I've been playin since week one open beta, save a few months when I just took a break...blah blah blah. You didn't really want to know about me. Just keep in mind this is my first guide so... Lets get to the guide.

I've seen a few guides here that really were not working for me. Seemed Vi was either to squishy or not enough of a threat to really care. Being a new champ that was understandable so I experimented a bit and found this works great for me. Not saying this guide or my build is the end all be all but it does seem to work better for Vi.

Here is one of the biggest differences. Attack speed marks. Yeah her stuff scales off ad. But you aren't there to pentakill a team with pure damage. You are an in your face champion as Vi and you need to soak up the damage while dishing it out. You do this through her W. The Q is a repostioning tool for either you or the target and the E is just harass and to get your shield up and to net some assists from the people who SHOULD be killing things like the ADC or your mid. So AS marks are the way to go. The sealsare standard Armor. The glyphs I use more AS. Not saying its the best, but it works for me. Flat damage quits help with last hitting and early harass with your E.

The way I have always looked at both runes and masteries is they are there for the early game primarily. You get these right and you have a smooth early game then they become a little less important in midgame and endgame your items do the work. I go for the harass and the finishing power of Offense, but a solid case could be made for Defense. Not my style, not in this guide.

I've seen similar builds to mine in terms of items but not in that order. You are (again) an in your face champion as Vi. You are going to take damage. With the passive percentage health off W the longer you are in the fight the more damage you will do. And to quote one of my favorite guide writers from back in beta "More ducketts means more docketts"--Condon. As most tops are physical based, that is what I've included in the build. As I become more accustomed to this format I will add an "against AP" section. But for now instead of cloth armor get null magic/pots-->boots--> dorans blade--> null magic --> merc treads --> Wits End. From there continue as you please.

E is a good harrass that is somewhat position reliant. This takes a little practice but the cone is pretty big so it isn't that difficult to land. When you feel confident you can hit that consistently then challenge yourself to hit minimal creeps with it so you don't push all the way up. But that is why you get a point early. After that Just max W with a splash of R when available and then Q to reduce the cooldown.

Q- A decent escape mechanism and gap closer. A little trick to get used to but not terrible. It applies a stack of W if you can hit it so the sweet combo is Q-auto-E. You just chunked someone, you theoretically have your shield and an AS boost. The opponent is going to be like she's dead in the water now. Nope keep autoing and if they stick around they will die (with the exception of Olaf and that is a 50/50 chance thus far in my testing).

W- This is your bread and butter. Once you get a target. Hit it. A lot. Kill it. Dead. With like a rock or something.

E- Decent harass and AOE farm. Again the challenge is not to push your lane. You are not super tank and if you get caught out by the jungle or the mid that was not in their lane then you are probably going to die. Very least you will need to B. Of important not is that this resets the auto attack timer. Refer to the combo above for more details.

R- This is a good ult to smack someone with. The suppress is just good enough to get your Q-auto-E in. Immune to CC to but I've not ran into alot of instances where that was helpful but it could be. Make you a decent intiator if your team lacks one. I prefer to wait till the ADC is out of postion and smack them in the face. But each team is different and sometimes we don't always get what we want.

Early game- A lot of your gamestyle is going to be determined during this phase. You need to come out even or on top or you are not going to have fun this game. Harrass with Q beat someone up with your combo. Play smart. Ward. Dont die. If you are on the Red side of the jungle start taking golems if you are behind (with the jungle's permisson of course). While not ideal it can help.

Mid Game- Now depending on your early game you are either death with mechanical fists or meh. If you followed what this guide said and played smart and didn't die you will likely be the former of the 2. Hopefully you have glacial shroud and working towards iceborn gauntlets by now (or if you have iceborn gauntlets then you are fed out of your mind and you should gank like crazy). If someone is still in the laning phase...take them out of the laning phase. Start fights. You are Vi. Hit something.

Late Game- Now you have gotten the core items and you aren't a melee squishball. Now build whatever resistance you need. You don't need damage. Cannot stress that enough. You will likely need some MR if they have any AOE so get some kind of MR. I like Banshee's Veil but whatever floats your boat. If they are super AD heavy get a Randuins to ruin some poor kid's day that thought 5 ADC would be cool...

So if you've gotten this far you really want to know what to do with Vi and aren't just looking at the cheat sheet. You can fulfill 2 basic roles with Vi. Initiate or guard. This is going to be determined by your team comp. Vi is not the best initiator because she doesn't have much in the way of built in tankiness and her disruption is minimal. However she can peel and guard very well. Most of the time it will be the AD carry that you will be guarding so in a team fight you can either stay on the hip of the ad carry or between the ad carry and the fight. This will come down to enemy team focus and composition. If they have gap closers (Noc for instance) you need to be on the hip of the ad carry. In the aforementioned instance you would want to use E to take off the spell shield then Q and finally R if needed. This should have bought your carry enough time to either escape or kill the aggressor. If there are limited gap closers then between the fight and the carry (read outskirts of the fight). This will be where their initiator will be and your job is to keep him and the rest of the team at bay for the carry to kill. Iceborn Gauntlet helps a lot at doing this. It with mallet should make the enemy team crawl forward allowing the rest of the team a great deal of time to pew pew.

If you get into the position of initiator your life just became much harder and you will likely have many deaths. However if the enemy does not use a lot of their burst just on you you will likely wreck their carry and your job is done either way. Flash ult is a nifty trick you can use until the enemy team catches on. You are going to need a lot more survivability down this route so consider both using the defensive tree in masteries and getting a GA along with a Randuin's.

Pro's
Heavy hitter with a fair amount of sustain.
Good gap closers and fair initiation mechanics.
Does percent life every 3rd hit.
Decent escape mechanism with Q.
Has one of the best loaders with the release that Riot has ever done.

Con's
Susceptible to early ganks if the lane is pushed to far.
Teemo rains on your day pre 6 and even then he isn't fun.
Olaf is a bastard.
Q doesn't get you out of everything.
Has on far to many clothes.

So you read that wall of text? Good job. If this guid picks up steam I'll go back and make it pretty with pictures and stuff. But a guide isn't meant to be pretty and it isn't meant to say this will work 100% of the time against 100% of people. The reason I put this here was so some people struggling will have a starting point. I know you likely didn't enjoy the read but if you did I am glad. I do hope you enjoy giving this guide a try though.