Hey guys,
Im VenomOne, currently Plat 3, Vi Main. I currently enjoy playing Vi a lot, especially since the jungle items got patched, which was huge for Vi.
So let's get into it: Vi is an ability based character, with a high damage potential while being tanky at the same time. She provides heavy engage with following cc and lockdown, strong ganks, and is annoying to play against, generally speaking a nice jungler.

So obviously Vi wants to get items right? The question is what to buy ? So here are some options you have:

You start with rushing the Stalker's Blade into Warrior and boots. Boots are important for Vi for a few reasons: If Vi gets in range of an enemy she can lock him down and deal some decent damage until the ally champions is in range for his stuff.

You want to get your jungle item very soon as well, because it basically is what makes your early game so good: It gains AD,ADPen,Cdr; everything Vi needs. And of course the smiteslow of doom which fits perfectly into Vi's kit, since it allows her to come in range easily. Rushing Stalker's and Warrior on it makes it easier to decide afterwards what you want to build after it as well, because you already have your basic stuff together, that way you will be able to freely decide what to get the next time you go to base.

Now it is time for the late early-game and mid-game stage of the game. For me there are two options to build Vi from here on:
You build damage
You build tanky/ADOfftank

In my opinion there is just one case in which you can afford to get damage items: You are doing great, thanks to some good ganks or/and good farm + your team is at least okay on its' own. If you feel like you control the game and you are sure your team won't need you as tank in the later stages of the game you can start building cool stuff like Triforce and cleaver.
If you want to be a real ***** you can build TriForce + GA, that way you are tanky and still deal a lot of damage. Check out the exact items I like to build on damage Vi in the description of the different builds.

The other way to go is the tanky one: Usually Vi player build tanky because of the current meta. It's not enough to just kill the enemy carries if the enemy Irelia just kills you right after you blew up Lucian. So let's take a look at the options existing:

The best case you can imagine as Vi is playing against a full AD comp. You start building Randuin's first. HP + Armor + Passive = Best thing to get. After you have your Randuin's you want to get Frozen Heart for the CdR, the armor and the op passive of course. As soon as you get both of those you just **** on the enemy team. You decide which part of the items to get first, I personally prefer the HP and CdR Parts of both those items. Which items will follow now depends on your game situation. If you feel like you have enough armor and HP just get more damage with cleaver or TriForce. If you have enough Armor and CdR but you need Damage and HP, guess what you want that Frozen Mallet. Check out the Description of the ,,vs. AD”-build.

Playing against heavy AP comps as Vi is pretty good, too. You have the options of building Specter’s cowl or Hexdrinker, choose between damage or HP. AP champions usually take some time to be dangerous, they need items. So you can decide if you want some damage to make it hard for them to get there, or you start to build up the MR for later stages. The item of my choice is Banshee's Veil, because the passive absorbs most of the AP-carry's damage. After that I get Hexdrinker so I will be able to fight back with a decent amount of damage and some good defensive stats. After this item you are free to build whatever you need and like. Just check the build-description.

Of course the standard comp to play against is a mixed one. I like to build Hexdrinker first because you build up MR against the midlaner most of the times and , in the current top-meta, the toplaner as well (Mao, Liss, etc.). After I got that one I start working on Randuin's starting with the Giant's Belt, because there shouldn't be a real AD threat there already. As soon as the Randuin's is finished u should work on more HP along with the resistances you need (Specter’s Cowl for MR, Glacial Shroud + Kindlegem e.g.), just stack up the defensive items.

There is always the question :,, What to skill first ?”, well here are your options:

1. You start W. Pretty standard, you get a good start out of it, you can even start well without a leash.

2. You start E. There are always people complaining about an E start on Vi, but there are reasons to like and do so. First point: your E procs your passive, which gives you a shied absorbing the first hit of whatever camp you start with, which your W won’t. Second: You can cancel AA, meaning you can increase your damage by cancelling two hits with E and granting 50% more damage since you start AA-> canceled AA -> AA -> cancelled AA. There are two problems with starting E: First: you need a strong leash because after your combo you fall of in damage pretty hard. But if you get a decent leash and kill your first big camp after this combo, maybe with another AA on it, you will clear your camps about 10-20 seconds faster, in comparison to the W start. Second: If you fail your combo and the AA doesn’t go off or your teammates don’t help you, you loose about 20 seconds and you maybe have to back after your second camp. So your choice pretty much is safe W start with decent clear and almost risk, or E start with increased risk, but a lot of time will be saved.

3. There is the possibility to start Q, but you only should do that in case you invade for some simple reasons: Your Q has a superhigh cooldown on level 1 so you wont use it twice on a camp and it doesn’t deal damage. It does proc your passive but that doesn’t really matter because you will have to clear the camp with just autoattacks without W passive what will take forever. Starting Q in general simply sucks.

Scaling magic resist glyphs OR Cooldown glyphs

This time you can choose between two options, depending on the enemy teams comp and your own skills and experience:
If the enemy team runs a AP heavy comp you don’t have much of a choice, just take dem scalings. I personally prefer scaling mr over flat mr, because AP champs need time to scale and you can’t build up enough mr for those who have a decent base damage such like akali, so you are better of take scaling mr and build mr items ingame.
The other option are the 9x cdr glyphs, which are pretty strong as well.
You choose this option if the enemy team runs a full ad comp or a low ap damage comp, as long as you are sure you don’t need the mr. Of course you can choose cdr glyphs against ap heave teams as well, if you want the early damage and you are confident enough about not running mr.

Full Armor Seals
Eventhough Vi has a decent clear with her W, she does even better with increased sustain caused by armor seals. There are no good alternatives anyway since you are jungling.

Full AD marks
The reason for taking ad marks on vi are simple: First of all Vi has a decent ad scaling on her abilities so she can easily deal tons of damage without making use of a single autoattack. Further she provides armor pen with her W passive so you don’t need any of those in your marks,;Vi just need raw damage.

Farming
Vi has a pretty good clear with her combo. If you do it prefectly you can do every camp except the buffs with one combo as soon as you reached two damage items (Stalker's + Hexdrinker e.g.). You want to start with Q hitting every single monster in the camp, let a E follow to clear all small monsters around, make sure you are in the right angel so E would hit every monster, and just do the rest with your AA and the second E stack. The super fast clear of Vi makes it easy to focus on things like ward coverage, ganking and decision-making, sometimes even free counterjungling. For sure a point to mention in upcoming teams with the intention of having the jungler as shotcaller, too.

Fighting
Its really hard to explain all situations here but in general you can do three things
1: You start with ulting your enemy and knock him back with Q, followed up by E into AA into E, dealing huge damage. Usually the way to proceed with, in case you catch someone or get a carry in teamfights. That way you lock him down and slightly push him into your team. In case you notice you are at the wrong place after ulting you can disengage with flash and Q.

2: You start with Q and an AA, E right after. Then Ult, AA, and E. Pretty standard for ganks, because you can combine Q and flash to a nice combo with a huge range. Save way to deal damage if the Q lands, but no way around flash for disengage if you mess up.

3: Start with Q into your enemy. AA him as long as possible in combination with E to cancel some of the AA to maximize your damage output. Either you force your opponent to flash and you follow with ult because its range its a lot more than flash range, or you just keep shredding him with AA and your W passive. Just do this against more squishy targets, Malphite won't care x)

Important: Always be aware of the fact you are invulnerable to cc during your R

Pro:

- low cooldowns for gamechanging abilities in late-game
- good CC with R and Q
- high damage output
- good clear
- good engage
- good ganks
- very tanky considering the damage she deals
- able to solo carry
- able to fight most junglers at 6
- able to adapt to almost every comp and situation

Contra:

- vulnerable to counterjungling early
- no real disengage besides flash + Q
- falls of in terms of damage after her combo

As a Vi player you can pretty much choose between grouping and show your full usability in teamfights, or just solo carrying by just catching people and push to apply pressure. Vi's R is easy to combine with multiple combos of other champs, because it locks enemies down for so long and deals some good damage, so skillshots are easy to land, combos easy to do, just test it out :)

To make it quick: Vi is a solid Jungler to play and for sure belongs to the top tier junglers right now.

- Fits into almost every team
- Potential to carry almost every team
- Not that hard to learn
- Nice stats
- Adaptable
- Always fun to play