League of Legends Vi Guide

The Enforcer of Piltover finally makes an appearance! Vi has been one of the most fan-favorite champions and is a consistently decent champion pick no matter what the changes in the meta becomes. As the new meta starts to define competitive League of Legends, it’s time to take a look at one champion that will prove to be worth your time. Let’s take a closer look at this Vi Guide to understand what makes this champion such a great Jungle pick and how she can carry you all the way to the highest ranks.

A Changed Woman: The Enforcer of Piltover

Vi grew up in the mean streets of Zaun where she had to live life using only her sharp words and hardened fists as her tools of trade. Having grown up in the rough parts of town, she eventually became a gang leader looking to make a living. When one of her heists suddenly involved trapping innocent people to their deaths, she equipped herself with machine fists to turn away from the money and do what’s right. Today, she works as Caitlyn’s partner and protects the innocent using a brand-new set of boxing gloves.

Vi has always stayed true to her character as the lady with an iron fist. Over the years, she has occasionally found herself lost in the Top Lane and Mid Lane but makes herself truly home in the Jungle. In this Vi guide, we’ll be looking at all her champion abilities, item builds, and rune choices and discussing how to best utilize her kit as a jungler. She has been a good pick for the past years despite minimal changes and it looks like that will continue to be the case for the years to come.

Vi General Gameplay

Vi is a bruiser in every sense of the word. She likes to be up close and personal and doesn’t care who she’s up against because she can take on hard tanks or squishy enemies. She has a reliable chain of CC and is a great champion to engage when dealing with a single enemy or priority target but doesn’t have much of an answer when fighting against 2 or more enemies. In this Vi Guide, we’ll be looking at her skills and abilities to help her pull off successful ganks and duels as a Jungler.

Vi Guide: Skills and Abilities

As you know, this Vi guide will primarily focus on her strength as a Jungler. We’ll be discussing how we can use her kit to pull off successful ganks, duel against the enemy jungler, or fight in general to become a valued asset to the team. Because of her abilities, she’s efficient at taking on enemies whether she’s by herself or with a team backing her up. Unfortunately, Vi falls off pretty badly during the late game so be careful about prolonging the game.

Passive: Blast Shield

Innate – Vi gains a shield equal to 15% of her Max HP for 3 seconds whenever she hits an enemy with her abilities. This can only occur one every 12-15 seconds.

Blast Shield‘s cooldown is reduced by 3 seconds if she triggers Denting Blows.

Blast Shield is Vi’s ultimate defensive skill and helps her fight against enemies that can counterburst her. When fighting against enemies on extended fights, it’s better to always wait until Blast Shield’s cooldown is back up since a 15% shield can always mean life and death. Remember that your Denting Blows ability can reduce the cooldown of this ability so time it right in order to make the most out of the shield usage. The ability is pretty straight forward so don’t overthink when to pop it.

Q: Vault Breaker

Active –Vi charges her punch, slowing her by 15% for 4 seconds to increase the range, speed, and damage for Vault Breaker over the first 1.25 seconds of the channel. This ability can be recast during the duration of the channel.

If Vault Breaker completes its channel, the ability is canceled and goes on cooldown for the full duration.

Recast – Vi dashes towards the direction of Vault Breaker‘s channel, dealing physical damage to all enemies she passes through increased depending on the length of channel.

When Vi hits a champion with Vault Breaker, the enemy is knocked back while non-champion units are pulled towards her.

Vault Break is a very volatile skill. The main problem about this skill is that it can be countered by CC so be careful on who or where you’re channeling the ability as you don’t want to get caught failing to execute this skill. The second problem about this ability is that players tend to be greedy when using this ability and commit to the channel even if the circumstance is unwinnable. You have plenty of time to assess whether using this skill is good so don’t be afraid to cancel this ability on bad engages.

W: Denting Blows

Passive – Every time Vi hits an enemy with an auto-attack or with Vault Breaker, they receive a stack of Denting Blows which stacks up to 3 times for 4 seconds. Each consecutive hit on the target will refresh the duration of Denting Blows. At 3 stacks, Vi consumes all stacks to deal bonus physical damage on the target and reducing their armor by 20%, with the bonus damage capping at 300 for non-champion targets.

After triggering Denting Blows, Vi gains bonus attack speed for 4 seconds, refreshing on subsequent triggers.

Denting Blows is Vi’s main damage source and allows her to become both an excellent duelist and asset to the team. This allows her to break through most frontlines and make even the tankiest enemies squishy against her. Stacking this ability is easy thanks to Vault Breaker and Excessive Force allowing her to burst the enemy down. You can also try triggering Denting Blows first before using your other abilities to make them more vulnerable to burst damage. However, that’s not necessarily a strategy that most Vi players make a habit of.

E: Excessive Force

Passive: Vi periodically stores a charge of Excessive Force.

Active: Vi next auto-attack within 6 seconds becomes unstoppable, gains 50 range, and deals physical damage in a cone to all enemies in front of her. The damage can critically strike.

Excessive Force is a great way to stack Denting Blows because it resets Vi’s auto-attack timer. To time it correctly, you’ll want to cast this ability after Vi completes a basic attack, not before. Excessive Force is also a great way to clear waves or jungle camps quickly. When using it in the jungle, position Vi in a direction to hit as many monsters as possible why hitting the enemy with the most health to help apply Denting Blows. It’s also a great way to follow up damage after triggering Denting Blows for a successful beatdown.

R: Assault and Battery

Active: Vi locks onto an enemy champion and dashes towards her target with unstoppable force, becoming immune to displacement, dealing physical damage, and knocking them up for 1.25 seconds upon collision.

Enemies hit on the way are dealt the same amount of damage, knocked aside by 350 units for 0.25 seconds, and also stunned for 0.75 seconds.

This skill is the ultimate CC skill for Vi because it allows her to disable an enemy champion for a few seconds. The best way to use this skill is to use it on an enemy in the back line after closing the gap via items, Flash, or Vault Breaker so that she can deal damage to as many enemies as possible in her path and also applying a short stun to them, opening up the possibility of an engage. You can also use this ability if you want to remove an enemy from a fight for a short duration. It’s a great way to close the distance if they’re trying to run away.

Vi Guide: Items and Builds

We will be looking at some of the best items to start with as a Jungler. Most of the core items in this Vi guide might also apply in other lanes.

Starting Items

Emberknife – This item gives Challenging Smite after completion, which is great for 1 versus 1 situations. It’s also great at offering early damage on monsters to help clear camps faster and gank faster.

Core Items

Trinity Force (Mythic) – Trinity Force is a favorite among auto-attack based bruisers because of the utility it gives. Spellblade is easily trigger by using abilities like Excessive Force to enhance your attack power. This also gives Vi more threat in extended fights because of the stacking bonus damage.

Sterak’s Gage – This item is mainly for survivability without sacrificing the damage you gain. Lifeline is a great passive ability to help you against enemies that try to burst you down. More HP also helps make your Blast Shield offer more shielding power.

Recommended Items

Death’s Dance – Another item that helps bruisers survive a bit of punishment. This item converts immediate damage into damage-over-time which buys more time to deal more damage and lifesteal instead of dropping immediately. It also gives a decent amount of AD.

Guardian Angel – This item is geared towards the fact that Vi likes to dive in the middle of the enemy team and burst down a single champion before she goes down. This will buy her time while her team tries to push the enemy back.

Black Cleaver – Black Cleaver reduces an opponents armor even more. If you’re in-charge of clearing the pesky frontline, you might want to buy this item to get rid of annoying tanks or any bulky enemy that prevents your team from teamfighting efficiently.

Chemtank Chainsword – The best Grievous Wounds item for Vi that provides both bulkiness and damage. You should get this item if the enemy team has a lot of healing or sustain that makes burst damage almost impossible.

Spirit Visage – An item that’s perfect when the enemy team deals too much magic damage. It also benefits you by increasing the shielding and healing your receive from your items and abilities.

Vi Guide: Runes

Primary: Domination

Keystone: Hail of Blades – Increases your attack speed which helps you deal more damage via Denting Blows. This rune will ensure that you get as many triggers of this ability as possible and makes it easier to beat down even the bulkiest foes.

Sudden Impact – A rune that gives you Lethality, which essentially helps you deal more damage on squishier foes whenever you use Vault Breaker or Assault and Battery.

Eyeball Collection – Stacks Attack Damage whenever you clear wards or take part in a kill.

Relentless Hunter – Makes ganking a lot easier since you’ll essentially be the one who’s always moving first. This also makes you a threat when ganking since it’ll be difficult to escape.

Secondary: Precision

Triumph – This will help you in extended fights and tower dives whenever you’re ganking another lane. The extra 20 gold will also help you very much.

Legend: Alacrity – Vi needs a lot of attack speed considering her main damage comes from Denting Blows. It’s very easy to stack Legends as a Jungler considering it’s your job to take down Big Monsters.

Vi General Overview

In this Vi guide, we’ve talked about her potential of being a great damage burst and tank remover. While she has a heavy focus on single-targets, she can hold her own against multiple enemies as well. When using this champion, it’s better to engage in 1v1 duels first. She’s very weak against enemies that can dodge and kite her abilities. In times of desperation, properly diving the background and taking down a priority target can prove to be Vi’s greatest contribution to the team.