Hi I'm MadCheetah, I have been playing quite some viktor and since the first season I played I knew that this was the champ I was going to main.

I mostly play adc or mid lane, because I find I have the most succes playing those roles.
I have a flexible playstyle, where I try to farm in the first place and watch my opponent secondly. when I spot a weakness I completely switch up my playstyle and try to take every advantage I can get.

So why the viktor guide? Unlike other roles I mostly play 1 champ in mid lane so I know the ins and outs of the matchups and more importantly: the games.

Since the recent focus on Viktor in pro play I decided to make a guide on how I believe Viktor is meant to be played!

In this guide I will mainly discuss items, playstyle, my runes/masteries and some overall tips.

I made sure I discussed every topic in detail, so if you are just looking for 1 specific thing, you can use the menu to navigate to your topic of interest!

This is a very detailed guide, so you can go as much in depth as you need to.


Anyway, Enjoy the read and feel free to tell me what you think.

I am trying out streaming on twitch so maybe you can catch me there:
Your text to link here...

Pro's:

• Great waveclear
• Great poke
• Good all in
• Can deliver enough damage mid/late game to carry the fight (especially if someone can provide cc lockdown, like Sejuani, Amumu)

Contra's:

• Immobile champ
• weak to assassins
• weak to strong gankers
• Needs good peel to do well in teamfights
• Needs to farm up items

5.13:
-The coming of sated devourer and the recently added runeglaive mean that other junglers enter the fray: less tanky ones --> this is good for you to play against, as you don't like a beefy tank line to play against as Viktor
-Item changes: almost every AP item changed this patch so it is worth mentioning what items improved or got worse.

Rabadon's Deathcap: improved: the AP magnification increased from 30% to 35%, this synergizes well with Perfect Hex Core. the price went from 3300 to 3500, but the build path is better since it builds out of less expensive parts.

Zhonya's Hourglass: got worse: went from 120 ap --> 100 ap, together with a Deathcap effect, the AP thus decreased from 120+30% = 156 --> 100+35% = 135
So you lose 21 AP, in return you pay 3000 gold instead of 3300. this means it became slightly less gold efficient, while losing you 20 ap with or without deathcap. still, the active can change the outcome of a fight easily, so I would still consider it a core item.

Luden's Tempest: slightly worse: as with Zhonya's you lose 20 ap, while paying 300 less gold. But with Luden's you get a movement speed buff, from 7%-->10%.
We still regret losing the extra AP (not to mention they nerfed luden's in 5.11 by reducing the ap ratio on the proc from 15% to 10%). All in all you get more kiting power which synergizes with your Q, so the nerf is not too bad here. I prefer other items over luden's now.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter: improved: since 2 of the big 120 AP items had their ap reduced to 100, it puts their AP on par with Rylai's. On top of that the slows (AOE and single target!) of Rylai's got buffed. I would now consider Rylai's a very good 3rd or 4th item

Archangel's Staff: improved: The AP improved from 60-->80 , while costing 300 more gold. Archangel's was already a good item on viktor, but I did not like buying an item that requires time to scale up since you already REALLY want Deathcap an need to upgrade your hex core. But unlike Manamune you don't need the "evolved" item like Muramana to get bonus damage from your mana. And this item synergizes very well with the 500 extra mana of your Perfect Hex Core. The only problem is finding a good moment to purchase Archangel's Staff. I like this item, but a 30-35 minute avarage game time actually doesn't make the purchase THAT efficient.(this is the AVARAGE for every elo, while lower elo's tend to have a bit longer games, but avarages are still 33 minutes in bronze, while 30 in challenger!)

Archangel's is the biggest chunk of ability power you can buy along with Rabadon's Deathcap and your Perfect Hex Core...provided you reach max mana on the tear and reach level 18 you get about 160 AP (without the 35% deathcap amplification!)

The rest of the items:
changes are of no real importance to you, however other mages may start popping up mid because of it. Liandri's got better and the spell vamp changed. For sure Brand has gotten better. I haven't seen much it, but maybe Will of the Ancients is a good item for low cooldown/dps mages or in a siege comp.


5.11:
-in 5.7 I stated that I still not like getting void staff on viktor, and prefer raw AP, kiting power, cdr over % penetration. Right now there are such beefy tanks in the game so that you are forced to get void staff for the 35% penetration. Otherwise you will deal so little damage.
-If their team has only 1 tank, go with the old build (for example Sorcerer's Shoes, Perfect Hex Core, Rabadon's Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass, Luden's Tempest, Abyssal Mask
-If their team has 2 or more tanks, especially tanks like Volibear or Udyr, that try to get in your face and do quite some damage you kinda have to build void staff unless because you can't ignore the tank line any more and try and go for the insta-kill on their carries.
you will need something along the lines of: Sorcerer's Shoes, Perfect Hex Core, Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff, Zhonya's Hourglass, Morellonomicon.
you can even consider dropping zhonya's for Abyssal scepter or Rylai's if you notice they have no way of jumping to you and bursting you. Otherwise, keep Zhonya's.
-believe me: viktor will still do a lot of damage, but with a more defensive build you will do 40-50% of a squishy with one Death Ray instead of 60-70%, as well as do damage to tanks as opposed to almost no damage at all.

You have 3 options basically.
-the one I listed, which is the best for damage starting from +- lv 5-6 when you have Hex Core MK-1.
-a more standard page with flat mr vs strong ap bursters.
-a more standard page with flat armor vs strong ad bursters.

Scaling runes

I recently started using these runes and I like them a lot.
I shall explain:
-As Viktor you scale really well, because of the 350 (+98% AP) scaling on Death Ray and the 330 (+70%AP) total damage on Siphon Power
Suppose the enemy sits in your Chaos Storm for the full duration, he will take a whopping 980 (+195% AP) magic damage.
-On top of your high scaling on abilities your Prototype Hex Core gives you ap/level
-your level 1 damage on Death Ray is only 70 (+70% AP) and on Siphon Power it is only 60 (+70% AP)
[*]All of this means that flat ap is only viable in the VERY first levels. already pre-6 when you purchase your Hex Core MK-1 you deal more damage with magic penetration.

so what about the resistances?
Well I believe those are more up to your preference, but since you scale so hard I want to just get scaling resistances so that I can focus on purchasing damage items and only get a defensive item when I am getting rekt in lane.
--> However when I started calculating the effective health with different runes I came to a surprising conclusion!
(effective health is the total damage you can take per damage type, taking MR or Armor into account)
I noticed that getting any sort of scaling armor is pretty inefficient!.
--> The reason for this is that, unlike MR, Armor scales naturally per level on mages.
On viktor you have 22.72 (+4/level) Armor
and 30 (+0/level) Magic Resist as base stats.
Getting +0 MR / level means it is preferable to have some sort of flat or scaling MR runes.
Onthe other hand: getting +4! Armor / level is already pretty big. getting that extra 0,16 armor per rune per level (if you pick seals of scaling armor) is not going to have the biggest impact.

I have made an excel sheet and concluded that getting Scaling Health Seals only costs you about 40 effective health at level 18 compared to runes of scaling armor. This is 40 effective health vs AD attacks on a total of about 4200 effective HP. (which is less than 1% loss)
On the other hand, the scaling armor did nothing for you if you got hit by true damage, or magic damage. This extra scaling health gives you an extra 220 effective health vs AP damage (on a total of about 3000 HP --> so about 7% gain) and 150 health vs true damage(about 7% gain). That makes it Totally worth swapping scaling armor for scaling health. since you lose 1% effective health vs AD damage and gain 7% effective health vs AP or true damage!

Note that I made this comparison on lv 18. so When facing something like Zed you can probably still better get Flat armor seals instead of anything else.

Also: note that health synergises well with resistances; So when you are planning on buying Zhonya's hourglass no matter what, Having scaling health per level even gives you more effective health vs AD than getting scaling armor!! (you gain about 40 effective health with scaling health vs scaling armor - when you buy zhonya's)

CDR Glyphs
I like getting 3 scaling CDR glyphs because CDR is hardly in your build path, but can be quite useful, especially to kite/chase with Siphon Power

So in the end: if you prefer getting flat MR glyphs or flat armor seals it is perfectly fine. having better positioning so that you take less damage will save your life more often than any sort of rune page will.

I also want to say this: if you have the luxury to have a lot of runepages:
-get a runepage like in my build, (vs non threatening pre-6 laners)
-a runepage with flat MR glyphs and scaling health/armor seals,(vs a bursty ap mid like LeBlanc)
-and a runepage with flat armor seals and some glyphs that you like, you can pick ability power in this case or a mix of cdr/mana regen/scaling MR (do this vs something like a Zed ...however if you pick all ap glyphs and they have an ap jungle and top you have to itemize against them as well)

in short: feel free to pick 21-9-0 or 21-0-9, although I recommend getting at least 9 points in defense. I know LCS players don't do it, but they also have to play safer and don't go for trades that much. I played a few games 21-0-9 and I noticed the diffrence immediately, I felt I was in danger of dying in moments of early trading, where I would not have been going 21-9-0. Taking a lot of points in the utility tree won't make your spells spammable anyway...

How and why do you play Viktor:

As I said in previous chapters: Viktor scales particularly well, with a downside being that he is an immobile champion.

What to do in early lane?

So your main goal early game should be to just farm up.
-does that mean you should not look for trades at all? No.
The fact that you benefit from just farming does not mean you have to be a vegetable in lane, enjoying the sun and resources around you.
You CAN trade efficiently vs most champions. you have okay damage and mana costs (especially on Q).

Why do you do it?
why do I suggest you tone it down on trading? because you are IMMOBILE. A good jungler will notice quickly when you are playing aggro. When you trade you lose health, mana and when you are the agressor: are often in a forward position where it becomes very attractive for a jungler to gank. you have no escape, are playing up and the enemy laner may be crying for ganks... all of this means you risk getting ganked, having to blow a flash or getting killed/having to base afterwards.

The reason this is particularly annoying for you is that when you lose flash the jungler will like to make return trips, making your laning phase even harder.
Also: what you want to do is to go base when you have around 1100 gold so you can buy Hex Core MK-1 : a big powerspike for you and unparallelled by any other item your opponent can buy for that money.

Such Wow.

How to force a 1100 gold back?

step 1: play safe and farm with occasional trading when you see the oppertunity to do so efficiently
step 2: watch out for ganks
step 3: when reaching 1000 gold: play more agressive with regular trading, make sure you have your trinket out so you dont die in a gank.
step 4: go base when you were able to get the wave to push under his turret and/or when you got your opponent so low that he went base himself.

--> don't play too agressive so you die for no reason.
--> try to not miss out on too many minions while trading and by pushing wave before you go base

the idea behid this is that your opponent can't just stay in lane when you buy and get a cs lead while being able to farm up even after you return so that he gets to buy a really big item when HE decides to go buy.

When not to rush your first part of Hex Core?
-When you are doing pretty badly in lane and have died twice already or when you are against a real tough matchup, you should consider buying:
--> a Negatron Cloak vs an AP mid (get your Hex Core MK-1 after that) and complete an Abyssal Mask as your first full item.
--> a Seeker's Armguard vs an AD mid (get your Hex Core MK-1 after that)and get Zhonya's Hourglass as your first full item. However this build path is not as elegant as abyssal scepter, because a seeker's armguard costs 1200, which is quite a lot for a first back and it has a Needlessly Large Rod in it's way to a zhonya's. So when struggling to get farm, getting such expensive items may be hard.
This is why I rated the Zed matchup as harder than LeBlanc.

What to do after lv 6 in lane?

Hex Core MK-1 is a stepping stone to further greatness. It is a key item on the path to your Glorious Evolution.
This item allows you to choose how you play out the rest of the lane.
when you did it right, you can now be stronger than all of the mids in the game except for
Zed and LeBlanc. dont get me wrong. there will be those with stronger poke or all in. But you have the tool to counter their playstyle.

when they are stronger in all in:
-you have super good waveclear to farm safely
-you have really good poke to whittle them down to discourage an all in

when they are stronger in poke:
-you still have super good waveclear to just farm safely
-in some cases you have a better all in

when they scale good as well:
-you can farm and let farm when weaker than them.
-you can assume dominance and deny farm when stronger than them.

when they don't scale as well:
-you can empty your cup of care and continue farming
-you can be a complete terror by denying them if you are stronger and outscaling even harder

Once you have chosen your desired tactic you must consider that your opponent is not just going to let you be an annoying lane bully/ sitting in mid free scaling.

The enemy jungler will be happy to pay you a visit since he reached 6 as well and you seem to be a nuisance to them.

What to build next?

In pro play mid laners recently started building and early second upgrade to your hexcore + boots of lucidity.
This build is really good because it provides and early-mid game powerspike in the form of extra mobility and AP scaling per level to help bridge the time to get your Rabadon's Deathcap.

Rabadon's Deathcap got more expensive in the last patch (3500 gold). So rushing it after your Hex Core MK-1 would still take you a long time. Instead you can build the second part of your Hex Core + CDR boots so you can already be a Powerhouse for the Mid-game skirmishes/teamfights.

After Rabadon's Deathcap I recommend building utility Ap items such as Zhonya's Hourglass, Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Abyssal Mask if they are AP-heavy.

Dealing with roams

The enemy mid won't particularly like your laser of terror and might look to roam every now and then. this can be a good option for the enemy team because you are generally unable to follow your roaming mid.

Why? do you ask. Well you are still that immobile, squishy champion and with no minion pressure around, if the enemy mid, or worse the enemy mid+jungler, ambush you; you will be at a disadvantage and you may die.

champions that may do this are: ahri, katarina, leblanc, zed, talon,...
All of those can probably kill you if you try to "follow them because you are noob mid if you don't" - Bot lane 2015
Instead you should get a ward if possible and ward the river to bot lane. that way you can ping, warn and maintain vision when the enemy mid decides to try somthing funny.

Like so, you will be able to farm up while your bot lane should be safe from ganks.

When the enemy jungler is also heading to gank bot and the enemy to has tp you should however DO try to assist your bot lane.
--> you can only do this if you have sufficient vision in your own jungle though.
--> push your wave with a single Lazorr and roam bot for that nasty countergank.

It IS sad if the enemy just dances around bot and you both waste time, but the risk of the enemy double killing bot and you losing dragon and even more is not worth just ignoring the enemy roam.

--> if it is only the mid roaming I am of the opinion you should not bother walking down since the risk of screwing yourself becomes too great. Just make sure you spam a few pings towards bot and get some tower damage on mid if possible. Also make sure you don't get ganked by your own mid by getting TOO greedy to damage the enemy turret...

In Teamfights:

If all went well you should now have your items and in few cases the enemy mid will be more useful than you in teamfights.... if YOU play them well!

Teamfights is where you shine. Along with some cc-lockdown like Sejuani or Amumu you have a real scary "wombo-combo"

the danger, however lies in that you position yourself too offensively so you can land your spells on the enemy team.
If the enemy also has good hard engage you should keep in mind that you have no way of escaping their counter-engage on you. If you positioned offensively you better hope you did land your spells before you die by their engage.

preferably: you land ULT+E, while stepping backwards to avoid getting engaged on yourself.
When you see an oppertunity to land your Q or stun field without running the risk of getting bursted yourself, you can step back forward and land those spells as well.

If the enemy does not really have a hard engage you can choose to position a bit more near the front so you can do more continued damage in the fight.

--> so in essence I just told you the counter to viktor:
-when your team can not burst the ones you engage on and they have good engage themselves
the fights will be VERY hard for you.
-when there isn't enough cc available to stop those yolo bruisers from getting to you
-when the fight is so disorganized there is no real frontline it can also turn out pretty badly. --> in this case your nightmare is a higly mobile assassin like LeBlanc or a sticky bruiser like Vi getting onto you when your tanks are diving their team.

SO what can you do to improve your chances of winning a fight?
-don't gt instabursted by their engagers.
-try to communicate with your team that you do need some peel
-position yourself in the back of your team when the enemy's big cc spells are up.
-land your spells while your team does pull the trigger to engage.
-when getting engaged on: position safely, put down gravity field, put down ult, see if you can land your laser on an enemy carry, if not: land it on the engager and try to focus him down so the fight becomes 5v4, then kite back and re-engage when your spells are back up.

what fights are good for you?
-under your turret
-when sieging with no chance of getting flanked
-when the enemy is trying to do baron/dragon and you APPROACH FROM A SINGLE SIDE
-basically any fight where your team isn't significantly behind an with a nice beefy frontline for your team.

When firing your Death Ray

in lane: to powerfarm, hit the melee creeps a bit and start the laser on the melee creeps and let it end on the caster minions
in lane: to farm/poke, start the laser on the creep you want to last hit and make it travel towards the enemy champion. for poke and farm.
before teamfights: try to poke and hit a squishy champ. depending on the point in the game you will do anything from 30-60% of their hp.
-vs a siege: when the enemy has no threatening engage waiting to unleash if yo get too close you can mostly delete the wave before reaching your tower.
-in a fight: try to hit squishy's and especialy their carries. remember you can try and hit them like you did last hits in lane: lane the beginning of the laser on the enemy tank that is in front of the fight and make the laser end up where the enemy carry is likely to move the next second.

Conclusion:

Don't pick viktor in a matchup like zed or leblanc.
Don't pick viktor vs a gap closer bruiser team with no peel in your team.

know that you can shine in teamfights and that you have a potential 100-0 burst vs squishy's, so look for death brushes or position safely in tf's until you have a clear shot at the high-value targets.

Choosing your summoners:

There aren't that many options.

You basically NEED Flash so you have to only choose your combat summoner.
I choose Heal When I think my enemy won't be taking ignite or when kill pressure is not that high. heal gives more (and permanent) HP at later levels as well as giving a small speed boost. on top of that you can save an ally every now and then by healing them for 50%

I choose Barrier in the other case where they will probably be out to kill me and ignite me. I am more likely to survive the burst after being ignited than getting only a reduced heal.

I rarely pick Ignite but it can be a good summoner spell as well. The reason I like the above spells more is that you don't really need to get solokills in lane anyway. you just have to be able to do land your combo in teamfights and survive them/survive lane.
I pick ignite in 2 situations:
- They have so much cc and kill pressure , picking barrier or cleanse won't save me anyway. I pick it so that I may get a return kill after they go for me
- you want to play a dominant lane and want to have more kill pressure. this is a perfectly fine option in soloqueue, where you sometimes have to get fed yourself to compensate others feeding. Or since the recent patch they DARE play vladimir mid. kill him, he does not belong in your lane!

Lastly you can pick Cleanse, but I only pick this if they have 1 or 2 big cc's. in that case you can cleanse the first and avoid getting piled on by their team. but if they have nauti, leona, sejuani,... that's just too much cc and 1 cleanse won't save you.

cleanse is perfect vs something like a TF+pantheon. that way you avoid getting stunned by TF and dying to the pantheon follow up.

Teleport blurgh... but I guess you can go base more often... or get to lane after dying, but maybe you should just try to not die... also... flanks with tp are hardly useful since you are a mage that is immobile and needs peel anyway. Let top lane go Rambo instead.

Skill sequence:

At level 1:
I get Siphon Power because of the lower mana cost (45 vs 70) and almost the same damage as Death Ray (60+70% ap vs 70+70% ap).
--> Siphon Power is more mana efficient than Death Ray if you look at the damage dealt.
--> you also get a shield with Siphon Power which is really useful level 1 because the minion aggro can really chunk you while you harass.

Because you have real efficient trading at level 1, you can already harass the enemy laner despite having magic penetration runes instead of flat ability power runes.

At level 2:
Get Death Ray for more trading power. only pick your gravity field if you are in danger of getting level 2 ganked (for example by shaco). even then, if you don't push out the wave too much, you should be safe from ganks.

Death ray does, however cost quite a lot of mana for the damage it does. don't use it to farm minions yet, unless you have a realistic chance of hitting the enemy laner as well.

remember that your goal is to get to about 1100 gold for your first back. it would be a counterproductive to go oom because you spam your abilities so early in the game.
so; harass the enemy, but try to keep a healthy pool of mana and health.

At level 3:
get your Gravity Field unless you can go for a kill or something vs your enemy laner.
The reason you do this, is that level 3 is about the moment the jungler may gank and you want the gravity field to help lock down your opponent if your jungler ganks, or put down the field so you cn escape a gank.

after lv 3:
Max your Laser, since you will be going for the augmented death ray after your first back.
Level your ult whenever you can and get a point in siphon power whenever you have to choose between siphon power and gravity field.

Skill usage:

Siphon Power (Q): This ability is great in early trades for the shield and low mana cost. because the damage is on both the ability cast and the empowered autoattack it is important you use both parts on your opponent. Especially early. Later, when you augment your Siphon Power you get a speed boost after casting the ability. You can now consider casting your ability on a minion or monster to get the speed boost and run to/away from your opponent. In later stages on the game, the empowered autoattack deals more damage than the ability cast itself anyway. (early this is not true) Your Q is an excellent ability with low cooldown later in the game. it is, however pretty short ranged, so it is more useful in duals than in a teamfight. it is more imprtant you land your other skills first. why? because landing a good ult+E does insane damage and landing it may depend on you reacting fast enough on that split second the enemy carry is in range. If you were to cast Q before that, you start the animation of Q, only do damage when the projectile actually hits the enemy champion and then you haven't done the autoattack yet. losing this time could have meant the difference of landing or missing your other spells. Also: when You cast E, you have to drag your mouse for a trajectory, so unless the enemy is right in front of you, you also spend another split second choosing the direction of E. this makes it so that you cannot afford any further delays. The build listed is to burst squishy's. anything you can do mechanically to make that easier, is worth it.

Gravity field(W): This is an excellent ability to kee yourself safe. it slows the enemy for 1.5s and if they are still in the field, it is followed by a 1.5s stun. Use it in lane when the enemy mid is close enough so your jungler can follow up with the gank OR preferably: if your jungler has CC, you can let the jungler initiate and land a gravity field that is more likely to proc the stun as well. Almost always, when you can do it the second way, your opponent has to use flash. You must, however realize that the stun is delayed and it is a cc FIELD. which means enemies with dashes can avoid this cc. Against champs with a dash, you almost always have to hold on to gravity field and wait for when they dash, THEN use your gravity field. Against melee mids the gravity field is excellent to discourage an all in. use it only in a gank or when they jump on you. In that case place the gravity field beneath your feet. When getting ganked for example by a jungle with a dash, you can put the edge of the gravity field right where you are and the rest of it to where you will go. That way, you avoid putting it under them, after which they just dash on you, so they avoid the cc anyway. In a teamfight you can put down gravity field after you land your ULT+E. Again, you prioritize not losing a split second to do your damage. Most of the times you will have to use your gravity field: -when the enemies are cc'd already, so you can chain your slow and stun with the cc of your teammates. -put down the gravity field to zone the enemy team: drop it in a small pathway to block the passage in the jungle for maximum effect. you can also drop it down when getting chased, you you don't get engaged on. -in sieges (offense and defense) you can also put the gravity field wher you dont want the enemies to be: are they defending their turret? drop a gravity field so they have the choice: walk back or get stunned and possibly engaged on. -the gravity field works particularly well to keep the carries from following up on the engage of thir tanks. they cant walk over the gravity field or they get slowed and stunned. this keeps you safe and makes them vulnurable. Also: I have noticed the slow/sun timer starts ticking as soon as the enmy is on your gravity field, even when in zhonya's or (not 100% sure about this one though) while in GA. this makes it so they can dodge the stun if the zhonya's does not stop working before your stun procs. And if you put down gravity field, let's say 1 second before zhonya's runs out: whn the enemy gets out of zhonya's you would expect him to be stunned in 0.5s, since the stacks seemed to be counting while in zhonyas. This is, however NOT the case. he will be slowed for 1.5s first before getting stunned. Which is quite sad.

Death ray (E): This is your bread and butter skill. You cast the ability and then you have to drag with your mouse to where the laser must go. depending on wether or not you use smart cas, you have to click in between. the start of the laser is at 525 range and the trajectory is 500 range long, making it a potential 1025 range. before it is augmented with your hex core, the damage is so-so and the mana cost makes it so that it is very bad to spam it in lane. If you augment your laser it gets an aftershock, which is an explosion that follows the trajectory of the laser. this gives it 40% extra damage if you hit something hit by the laser before. if not, it does 100% base damage. --> this means that if you use E vs someone with banshee's you proc banshee's with your E, then the aftershock damage does 100% damage to that target. (being the damage as if your laser was not augmented). for use of the laser in lane and teamfights, look at the "playstyle" chapter.

Chaos storm (R): The initial burst damage of your ult actually does a little less damage than your Death ray, but it deals damage in an area for 7 seconds. It deals damage per half second: 15/30/45 +10% ap, so 30/60/90 +20% ap per second. this is not the biggest damage over time, but for 7 seconds, it adds up to a maximum of 980 +195% AP magic damage. So if you manage to have the chaos storm doing damage throughout the entire teamfight, your value to your team is INSANE. This combined with your laser is what makes or breaks the fight for you. Usage: I like to cast the ult first in a combo. The ult is a point and click ability, so it activates almost instantly. Casting the ult is ont instant however as it has an animation time. you can use this window to already start casting your laser, since you have to select the trajectory. when your laser releases you will have done an instant burst of 2 abilities, when in range you can follow it up by landing your Q + autoattack. You can also opt to drop your gravity field right now to keep enemies in your ult. What you could have done as well is cast gravity field and see if someone is dumb enough to actually walk into it and then burst them. But I talked about the use of gravity field already, so I won't elaborate any further. another use of your ult is for it's Aoe damage over time in a dual. A lot of times you want to hang on to your ult until you can actually burst your opponent to death, but what sometimes happens is that he is running away from you. In that case you drop your ult at him while chasing, so you already do damage and can finish him while your laser comes off cooldown. do this when the enemy can't escape with a dash any more or you will have wasted your ult!

Now that I explained the playstyle we can talk a bit more about the items.
In the end you will develop your own playstyle and preferred item builds, but given the fact that you are looking for Viktor builds it may be a good idea to try out this playstyle and item build.

Main build

Standard boots for mages, get them somewhere after your Hex Core MK-1 and Hex Core MK-2

As said numerous times before, get Hex Core MK-1 ASAP, complete Hex Core MK-2 at around lv 11 and Perfect Hex Core whenever you have about 1000 and are not close to completing a more important item.

Take rabadon's if you don't really have problems vs certain champs, otherwise get either Abyssal Mask or Zhonya's Hourglass first, then get Hex Core MK-2, followed by your next big ap item

This should be your second big AP item after Rabadon's Deathcap the passive is live-saving to dodge a burst, buy time for teammats to help or for outplays

I did put this item in the main build BUT: first of all, the game is in most cases already over.. Secondly: ONLY pick luden's if you feel you are safe enough with zhonya's only as a defensive item until now. If not it is wise to buy a Banshee's Veil, Rylai's Crystal Scepter or an Abyssal Mask, besides, since 5.13 the ap got on par with a lot of other items, so you are better off getting an other 80 or 100 AP item with more utility!

The last item:

I have already mentioned some options above, being Abyssal Mask, Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Banshee's Veil. Luden's Echo is not really a core item, but is nice to have when you feel safe enough.

Thus, it is perfectly fine to leave out Luden's and choose not 1, but 2 of the following items as you last:

5th/6th item:

The Abyssal scepter: Usually I would get this item vs a team with 2 or more mages, the 45 magic resist is very welcome and the 70 AP is also nice. But what makes this item pretty awesome is that it also provides an extra 20 magic penetration... as an aura. This synergises well with your magic penetration runes and sorc boots, as well as with the aoe lockdown your team provides, which is probably magic damage. When against a double ap comp I tend to take this item as my first or second AP item (ofcourse along with building parts of my hex core).

The banshee's veil: When an Abyssal Mask isn't enough magic resist you can also get a banshee's veil alongside it or maintain your regular build with Rabadon's, Zhonya's, Luden's and finish with a Banhee's veil. Banshee's is often the answer, together with Zhonya's, for enemy heavy engage compositions. Get banshee's after you have enough AP yourself though, or it does not matter that you have survivability, because your team expects you to do damage. Tanking is the role of TOP, SUPPORT or JUNGLE. Not MID

The rylai's crystal scepter: I complete my Luden's build with rylai's for maximum ability power, as well as getting some nice HP, to help save me from enemy bursts. the slow it provides is okay, but mostly it is only really useful against non-gap closing champions...

The morellonomicon: As you may have noticed , the main build I suggest is a real expensive one, with 3 times a needlessly large rod in it's way to the big AP items. When playing from behind this is sometimes an investment that you cannot afford. Instead you can opt for a really cheap and good item, which is the morellonomicon. At 2300 gold it provides a good 80 AP, as well as 20% CDR, which is nowhere to be found with other items you buy. On top of that it also provides a passive that reduces healing on enemy champs. that makes this item a must vs Vladimir, Swain and other lifesteal/spellvamp champions. If you do decide to buy this item I recommend getting it fairly early in your build, as first item even. So why did I not include it in the main build? If I were to drop an item from the main build it would be Luden's. But I feel that more often than not playing viktor in teamfights, winning or losing, living or dying depends on you being able to burst down the enemy threat. To do that a maximum burst is most optimal. It is nice to have short cooldowns with the CDR, but unless you are a bit more tanky, you won't be able to kite something like a Vi and your enemies have to have really bad focus if you get the opertuity to cast your short range spells on them every time they come off cooldown. I believe winning a fight depends more on a good positioning and landing your high damage Laser and Ult on the right target. NOT on whitteling them down.

The void staff: An item that seems a Core item on other mages is an item that I rarely build on Viktor... You can declare me crazy, but here's why: Your cooldown's are too long for you to be handling tanks anyway. I assume you want to build void staff to be able to take down the enemy frontline. well, while other mages mostly have 3 damaging, non-ult spells, you only have 2. Where only 1 of them is on a relatively short cooldown. That makes it that it is not efficient to blow your spells on a tank, unless there is no enemy carry around. Which is rare in a teamfight. So to justify hitting a tank, you need more CDR, so you have to swap out something like Luden's for Morellonomicon. now you have: no banshee's, no extra hp from rylai's and no abyssal scepter. this means that you are still squishy. So when an enemy tank is in your face you still need a team to peel for you. When your team is unable to peel that tanky sejuani, getting a void staff+morellonomicon is not the way to go, because you will still die. So when would you get a void staff? when you want to attack the enemy tank/bruiser, but they can't get to you?... then WHY would you want to kill them? Why don't you just build to take down their carries and possibly get some more hp and kiting potential with a Rylai's Crystal Scepter? In the end I won't condemn you for getting a void staff, but it is not a personal favorite of mine. only of you have an almost full bruiser team I think it is justified, otherwise, there are better items.

The lich bane: An item that is quite nice on viktor since you get a movespeed buff and empowered autoattack from your Siphon Power. This ability facilitates an attack pattern that is superb for a lich bane: hit a spell, get an autoattack off for extra damage. I don't buy Lich bane that often, mostly because my games are simply over before I get a 5th or 6th item, but also because you don't really get to use your Q+auto on a champ that often. Sure you can get the auto on the tank in front of you pretty easily, but only when they don't put correct focus on you, or your opponents have low CC/range will you be able to get regular Full Q+auto combo's on their squishy's. This does not take away from the fact that you now are a beast in sieges, getting about the same damage of a 400 stack nasus on the tower with your lich bane proc. I recommend getting Lich Bane along with a Morellonomicon for more procs and for a more close range build. However I prefer the longer range, instagib - or as I call it: Terminator Build.

The seraph's embrace: At first glance this item sounds fantastic. you want as much ap as you can get and in itself this is the item( except for deathcap and a perfect hex core) that gives the most AP out there! Not to mention the passive and thus the AP from the item synergizes well with your perfect Hex core, which provides an additional 500 mana. So now the heavy downside: the itm takes time to build up. You already have a playstyle that requires you to farm up your items. an absolutely imprtant first item is Hex Core MK-1 So your first recall won't be a tear. so when will you buy it? the meta seems to be that the enemy mid gets morellonomicon as a first item, coming at only 2300 gold. so the enemy reaches quite the powerspike aat the moment you would decide building a tear of the godess, which gives 0 combat stats. With your build you already depend on your team not screwing up the early/mid game too much. If you delay your power even more you risk being so insignificant, your team loses before your power starts to kick in. Building this item makes you rely on your team carrying you too much. Which is definitely not something you want to to, for it should be the other way around!

The will of the ancients: Now for the last item you can buy IMO. And reading the descriptions from the previous items reveals a trend: I question the viability more and more with each item. So this one is really goofy. IF you decide to build this you should completely switch up your build. I recommend you also get Morellonomicon and Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Also get either a Zhonya's Hourglass, Banshee's Veil or Abyssal Mask, also Rabadon's Deathcap and Sorcerer's Shoes. The idea of this build is that you CAN do continues damage. you have some hp and resistances as well as enough CDR and utility to kite around and spam spells in a fight. the spellvamp should help sustain you in your closer range endeavours. This is definitely a funky option and I don't recommend it. However I am not saying it won't wok. I am saying the build is nice because of the cheaper items and overall fun to play with... But probably not as affective as just going with the heavy hitting AP items and bursting your target leaving room for no nonsense. Terminator style.

Soloqueue and ranked teams are a totally different world

First of all: you are probably on voice chat, you know the other players, what they want to do/play,...

You can communicate efficiently with your friends in a ranked team which means you can play a certain playstyle and champions that need some sort of help from others.

In soloqueue this is all not the case. best case scenario you can type a few sentences in chat or use pings.

This makes it that it can sometimes be hard to communicate with your team about what is going on. in the better case you can inform your team what side of the jungle the jungler is on, that your mid is roaming, that you have to back, want to gank or want to take an objective.
That is IF they read the chat in time.

Communication

So in soloqueue you have to be prepared to play with people that are slow to react to your information, or don't respond at all. Often people have a different view on what to do strategy wise or even to engage/not engage a fight.

I strongly discourage you to try and "educate" your teammates on what they should have done in a certain situation.
You CAN say: "we should have pushed the tower instead" or "we can't start dragon unless we kill one of them".
These sort of instructions are likely to make sense to your team and you can work together on the issue.

I strongly encourage you to type simple, important info in the chat, perhaps combined with one or more pings: " I am OOM, I have to recall", "MID MISSING", "jungler bot", "jungler at blue", "group top", "ward baron", "long siege, DONT DIVE",...

these short messages give real important info and are quickly recieved. They are also in no way potentially offnsive to your opponents.

While you may have good intentions by saying your top should invest money in wards so he won't get ganked, or he should build MR instead of damage... Chances are very real that person will assume you are trying to harass or flame him.

He already has a tough game and his play is not living up to his expectations, the last thing he wants is hearing his teammates are out to just be harassing him with every move he makes.

If you REALLY can't keep a comment to yourself anymore, or you really think you can give him info he can use you should t~ry adding something positive in your statement.

for example: "oww he only barely won that dual, I think you may win next time if you rush some armor"
--> this does not sound negative at all and in fact sounds encouraging. You are speaking of some sort of reward if he were to try your advice. He will be more likely to do so.

The people's manager within you

Believe me when I say that keeping a healthy team atmosphere is in most cases necessary to win a game!

I have played a lot of games from behind and when people act negative towards each other, the chances of a comeback are really small. people just start typing and stop focussing on the game. they stop trying to think of a way to come back and forfeit attemts to work together with others to make plays.

On the other hand, I have won the craziest games, of which there was even one where we had only our inhib turrets at about 20 minutes in the game while the score was 5-20 for the opposing team. At some point everyone will have thought "we can't win this", but we all kept trying. we played how we were supposed to and the enemy started making mistakes after playing so well before.

What happened was that we could hold on to our turrets and slowly even out the gold lead. This made the enemy team tilt and the endgame was almost easy for us.

So yes.. you need your team to have some sort of skills, but think about it. The enemy team are no GODS either. But my point is: the game is never over until it's over... unless your teammates already give up mentally.

Try to stop this from happening by keep coming up with ideas as to what to do. for example: " try to do damage control and farm up guys", "we can try to get a pick since they get overconfident" , "come on guys I know it is a tough game, but let's just try to do our best for a few minutes, we'll see if we can make a comeback", or "they can always throw the game, if we play as a team we can still make it"

As soon as you get some kills and the enmy types something like "omg this alistar", it is the perfect chance to say something like "look they are already tilting"

Making calls

If you made it this far in reading this guide I assume you have done some reading in strategy as well. In that case you should not just sit back and let the game happen. It's important that you try to unify the team and make some calls. It does not have to be you however, making the calls. If someone else has taken the role of shotcaller and he/she is not doing a terrible job, it can bebetter to just follow a lesser call than to split up the team trying to do different stuff.

Your playstyle

I know I talked about farming up with viktor. That does not mean you have to play passive all game or even all laning phase. If you believe you are better than the lo you are currently in, it is up to YOU to try and carry the game as best as you can. You should not expect the other lanes to do well at all. Don't expect to get carried an just be along for the ride to challenjour.

I sometimes make this mistake as well, especially in a losing streak. But it is important you keep thinking creatively, make plays yourself and don't expect your teammates to play perfectly. Excpect the to try and do good, but screw up regularly. so don't put 100% confidence in that kayle ult when they focus you, don't rly on the morgana shield, on the stun to save you, on the heal,... see all of those thingss as bonuses.
You have to try and win the game without them, and having them is a pleasant surprise.

If you rise in elo people will do the "right" play more often and you can start putting more faith in teammates. But realize that even in the highest elo people can screw up really hard.

You should also note that different people have different strengths.
I, for example, like to believe I have real solid knowledge of the game, strategy, tactics, and lane-matchup wise. But I dont have the best mechanics, reaction speed and map awareness.

Knowing what to do and actually applying it in a game is a whole other thing. You are under pressure to make decision real fast and in the heat of the moment you may not think clearly.

So cut some slack for bad plays of others, since you will also have that moment where you lose sight of the situation and make tthat horrible move. And after you made it, you will see it and your team will see it. So won't it be nice if they don't start flaming? ofcourse it would be. That is why you should not be tough on others either.

If someone is a real bad player, then so be it. You making comments about it won't change that. just focus on what YOU can do better. Ignore the fact that you lose games with that derp top lane 0-10 feed. keep focussed and work on your own play.

If you managed to read through all of this: congratulations and thank you.

If did not read it all, it's fine. I hope you learned something and found what you were looking for.

I will look to add some video's and create a more easy-to-read structure. When I have the time.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck in your games, and ofcourse: A lot of FUN!