Hi, I'm VanguardRaven, and this will be my first written guide. I hope you find it to be an interesting read, and can find the time to provide some feedback, whether it's a nice thumbs up or some form of constructive criticism. Discussion is always welcome.

Before we start, I'd like to say here that this guide assumes you have a basic knowledge of how to jungle, what ganks and invades are, and basic knowledge of the new Trinket system, since this guide is not created to teach you about those things in particular. Guides for such already exist, and in greater detail than I could ever hope to achieve.

On to Vi.

Vi is a champion whose primary role is within the jungle, although it is possible to play her in mid and top lanes. However, her early mana issues are what makes her more suited to the jungle role.

Vi has seen rising popularity towards the end of season 3, even seeing play within the Season 3 Worlds. I have been using her since she was released, and despite her nerfs throughout the year, I still have faith in her and her ability to carry the game to victory.

Pros:

+ Naturally tanky with her Blast Shield passive.
+ With the combination of Vault Breaker and Cease and Desist, Vi's ganks can be legendary.
+ Vault Breaker serves as a form of mini-crowd control, nudging enemies towards the opposite direction of the impact, allowing your laner to get more hits in.
+ Great abilities to clear the jungle quickly.

Cons:

- Her Vault Breaker is hard to land in some situations. The combination of charge time and travel time can give enemies plenty of time to react.
- Once she is in the centre of the enemy team, there is no way out. A good Vi needs her allies to be on the same page as her and react accordingly.
- Vault Breaker will go on a painful 3 second cooldown if Vi is interrupted during the charge. 50% of the mana cost is refunded if this happens.

Greater Mark of Attack Speed x 9
More AS means faster jungle clearing. Also allows the benefits of Denting Blows to proc quicker and more often.


Greater Seal of Armor x 9
The best yellow runes for jungling, increasing your survivability against monster hits as well as other sources of damage like turrets and champion auto attacks.


Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist x 9
Scaling over flat because you should encounter little to no ability power-based damage unless you gank a lane with an AP enemy in it. Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist are better than Greater Glyph of Magic Resist from level 9 onwards.


Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed x 3
Great for both traversing between monster camps, towards lanes, and helping stick to fleeing enemies easier. A no-brainer for almost any jungling champion (aside form champions like Riven with free mobility).

Defense

Enchanted Armor (2): Very much a mid/late game mastery. For every bonus 100 AR/MR you have (that also accounts for bonuses gained from other masteries and runes), you will have an extra 5 AR/MR. Worth the two points for any tank.
Tough Skin (2): The jungle camps hurt, especially early on. This helps you take less damage from them as you slaughter them and their kids.
Veteran's Scars (3): A meh mastery for 3 points, but better than Block and Unyielding since you're jungling and all. You need this for Juggernaut .
Bladed Armor (1): Anything to help you clear the jungle and kill baron/dragon faster is more than welcome.
Juggernaut (1): A good mastery, especially since you'll be getting lots of health within your item builds.
Hardiness (3): Very good for taking less damage from all auto attacks, AD-based abilities, monsters, and turrets.
Resistance (3): Not so useful within the jungle, but when you're ganking lanes where there may be AP casters and AP-oriented supports, this will help nicely.
Perseverance (3): This mastery has once again been nerfed in order to put all the top lane Dr. Mundos and other tanks in check. 3 points in this mastery used to give 3% in patch 3.14 (making it better than Garen's Perseverance), then in 4.1 it gave 2% which made it equal. Now in 4.2, it has now been brought down to 1%, which is still reasonable.
Swiftness (1): Your movement speed is reduced by 15% when your Vault Breaker is charging. With this mastery, the slow will be reduced to 13.5%.
Reinforced Armor (1): You're going to be on the frontline. Any enemy ADC worth his projectile will be chipping away at you, and will more than likely have a decent crit chance.
Evasive (1): As with Resistance , near useless in the jungle. But come the times when it's time to gank an AP champ with AoE spells, the reduced damage will be more than welcome. Also useful come mid and lategame when your enemies will be chipping away at you from range.
Second Wind (1): Improved healing when low on HP. It may save your life at some point, especially when stacked with all the other health regen masteries and items you'll have built.
Tenacious (4): Not so useful whilst jungling, but even going into a gank against a single-laned champion will buff your defenses by +4 armour and +2 MR. Come midgame when 5v5 teamfights will be occurring, that's +20 armour and +10 MR.
Legendary Guardian (1): CC reduction for 1 point. Always useful.

Utility

Fleet of Foot (3): +1.5% movement speed is essentially a fourth Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed. Too good to pass up, in my humble opinion.

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Alternative mastery tree build - 0/21/9

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Why no points in the offensive tree?

Let's say I wanted 9 points in the offense tree (limiting the defensive tree to 21 points). I would personally pick:

Fury (4): Attack speed, this helps clear the jungle just that little bit faster.
Brute Force (3): An extra 10 attack damage at level 18.
Double-Edged Sword (1): It is either this or Expose Weakness , but really they are quite interchangeable depending on your laners. If you feel confident in your ability to land abilities (specifically Vault Breaker) and you trust your laning allies to snowball with their kills, then Expose Weakness may be the better option. Double-Edged Sword is probably the best choice for solo queue, though.
Martial Mastery (1): +5 attack damage. Makes a significant difference in your earlygame damage.

So yeah, these are definitely early-mid game masteries - when your builds are still small and you don't yet have much of anything. I however opted against the offensive tree for the extra earlygame tankiness in the defense tree. This allows you to build some early damage (specifically Phage and Sheen) and hit hard and fast by the time midgame arrives (when Trinity Force should be in mid-build, or complete if you've had a successful earlygame). Then during midgame you should be building defensive items to stack on top of your masteries. and start taking the role of tanky engager for your team before the endgame arrives.

The first 9 points in the offensive tree is heavily gauged towards champions in a lane, and are focused towards last-hitting and dealing extra damage to an enemy champion. You are a jungler. You don't even know what last-hitting is and the only time you damage a champion is when you invade, when you get invaded, or when you're ganking a lane. Granted you will see more enemies more frequently come mid/lategame, however by that time, these 9 points in the offense tree become redundant in comparison to the rest of your stats gained from your items.

Ask yourself this: Which 9 points would you detract from the defense/utility tree to place into the offense tree, considering your mid/lategame role?

Summoner Spell 1 - No debate, Jungler.

Smite This is a must-have on any jungler. Saves valuable clearing time, and helps you secure an objective if it's being contested by the enemy team.

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Summoner Spell 2 - Choose whichever best suits your needs.

Flash The go-to Summoner's for nearly any situation. Instantly relocate your champion to a new position nearby. Useful in both escaping and chasing a fleeing opponent. This is however less of a priority pick on Vi since this guide focuses on cooldown reduction and levelling up Vault Breaker before anything else.

Ghost A personal favourite of mine. Useful in both escaping a sticky situation and sticking to an enemy who is trying to escape your relentless fisting. Works well with Vault Breaker because the speed buff will let you keep up with your opponent even as it is charging.

Exhaust I like to take this when there are enemies with few abilities to help them escape a gank and have overextended a little too far. An Exhausted Ashe will crumble on the spot. Pop this on them, and it lets both you and your ally stick to them as they try to get away. This works best against enemies that rely heavily on auto attacks, such as most marksmen and melee champions such as Tryndamere and Jax.

Blast Shield Passive: When Vi's Vault Breaker, Relentless Force or Cease and Desist damages an enemy, she gains a shield equal to 10% of her maximum health for 3 seconds. Blast Shield has a static cooldown (it cannot be reduced by cooldown reduction) of 18 seconds between levels 1 to 6, 13 seconds between levels 7 and 11, and 8 seconds from level 12 and up.

Vault Breaker [Q] Cooldown: 18 / 15.5 / 13 / 10.5 / 8 seconds Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana First cast: Vi charges her gauntlet, increasing damage and travel range over 1.25 seconds. Whilst charging, Vi cannot auto attack, or use any of her other abilities. If Vi is interrupted whilst in this state, Vault Breaker goes into a static 3 second cooldown. Second cast: Vi launches herself in the direction of the cast, and deals one proc of Denting Blows to all enemies that are hit. Vi can pass through minions, but stops when she hits an enemy champion, knocking them back. Vault Breaker does 75% damage to minions and monsters.

Minimum physical damage: 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+70% bonus AD) Maximum physical damage: 100 / 160 / 220 / 280 / 340 (+140% bonus AD) Dash range: 250 - 725 Maximum AoE range: 900

Denting Blows [W] Passive: Every third attack on an enemy or neutral target deals bonus physical damage equal to a percentage of the target's maximum health, reduces the target's armour by 20% (at all ranks), and gives Vi bonus attack speed for 4 seconds. Denting Blows does a maximum of 300 damage against monsters and minions.

Bonus physical damage: 4% / 5.5% / 7% / 8.5% / 10% (+1% per 35 bonus AD) of target's maximum health Attack speed bonus: 30% / 35% / 40% / 45% / 50%

Relentless Force [E] Range: 600 Cooldown: 1 second Cost: 60 mana + 1 charge at all levels Active: Vi's next auto attack will deal increased damage to the target, as well as all enemies in a cone behind the target. Vi can hold 2 charges of Relentless Force at one time. Once Relentless Force is activated, Vi has a short time to use the ability before the charge is lost. Vi has +50 auto attack range whilst Relentless Force is active.

Total physical damage (per charge): 5 / 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 (+115% total AD) (+70% total AP) Charge reload time: 14 / 12.5 / 11 / 9/5 / 8 seconds

Cease and Desist [R] Range: 800 Cooldown: 130 / 105 / 80 seconds Mana cost: 100 / 125 / 150 mana Active: Vi targets an enemy champion and charges straight towards their location. When the enemy is reached, she knocks up the enemy for 1.25 seconds and slams them into the ground, dealing physical damage. During the charge towards her target, Vi is immune to crowd control and will knock aside any enemies in her path, dealing 75% damage to each of them.

Physical damage to main target: 200 / 325 / 450 (+140% bonus AD) Physical damage to secondary targets: 150 / 243.75 / 337.5 (+105% bonus AD)

> > > > >

> > > > >

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Levels 6, 11, 16.

Levels 3, 4, 5, 7, 9.

Levels 2, 8, 10, 12, 13.

Levels 1, 14, 15, 17, 18.

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Cease and Desist [R] - Levels 6, 11, 16. Reason(s): You will level this ability up as soon as the opportunities arise. It's your ultimate, and is the best tool you have when it comes to ganking lanes and initiating a teamfight later in the game. Suggestions: Since your ultimate is also able to damage and disturb enemies along the path of your ultimate, it's sometimes a good idea to target someone in the middle or at the back of the enemy pack in order to damage more enemies. That's the signal for the rest of your allies to go ham. If your allies are not on the same page as you, you will die a quick, lonely death, and your team will be one tank down and open for a 4v5 counterattack. Don't go in until you know your team's got your back. You may die during the fray, but if all goes well your team will come out on top and there will be the opportunity for your allies to take more objectives whilst the enemy team is aced.

Vault Breaker [Q] - Levels 3, 4, 5, 7, 9. Reason(s): If you've read everything in the previous chapter (Abilities Overview), you'd see that Vault Breaker has a level 1 cooldown of 18 seconds. That's a long time for the ability which gives you such amazing gank, chase and escape potential. And who knows when you will need it. Each level this ability gains reduces the cooldown by a sexy 2.5 seconds - by the time it's level 5, Vault Breaker's cooldown is a very likeable 8 seconds, even without any cooldown reduction. Personally, I think this massive boost in mobility is much better than the buffs gained from a level 5 Denting Blows. Suggestion(s): You can use this ability for several things: Ganking enemies, escaping enemies (by either creating distance or passing through a wall), chasing fleeing enemies, traversing through walls to initiate on jungle camps faster, escaping the enemy's jungle faster if invading, and probably quite a few other things, too. With a cooldown of only 8 seconds at level 5, your survivability - alongside your tanky mastery page and build - will be very high. This allows you to take bigger risks relatively safely throughout the game.

Relentless Force [E] - Levels 2, 8, 10, 12, 13. Reason(s): This is leveled second purely because the mana cost does not increase as it is leveled, but the power output increases and the cooldown decreases by 1.5 seconds per level. This gives you stronger jungle clear as the shock wave should kill the weaker monsters before the largest monster is even dead. Suggestion(s): The auto attack range of 125 is increased to 175 whilst a charge of Relentless Force is present and ready to fire. This may catch fleeing enemies off-guard as they assume you won't be able to auto attack until you're closer to them. If an enemy is escaping you by the skin of their teeth, try to finish them by hitting another target behind him so that the fleeing enemy is damaged by the shock wave. You may also damage minions behind a turret by using Relentless Force on the turret, but this doesn't work the other way around (e.g. you can't damage turrets with the shock wave). Make sure no enemy champions are in the shock wave or else the turret will begin to attack you.

Denting Blows [W] - Levels 1, 14, 15, 17, 18. Reason(s): This ability is taken at level 1 because it costs no mana, and the buffs gained and debuffs applied to the enemy camps are strong. I max this last because I think the power increase for leveling Relentless Force and Vault Breaker is more useful. Suggestion(s): Not much to say about this since it's a passive ability with no active. But there is a little strategy when it comes to taking down turrets quicker. if there's an enemy minion nearby, attack it three times to gain the attack speed buff and then proceed to attack the turret. The AS buff stays for 4 seconds. Also, attacking an enemy with Vault Breaker and Relentless Force will give 1 proc of Denting Blows. During ganks, you can use Vault Breaker into the enemy laner (1st proc), auto attack them (2nd proc) and finally use Relentless Force (3rd proc) - this will effectively reduce their armour by 20%, making this the perfect time to use Cease and Desist (they may even have burned Flash by now, whoops), allowing you and your lane ally to finish him.

- Starting items -

Hunter's Machete The basic jungle item nearly every jungler begins with. Deals extra damage to monsters and helps keeps you healthy, even if only a little.

Stealth Ward This item will help you and your allies. If the mid or top laner need vision to prevent ganks, or you want to ward the river to spot invades, you can put this down around any of the jungle entries from the river.

- Early game -

First back

Boots Even a little extra base speed will have a nice effect on your total movement speed with the +6% movement speed from runes and masteries.

Spirit Stone Some much-needed health regen and mana regen. Your abilities are quite mana-hungry, so it's always nice. Plus Vi has no sustain of her own outside of masteries, so the extra health regen is great on her. Since Season 4 rolled in, they changed the way in which you regain mana and health. Instead of health/mana per 5 seconds, you now get health and mana for doing damage to monsters. Good for champions that may have mana problems, or want to stay on the field longer before returning to base, thus applying more pressure on the enemy lanes, chances to counterjungle, etc.

Aim for these items before mid game arrives:

Boots of Swiftness Yeah, a change to the boots of choice considering the rather huge nerf to the Mobility Boots. We lose our roaming speed of +105, however when engaged in combat, we have a permanent +60 movement speed as opposed to the mere +25 the Mobility Boots offer in combat. Also, with the Boots of Swiftness, our movement speed takes less of a hit whilst charging Vault Breaker thanks to the Slow Resist passive.

Spirit of the Ancient Golem This item gives you health, cooldown reduction, health and mana regen, and Tenacity. This should be completed immediately after the Mobility Boots. The same season 4 changes were made to this item as the Spirit Stone.

Phage This item's passive gives you +60 movespeed (!) for 2 seconds after killing a jungle monster, minion or enemy champion. Great for running between jungle camps. The item also provides some more health and some much-needed Attack Damage.

Sheen This item improves your mana pool (which is always useful) and also gives you some Ability Power ( Relentless Force has a 70% AP ratio, so it's not wasted). The best thing though is the improved damage output of autoattacks after an ability has been used.

- Mid game -

After getting the Trinity Force, build into at least two of the following defensive items depending on your needs, and sell your Sweeping Lens for a Greater Stealth Totem at some point, assuming you didn't already start with the Stealth Ward.

Trinity Force The path you take towards the Trinity Force is really a personal preference, however I would definitely suggest getting the Phage before anything else in the Trinity Force recipe. This item gives you so many stats, and none of them will be wasted on Vi. After your two jungling items ( Mobility Boots and Spirit of the Ancient Golem) you should try to get this as soon as possible and gank as hard as you can. The movespeed buff is nice, as well as the 2 passives.

The bulk provided by Spirit of the Ancient Golem won't hold out for long though, so you need to start building your defenses in preparation for the late game and 5v5 skirmishes.

Randuin's Omen Enemy ADCs hate this item. A combination of health and armour is given, along with a good passive that lowers the movespeed and attackspeed of anyone who hits you with an autoattack. This item makes you nearly impossible to kite, and more resistant to autoattacks in general.

Frozen Heart This item doesn't give health like Randuin's Omen does, but it gives a boatload of armour, improves your mana pool, and also 20% cooldown reduction so you can abuse that larger mana pool. Since you've already got a decent bit of health from Trinity Force and Spirit of the Ancient Golem, this defensive item would be a good decision in most situations, and is better pick than Randuin's Omen if you have no intention of getting Spirit Visage at all for the 10% CDR (reduced from 20% CDR since 4.1 rolled in). The passive reduces the attack speed of all enemies within 1,000 range. All you have to do is be in the vicinity of the ADC or other autoattack-reliant champs and you're already helping. You can get this item alongside Randuin's Omen and listen to the cries of the enemy ADC as his attack speed is reduced by 35%, as long as you don't need more MR than what is provided by Mercury's Treads. But the enemy team will almost always have at least one AP champion, so this situation is extremely rare.

Iceborn Gauntlet This is another great defensive item against AD. It is somewhat like Frozen Heart, however it is a more offensive option with the extra AP and passive. If the enemy team is AD-heavy or their AD melee champions are giving you grief, then you should get this item next to Randuin's Omen. The passive is great for preventing the enemy team from reaching your allies. This passive alongside Randuin's Omen's active move speed debuff is devastating. Get into the centre of the enemy team and make them want to /surrender.

Locket of the Iron Solari A great item that helps you and your allies stay alive with the passive and active. Gives you extra AR, health and CDR, and your whole team, including yourself, extra MR. An active gives yourself and all nearby allies a 230 HP shield (assuming you're level 18). Great against mages with powerful AoE spells.

Spirit Visage A rather fabulous item that became popular because of all the nice stats it gives. MR, health, CDR, health regen, and a sweet passive to help you sustain even better. Sadly this item's CDR got nerfed when patch 4.1 came down from 20% to 10%. If the enemy team seems to be pretty balanced between AP and AD, I'd usually get this item alongside a Randuin's Omen

Banshee's Veil I only ever usually get this item when I am against an AP-heavy team with powerful burst/good poke. In most situations a Spirit Visage would suffice, but in such cases as mentioned in the previous sentence, it's reasonable to get both. Spirit Visage passive has great synergy with the second Banshee's Veil passive.

Greater Stealth Totem Upgrade this so they last longer. Just because you have this trinket, it doesn't mean you no longer have to buy regular Stealth Wards any more. You are allowed to use 3 Stealth Wards and 1 Vision Ward at any one time, so make use of them.

Examples of defensive item combinations to build during mid game

Randuin's Omen & Spirit Visage Total cost: 5750 Gold 900 Health 70 Armour 55 Magic Resist 10% CoolDown Reduction 20 health regen per 5 seconds Passives and active

The two go-to items when facing off against a mixed team of AD and AP champions. Main focus is extra health, with a healthy dose of health regen, AR, MR, CDR and the passives and active each item supplies. I'd get this build against enemies that enjoy auto attacking.

However with the nerf to the amount of CDR given by Spirit Visage, I may well opt to instead go for the Frozen Heart, Spirit Visage and Spirit of the Ancient Golem trio for 40% max CDR.

Frozen Heart & Banshee's Veil Total cost: 5650 Gold 450 Health 400 mana 95 Armour 55 Magic Resist 20% CoolDown Reduction Passives

For 100 gold less, you get 450 less HP (you however already have a load from Spirit of the Ancient Golem and Trinity Force), 20 more armour, 10% more CDR, and passives that require no activation. The Banshee's Veil passives are pretty fantastic, however. I'd get this build against bursty assassin types, where the Banshee's Veil passives give you a little more survivability with the single ability block and fantastic health regen upon taking damage.

Frozen Heart & Spirit Visage Total cost: 5650 Gold 450 Health 400 mana 95 Armour 55 Magic Resist 30% CoolDown Reduction 20 health regen per 5 seconds Passives

Since patch 4.1 rolled around, this combination of items is all of a sudden viable (and my favourite build) since the CDR nerf to Spirit Visage. These items alongside Spirit of the Ancient Golem will give 40% CDR, which is super.

- Late game -

Once you have 5 items, you must consider your final item. You should consider an item that gives you something you think you need, whether it's more damage, more armour or more magic resist. As well as the items that were listed in the midgame section, a few extra viable AD items have been listed:

Ravenous Hydra This item is good on Vi since it provides great sustain (especially with Spirit Visage's passive), gives even more damage output during teamfights, and also helps you push lane faster. If you're winning game and feel as though you have enough defenses, buy this and try to finish up.

Black Cleaver Now this is a great item with Vi. The armour shred this item gives works really well alongside the 20% shred that Denting Blows provides on the third hit for a total of 40% armour shred (since it stacks multiplicatively). Hypothetical situation: If the enemy tank is giving your team a bad time, buy this and smash into him Vault Breaker, auto attack, Relentless Force, auto attack, Relentless Force, all the while your own ADC is poking him down, he will fall exceptionally fast. When he's dead or retreating through his allies because his health is dropping too quickly for his own comfort, Cease and Desist into the enemy ADC or APC (whichever one lets you knock aside the most enemy champions) and let your team go ham. If you do opt for this item however, be mindful of the items you already have. The 10% CDR will be wasted if you already have Spirit of the Ancient Golem, Frozen Heart and Spirit Visage.

Selling Mobility Boots and Spirit of the Ancient Golem

With games suddenly becoming longer, it is more common to be getting close to full build. Everyone has a full build and spare thousands in the bank. What do you do with this money so late in the game where a single teamfight can win or lose you the game? If you ever find yourself in this situation, I would advise you sell your Mobility Boots and Spirit of the Ancient Golem for Mercury's Treads and one of the previous items listed but not purchased yet.


At this stage, you won't be needing the extra move speed provided by the Mobility Boots, so it's a good idea to eventually sell them once you're beginning to group up and teamfight more often. You can do this at any point during mid/late game, not just when you have a full build.

Mercury's Treads Tenacity and more Magic Resist. This is to primarily replace the Tenacity lost from selling Spirit of the Ancient Golem, although the extra MR is also useful. Make use of those 27 points in the defensive mastery tree and stack those lategame defenses.

Play Video
Video uploaded by DiffTheEnder.

Basically, you finish the blue (or red) camp, and head immediately to mid lane and perform a gank.

As the video shows, you can catch an enemy off-guard by ganking so early, and force a Flash or even force them to back or die if they didn't Flash.

You need the shared experience of two melee minions or three caster minions from the lane. Then you can complete the red camp and you will be level 3. If the enemy mid laner is still around after their Flash's burnt, get back there and help your mid lane snowball.

But remember: If you plan on doing this, you must put your level 2 ability point into Vault Breaker in order to perform an effective gank with Vi, not Relentless Force as this guide normally suggests. Once you hit level 3, you can put that point into Relentless Force and perform another gank as usual.

This game was lost because our top laner never connected. 3/4 voted yes to surrender.













The following games are from patch 4.1:




If you have tried this build, I'd like to see some of your results too!

Thanks for reading through this guide, I hope you've taken something useful from it.

This guide will always be open to discussion and edits, so feel free to make suggestions and ask questions in the comments section!

For example, do you think I should add more sections, such as strategies for team fighting, jungling, counter-jungling and ganking? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Also, if you've played games with Vi using suggestions from this guide, it'd be awesome if you could post a screenshot of the result in comments so I can post it here in its own "results" section.

GLHF

VanguardRaven, Europe West.

2014-03-03: Nerfs to Mobility Boots in patch 4.3 means a slight change in my guide.
2014-02-15: Further nerfs to Perseverance ; guide updated for 4.2.
2014-01-24: Several changes made relating to the season 4 patch and Spirit Visage nerf.
2014-01-11: Had to remove the chapter banners because all the views were eating into the free Photobucket bandwidth!
2013-12-13: Added the "Hit level 3 with only red and blue camps" chapter.
2013-12-03: Edited some item suggestions and added extra mastery options.
2013-12-02: Guide published.
2013-11-27: Guide created.