because of Burst of Speed, also using your ult Blade Waltz will allow you to life steal off every champ hit which can be the difference between life and death.
• Infinity Edge: This item is self explanitory, who wouldn't get one of these? :P

Lane Items

• Ionian Boots of Lucidity: The cooldown from these boots are awesome, they allow you to use your skills more frequently so you can harass more and reflect more damage using Riposte.
• The Bloodthirster: Mentioned at "core items" section.
• The Black Cleaver: This item is very useful against tanks who stack armor and also gives you a nice damage increase and attack speed.
• Phantom Dancer: If you plan on using Infinity Edge, then you will want one of these or something else which increases crit chance. Other than that the movement and attack speed work well with Fiora.
• Infinity Edge: Mentioned in "core items" section.
• Randuin's Omen: This item is used because it gives you a nice health and armor bonus which Fiora lacks and this item will more than make up for it because of its active which used with Burst of Speed, will allow you to take out 1 champ, Lunge at another and take him out, all within the space of a few seconds, provided your team presses theirs ;)

Jungler Items

• Boots of Mobility: When jungling you may need the extra movement speed out of combat so you can reach other monsters quicker, such as the Dragon or blue/ red buffs. Also you may want to move faster if you have to go help your team on a lane or secure/ setup a gank.
• Phantom Dancer: Mentioned in "lane items" section.
• The Bloodthirster: Mentioned in "core items" section.
• Infinity Edge: Mentioned in "core items" section.
• Madred's Bloodrazor: As stated in the "alternative items" section, this item is very good for dealing lots of damage against champions, specifically the ones with more health, such as tanks.
• Guardian Angel: When jungling the enemy team may setup wards to counter jungle you and to gank you, this can be very frustrating if your support isnt buying Oracle's Elixir so having a Guardian Angel on your back will help you survive those ganks. As mentioned before this is useful in team fights and the extra resistances it gives you is an added bonus ;)

Alternative Items

These 3 items could be used together to increase the amount of health you steal from an enemy. Using Madred's Bloodrazor gives you the ability to deal 4% of health as damage to the enemy champion hit, the spell vamp from Hextech Gunblade should allow you to gain more life, and along with Spirit Visage which increases its effect further. But the only ability that has uses AP would be Riposte so i cannot see this tactic in common use, but you can try it out and tell me what you found out.

• Guardian Angel: You will probably be focused alot late game and Fiora tends to be quite squishy, so either you run in after your tank or you can just can one of these which are handy to any champ that gets focused.
• Quicksilver Sash: If your enemy have lots of CC then you could use 1 of these to stop them, this acts like a second Cleanse which can really anoy the team, but you should only need 1 or the other.
• Banshee's Veil: Again if they have alot of CC or alot of AP casters then this would help you survive and not get caught out too easilly.
• Frozen Mallet: Fiora can be quite squishy so if the enemy team have too many AD carries or you feel that your losing too much health too quickly, you can get one of these, plus the slow is quite useful aswell.
• Trinity Force: This item can do quite well on Fiora as it increases alot of stats that you want to increase, but this can be quite expensive so you would probably want to focus on the individual stat items unless the game is long, you can change an item for this.
• Last Whisper: The Black Cleaver is useful against tanks because it stacks Armor Penetration but if all your enemies are building armor, a Last Whisper would be more useful because it is more useful at team fights, not just against 1 player.
• Madred's Bloodrazor: This item deals alot of damage but you would have to get rid of something which is good for the build, such as The Black Cleaver or Tiamat, but you will still deal alot of damage either way.
• Youmuu's Ghostblade: This could be used instead of a Phantom Dancer because it still gives you the stats you had before with Phantom Dancer, except it is an active, but it also gives you AD and a passive armor penetration and further CDR.
• Manamune: Mana isnt exactly a problem for Fiora late game so you won't be needing this or anything else that gives you mana for late game. You may want a little extra early game but it wouldn't give you any immeadiate damage increase like the B.F. Sword. If you are good at avoiding ganks this could be a good item long term, but i wouldnt choose it over something like Infinity Edge.
• Berserker's Greaves: Instead of getting the CDR you get from Ionian Boots of Lucidity, you could get some attack speed making Fiora more effective during short and breif fights.
• Tiamat: Yep, this item is amazing with Fiora and her ult Blade Waltz. Who thought that her ult was good enough, hitting all champs and dodging the turret, well now it deals damage to every champ, at every hit, what could you want more? <3
• Mercury's Treads: This item is good on Fiora because she doesnt have any CC and will often be focused if doing well, therefore it is always a good idea to keep these boots in mind if you don't want to go for the CDR setup which is also good on Fiora.

Team Fights

First of all, Fiora is an Assassin AD carry and therefore should not go in first. You always want your tank to go in first, taking the first of the enemies abilities plus some of their CC. While this is happening you want to make sure you are there to quickly finish off any one of their team who are injured or just jump in straight after the tank. When Fiora is in a team fight, your allies will want you to use your ult to cripple the enemy champions so they can easilly be finished off, but you have to be careful about when you use it and who you target.

Using your ult during team fights

When using Blade Waltz you want to make sure that your tank is already stuck in and your team is pressing the enemy team, that way if you suddenly jump in with your ult, you won't be abandoned or behind enemy lines without a chance of escape. Once your team have begun pressing and your tank is stuck in, and you have attacked them as well (yes don't forget to attack not just wait for ult), this is probably the time to use your ult Blade Waltz to deal damage to every champion which can often turn the tide of a team fight. Now that you have used it, you should easilly be able to use those assassin skills of yours to pick off the remaining champions and push to thier base.

Warding the map

This is where you, your team and more importantly your support should Sight Ward.

• Yellow: Vital to protect the jungler on your team
• Blue: For protection depending on which lane you're on
• Red: To guard Dragon and Baron
• Orange: In order to Counter-Jungle

Jungling

When jungling with Fiora you will be able to jungle alot faster than other champs and survive longer because of her passive Duelist and her ability Riposte. The passive allows you to gain health every 6 seconds after hitting an enemy so you will regain health quickly along with your Vampiric Scepter. Also you will be able to reflect those big basic attacks from the monsters with Riposte reducing the damage you take and reducing the time you need to kill the monster.

Role as the Jungler

Your role as the jungler is to always make sure that you are taking full opportunity of your jungle by killing all the monsters while also killing the Dragon to give your team more gold. Also there may be a time when you want to go into the enemy jungle to steal their buffs which really effects the game, and you can also steal their monsters to counter jungle their jungler. Now at the start you want to get someone to help you pull the blue/red buff and someone to cover incase the enemy try to gank. After you have taken the red or blue buff you should be roaming between the double golems, wolves and the wraiths. After doing that for a while and you have reached level 4+ you should be looking for opportunities to gank the enemy team, and make sure that you tell your allies to ping for you if they need your help. Keep an eye on the enemies health so you can gank, as a jungler you should be looking to gank as much as possible.



KEY =
Black - Your standard ganking locations. These are where most people gank from every single gank, which you definitely shouldn't if it's warded or you can get them from somewhere else!
Red - Where you can gank if you have a Flash-esque ability like Crowstorm, Deceive or Spinning Slash (or simply have Flash and think you can take them) and the brush is warded. These are extremely good at killing enemies who're turret hugging with low health! Note the ones that go from Banshees to mid - mid never expects to be ganked by a jungler there and that can make an extremely good gank if they're overstaying their welcome in a lane.
Blue - Where you should gank if they aren't at the turret (and accessible by red arrows) but the brush is warded. This should be your go-to ganking location for when it's warded! These do work exceptionally well if you have a Flash-esque ability, but they work for anyone really!
Purple - Where you should usually attempt to gank the enemy jungler, hopefully after you've stole his buff with Smite!
These will USUALLY be the only locations you will be ganking from, so I thought I'd outline them! Most just use black lines normally which you shouldn't do every single time!


Brush Ganks -

These are ganks that derive their name from what they are. Ganks, from the brush. To pull one of these off, you need top/bottom to push their lane out a lot. At that time you sneak into the brush and walk to the second one if you will still be unseen. After that, you simply let your lane get pushed again, and when the time is nigh, you can jump out on the enemy with the lane you're ganking, either using bait, or ganking as you would normally. These can be extremely potent in certain junglers' hands. Make sure they don't go into the brush if you are in it, it may reveal you, or you could get CV'd because the lane wants to see the champions, and NEVER last hit in it!

These will, naturally, need for the brushes not to be warded, and a lot of the time, a lane will ward it if you have just killed them from there, especially bottom. You can't do these all the time, and naturally, you can't simply push some lanes (especially ones you are losing) as well as others. These are niche ganks, and definitely not conventional, though they are regularly used in high level play, and for a good reason. They should be known by every good jungler, they are certainly potent ganks, especially for junglers without any hard CC (like Olaf).

You'll want to be in a position such as this one when the minions are pushed. When the lane starts re-pushing back to your turret or the enemy comes too close to your brush, don't hesitate to go for them! Time you're in the lane and waiting is wasted, so go at the best opportunity and go soon!

Counter Champs

Will add soon!

Summary

I find Fiora to be a fun champion to play and she is the first assassin style champion i have played. She may be a difficult champion to get the hang of, but once you know what you're doing, you should be able to use her to full effectiveness and tear the enemy to shreds easilly.

Thank you for reading my guide and I hope that it has helped you in some way. If you have any comments please write them below and any feedback you wish to share so I can update my guide.

Please upvote my guide if you liked it and thought it was good, and if you feel you must down vote it, please tell me why so i can rectify my build so others don't lose out.

Special thanks

A very big special thanks to jhoijhoi who's guide has helped me in making mine, with the codes, ideas and generally. Also thanks again for the "warding the map" image that i used for my guide.

A very big thanks to Xenasis for using his jungle pictures and gank information.

Changelog

15/03/2012 - Centered runes, rectified a couple of spelling mistakes and swapped Tiamat into alternative items for Randuin's Omen.

16/03/2012 - Renamed the guide from "Fiora; Defines the "French Kiss"" to "Fiora; Defines the "French Kiss" [Lane & Jungler]".

20/03/2012 - Added Mercury's Treads to the "alternative items" section. Changed the guide name from "Fiora; Defines the "French Kiss" [Lane & Jungler]" to "Fiora; The Battlehardened Seductress".