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Hello everyone!

This is my first attempt at a guide, so I'm terribly sorry if there are mistakes in it. This is how I would build Vi there are probably a lot of ways on how to build her. But I'm going to show you my favourite ones. Just look around and if you don't feel the vibe you can always look at another one. :)

Vi is a top lane or jungle champion. Her abilities are for pummeling opponents and shattering their armor and ofcourse to nuke them down. This Vi guide will show you both top and jungle.

If you have any additions to something or any corrections, please say so in the comments. I'm open to try anything new. I hope you enjoy the guide and learn something from it!

- Greetingz from Allianta -

This is the champion spotlight for Vi: Play Video
Oh.. and this: Play Video

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To Vi, every problem is just another brick wall to punch through with her gigantic hextech gauntlets. Though she grew up on the wrong side of the law, Vi now uses her criminal know-how to serve Piltover's police force. Vi's brash attitude, abrasive humor, and blatant refusal to follow orders can often infuriate her by-the-books partner, Caitlyn. But even the Sheriff of Piltover cannot deny that Vi is an invaluable asset in the fight against crime.

As a child growing up in the lawless outskirts of Piltover, Vi learned to rob and cheat to get by. Stealing and stripping hextech hardware gave her the skills of a master mechanic, while life on the streets taught her self-reliance. When she was six, a ragtag group of criminals took a shine to the young delinquent and brought her into their fold. By the time Vi was eleven, she had become a seasoned accomplice, and she relished the thrill of every heist.

Vi's attitude changed when a raid on a mining facility went bad. She was forced to decide between fleeing with her crew and trying to save the innocent mine workers from a collapsed tunnel. Vi chose to play the hero. While searching for a way to free the mine workers from the rubble, she discovered a damaged robotic mining rig. Improvising, she wrenched off its huge fists and modified them into makeshift hextech gauntlets. Fitting the heavy weapons to her tiny hands, the young girl flexed her arm and threw a powered punch at the rubble. The force of the blow blasted away the rock. With the workers free to escape, Vi fled the scene.

After that job gone wrong, Vi severed her connection to the crew. She returned to a life of solitary crime, but stole only from other criminals. As the years went by, Vi modified and improved her hextech fists, allowing her to bust up heists and snatch loot with ease. Eventually, word of her notoriety reached Caitlyn, the famed Sheriff of Piltover. Rather than seek Vi's arrest, Caitlyn offered the criminal a way to pay her debt to society: work for the law in Piltover. Vi laughed. To her, a job that let her beat up crooks without forcing her to run from the cops sounded perfect. She immediately accepted. Caitlyn now struggles to keep Vi in line, and Vi treats Caitlyn's orders as mere suggestions, but when they work together, they are feared by all lawbreakers in Piltover.

''It's a shame. I've got two fists, but you've only got one face.''
-- Vi

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Offense:

Fury Boosts your attack speeds which causes more damage output.

Sorcery Cooldown Reduction helps you clear the jungle faster / Harass more in toplane.

Butcher Gives that little bonus boost to destroy towers faster.

Deadliness Attack Damage helps you do more damage, the higher level you are the more you gain.

Weapon Expertise Reduce the armor of enemies so they get more damage of your attacks. With your W ability on top this is very nice for destroying them.

Brute Force Gives you a little bit more AD.

Havoc Increases your total damage output by 2%.

Sunder Armor Penetration to deal even more damage, helps with early ganks if you're jungling.

Executioner This explains itself, makes you do more damage to enemies if they're under 50%.

Defense:

Summoner's Resolve Everytime you use smite you get a 10 gold bonus. For solo top you can take Perseverance or Tough Skin , whatever you prefer the most.

Durability Gives you more health so you can stay longer in the jungle/lane and are harder to kill.

Hardiness Reduces the amount of physical damage that you get.

Resistance Reduces the amount of magic damage that you get

Relentless This will help if you're running after a low health champion that can slow, or if you need to get away.

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Greater Mark of Attack Damage This will give you an upper hand early game in fights and will help you get those last hits on minions.

Greater Glyph of Magic Resist This will help if their AP Carry is fed and does a lot of damage. For early game aswell as for late game.

Greater Seal of Armor This will help a lot for Top lane, most of the champions you will face there will be AD. It also helps to get less damage from their AD's early and late game.

Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Again this will help you to have the upper hand in early game and to get last hits on minions.

Other Options:

Greater Mark of Armor Penetration If you want even more armor penetration, you can change to this rune.

Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed Vi is kind off slow, so this is an option. But I wouldn't take it. In my opinion if you have the enchantment on your boots (Furor) you can just take flat AD Quintessences.

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Summoner Spells are PERSONAL PREFERENCE, don't forget this. You can choose whatever you like the most. I am going to tell you which spells I enjoy most playing as Vi.

Ignite I always use Ignite when I'm top, for securing kills, and if I'm against a healing champion to irritate them a bit.

Smite This ofcourse is a must have when you're jungling. For killing/stealing buff mobs, aswell as for securing/stealing a dragon/baron kill.

Flash This is my personal favourite, I always use it. It's very usefull for when you're in a sticky situation and have no other escape abilities. It's also very usefull for closing gaps when you're hunting down an enemy

Other Options:

Ghost Some people enjoy using ghost more than flash, I see no problem with it. This is truely personal preference.

So these are all the options you can get:

As I said this is all personal preference.. choose whatever you like the most and play the best with. :)

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Blast Shield This is her passive, you can activate the shield by hitting an enemy with 1 of your abilities.

Vault Breaker This ability is very nice if your jungling comes to gank or if you're ganking somebody. It will bring you close to the enemy pretty quickly, knock them back and it even applies the Denting Blows debuff.

Denting Blows This will help you nuke down opponents quickly.

Relentless Force This is great for clearing out the jungle quickly or for harrassing if you're in top lane.

Cease and Desist Ofcourse you always get this ability when possible. This is also a nice ganking/engage utility. Don't forget it makes you immume to crowd control when you use it.

If you know how to counter an enemy on this list, tell me in the comments and I'll be sure to add it!
(These are champions that I think could counter Vi)

Twitch Because of his range & poison this is rather a good counter for Vi.

Teemo Same goes for him + his blinding dart disables your W and E ability.

Irelia With her insane lifesteal & stun (when you're higher health) it's a bit hard fighting against her.

Riven With her ranged ability and jumping stuff, this might be a challenge too.

Olaf He does a lot of true damage early game (+ Vi is already a bit squishy early) and his ultimate ignores yours.

I have no clue if these are actual counters of Vi, I just have a weak feeling they might be. If you want to add or dissmiss a counter, tell in the comments why!

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Here I will tell you the jungle route I use. :)

First off start with wolves, ask your mid / top to help damage them. Use your E ability (use the 2 charges) to clear wolves fast. If done well you shouldn't get a lot of damage (shouldn't even use a health potion). Then head on to blue, you can ask for a hardpull if you like that. Pop your first health potion while you're fighting blue, normally you can kill it without using Smite.

Go to wraiths and take your W ability, start clearing wraiths. You should pop a health potion here too. Head on to red buff and use your potion, here you can use smite to kill him faster. Clear golems and use your last health potion(s) whenever you need them. Keep following this route and look out for lanes that you can gank.

Here is a map to help you:

Ganks:

When you are ganking a lane, try to get behind an enemy and use your Q ability to knock them to your side of the map. This will reduce the chance of them getting away. If you have Exhaust you can use that to help reduce the chance even more.

As soon as you have your ultimate you can gank much easier, since it will knock up the champion you're charging and knock away any enemy in the way to him. Ofcourse, always use your ultimate on the carry.

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Early Game:

Try to harass your enemy a little bit with your E ability, if they stand behind their minions and you have your W to you can easily harass them. You can also use this method if you're pushed back under your tower with a lot of minions. You can still get most of them if you have your 2 charges up. Ofcourse always buy wards! You're going to get ganked a lot if they know you never place a ward down and you push like your life depends on it.

Mid Game:

Don't go jumping in into teamfights if you're still a bit squishy. If you had a good early game and are a bit fed, which means having a fair bit of health and defensive matherial you can initiate with your ultimate or Q ability.

Late Game:

Because you're fed and have a lot of health and armor doesn't mean you're invincible. If you had a bad game and are really squishy.. do not overextend. Don't make yourself even more vulnerable. Late game you should mostly stay with your team anyway.

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Dragon: This mob spawns at 2:30 minute mark and respawns 6 minutes after it's killed.
He provides:

- 190 Gold (Global)

- 400 Experience (Everyone that fights it)

If you see the enemy team trying to do Dragon, don't let it go easily. Tell your teammates to try and steal it, or if you're jungler you can try it yourself. Always keep it warded to. The gold and experience is pretty nice, so it's definitely worth to put a fight up for it.

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Baron Nashor: This mob spawns at the 15 minute mark and respawns 7 minutes after it's killed.
He provides:

- 300 Gold (Global)

- 900 Experience (Global)

- A buff that gives: 40 AP - 40 AD - 3% of your max health in heatlh regeneration - 1% of your max mana in mana regen. (This buff is only given to the members of the team that are alive!)

The Baron buff in mid / late game is a nice extra for your team, but don't go running suicide into people thinking you can 1 vs 2(or more) them. It doesn't make you invincible or a guarantee win. Don't be stupid and waste your buff, use it to harass and push lanes. If a teamfight breaks out, it is a perk for your team and you should give everything you have right then and there.

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Here are some tips and tricks that might help you a little bit. :)

- Use your passive wisely in the jungle, try to use your shield on red buff and blue buff. It might not be a lot of damage you neglect, but it's something

- You can use your Q ability to charge over some of the walls, helping you escape out of a failed teamfight or a gank.

- If your opponent in top lane bought a vision ward place your ward at Baron, out of range off the vision ward.

- If you have some extra gold and your opponent is warding, you should definitely tell your jungler too come gank as soon as you placed your vision ward down and killed your oponent's ward.

- Your E ability does extra damage on turrets/inhibitors/nexus, so try to use your ability as much as possible on those when pushing!

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I will explain some of the items I choose to use on Vi. Some items are for top are the same reason as jungle, if you have some additions or corrections on items for jungle / top you can always tell me, I'm prepared to try everything. :)

Jungle Items:

Wriggle's Lantern The lifesteal is quite nice and the ward is very handy. You can choose to either help a lane with warding, you can put it at dragon or at one of your buffs if you're scared of getting counterjungled.

Black Cleaver The armor penetration on top of your mastery and ability is really nice to nuke their carry down easily + with the AD you get from the cleaver it's a nice bonus to your damage too.

Zephyr This item gives you a nice amount of AS and CDR together with a bit of AD and movement speed.

Phage The slow is pretty nice for ganking and if you build it out into Trinity Force you will do tons of damage. Trinity Force also gives you a fair bit of movement speed, health and mana. So it's very nice.

Mercurial Scimitar This provides you with a bit of magic resist and AD. The active is very nice since it gives a speed boost and removes all the debuffs on your champion.

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Top Items:

Black Cleaver The armor penetration on top of your mastery and ability is really nice to nuke your opponent down + with the AD you get from the cleaver it's a nice bonus to your damage too.

Zephyr This item gives you a nice amount of AS and CDR together with a bit of AD and movement speed.

Mercurial Scimitar This will help in late game if their AP carry is doing a lot of damage. Rush this items first if you're against an AP top laner. (e.g. AP Teemo or Nidalee)

Phage The slow is pretty nice for securing kills when they're running away, and if you build it out into Trinity Force you will get to do tons of damage. Trinity Force also gives you a fair bit of movement speed, health and mana. So it's actually very nice.

Situational Items:

Wit's End if you don't have enough MR at the end of the game, you can always switch your Zephyr for this item.

Frozen Mallet You can take this item if you like to have the slow while ganking or when you're laning. It also provides a nice bit of survivability, so it's a pretty nice item.

Guardian Angel For both this item is very nice. When you're already hard to kill and do a lot of damage this item will make the enemy team even more angry. Since it also gives a little bit of armor and magic resist. When jungling you can sell your Wriggle's for this item late game.

I have no credit for this build, since my boyfriend (Tregan) made this. I will explain how the build works and which items you should take when.

The first items are pretty clear. Boots and Doran's Blade, follow with Phage, The Brutalizer, Beserker's Greaves and Black Cleaver. The follow up of your build depends on what kind of team they have.


If they have a lot of AD or is their AD fed, follow this build:
Sunfire Aegis, Trinity Force and Atma's Impaler.

If they have a lot of AP or is their AP fed, follow this build:
Maw of Malmortius, Trinity Force and Banshee's Veil.


Finish your build with:
Enchantment: Furor, Stinger and Zephyr

Mostly you will only need 1 kind of defense, either armor or magic resistance. If you feel you need both, you can always take an item of each. (e.g. you take Atma's Impaler but instead of Sunfire Aegis you get Maw of Malmortius, etc.)

I would like to thank Tregan again for this wonderfull build and his help and support when I made mine! Be sure to give him some rep, people! :)
I don't make a seperate guide for 3v3 about your gameplay, because it's basically the same in 5v5 but just on a smaller map. All the tips stay (except for those who aren't possible, like the wards).

I hope that you get to own some people there!

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I'll post some comments of players that gave some good advice here. :)

(^ Also as answer to this, look at the situation. If you're against a heavy damage dealer like Olaf / Darius, do what he says and buy armor first.

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Thank you for reading my guide! Tips and help are always welcome. This is my first guide ever and I hope that it atleast was a bit helpfull. I will try to update this regularly.
Have a nice day futher! :)

Updated 27/12/2012: Pretty much revamped the whole guide. New build, added some nice pictures and changed the skill sequence.

Updated 23/12/2012: Added a new Tip & Trick to the list, also moved Frozen Mallet to situational items, since I forgot to do that a while ago. Also changed masteries for top lane. (Thank you Splortched for mentioning this! :) Also added a 3v3 build.

Updated 21/12/2012: moved Avarice Blade after boots to have the most value from it. Again fixed the masteries, this time icons weren't showing up.

Updated 21/12/2012: fixed runes not showing and masteries being swapped with abilities of other champs.