Welcome to my first League of Legends guide, long time mobafire subscriber, first time builder.

Today I'm going to be tackling Volibear, The Thunder's Roar. The first thing I noticed when I picked this character up is that he feels a lot like a hybrid of Singed and Garen, so we want to make our build something that incorporated bits of each of those Champions into it.

I'm going with the standard Tanky DPS 9/21/0 here, the first thing you'll notice as you look through the Masteries is that I chose to leave points out of Initiator in the defense tree. This is because Volibear's real strength comes in when he is at half or less health. At this amount of health, Volibear can get single enemies to overcommit to a fight without accounting for his passive and his lifesteal. Most of the other masteries are self-explanatory, but if you have a question feel free to ask in the comments and I will edit!

Here I went with Attack Speed Marks, Health per level Seals, 2 flat CDR and 7 per level CDR glyphs, and 3 flat Health Quints. Basically the strategy here is to boost our attack so we get more out of our ult and out lifesteal, the health we gain here counts towards our W (as does health from Masteries). The glyphs are set the way they are because it comes out to almost exactly 8%, plus the other 8% from out Masteries for a total of 16% before items. You can go 9 into either CDR rune if you like, this is just how I do it.

Out of the gates you want to solo bot with a Ruby, Boots 1, a Vamp Sceptre, and a health potion. I find this gives me the best survivability in the early game, and once you get to feel Volibear correctly you can win bottom most of the time with this start. The singleton health potion should be used the first time your passive is triggered. The extra regeneration speed can all but guarantee a kill and cap on bottom straight out of the gates.

On the first return, buy as many rubies as you can afford, even if you max your inventory. If you have leftover money purchase the Emblem or Boots 2 (or both!)

After this you can be the judge, generally I buy in the order shown above.

Since we're focusing on maxing our HP and CDR, we want to level W first. After the W, I like to max his Q because his E doesn't have as much added value as it ranks as his Q does. Of course get the Ultimate on time, as usual.

I chose Surge and Ghost, both of these synergize very well with Volibear's chasedown/beatdown playstyle. Flash, Exhaust, and Ignite are also good choices depending on personal preference.

With this build, Volibear becomes a regeneration tank early game, and a brick wall late game. In the early game, you should be able to get a decent farm going on bottom. You'll want to push toward their tower slowly while weakening the enemy champ. Once you can take the kill, go for it. After a few practice runs, you should be able to get this opening kill 60 or more % of the time. Cap their bottom and die defending it, then get your first buy.

After this the game opens up more, but generally play Volibear in the taker/pusher role. He's happiest when he has three stacks so try to keep him that way as much as possible.

Please put your questions and stuff below, I'm reserving this box for good questions that are asked.