The latest champion to enter the League of Legends is quite stunning – even without any CC abilities!

Another Damacian AD Carry, Fiora The Grand Duelist, is a welcome addition to the rather stale pool of existing melee AD carries. Her skillset is quite interesting – and, while not groundbreaking, puts together what looks to be a great combination of sustain abilities.
Here’s what Riot’s Fiora Patch Notes say about her skills:

• Duelist (passive) - Fiora regenerates health over 6 seconds each time she deals damage. Striking champions will cause this effect to stack up to 4 times.
  Lunge - Fiora dashes forward to strike her target, dealing physical damage. Fiora can perform the dash a second time within a couple seconds at no mana cost.
• Riposte - Fiora’s Attack Damage is increased. When activated, Fiora parries the next basic attack and reflects magic damage back to the attacker. Works against champions, monsters, and large minions.
• Burst of Speed - Fiora temporarily gains additional Attack Speed. Each basic attack or Lunge she lands during this time increases her Movement Speed. Killing a champion refreshes the cooldown on Burst of Speed.
• Blade Waltz (ultimate) - Fiora dashes around the battlefield to deal physical damage to enemy champions. Successive strikes against the same target deal less damage.

Here’s what I read from her abilities: Fiora’s passive, which stacks with her abilities, makes for huge sustain early game. When paired with lifesteal items, she ought to be nigh unkillable in duels. Her Burst of Speed ability makes for not only great burst, but great escape capabilities.

Fiora appears to have almost no item dependence at all – with built in burst damage and attack speed, lifesteal, gap close, and thornmail… She’s naturally versatile, and clearly intended to be the queen of 1v1 battles.

03-01-2012 - Initial build created based on a mix of bot and normal queue pvp games, with commentary from fellow players.

03-02-2012 - Build updated with second and third panels, based on observed opponents and team mates across a number of games.

03-03-2012 - Reworked panel 3 for better damage output and speed

PROS

• Intense damage potential
• Incredibly versatile
• Auto-targetting pentakill ultimate
• Ultimate resembles fabled Omnislash :D
• Awesome champion design

CONS

• Will be focused
• Easily CC'd
• Squishy right into late game
• Intensed for 1v1, not teamfights
• Requires a deceptive amount of finesse for ability timing

One of the first comments I got about Fiora is that there isn't a lot of room for her in team compositions. She won't work on bot lane because she can be zoned. She won't work as a jungler because Warwick or Master Yi are better. She can't mid, she can't support... So what is she?

Fiora is a duelist. This should be self-evident. Based on her skills, her initial stats, and the current meta, she can serve a number of purposes:

• Dominating solo top
• Backing an assassin on top
• Backing a ranged AD on bot in a burst comp team
• Jungling - with a heavy emphasis on ganking
• Being backed by a CC tank just about anywhere

Fiora is a carry. She's meant to get in, melt a face - one face, each time - and get out. If she were built for anything else, there really would be no place for her.

I have yet to see her in ranked play - however, I expect this is coming. She isn't threatening enough to be banned, and while she can do a lot of damage, she certainly isn't unbalanced at all.

Fiora requires finesse, timing, and good enemy awareness to succeed with. However, as always, your playstyle will determine whether or not you should play her consistently.

Masteries here are fairly self-explanatory 21/9/0 combinations.

I wanted to get Fiora's attack speed and overall damage up in each case - to allow for best output of damage over time. I've opted for damage enhance and armor/MR masteries to mix with her Rune set.

As with masteries, both sets of runes you'll see here are common AD Carry sets. Focusing on early game benefits with flat armour, and either flat damage or armour penetration is the best way to go here in my experience.

Pure Damage

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage and Greater Mark of Attack Damage for pure damage at an early level.
• Greater Seal of Armor for armor; another must-have.
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist to balance the armor with Magic Resist.

Tank Buster Runes

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage for pure damage at an early level.
• Greater Mark of Desolation to get through early armor purchases, and counter support tanks.
• Greater Seal of Armor for armor; another must-have.
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist to balance the armor with Magic Resist.

Other good rune combinations might include either attack speed or cooldown reduction, since Fiora's cooldowns are quite horrendous early on.

I've tried Fiora with %health bonuses, flat health bonuses and so on as well - to see how she plays as an offtank. Horrible, horrible failure. Fiora is pure AD smash at it's finest.

Depending who you're laning against, it's tempting to begin with Lunge or Burst of Speed. However, I generally use the following skill sequence due to it's high initial output, and the lack of need for pounce in early laning; especially if you're solo top.

Skilling order: W, E, Q to open, max E first, then W, and finally Q.

W, Riposte, grants 15 bonus damage, at level 1, as well as acting as micro-thornmail. This is essential in surviving first encounters, but does need some finesse in terms of timing before auto-attacks, rather than skill bursts.
E, Burst of Speed is the major damage dealer, due to the climbing attack speed bonus. This beats out subsequent AD bonuses from Riposte, as it swiftly means doubling your attack speed during initial engagements.
Q, Lunge, does it’s whole job from level 1 without needing to be maxed. Well placed Lunges get Fiora across almost an entire screen – since you can pop two per use – and into the enemy’s face quite handily.
R, Blade Waltz, is naturally to be levelled as it’s available. This ult is something else – a 5-strike, screen-crossing supersmash that processes on-hit effects on each hit. It’s as if Riot said – “Yeah, Master Yi’s Alpha Strike? Let’s one-up that and make it a monster.”

Note: I've found that Fiora's ult can be quite taxing to use, especially given it's "First hit, last hit" mechanic. If her first target dies during the ult, she has nothing to return to - so the ult is cancelled. Also, if the target stealths - similar effect, the ult cancels half way through. You may find that - while it's quite powerful - it shouldn't be used as a last-strike measure, especially in teamfights.

Like most AD carries, Fiora has some natural affinity items that just work with her. Ensuring you have them at some point in the game is paramount to success - and while Fiora's not as item dependent as other champs, the natural AD affinity items do make a difference.

• Doran's Blade is a perfect opener. With the runes and masteries above, if you open with this and Riposte you have 101 AD at level one. Hard to beat that.
• Bloodthirster for lifesteal and snowballing damage as you farm mid to late game is a must have.
• Infinity Edge for critical strike and high attack damage boosts - another highly viable choice.
• Tiamat - WHAT!? Yes. Trust me. Fiora's abilities - including her ult - trigger on-hit features, so Tiamat's splash is fantastic on her.

I've included these in most of my AD games where possible - but the order to rush, and items to support these, varies based on the panel suggestions as detailed below.

For initial games with Fiora, I rushed Trinity Force because of it’s versatility. Triforce gives you enough broadly ranging benefits to allow for farming and gank defense in the early to mid game. It’s post-spell AD bonus is also an on-hit effect that Blade Waltz can process. Since I’m not going with Wit’s End, Malady, or any other on-hit items here, this is a surprisingly useful item to have with her ult in late-game teamfights.

Like a lot of other top and offtank builds, a combination of Warmog's Armor and Atma's Impaler – for the crits and reduced squishiness - and the Infinity Edge is a must have for any AD carry.

This one ought to explain itself pretty well.

Opening with Doran's Blade, Boots and Vampiric Scepter means you have a high amount of sustain for the first few levels in your lane. Because of Fiora's burst abilities and long cooldowns, mana isn't much of an issue - so what you need is to play on Duelist's regeneration abilities and add to them.

Here I think we have every B.F. Sword item in Classic League of Legends; and they're a good mix. Backing them up are Frozen Mallet] for some CC (because Fiora has none), and [[Atma's Impaler to build armour, critical strike, and damage.

Atma's Impaler is only made worth it on Fiora by having a health item such as Frozen Mallet. If you're opting for any builds with no health, omit Atma's - it's damage bonuses at her base health are simply not worth it.

I know – I expect the first question to be “Why Tiamat?”

I rushed Tiamat because of it’s splash. Since Fiora’s a highly competent solo laner, she needs to farm – but has no AOE effects. Splashing 50% of her intensely high damage potential clears minion waves very swiftly; it’s also an on-hit effect that Blade Waltz can process. Once again, this is a very useful ability to have, even in the late game. It works best against melee enemies, however, or with very good positioning.

Here, we're using some common on-hit items - which work fantastically on Fiora due to her abilities (including her Blade Waltz) processing on-hit abilities. Because of this, Madred's Bloodrazor, Tiamat and Malady make an excellent combination. The late-game combo of Malady and Black Cleaver especially are devastating; shredding both armour and magic resistance, while doing increasingly high amounts of damage, means eating tanks for lunch.

Again here, I've rushed Tiamat - but with an eye to stacking damage and some CC later on.

Bloodthirster and Infinity Edge should be self-explanatory for any AD carry; Bloodthirster comes first here because by mid-game, you need the sustain extra lifesteal gives you. Frozen Mallet comes between the two, because by this time (I had FM by level 10, two games running), you need a bit of lockdown capability to keep opponents from dashing out of reach.

Phantom Dancer may seem like a bit of an afterthought here – and I admit it is. With Fiora’s initial attack speed and damage potential very high, it’s not until late game that you need map-crossing power, and bonus attack speed. Even then, Burst of Speed pumps her striking speed up toward the ceiling fairly quickly.

Fiora is a face melting damage machine – but she’s not OP.

She’s a lot of fun to play, but will be easily countered in higher level matches. She’s squishy early on, and needs some support and finesse to get kills. If you like Riven or Wukong – you’ll love Fiora, who’s something of a combination of both.