Hello Everyone! My name is Pheonxifera and I loooooooove Vi. I wouldn't say I main her, but every time I play her, I tend to do rather well so I decided to make a guide to her. The trick with this Vi build is that it focuses on getting ahead early. With this build, you are meant to zoom in, take someone out and then get the hell out of dodge. After you start building tank items, you can stay for prolonged fights, but I would seriously recommend just getting that one kill and leaving as fast as you can. I didn't post champs that are good against her simply because as long as you know what you're doing, Vi is good against everyone. Hopefully, this guide will help you along in that aspect.

Before we get into what to build on Vi and how to play her, I want to go over some pros and cons I've noticed while playing Vi.

Pros:
Lots of Damage
Easy to Gank With
Not many can out-duel her mid-late game
Fast camp clear.
Versatility

Cons:
Easy to kill early game
Can be difficult to pull of pre-6 ganks
Tends to fall off late game

I personally prefer going Electrocute on Vi. You can go Predator or even Resolve build path but this is the one that seems to have won me the most games. Sudden Impact for that extra lethality after your Vault Breaker. Eyeball Collection because you're going to be zooming around the map and ganking as much as you can post-6. Ravenous Hunter because you need some sustain.

For Secondary Runes, I go Precision Path with Triumph for that extra health which may save your life if you're 2v1ing and Coup de Grace because by the time they're able to attack after your combo, they'll be under 40% HP (if you're ahead.)The extra adaptive AD upon a takedown doesn't hurt either.

For items, the first major one I like to build is Stalker's Blade - Warrior. That Cooling Smite helps you tremendously in your burst and in chasing down enemy champions. The 10% CDR is useful because then your Vault Breaker and Relentless Force are up more often. The Attack Damage it gives also is a major bonus because it empowers all your abilites.

Depending on what enemy team composition you're facing, you have one of three options for boots. Mobility Boots, Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi. I like using Mobility Boots because it helps speed up my travel and allows me to gank easier. However, if you and your team are having a tough time surviving, pick Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi for the defensive stats that they give you. If you need to get them, 8 times out of 10 that decision will save your life.

After that, I personally prefer to go with Trinity Force, however you can go with a Black Cleaver first instead. The Trinity Force gives you extra Movement Speed, Attack Speed, Attack Damage, Mana, Health, the Phage passive and the Sheen passive (except buffed. Trust me, it's amazing with your Relentless Force)

This is where it becomes situational. The ideal path would be to get your Stalker's Blade - Warrior, get your boots, get Trinity Force (or Black Cleaver), get Black Cleaver (Or Trinity Force) and then get whatever tank items you need. However, this isn't a perfect world. There have been many a time in which I've needed to get my Stalker's Blade - Warrior and then go straight to my first tank item. Or I get my Trinity Force and then need my tank items. For tank items, I've narrowed it down to four choices.

Against an AP heavy team, Abyssal Mask or Adaptive Helm are very good items because it provides you with the extra health that you need against burst champs as well as the defensive stats. Abyssal Mask gives you 10% CDR and turns damage you've taken into Mana. Adaptive Helm provides you with that damage reduction against Damage Over Time spells (such as Fiddlesticks' Bountiful Harvest or Teemo's Noxious Trap).

Against an AD heavy team, I'll go with Randuin's Omen and Dead Man's Plate. Randuin's Omen provides an Activated AoE slow with a relatively short CD, Armor, Health, Crit Damage Reduction and slows the attack speed of those who auto-attack you. Dead Man's Plate gives you Armor, Health, Extra Movement Speed and an On-hit slow with bonus damage.

If you're against a mixed or balanced team (such as 2 strong AD characters and 3 AP characters), I'll normally go with a mix of the two. First off, I'll find out who is doing the most damage on their team and build my first item according to that. If it's an ADC who's doing a ton of critical hit damage, I'll get a Randuin's Omen. If it's an AD character (like Zed), I'll get a Dead Man's Plate. If it's an AP burst champ, I'll get either an Adaptive Helm or Abyssal Mask based on the reasons stated above. After that, I'll just get the other defensive item based on the enemy team composition.


DO NOT GET A Sunfire Aegis. It messes up your clears and can potentially aggro neutral camps and cause you to 1. Die if you're being chased. or 2. Deactivate your Mobility Boots.

!!!!IMPORTANT!!!! DON'T CHOOSE YOUR SKILL BEFORE THE CAMP YOU'RE STARTING AT IS SPAWNED! I personally prefer starting red with Vi, so that's why I would rank Denting Blows first. However, just in case the enemy team invades, or your team wants to invade, you may want to rank your Vault Breaker first. This helps with you getting to the enemy and being on the front lines as well as potentially securing yourself and early game kill.

Flash and Smite.

You can also get Ghost instead of Flash, but it doesn't actually help in many situations.

My normal route through the Jungle is this:

Start at Red Brambleback and kill it without Smite. proceed to the Crimson Raptor Camp. At the Crimson Raptor Camp, focus on the small raptors and then kill the Crimson Raptor using Smite. Go to the Wolves, once again, focusing on the small wolves before the big wolf (don't use Smite) and then go to Blue Golem. Use Smite to kill the Blue Golem and then proceed to the Gromp. Kill that smiteless. Now, look at your laners and see who is doing the best. If they're not pushed up super far, Gank that lane. The goal of Vi is to either 1. Get yourself fed or 2. Get your laners fed through constant lane presence. Also, if you can, camp a lane in order to tilt the enemy laner. If you can get them to rage quit, you get bonus points! Just get Krugs whenever you can. They're not really important in my opinion.

One thing I think is important is this: Always make sure your jungle is cleared. If you're not ganking, you're farming. If you're constantly ganking and your jungle camps are respawning, you either better stop ganking or get one of your laners to clear it for you. The last thing you want is the enemy team invading your jungle and getting EXP and gold off of the jungle camps you forgot to clear.

Ok, so when it comes to team fights there are several ways to play it. If the enemy team is completely grouped, wait for one of two things. They engage or your tank engages. Because you're not really going to be getting tank items until late game unless you absolutely need it, you do not want to initiate a fight because the enemy team will turn on you faster than a pack of hungry hyenas and burst you down.

If the enemy team is doing a standard 1-3-1 formation, focus on picking off the solitary champions to build up your gold and lead as well as shutting down theirs. You want to do anything to set the enemy team behind as much as possible.

When you're in the middle of the team fight, always focus the champion that does a lot of damage, but is squishy. If you have the option of either killing the Low Health Tank Maokai or the Full Health Vayne, you better go after that Vayne. If you blow everything you have trying to kill that Maokai, you'll have nothing but the possibility of your teammates cleaning up to protect you against that Vayne.

In Summary, there are good pros and bad cons about Vi. It really depends on how well you know the champion and can play her. The thing about Vi that I absolutely love is her versatility. You can play her as support, jungle or top lane. One thing you need to absolutely remember, however, is that you, by the fact that you've picked Vi, are literally one of the most important members of your team and that places a gigantic responsibility on you to make sure that either you or your team gets ahead. If you're 0/9/15, that's absolutely fine. That means even though you died 9 times, you got your team 15 kills. It's just acceptable as going 12/3/1. You need to be a team player when it comes to Vi. Without their help, you WILL fail. I hope that this guide will give you the basic tools needed to start mastering Vi. Have a wonderful day! =^)