Hello everyone, my name is Genoin. Welcome to my in-depth guide for jungling one of Piltover's Finest, Vi, the Enforcer. This is my first guide, so I would appreciate any constructive feedback that you have to offer. I consider myself quite a good Vi player and I wanted to make an in-depth guide to help players who are just picking up the champion learn her and to help others improve their Vi gameplay. Please don't forget to upvote if you find this guide informative and/or if it helps you understand Vi better, and feel free to leave any comments or questions you might have, and if the question is something I feel is important that I haven't covered in the guide, I will place it and the answer in my FAQ section and credit you for asking the question. Without further ado, please enjoy the guide!

Pros

+ Deals damage even when building tank. + Can apply a ton of early game pressure. + Good Duelist. + Does not fall off very hard due to the nature of her kit (Ult + W makes her quite useful even late game). + Cease and Desist Point-and-Click lockdown with potential to CC multiple enemies. + %Health Damage and Armor Shred on Denting Blows. + AA reset on Relentless Force + High Mobility. + Can snowball quite hard, especially when building damage. + Is SUPER HOT!

Overall Vi is a very flexible champion that can deal a lot of damage even when building full tank, and when she is ahead and building damage she makes enemy carries run for the hills. When building tank/bruiser she can stay relevant even into the late game due to the CC on Vault Breaker and Cease and Desist and the % Max Health Damage and Armor Shred on Denting Blows. With the current focus on early to mid game in the meta, however, Vi can truly shine as she can apply a ton of early pressure to lanes and is not easily invaded, even by the likes of Lee Sin or Shaco. Her high mobility makes it easy to escape if a fight does go poorly, as Vault Breaker is one of the longest dashes in the game and can cross almost any wall with ease.

Cons

- Can be weak if behind, especially if building damage. - Pre-6 ganks can be tricky if not properly planned. - Not easy to master. - Improper use of Cease and Desist can get you killed. - Very vulnerable to CC while charging Vault Breaker. - Almost certainly prefers being on top (Con?).

For all of Vi's strengths, she does have some drawbacks. Like most junglers, she can be weak if behind and building damage (as in the warrior path). She is also not the easiest jungler to master due to the potential drawbacks on her abilities. Vault Breaker, for example can be interrupted while charging, leaving you without an escape or gap closer, while improper use of Cease and Desist can place you in some sticky situations.

More attack speed means more Denting Blows procs, making early clearing easier and increasing overall damage. Feast is just really lackluster on non-laners, and Double Edged Sword gives you 3% increased damage for taking 1.5% more damage, good trade off. Vampirism gives you full benefits throughout the game, while Natural Talent takes a while to scale. With focus on early-mid game currently, this is an easy choice. Most of the time, enemies are going to have some form of cc on them, and Oppressor does not require anything to activate. Provides better immediate benefits. Unless you have trouble clearing the jungle early, Wanderer is the best option here allowing you to move around the jungle and gank faster. Most of the time, I buy Refillable Potion, and most of the time you will be around allies when fighting, so I feel that Runic Affinity is best, giving you the most out of your buffs. Merciless gives you a nice damage boost to lower health enemies, and you don't need the mana regeneration from Meditation You are not a laner, so Bandit is pretty useless on you, Dangerous Game is the way to go, it can even save your life after a kill in niche situations. Precision is the easy choice, even with the upcoming nerf. It gives you a nice, even if small, damage boost up front, allowing you to secure kills more easily. Thunderlord's Decree is the best Mastery in the game on all but a few select champions (full tanks and shield/heal supports mostly). It offers a nice amount of early game burst damage, making it easier to secure early kills.

• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage are the most effective option for Vi due to her excellent AD scalings on her abilities, allowing her to quickly burst squishy targets very early into the game.
• Greater Mark of Attack Damage *See Above*
• Greater Seal of Armor These are pretty much everything you want in a yellow. The additional armor helps the initial jungle clear a lot, in addition to putting you in a better spot to invade/survive enemy invades early. This early benefit outweighs the late game benefit of something like Greater Seal of Scaling Health.
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist Because you are not laning, you do not need the early MR offered by Greater Glyph of Magic Resist to defend against poke, so scaling MR offers you the greatest overall benefit, as by the time you need to start worrying about magic damage, these will have equaled or surpassed the MR offered by flat MR glyphs.

There is no reason to ever jungle without Smite. Without this spell, you lose both access to jungler items and a large portion of your role's neutral objective control, as well as making you clears much more difficult. No other spell is worth the trade-off.

Flash is the single most used summoner spell in the game, for good reason. This spell allows you to not only escape sticky situations, but secure kills, outplay opponents, and more. On very few champions is it viable to take a spell other than flash, and Vi is not one of them.

Skill Order

Skill Description

Blast Shield is Vi's passive. Whenever Vi damages an enemy with Vault Breaker, Relentless Force, or Cease and Desist, she gains a shield equal to 10% of her maximum health that lasts up to 3 seconds. This ability has a cooldown equal to 19 - level, to a minimum of 8 seconds. In other words, the ability's cooldown gets shorter by 1 second for every level until level 11, where it remains at an 8 second cooldown for the rest of the game. This ability makes Vi's early jungle clears much easier, and (combined with Enchantment: Cinderhulk) makes her scale quite well with health.

Vault Breaker is Vi's primary gap closer, cc, and escape tool. On the first cast, Vi begins to channel the ability for up to 4 seconds, and gaining range and damage over 1.25 seconds. On the second cast, Vi dashes in the targeted direction, dealing physical damage to all enemies in her path. She stops at the first enemy champion, knocking them back slightly. This is a very tricky ability to use, as if you are CC'ed in any way (aside from slows), the channel will be interrupted. However, if this happens, the ability is placed on a 3 second cooldown, and half the mana cost is refunded. As this is Vi's primary tool for ganking, cc, and general mobility, and as the skill receives significant cooldown reduction and damage increase at each successive rank, I always recommend maxing Vault Breaker first. Neither Denting Blows nor Relentless Force will give you as much value for your investment. However, both Denting Blows and Relentless Force are more useful for clearing, so I recommend not taking the first point in Vault Breaker until level 3. Tips and Tricks While Vault Breaker is most effective once it is fully charged, do not hesitate to use it immediately (double-tap) to chain CC effects after hitting a high priority target with Cease and Desist Though interrupting Vault Breaker puts it on a reduced cooldown, if the channel runs out, the skill will be placed on full cooldown and no mana will be refunded. If you cannot use it to cc a target by the time the channel runs out, then use it to reposition yourself. The speed of your jungle clears can be significantly accelerated by using Vault Breaker to cross over a wall into a camp instead of walking around it. Because of its range, you can cross over the wall into any camp and also hit all the monsters in the camp.

Denting Blows is a passive ability that procs on Vi's third auto attack on a target. On each third auto attack on a target, Vi deals additional damage equal to a percent of the target's maximum health, decreases their armor by 20%, and gains attack speed. The armor shred and % max health damage allow Vi to deal more damage to tanky targets than other popular AD/bruiser junglers such as Lee Sin. Though this ability does give a lot, many champions will not build significant amounts of armor until the mid-late game, so, unless you have more than one enemy that is stacking a significant amount of armor early in the game, I recommend taking a point in Denting Blows at level 1 for the efficiency in clearing, but maxing it last. Tips and Tricks Unlike Silver Bolts, the stacks of Denting Blows applied to one enemy do not fall off if stacks are applied to another enemy. The proc from Denting Blows does not activate Blast Shield.

Excessive Force is an activated ability that can hold up to 2 charges at a time. Upon activation, Vi's next basic attack gains additional range and deals physical damage to the target and all enemies in a cone-shaped blast behind the target. Activating this ability resets Vi's auto attack timer. Because investing points into this ability not only increases damage, but decreases the time to accumulate charges, which allows you to utilize auto attack resets more often and proc Denting Blows more often, I recommend maxing Relentless Force second, while taking a point at level 2 for clearing efficiency. The only exception to this is if there is more than one enemy stacking armor early in the game, in which case you may consider maxing Denting Blows second. However, it may benefit you more to still max Relentless Force second in order to more quickly blow up squishy targets, such as mages and marksmen. Tips and Tricks Whether you are clearing the jungle or fighting, Relentless Force should ALWAYS be used as an auto attack reset to maximize damage per second (DPS). The cone-shaped blast will consume spell shields, such as Banshee's Veil, so this ability can be used on a front line enemy in order to consume a spell shield on a squishy target so you can dive on them with Cease and Desist The increased damage from Relentless Force DOES affect towers, but only if they are the primary target, so this ability can be used to quickly push towers after a successful gank.

Assault and Battery is Vi's ultimate. Upon activation, Vi dashes to a targeted enemy champion, knocking them up and dealing physical damage. While traveling, Vi knocks other enemies in her way aside and deals 75% damage to them. Vi is immune to all forms of crowd control while charging. Among junglers this ability is one of the strongest for dealing with a single, high-priority target, particularly AD Carries, as it is a point and click hard CC ability that can be used from range and the commonly employed method that ADCs use to counter this ( Quicksilver Sash and Mercurial Scimitar) is completely ineffective against Cease and Desist. As Vi's ultimate ability, put a point Cease and Desist whenever you can (levels 6, 11, and 16). Tips and Tricks While Quicksilver Sash and Mercurial Scimitar are useless against Cease and Desist, be careful of using this ability on targets with abilities or items that can negate part or all of Cease and Desist on the user and/or an ally: Banshee's Veil Zhonya's Hourglass Spell Shield Shroud of Darkness Riposte Hallucinate Rappel Playful / Trickster Sanguine Pool Tempered Fate Frozen Tomb Alpha Strike Death Mark Fate's Call (Ally) Devour (Ally) Intervention (Damage Only) Undying Rage (Damage Only) Lamb's Respite (Damage Only) Black Shield (Knockup Only) Be careful when using Cease and Desist on a target that has a blink, dash, or flash available and is near their team. While these cannot be used to escape the ult, they can be used by smart opponents to put you in a very dangerous position, sometimes very far away from your team. Try to maximize Cease and Desist's effect by positioning so that your ult will displace and damage as many targets as possible before reaching the intended target.

This is your basic start. Refillable potion is nice, but I rarely ever upgrade to hunter's potion because the clears are so good that you usually don't need the full 3 health pots for the first clear.

I rarely ever go this start, but if you are new to playing jungle or Vi, and you are unsure of how well you can clear or are worried about getting invaded during the first clear, you can start this.

For the most part, the choice of Tier 2 jungle item is a personal preference. If you want just a little more CC for ganks, you can take the Stalker's Blade. If you want to have stronger duels or are worried about getting burst, you can take Skirmisher's Sabre. If you can forego the other combat bonuses, you can take the Tracker's Knife for better vision control. This also opens the possibility for you to get the Sweeping Lens. This item increases in value the higher your ELO, as higher ELO players and teams can more effectively make use of the extra vision.

The choice between Warrior and Cinderhulk is the most impactful choice that you will make in your build, and unlike some champions, the runes and masteries for either build are similar (in fact, I use the same runes/masteries for either build). If you can secure 1-2 kills early game before committing to either path, I recommend building Warrior and trying to snowball your lead. If you are even or behind by the time you need to make the decision, consider building Cinderhulk and a tankier bruiser build. Even with Cinderhulk, I almost never build full tank on Vi, and usually have at least Black Cleaver and another hybrid damage/tank item. For new players, I recommend building Enchantment: Cinderhulk, as that build is more forgiving, while your mistakes are more easily punished when building Enchantment: Warrior.

Choice of boots depends on several factors. If the opposing team has a decent amount of CC, Mercury's Treads are the way to go, unless the enemy team has very little AP. If the enemy team is heavy AD, particularly if they have several auto attack focused champions, Ninja Tabi are your best friend. The last consideration is Cooldown Reduction. I consider CDR very valuable on Vi, especially when building Enchantment: Cinderhulk, because then your focus shifts from blowing up a single squishy to being an unkillable CC machine that still deals damage. In this case, you might consider Ionian Boots of Lucidity. With most Enchantment: Warrior builds, however, 40% CDR is usually achieved through Enchantment: Warrior, Trinity Force, and Black Cleaver.

The choice of boot enchantment is largely a matter of preference depending on your build and your role. If you are building Enchantment: Cinderhulk or a tankier Enchantment: Warrior build and you are your teams primary form of initiation, Enchantment: Captain is not a bad idea, as it allows your team to chase faster if you are in the lead and follow up faster on your engages. If you are not the primary engage and/or are building more damage oriented, I recommend Enchantment: Furor for the sticking power. While Enchantment: Alacrity is not a bad choice, Vi does not really have problems getting to her targets, and the sticking power offered by Enchantment: Furor is usually more valuable.

I buy one or both of these in almost (if not) every game. Black Cleaver is a stellar item to rush on Enchantment: Cinderhulk Vi, and is almost as good as a later game item (or early if you are not snowballing) on Enchantment: Warrior Vi. Offering a sizable chunk of flat AD, health, armor shred, and a proc that helps you stick on enemies, Black Cleaver is overall a great item that gives you an excellent array of stats, including amplifying your teammates' phsyical damage to the target. It is worth noting that the cone damage from Relentless Force applies a stack of Black Cleaver's passive to all enemies it hits. Trinity Force is similar, but it sacrifices some tankiness and the armor shred to pile on more attack damage through its Sheen effect, and even more chasing power through the move speed bonuses. Overall I normally build one of these items after finishing my jungle enchant, most of the time Trinity Force with Enchantment: Warrior and Black Cleaver with Enchantment: Cinderhulk.

The last "core" item I will mention is Dead Man's Plate. Since this item was released, and even after the nerfs, this item is very strong. In addition to offering excellent base stats, the passive offers both mobility, damage, and a slow, making it perfect for bruiser junglers. If I buy only one armor item in a game, it is almost always Dead Man's Plate. I have found it to be more valuable than Randuin's Omen with the possible exception of the enemy having a fed Yasuo/Tryndamere.

Randuin's Omen is a possible substitution for (or addition to, in case of very heavy AD teams) Dead Man's Plate. I personally usually consider this item under two conditions. (1) The enemy team has a fed Tryndamere/Yasuo and/or (2) if you are building Enchantment: Cinderhulk, find yourself initiating fights, and can make use of the AoE slow. Regardless of my personal preferences, I concede that with Vi's great mobility, Randuin's Omen is potentially as good of an item as Dead Man's Plate, especially under one of the above conditions. However, if you are a newer player, or find yourself forgetting to activate items like this, I recommend you either not buy this item, or (if you are committed to improving), practice using activated items consistently, as it is something that every good player should be accustomed to doing.

This is a very situational item. I only recommend buying this item as a second armor item alongside Dead Man's Plate or Randuin's Omen if the enemy team is mostly or all AD and most of their AD champions are Auto-Attackers ( Jax top, Yasuo middle and and AA ADC is a great example of a situation where Thornmail is a good item to consider). However, if the enemy is mostly AD, but their team is something like Riven top, Zed mid, and Graves ADC, you will be better served buying both Randuin's Omen and Dead Man's Plate rather than buying Thornmail. I would never recommend buying this as your only armor item.

Because of the commonly reached CDR breakpoints and how good Trinity Force is on Enchantment: Warrior Vi, I only ever really consider buying Iceborn Gauntlet when building Enchantment: Cinderhulk. The reason is that you should normally rush Black Cleaver, and the combination of these two items gives you both a Sheen and Phage effect. This can be considered as a final item if you want more armor/cc for the late game team fights, or you can consider it after Black Cleaver if you are snowballing as Enchantment: Cinderhulk Vi.

The choice of which of these two items to get depends on your build and the enemy team. In general, if you are building Enchantment: Cinderhulk, I prefer Spirit Visage for the extra CDR and because at the point you will normally build one of these items, you are tanky enough that the enemy team probably doesn't want to be using their important CC spells on you, and if they do, you don't really mind, because then they are not hitting your carries. When building Enchantment: Warrior, however, the spell shield from Banshee's Veil is considerably more valuable, because it is more likely that the enemy team will use more resources to peeling you off their carries. You should also consider how many non-ultimate ways that the enemy has to pop the spell shield to determine how useful it will actually be.

Locket of the Iron Solari is not a bad item against heavy AP teams, preferably your support will buy it though.

Maw of Malmortius is quite a good item if you are against an AP heavy team, or if they AP's they do have are higher burst but lower CC mages, especially if they can easily pop the spell shield from Banshee's Veil. Also a better item to keep snowballing if you are ahead than for catching up if you are behind.

Sterak's Gage is a decent item on Enchantment: Warrior Vi if you find yourself getting burst down a lot at the start of fights to allow you to live a bit longer. The base attack increase also synergizes quite well with Trinity Force, as it actually increases your base attack for purposes of the Sheen effect.

A decent option for Enchantment: Warrior builds if the enemy team is very bursty without a lot of % max health damage, but in that case Sterak's Gage is probably better. The reason you might choose this over Sterak's Gage when building Enchantment: Warrior is if the enemy team is a heavy poke comp and you find yourself getting poked down a lot before fights, as the passive can be quite strong. Poke is also a reason to consider this when building Enchantment: Cinderhulk, though I personally do not like it as much because if you are building tank, you can engage to force fights before getting poked down much. If you are just looking for more health as a last item on Enchantment: Cinderhulk Vi, consider something with hybrid defense/offense stats.

Coming Soon!

Special Thanks:

I cannot say enough about how much Jhoijhoi's Guide to Making a Guide helped me out when I was creating this guide. I came into this process knowing very little about HTML coding and this guide basically told me everything I needed to know to make a good looking guide. If you are ever interested in writing a guide, do yourself a favor and check out this guide.

Image Credits:

Introduction - Thais Muller

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