One of the mightiest tanks in this game and also the mightiest bear in the game: What's not to love?

..Hello, I am Zyt3x and welcome to my first guide on mobafire.
In this guide I will show you how I play Volibear, The Thunder's Roar: First I'll go over my thought process while playing him: what items/masteries/runes I choose when playing him, why I choose those items/masteries/runes and at the end of the guide, I'll show you how to play him.

..What you see as the Purchase Order, at the top of this guide, is merely a "basic" build of sorts: This build is good against most enemy teams, but you might want to change some of those items; it's all dependent on what the enemy team is building, really.

.. Volibear is best played as a solo top champion. I have seen a lot of guides about how to play and how to build Volibear, and I must say I'm getting quite depressed; most of these guides are either focusing wrong, building wrong or just aren't good at all.

..Personally, I think Volibear is THE best tank.
The passive The Relentless Storm is the best passive in the game. Whenever your health drops beneath a certain level, this passive will heal you for immense amount of health. Basically, when enemies think they can get you, this passive is activated and they end up getting killed. The cooldown for this passive is so low (70 seconds), the enemy champion barely gets to spawn before it's active again. If you die, you'll spawn again with this passive all ready for you. It's a great passive, and when used correctly, will get you kills, or save your own life.

..His W, Frenzy does massive damage throughout the whole game, and gives Volibear great attack speed.
..The Q, Thundering Smash is a GREAT team-fight engage-attack and a GREAT way of securing that kill.
Thundering Smash should also be used to throw enemies into allied turrets or allied champions.
..His E, Sky Splitter is a great way of slowing enemies, making sure that you either

1. Secure that kill,
2. Ensures your own survival, or
3. Ensure other team-mates their survival.

..Lastly, Volibear's ultimate Stormbringer is a great way of dealing magic damage to all enemies in team-fights or killing all those minions in a quick and easy way. Together with Mercenary , this skill-mastery combo makes sure you get all the gold you'd ever want.


..I have played Volibear ever since he came out, and I must say I am greatly impressed about his variety of abilities, and I am rather surprised he isn't used more. I hardly ever see him used on the enemy team.

..I would say Volibear's abilities is on-par with Singed's abilities, apart from the fact that Volibear's Frenzy deals a great amount of damage, putting him on the first place of my personal list of great tanks.

Volibear greatly benefits from health, cooldown reduction and attack speed.


..This set of runes is good for Volibear because of the extra attack possibilities he gets early game.
A good 3/0/0 top lane early game is a so good advancement that it most likely tells the tale of the whole game.

..An early Wit's End makes Volibear extremely dangerous. The amazing attack speed gained with it plus Frenzy makes even the "not so dangerous" auto-attacks very dangerous.

.. Warmog's Armor is kind of self-explanatory. Health is a major factor to Volibear's attacks. His W Frenzy requires health in order to show it's real potentional.

..Now begins the era of "Choose items that are required for the current game"-items. Thornmail is good for surviving in team-fights and if they have a heavy AD-team. All around it's smart getting this for surviving anyways because the team will most likely target you since you have a killing-spree ;)

.. Atma's Impaler is most definitely required in late-games. The critical strike gained from it and all the attack damage will make Volibear the ultimate champion in team-fights. From now on, you can carry the game. The AD carry probably wont do as much damage as you when compared to how long you can survive.

..The match should probably be won by now, but a Rylai's Crystal Scepter will help a lot if not. Combined with the ultimate Stormbringer will make sure all of the enemy team is slowed and with Sky Splitter and Thundering Smash they simply cannot escape.

..You can probably change the Thornmail for a Force of Nature if the enemy team has weak AD. I have not tested this, but the magic resist is a great bonus.

..As you can see, the masteries are focused on attack speed, health and defence. All of which will come in handy at all parts of the game. There's not much to say here, but it's also kind of self-explanatory since Volibear is a tank. Tanks do not need heavy attack, and Volibear should not run out of mana. If you experience mana-problems, then push the lane and go back, or buy some mana potions in addition to wards the next time you go back.

..As Volibear your mission is to tank tons of damage. With correct item build your mission expands to also deal tons of damage; this item build is one of them.

..In team-fights, you want to walk into the middle of the enemy crowd, pop your ultimate Stormbringer and aim for the most dangerous enemy champion. Be careful about enemies that can knock-up, stun, blink or dodge your attacks, you want to be able to keep attacking your enemies for the whole duration of your ultimate. Remember to use your Frenzy on the most squishy enemy champions to maximize it's damage output. If your passive is up when you're getting low on health, use this to your advantage and force the enemy team to target you, but be careful; don't drop too low! You can force the enemy team to target you by walking a bit too far away from your team-mates so that they think you'll be an easy kill. Your team should keep attacking the enemy team while they focus you. This is one of Volibear's great possibilities! Walk towards a brush if possible and juke the enemies that follow you and simply walk back to your team. If you're low, flash away. Easy ACE, free baron, GG.

..When going 1v1, you'll have to be sure that the fight is truly 1v1 and always check the map to see if any other enemy team champions are missing. Volibear does not have a great escape, but if you go 1v1 with your passive and flash up then you can engage even if i.e the jungler is around. Watch out for enemies with knock-up, stun, blink or close distance to you fast. Junglers like Xin Zhao and top laners like Fiora are hard to kill, and you should be careful about being too aggressive.

..If a 2v2 fight appear near you, use your Q Thundering Smash to your teams advantage and wait for one of the champions to get low on health before using it. Ensure kills with it is a great way of helping your team. The 2v2 can quickly turn into a 2v1 for your advantage, but if you use it to engage, then the fight might turn into a 2v1 to your teams disadvantage; you'll just have to play him to experience where you want to use it to engage or ensure kills. Champions like Ezreal or Kassadin can easily blink away which makes your Q Thundering Smash pretty mush useless if you use it too late.

..If the enemy team is winning and your team is forced to defend, you can flash in and quickly hit Q to throw an enemy into your team; this is a great team-fight engaging method which can help your team a lot; just don't use it on their tankiest or most durable champions (like i.e Dr. Mundo or Singed), wait until you can hit the AD or AP carry.

..I was solo top against Karthus and Teemo once and I totally dominated them.
Karthus couldn't even get as much as a hit on me before I ate away 33% of his HP with my Frenzy and when he started running away, I used Thundering Smash, Sky Splitter and then auto-attacked him until he died.
After Karthus was dead, my Frenzy 's cooldown was finished and I could simply Frenzy -nuke Teemo and kill him with basic auto-attacks afterwards.

..The match ended with a victory where I had the score of 20/2/8:
..I am confident that a lot of that early game money was gained simply because of the runes I had chosen was perfect against those enemies, which in turn, won the match.

..In a more recent game I played, I was against Poppy top where the enemy team had an Xin Zhao as jungle. They didn't stand a chance. Volibear's Q Thundering Smash combined with wards makes sure the jungle wont get near me, and when it backs up, I can go on Poppy again with Frenzy and Sky Splitter plus auto-attacks. Early game ended with 4-0-0 to me, and a huge advantage in late game. We won the match and I ended up with the OK score 12-5-15:
The low amount of kills is because the AD carry needed more kills.

.. Volibear is a great solo-top tank, which benefit greatly from health, cooldown reduction and attack-speed. Surprisingly few play Volibear in ranked, which means the enemy team most likely do not properly know how to handle him.

..Try him out, be aggressive against melee champions and show them that you know how to handle the lane while surviving ganks from the jungler with your skills and passive. With Volibear top, the jungler doesn't have to focus on ganking top, and can focus more on the bot lane where the AD carry is. All around, Volibear basically messes up the enemy team so bad in both top- and bot-lane and in late-game.

..Thanks for reading my guide on Volibear! Try him out with this build and you wont be sorry! ;) Please do not forget to comment and rate! If by any chance you fail, just ask the jungler to help out some more and go take the junglers golems when he is at the bot-lane: The extra gold will help you get back on the correct track.