Hello, Summoners! Welcome to my Build. My name is UndeadYoshi and I'm Hardcore Bronze! Before you hit the back button, just know that I understand the game very well, and it makes me sad when people build my favorite champs the wrong way! Since 4.4, Vi has changed slightly to scale harder, making it "Vi"-able to build her in a slightly more offensive way than some people might be used to. I believe this build has a nice balance of offense and defense, and in the right hands, can bring "Vi"-ctory to you and your team! This is my first Mobafire build, and I do need help with formatting and making it pretty, so if anyone wants to help, email me @ undeadyoshi@live.com! Please don't downvote, just because you think I'm a noob. I put alot of thought into this build! However, this is not a comprehensive build and I still have lots of work to do on it before I can call it a complete Guide! This guide is for people who are familiar with Vi's mechanics already for the time being!

So, without further ado, let's begin!

These are just visual proof that i use my own build posted here and the advice given in the jungling section to control the flow of the game! Yes, it was bronze, but I carried every lane hard in every game until they could take care of themselves and help me run the game. And you can too!

In the several of these game, one of those kills came from Spirit of the Elder Lizard's passive! and the kill would have been lost without it!

I take Flat AD Reds, Armor Yellows, Flat MR Blues, and Move Speed Quints!

Why? Well, firstly, our Denting Blows shreds a static 20% of armor on the third hit. This means that Armor pen is sort of wasted when our abilities do less damage because we didn't take AD REDS! This also means that other people you gank for can do more damage the moment you get that third hit, ensuring a quick kill since you do good damage with them! Just Q in, Auto-attack and press E RIGHT after Auto-attack to proc your Denting Blows. This can be done in 2 seconds tops if timed and aimed correctly. Armor yellows are standard and useful for jungle camps and early ganks.

Why do I take Flat MR?

As a jungler, your main concern are feeding your top lane on your first run through the jungle, and then focusing on taking mid tower and protecting bot lane, feeding your two carries! Mid is always going to be your most accessible lane since no one can keep both river brushes warded at all times. You want to make sure that mid can't absolutely face roll you early! So flat MR is a must! with full scaling MR runes, you will only get 12 more MR at level 18 than you would from going flat MR Blues. And Sacrificing 11 MR from the start of the game along the way. Do you want 12 MR now, or 12 MR when they already have Sorcerer's Shoes? And probably Void Staff or Liandry's Torment?

No brainer.

Move speed Quints help you clear faster and gank more often. No contest.

I go 21-9-0 Masteries, for a few reasons. Vi's abilities were recently changed to make her scale better into late game. So, each little piece of AD helps! Since her passive is staying the same, that means that we can find new ways to make her hit harder, while still retaining her tanky nature.

I don't take Bladed Armor from the defense tree, because it does nearly nothing in terms of damage to camps with how fast vi can clear even in the early game. Instead, the flat damage reduction from Unyielding for 1 point is just too good to pass up. (Keyori says, "TOO GOOD!" Don't know Keyori? Look up his youtube videos! He isn't the asian girl, but she's just as funny!) We are sacrificing quite a bit of our masteries' tankiness, so this little extra really does help!

We make up for the rest of our missing tankiness through items, so all this AD scaling and the little bits and pieces of AD we get from items really helps our abilities! The object of this whole build is ganking hard and ensuring good team fights through carry assassination in the late game.

Do you want to get the 5% CDR from Sorcery instead of 4% Attack Speed from Fury ? Do it! Honestly, the choice between them is generally opinion! Early on though, it will mean being low on mana more often! and thats something to be concerned with! But clear speeds will be basically the same whichever you choose! So **** it!

Why do I build the items I build?

Considering you will not be getting more armor until after boots, you will most likely be around level 6 by the time you start Randuin's Omen. That means that you'll have between 32-50 armor depending on your level, and between 578-1016 health. at level 6, assuming the no one has more than 12 armor penetration by level 6 (forgive me if someone bought The Brutalizer) their attacks will do 72.5% of all physical damage they put out. This is a pretty good mitigation giving you 1295~ effective health from physical damage sources! This is plenty of resistance for early ganks with your damage and armor shred if you're quick and coordinated! After some successful ganks you should be able to snowball or farm and then you'll pile on a nice amount of armor and health in a hurry! So, Spirit of the Elder Lizard amplifies your ability damage as well as makes you do true damage over time that scales with your level. Combine this with your normal red buff and the results can be scary, since you refresh the passive with every hit ( Spirit of the Elder Lizard alone at level 6 will do 9.1 true damage per second! For three seconds after they escape! That's 27.3 extra damage! Doesn't sound great? Ok, i guess.

I build Mobility Boots to make moving from camp to camp faster, making your way back out from your base faster, make moving between lanes faster, help would be chasers turn back, and generally make you more maneuverable! Wanna get some other boots? Go for it.

After the first two items, you should be looking at Randuin's for armor and health and a kick butt passive. This is your bread and butter for getting your bot lane fed. If they attack you, you mitigate their damage with your armor and health, your passive, your damage, and randuin's active helps you stick to the target so they can't escape. Ezreal, Tristana, or Vayne might be a problem with their escapes, but you have your ult to lock them down harder. Don't use your Cease and Desist unless you have to!!!! It's early cool downs are ridiculous, now! So having it when you need it is very important! You also only have 10%-15% CDR at this point to mitigate that 150-110 second cooldown, sooooo... think about it before you go around blowing your ult for no reason!

Your mid should be your main priority after you ensure bot can take care of themselves, so Maw of Malmortius is a No-Brainer! You can use the 40 MR to mitigate mid's burst, and this is actually our highest base value in AD that we buy! so even without the sick passive shield, This is a very, very good item to have. Is there an AD mid? get Frozen Mallet for now, but unless there is no AP on their team at all. Or it's just Leona! get Maw at some point!

But, Yoshi! Why don't you have Black Cleaver in your core build!? Meteos would be very disappointed in you! Well, It all really depends on the enemy's team composition, but the reason it's not a core part of my build is this: Vi's biggest weakness is her ability to stick to a target. Randuin's let's us do that early, as well as SURVIVE long enough to continue ganking. Frozen mallet amplifies your sticking and survivability in the mid game making it as much a part of the core as any other of the situational items. Taking BC, means losing Trinity Force, Locket of the Iron Solari, or Warmog's Armor and while i think I'd take it over warmog's I would never replace tri-force or locket with it, simply because tri-force will help you do massive damage to carries, who really don't have much armor to begin with, and locket helps your whole team survive while you shred armor with Denting Blows anyway. If this was top lane vi, i would take BC any day of the week, but you are jungle vi and your main focus is ganking, assassinating carries, and shredding tanks after that. But above all, SURVIVING is a key part of this build and if you never die for the first 20 minutes of the game, and have over 10 assists, you're carrying the team. Don't sacrifice being your teams carry, just to be able to kill Renekton!!! However, if you are against 5 ad, or 4 ad and Leona! GET IT. Don't get Maw in this case. it's a waste. The MR and Passive shield only apply to magic damage. So. Get BC and Tri-force and wreck every lane! Carry like you've never carried before!

Now, Frozen Mallet. Everything about this item screams, "VI PLS BUY ME!" 700 Health, + 70 extra health for your Blast Shield every--what?--12 seconds? 30 AD? thats almost a full % max health for Denting Blows! A passive on-hit slow effect?! Vi loves this item. But dont build it early. you might stick to targets, but you'll be too weak to kill them. and then your top lane yells at you cuz they're too tanky to do enough damage between the two of you! Better get it after Maw!

The last item is up to you. Are you snowballing hard? get Sheen before you get Frozen mallet! or just build the whole Trinity Force! unless you get sheen and need more survivability! then finish Frozen Mallet first! I LOVE EXCLAMATION POINTS! Tri-force makes you faster both passively and on-hit! Synergizing with Frozen Mallet in a big way! It also raises your Attack Speed! Meaning the more you keep up, the more damage you can apply! Lock them in place with Randuin's Omen's Active and even a Dr. Mundo will fall to Denting Blows! It also gives you health, mana, AP, AD, and CRIT! nice bonuses all around. The sheen proc makes Denting Blows hit for like 50% of someones health sometimes! No stat goes to waste on Tri-force! But building it before Maw of Malmortius or even Frozen Mallet sacrifices a lot of survivability for less than optimal damage, because we dont have the combined 95 AD from Frozen Mallet+ Maw of Malmortius.

Is your team dying more than you'd like? Get Locket of the Iron Solari! The active shield for your team is super nice! The aura takes care of pesky APC's a little bit! The health for you is nice too!

Are you getting carried? Stop that ****! Get a Warmog's Armor! Your team will thank you when you still take down that carry cuz you're survivable enough to smash them and not die in the process!

Situational Items

Many people will tell you that any tank should take Spirit of the Ancient Golem for how cost efficient the health is. I won't argue that a tank should, but you aren't a tank. you're somewhere in between an assassin and a fighter. Does Lee Sin get this item? Not generally. That's because he makes excellent use of the passive and AD from Spirit of the Elder Lizard, as well as the fact that he uses his maneuverability to survive along with raw damage to win trades and either scare off an opponent or kill them. These are things that Vi does and does just as well. Look at her AD scaling on her abilities, it's ridiculously high, while her base values are grossly underwhelming on Relentless Force, for instance. The scaling is what makes her force excessive. Read that again, slower. Vi's Denting Blows, using the finished build I have posted, goes from 10% max health damage when it procs, to 28%!!! THAT'S A TON OF DAMAGE FOR SOMETHING YOU WILL DO WITHIN 3 SECONDS BY ITSELF! Please, lose the idea that Vi is a tank, because she's something way more special. She has giant robotic hulk hands for Pete's sake! She's supposed to hit hard.

Remember not to buy this unless you have no need for Maw of Malmortius. With this build, your main concern is to kill things that are squishy and do high damage. Do Akali, Ashe, or Jinx build armor? Not unless theyre behind anyway, and the little bit they do buy, you shred naturally. This is a fluff item for Vi that you only need vs a very tanky, no AP team. However, it can work with your build if...

...you get Mercury's Treads! If the enemy AP mid isn't much of a threat, or there isn't an AP mid, but their utility will still be useful for their team because they have hard CC, you can get merc treads for the tenacity, and still get that little bit of MR. However, If you're getting Black Cleaver, you must not get Maw of Malmortius. You will lose very important sources of health, passive effects and raw speed that you need if you're sacrificing Boots of Mobility! The Trinity Force+ Frozen Mallet Combo is a huge part of your maneuverability, and losing 2-3 of the items that make you fast can be the difference between doing enough damage to kill an opponent, and the opponent escaping before you can do as much damage as you're capable of.

Do not build this into your core build. It looks pretty, but it's essentially useless until a certain point in the game. If you got Spirit of the Ancient Golem, it's COMPLETELY USELESS. If you got Mercury's Treads, it's COMPLETELY USELESS. However, if your build is complete, and you have Trinity Force, you can sell your Mobility Boots or Mercury's Treads to buy this item, and the base speed will be around the same, plus you get tenacity and some AD and Attack Speed. These are all good stats, but really it's just a boot replacement.

Things You Should Never Buy

If you can tell me why this isn't a complete waste of money, you win a prize! The health and MR are nice, but we have Randuin's Omen+ Maw of Malmortius+ Frozen Mallet all together giving ridiculous amounts of those things and some extra stuff. If you did get this, I assume you didn't get Maw of Malmortius, whose passive gives you a shield when you go below a certain threshold of health. Instead, you got some health regen. Do you have lifesteal of spellvamp? No? You got some health regen for this item. Congratulations. You lost out on 65 AD, or almost 2% max health damage on Denting Blows.

These items are very similar to eachother and to Frozen Mallet, however, they are wasteful for a few reasons. Iceborn Gauntlet get's alot of its cost from the passive and the mana. The passive is not as reliable as the one on Frozen Mallet because the mallet slows people everytime you hit them, and Iceborn Gauntlet's Passive activates after using an ability and has a cooldown between procs. BESIDES WHICH. you are getting triforce. The passives dont stack. Aren't getting Tri-force? This could be a viable replacement for frozen mallet but at the cost of 700 health. A very large amount. The mana that comes with Iceborn Gauntlet is a complete waste, as Vi manages mana too well to justify losing health, which is valuable to her, just to get more mana. BESIDES WHICH, having over 150 armor is a waste as % armor reduction/penetration which most carries will have will shred MORE armor, the more armor you HAVE, spending that extra money on health is way more beneficial, as people without penetration/reduction wont be able to damage you well with your resistance and high amount of health (a person damaging you with little to no penetration when you have over 100 armor will have to do double the amount of damage equal to your health to take that much from health from you; if you have 2500 health against this guy, he has to do 5000 damage to kill you) and against a carry who you can kill by yourself in 5 seconds or less, even with penetration, they still have to do an amount of damage higher than your actual health to kill you, which can be hard to do when your health is high. Frozen Heart gives a lot of armor, but no passive slow, and no health at all. The aura is nice, but only against AA heavy teams. useless against Lee Sin, Pantheon, Wukong and many others, but hey, it could help you against Jax. Provided you buy Warmog's Armor, but you still won't be able to EVER 1v1 him. This is because you'll lose AD from somewhere, and not be able to kill him by yourself before he smashes you to death. Let's not forget that armor synergizes with health, which means that replacing Randuin's Omen or Frozen Mallet with Frozen Heart means that the armor doesn't go as far as the combination of armor and health you get from frozen mallet and randuin's omen!

Vault Breaker does mucho damage and applies a stack of W! Max it first!

Relentless Force is a very useful skill, because it resets your Auto-attack! The reduced cool downs from maxing it second will help you do damage fast!

Denting Blows is great late game, when people have large amounts of health and you have enough AD to make it do 24-28% max health damage before mitigation PLUS whatever base damage you're doing! and since the 20% armor reduction is static, this is a 1-point wonder!

Cease and Desist is very fun to use, but early game the cooldown is garbage tier! Use it to lock down people who are escaping. Try to gank with Vault Breaker! In late game team fights, when the cooldown is more bearable, try to let someone else initiate fights, and flash ult the carry from the shadows travelling through the enemy team for some aoe damage and a knockback, then kill the carry and try to leave the fight and re-enter in a more favorable position. After you kill the carry, you will be in a risky position away from your team and you need to go before they decide to focus on you. If you can do that, you can track down any opponents engaging your team and peel with Vault Breaker and hopefully do enough damage to kill them as well. Mop up the rest of the fight or disengage and then make a decision on your next move as a team.

As Vi, starting with e, you should be able to retain enough mana after your first camp to clear wolves/wraiths and the other large buff. This means you can start red or blue! I usually start at the one farthest from Top Lane!

This means blue on purple side, and red on blue side! That way I can either gank top lane after going from red, to wraiths, to blue. or blue to wolves, to red. Don't think that if your top lane is pushed that you cant gank! If your top lane is pushed, try to go into the lane brush unseen from the tower entrance, and then try to make it to the second if you can do it without being seen. even the third if its pushed all the way to tower. ping careful to your top lane and the tower will finish off the minions and the wave will reset or the enemy top lane will push a little hopefully. If the wave is somewhere the other top can freeze it tell your top to push the wave to tower and back off so the wave will reset. When the enemy Top moves out to farm ping the enemey and initiate the gank. if your top has a stun tell them to use it to initiate and then get ready. gank with good timing and youll most likely get the kill unless the enemy jung has the same idea as you. if the enemy jung shows up MOVE BACK. dont initiate an early 2v2!

This is very risky and your best bet is to scare away their jungler and go back to farming. your top lane will have to hold their own for a while. Go farm a few camps, and watch mid and bot. hopefully bot hasnt already started to fail. if theyre having trouble go try to make a play down bot, farming along the way. and hopefully you can at least defend if not make a kill happen.

If bot is fine, or winning their lane, focus on mid. You want to push their tower down first so you can take control of the map. If no other lane needs you, camp mid like an ******* and farm wraiths and wolves until you see an oppurtunity. then make it happen. get mid fed and push down mid and it will be much harder for the enemy mid to farm if your mid can freeze the lane near the center of the map.

After you have accomplished this, get your top to be self-sufficient at the least, if not snowballing like a **********er. Then, focus on the bottom lane. You need to camp it to make a play happen. AND SOMETIMES river ganks are less favorable than lane ganks. Think about it.

If you're hangin out in river bush, the mid or jung or even the enemy top can corner you in that brush and then you're out of position and most likely waste your flash or q to safety. And that's if you're lucky. They might just lock you down. and kill you. If the other team has it warded, they might pretend not to notice until help arrives. Being sneaky enough to gank from INSIDE the lane brush, means that no one can sneak up behind you. Or at least no SMART person can. And you dont have to leave the brush to start charging you Q!

When you charge Q, you are slower than normal, so walking out of river brush charging it can be enough of a warning for the enemy to GTFO and then you fail the gank. if you can q them without leaving the brush, you get the jump on them, you dont miss your q, and you are more likely to get the kill! LANE GANKS ARE OP! DO THEM ANY TIME YOU CAN! Even if the brush you are in is warded, it doesnt put you in any DANGER. RIVER BRUSH WARDS MEAN DANGER FOR YOU!

After you make a play in the bottom lane, you can take dragon with or without the help of mid! They can't contest with no adc! Not against 3-4 people! MAP CONTROL! GG! And that get's your team fed! GG! CARRY HARD!

By the time dragon is taken once, it's almost mid game. Top lane might transition into split pushing, and if you haven't had a good gank for them yet, you need to NOW! they need to be able to split push SAFELY. and they cant do this when they're behind or even on equal footing with the other top. BECAUSE IF YOU ARE TIED, THEN IF THE ENEMY GANKS HIS SPLIT PUSH HE IS MORE LIKELY TO DIE! but if he's ahead, he can escape or just straight up not care. PLUS. Top being ahead means the enemy top roams in ~50% of games. Or starts jungling. These are both favorable for you! No lane presence in top! Even if they go mid or bot, you can defend against them. They will take risks with their team to catch up, and if you dont push out to hard, you can kill someone or all of them at one of your towers. In some cases, all or most of them will gank top lane to help top catch up!

DONT FOLLOW THEM. Organize with your team to take an objective! Dragon>tower>solo-bot champion

After this first skirmish happens, it's officially mid-game. You want to be in groups of two-three/1 split-pusher and 4 skirmishers, going between the other two lanes creating presence, defending, farming jungle camps and minions, and catching people out of position waiting for the next dragon to come up! If you catch people out of position and kill them with your skirmish team, ward the jungle and push a tower. You will most likely be able to take it unless you see an impending gank! If you do see someone, determine whether you can ambush them if you hide, and then continue focusing on that set of objectives until dragon is up. Around the 2-3 dragon, you should be able to group mid and try to take a clean team fight if that's your team comp and then set up for baron.

I went WAY TOO IN DEPTH WITH THIS!

GG!!!

Vi has a few mechanical nuances that separate a good Vi from a Piltover Enforcer.

Vi's E, Esxcessive Force, is an Auto-Attack Reset. This means that pressing E the moment after you hit with your auto-attack let's you hit twice in quick succession! Using this to your advantage is a great way to clinch kills fast.

Vi's Q, Vault Breaker, is a charged spell. If you are using Quick Cast, you hold down Q to charge the ability, and while moving slower than normal, you can at least still move. When you let go of Q, you launch towards the end of the target indicator. The way this works with flash can be very beneficial to hitting your Q on ganks. If you hold down Q and begin moving, you are still capable of using flash while you charge Q, to get into a more favorable position before releasing the Q button. This makes hitting your Q much easier because it allows you to surprise your opponent from out of sight very quickly. It essentially boosts the range of your Q by double. You can flash after releasing the Q button, but this can be VERY tricky to pull off. I usually hold down Q, start walking towards out of the brush, flash to get in range, and release to hit the target. After which, Vi will Auto-Attack the opponent, and if you press E, you can get a total of three good hits on the opponent to proc Denting Blows and after you have tri-force this 3-hit combo will do tons of damage

Vault breaker can be used to move through walls, making moving through the jungle very simple. Just begin charging the Q, click the area on the your side of the wall you need to be standing in to get to the other side, aim the q through the wall, and release Q. You can use this to quickly get some damage on jungle camps, or to escape would-be assassins without using Flash.

Similar to Vault Breaker, Cease and Desist can be used on oppenents on the other side of a wall, provided you have vision of them, and they're in range. This is very useful for your team to set up bait opportunities for you to gank from outside of the enemies vision, giving you the upper hand in the fight.

In conclusion!

Vi's strength comes from her natural ability to tank damage while still doing chunks of damage! But be warned! You are not a tank! You are a bruiser and a priority target! Use your chunks of damage and mobility to your advantage by surprising your opponent and assisting your team in getting fed!

Surprise attack Carries in team fights and you should take clean teamfight wins, even if everyone is low health. E let's you siege towers quickly, especially with friends! Use this to push objectives in a hurry after you ace the other team.

I still have lots of work to do on this build before it can be comprehensive. Please leave comments and e-mail me at undeadyoshi@live.com if you'd like to help me make this build super duper great with graphics and junk! Any suggestions to expand the Guide can be posted in the comments!