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Devourer Vi: The Good and The Bad

Kalliseia··3 votes·2,697 views

I've seen a lot of people comparing Devourer on Vi to both Warrior and Cinderhulk. And I have a few choice opinions and words to get out there, seeing as how most of them say that it's more a troll item than anything on her.

It. Is. Devastating. You can still build tanky if you need to, and yes it is a more damage-oriented style for her, as well as more of a late-game strategy, but that's one of her gameplay options. She doesn't have to specifically be a bruiser or a tank. Yes her passive on her W does a lot of damage on its own even without the player needing to build any damage. Yes with her E it seems somewhat redundant to get Devourer on her. Vi Truth is, Vi is a very powerful champion either way. Whether you play her well or not honestly, she's in the meta right now and some of you don't even know it. Anyway, let's get on with the discussion and the stats.

Warrior first. Yes, it's a good item on her for early game damage and control. Especially now with its buff with 60 AD and 10% CD reduction. item 1412 This can be a very effective item, yes. If you need the early advantage whether your team is behind or you want to try to stomp early. With that item, you can build defensively and still have damage behind your blows, even not getting much attack speed. Problem is, you're not going to survive much unless you can just straight up do more damage than your opponent(s). Which brings in the tanky build from earlier.

Which brings up Cinderhulk. Yes, its health and health scaling can be very effective in a tank build if your team is squishy. That with Ninja Tabi or Mercury Treads can be a great way to start off as a beefy, more supportive and lock-down style of support... jungle... hybrid thing. But it will drastically reduce the amount of damage you'll be able to do.

Now there's a choice to be made on which jungle item you'll actually get. Whether it's the Sabre, the Knife, or the Blade. item 3715 item 3711 item 3706 All three have different bonuses. The Sabre gives you bonus damage when you smite a champion, making it powerfully effective on both Warrior and Devourer. The Knife is good for Cinderhulk because it'll give you the warding and more supportive edge and provide more vision on your map. The Blade is good on any of them, and a well-rounded item for whichever you want to use, whether you go Warrior, Devourer OR Cinderhulk, because of the slow on the smite. nobody talks about Runeglaive... But let's talk about Devourer for a while. [slayer-jinx-wink] Yes, it does take a while to get it sated. Your team will need to be able to keep itself sustained and able without you for a while. But it's not game-breaking. If anything will be, it'll be your Devourer buff. The main problem everyone seems to be talking about with the Devourer method is actually farming enough to get it sated. Thing is, you don't need to seclude yourself to the jungle to rush its ending buff and get it powerful ASAP. That's the problem some people see too often with Vi's in the jungle trying Devourer. Yes you can rush it, but honestly she's too powerful of a ganker and bruiser to not gank even though she has Devourer stacking. And I will admit that one of the weaknesses or counters is plainly counter-jungling. If she can't kill the big monsters and get that stacking going, then she's not going to be having a good time. That's truly the only weakness to her when she wants to get Devourer stacked and get the power advantage overall.

Now the good thing about Devourer compared to the others is the attack speed and bonus damage on hit. After Devourer, it's highly recommended that you get a Blade of the Ruined King. item 3153 The power of this item is magnified with the Devourer because of the attack speed of both items combined. Not to mention her W passive.

It is one of the most powerful combinations you can think of in mid to late game, and you can still build all the tank you want. The power of this build is in the fact that it takes just those two items to do everything you want damage wise. After those, you can build as much tank as you could dream. Spirit Visage or Banshee's Veil, and Randuin's Omen, Sunfire Cape, or even Deadman's Plate can be added to that with Ninja Tabi or Mercury Treads depending on the team you're facing. The last item you need since you have 5 now, (those being Devourer of your choice, BotRK, boots, and two of either above for armor and MR) can be either another tank item such as Warmog's Armor or Guardian Angel. Or if you're feeling safe enough as is, you can go for the BM and go for Black Cleaver or Titanic Hydra, since both are powerful in both health and damage, and the Black Cleaver has bonus armor penetration to go along with your W passive. And since you have the attack bonus of Sated Devourer, you're going to be attacking really quickly, doing a ton of percentage health damage with each second attack going with your W passive and the BotRK.

If you want my honest opinion, the people that say that Devourer is weak on Vi compared to the early/mid game bullying of Warrior or Cinderhulk. I say they're right in one regard; the early game. But the late game falls incredibly short compared to the destruction and survival potential of the Devourer path.

Now that's the items dealt with. Let's move to runes and masteries. Since those are powerful, especially now. People always push for you to get Attack Speed runes of some sort with at least 12% AS. Sometimes even 15% for jungling.

I want to tell you that if you want to go Devourer, you don't need that bonus attack speed, and I can show you what I use instead. I've already told you that you have plenty enough attack speed with Devourer and BotRK alone.

http://puu.sh/lmsPA/d4f127c7a0.png Armor Seals and Quintessences, Armor Pen Marks, then scaling MR Glyphs. (you can also use AD marks, but opinion is opinion) That's my rune page when I play Vi using any of the jungling items, or even going top lane with her and not getting a jungle item at all, and instead getting another damage or tank item, or just since I don't have the jungle item, I go with Black Cleaver and Titanic Hydra. Getting both when going top lane can be very effective.

As far as the masteries go... http://puu.sh/lmtrd/d5d3f0727c.png You can do it in a more offensive way... (image was supposed to be Fervor of Battle, not Warlord's Bloodlust. And puush broke so can't get a new one rn) http://puu.sh/lmtoK/8bba2369d6.png Or more of a defensive way. Depends on how you want to play.

This is what my build generally looks like, with branching patterns, and in no particular order. either bootsitem 3111 item 3068 item 3156 any MR or armor will work item 3931 item 3153 item 3047 item 3143 item 3102 item 3026 or even item 3071 Or dmg or healing item 3742 item 3065 item 3083 or even item 3748

That's one of the most prime build paths when going Devourer on Vi. You're still incredibly tanky, you hit like a truck with the speed of time-skip Luffy and your only weakness is that it takes a while to get there because you need the Devourer to get sated. Which means do Dragon and get Scuttle Crabs as many times as you can. Dragon especially. It'll boost you and your entire team hard.

You can test this on your own in normals or customs with friends, or you can add me on League and see how I do it. Summoner name: phyziKal

Vote on the poll below on which jungle item you prefer on Vi after testing out my method a few times. Just not in ranked at first.

29 Comments

4d4m2 votes

I've used devour on vi a few times, always works well for me. Personally I'd go with AD for the early game rather than armor pen, clears should be faster and early damage before armor as well. Fix the image to fervor over warlords and I think its pretty solid.

The Evil Spleen2 votes

You don't really notice it until you are 1v1 ing a Vi with devourer... but holy shit the W procs! I got it and the sheer chunks of HP that drop from the enemy in a matter of seconds from her W proc-ing 4 times is hilarious.

MegaManYYZ2 votes

the best devourer junglers are ones that can stick on you. but Vi has pretty bad movement speed so you will need a phaige at least, either black cleaver or trinity is a must for devourer Vi.

I've seen it work well, same with devourer Fizz.

Asayake 5150glow2 votes

This was before preseason 6

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1976316835/209645298?tab=overview I was Vi with purple Sated Dev, item 1319 , item 3072 , item 3078 , item 3082 , and item 1028 . I did pretty well, except I noticed that when I tried dueling the Nasus, this is literally how it went:

Vi : Dives in! Auto, E reset! (does little damage)

Nasus : SIPHONING STRIKE!!!

Vi : Auto's one more time - gets chunked

Vi :runs away

Nasus : slowly tries to chase

Kalliseia1 votes

Heh, yeah, Nasus can be hard to deal with as Vi sometimes. But with the attack speed and health chunking this has, it's hard to lose to most anybody 1v1 if they're melee. (except for Jax because fffffff)

Martyrofsand2 votes

I prefer Warrior and as for masteries I go Thunderlords...then again I play straight damage Vi and like being able to press R and see a random squishy die with little to no recourse.

Kalliseia1 votes

Yeah, going full AD can work too with Devourer. I thought about including it, but I didn't want the post to be a mile long.

I'd probably have it be like this: item 3931 item 3153 item 3111 item 3072 item 3071 item 3046 Or something similar.

Martyrofsand1 votes

God no. My usual AD builds on Vi are more like...

item 1400 item 3074 item 3071 item 3142 item 3117 and random last item if the game gets that far.

Philosophy is pretty simple, if I hit you I'll kill, and if I miss you the wind behind the punch will give you pneumonia and you'll die anyway. Don't need to punch a bunch when someone dies immediately after your ult finishes.

Kalliseia1 votes

Yeah that's powerful. But like you said, you're full AD relying on flat AD and not much attack speed to get you through much with sustained damage. The passive on her W is powerful, I'll admit, but the AD scaling is better on her ulti, so using full AD like that is just another way to play her. Like I said earlier in another comment, Vi can be played a number of ways, and hardly any of them are wrong, they're based on what they think works best and what they can rely on. There's no wrong way to play her, really.

Thanks for your opinion! [slayer-jinx-catface]

Martyrofsand1 votes

I would agree you can build her pretty much how you want between sustained, burst, and tanky build paths. I just happened to prefer the burst pattern, especially since we are in the day and age of champs like Yasuo who frankly you need a point and click delete button to eliminate that PoS from the game before he destroys your whole team.

GetMariahCarried2 votes

Cinder may SEEM like it screws her damage, but keep in mind, it's a great synergizer for cleaver + titanic builds. When you're running near 5k health on Vi, punching people for 500 physical on the titanic active, and you're still doing a beastly amount of sustain damage at anywhere from 230-300 ad, depending on what else you bought, and you STILL have over 150 armor and mr, you can be quite overpowering, no warrior or attack speed items needed. Grasp of the undying will give you somewhere between 120-150 extra damage and heal as well, which is pretty bawler.

Note though, I recommend this build more from a late-S5 perspective, which is when I last played Vi jungle a lot. The few times I played her a couple weeks ago in pre-season with this same setup, if I recall correctly, I'd still have pretty strong kda's, but I just couldn't bring the same amount of threat to the other team lategame. When you have a Graves that can crit pretty much anyone to death in 4 hits, it makes juggernaut Vi seem a little underwhelming.

I should probably try Devourer and Bork again S6. I had a few terrifying lategames with those combos in S5, but in general, it always seem to be weak on Vi, who already has percent max health physical damage that only scales in impact with ad, arpen, and cdr, and in some ways more so than attack speed. You'll probably say "ewe, S6 bork" but come on, that 2% less isn't THAT big a deal.

P.S. Awwwwweee yyiiiihhh flat armor jungle quints. Still doesn't touch my jungle taric setup: flat armor quints and marks, scaling armor seals. Puts me at 21 flat + 27 scaling, for a total of 48 lategame. You can never have too much armor as taric... never... (double P.S.: or Rammus)

Kalliseia2 votes

That's a good strategy too. Remember though, this post is just saying that Devourer on Vi isn't as bad as people make it out to be. There are several ways to play Vi and sometimes it depends on either team you're playing with. I'll test out a more tanky bruiser like that instead of a semi-tank destructor like how I'm saying.

Thanks for your input and opinion! [slayer-jinx-catface]

GetMariahCarried1 votes

Well with that in mind, I should probably list the usual full build for me:

item 3047 item 1401 item 3071 item 3748 item 3742 item 3102

And then I'd cap out cdr somehow with scaling cdr runes. This season though, you need more of that without the low-level cdr mastery. There also was always a toss-up between using lifesteal quints for super-sustain early and sacrificing mr glyphs for more scaling cdr quints, or keep traditional glyphs and sacrificising early sustain for scaling cdr quints instead. Really don't know how I'd approach this route in full these days with the new masteries, jungle items, and pots. Haven't spent enough time trying out different things.

I'm guessing Vi tests are next on my teambuilder spam list. [slayer-jinx-wink]

P.S. I resent the lack of one-Vimoticon-per-post in this thread's responses. [slayer-jinx-unamused]

Kalliseia1 votes

Nice, nice. Yeah that's a strong one. Not all that much attack speed but lots of tank and a good amount of AD and armor shredding. Runes are kinda questionable IMO but hey if it worked for you, then it worked. Here are my tanky AD builds without a jungle item:

item 3153 item 3111 item 3156 item 3742 item 3748 item 3065 Or: item 3153 item 3111 item 3156 item 3742 item 3074 item 3078

Those were some of my more fun builds, and you can see I stuck to a few certain items. Again, opinion is strong with this champion. There are so many ways to play her, and most of them are effective and a lot of the time it depends on the type of team you're playing against. Happy punching! [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

GetMariahCarried1 votes

Yep, I'll be trying some bork builds. Seems like you'd put the visage into the hydra build. More benefit from the lifesteal build that way. But w/e.

On another note, as far as scaling cdr runes, in my opinion, you can never underestimate the effectiveness of capped cdr on most juggernaught/tanks. On sej for instance, you don't really need move speed or damage items against an enemy when you can ram a boar into their bum repeatedly, every time they gain the slightest distance from you. Doesn't work out that way though without the cdr though.

Then again, cdr may not be so important if you're in a lot of fights with outcomes decided in only a few seconds, which does happen a lot.

In any case: *cue obligatory Vimoticon* [slayer-jinx-catface]

GetMariahCarried1 votes

P.S. on another note, tiamat early was much stronger on Vi in S5. I'd used to go cinder into tiamat, and farm like crazy while providing a lot of dps in ganks. Of course, it no longer works that way, so my build route may actually prove to be weak at many points in the game in S6. I don't know, but we'll find out. Discovery requires experimentation! ... ... buuuut not the creepy Marvel-hydra evil-mastermind/human-rights-violation kind.

EDIT: woops! almost forgot... [slayer-jinx-wink]

I'm sorry, but vimoticons are just eye-candy. [slayer-pantheon-popcorn] Literally! They're pink!

LVL 5 PORO1 votes

Devourer is for auto attacked based champions like Yi and Shyvana. It is terrible on Vi. Vi is not auto attack based. She is an AD Caster, she barely auto attacks so attack speed is useless on her. Warrior is better in every way compared to Devourer.

Fowus2 votes

Actually she's a bit of both since she relies on autos to proc denting blows and excessive force. If attack speed was useless on her why would trinity be recommended?

LVL 5 PORO1 votes

People dont use Trinity because it gives attack speed.

Fowus1 votes

I'll leave this for you

http://champion.gg/champion/vi

LVL 5 PORO2 votes

K?

Fowus1 votes

potassium?

my point is trinity is a viable item on her

LVL 5 PORO1 votes

K? I never said it wasn't.

Fowus1 votes

you're saying attack speed is terrible on vi and trinity is based around on hit effects and attack speed

Kalliseia1 votes

An AD Caster, eh? She's not an auto-attack based champion? What sets Yi and Shyvana as auto-based champs? Yi's passive with his double strikes? His Wuju Style? That I can see.

Shyvana? Her Twin Bite? Her... anything else?

What sets them as an auto-based champion that doesn't apply to Vi? She has her Denting Blows passive. She has her Excessive Force, which resets an auto attack. She has two gap closers in her abilities, and she has high attack damage and is melee range. Her Denting Blows work off of auto attacks and her Excessive Force resets her auto attack on use.

She's both an AD Caster and an auto-based champion in that regard. Devourer works with her Denting Blows. Making it so that every second attack, it chunks down at least 6% of the enemy's health as bonus damage to her normal attacks. When it would be every third attack. Warrior does give an early advantage like I said, but check out my strategy in-game before you compare.

Thanks for your opinion.

LVL 5 PORO1 votes

They are AA based because most of their damage comes from auto attacking. Most of Vi's damage is from abilities, not auto attacks. Sure, she may auto attack every now and then but it makes up a fraction of her damage compared to her abilities. If Devourer was better than Warrior it would have been established a long time ago and everyone would be using it. Warrior is simply the superior item for her.

Asayake 5150glow1 votes

[{quoted}](name=L Ange Noir Von,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PXIqRoPs,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-11-23T23:17:01.985+0000)

Devourer is for auto attacked based champions like Yi and Shyvana. It is terrible on Vi. Vi is not auto attack based. She is an AD Caster, she barely auto attacks so attack speed is useless on her. Warrior is better in every way compared to Devourer.

W proc... going tanky, you'll auto attack a lot.

Even as an assassin, your combo includes 4 auto attacks with the Q - auto - E reset - ult - auto - E reset

Nondre1 votes

I'm still pretty new to the game, and I get shat on a lot for being dev Vi. The problem is as was stated earlier. Counter jungle and early ganks are very difficult to pull off. I personally am still trying to figure out and buy what runes work best for me. Coming from a support role to jungle, This has been one of my favorite ways to play Vi. I go devourer, and then tank the piss out of her, unless I can see I will need more dmg. Thank you for the input, and reassurance that devourer isnt the reason our team is 33-15.

Kalliseia1 votes

If you'd like, you can add me on the game and we can play some together and I can maybe give you a few tips and tricks to help you along. If you'd want to that is.

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