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Vi top, help modify build? (Long)

DeadlyQuestion··1 votes·2,397 views

I've been taking Vi top with MR/Armor and +19 Armor Pen runes, I've been doing pretty well early game, but my goal was to be a split pushing turret destroyer and with the build I was told was typical (Triforce, BC, merc treads or ninja tabi, defense items depending on situation) was definitely allowing me to rack up kills, wasn't really letting me push turrets as well as I was hoping.

Maybe it's just a playstyle error; I could be pushing towers at inopportune times. Maybe my runes are too unorthodox and I should adjust them, but in my opinion runes are relevant mostly during early to mid game and I'm having no trouble winning exchanges with my runes.

What I want to start doing is adjusting my build, but A.) I haven't been able to play a game all week, and B.) I am afraid of fucking up someone's game for my experiment. So, I'm asking the Boards to help me out.

Both item 3078 and item 3071 seem like the perfect items concerning Vi's kit. Triforce gives health that complements her passive, mana to keep her using her skills, AD, AP and Spellblade for damage (all of her skills use AD ratios, her E is used often and has a hybrid ratio), attack speed to complement her W, critical strike and move speed are bonuses. BC gives health for her passive, Armor pen to complement her W, and additional armor pen per melee strike to additionally complement her W with the AA's she uses.

  1. My first thought was to nick BC for an Attack Speed item. I noticed that by mid game, I maybe used two or three AA's in my attacks (less than the 5 stacks BC maxes at), mostly relying on Q, R, and Ex2 to proc the damage for W several times, and if they weren't dead after the first two W procs, they'd either get away or get back up and I'd have to retreat or die. So though BC gives me health for Vi's passive, damage, and +10 Armor pen before it's potential additional armor pen, I wondered if maybe another item would maybe work better considering the additional armor pen stacks didn't proc on turrets anyway.

  2. My other thought was just to remove one of my 3 defense items for a 3rd item with AD+Attack Speed, leaving Triforce and BC intact. This would make her less tanky, reducing her passive shield, and probably disallowing me to initiate team fights well, or hop into 1v3s and escape, but my dueling would be that much better and allow me to tear down turrets that much faster.

What are your thoughts? Show me your example builds.

18 Comments

Klax002saur1 votes

Runes: I take 9 AD Pen Marks, Armor seals, 5% CDR and MR Glyphs, and AD Quints Masteries: 21/9/0 grabbing 5% CDR instead of 4% AS

I occasionally play Vi top, my build usually looks like this. Brutalizer usually becomes item 3142 for me at the end of the game. Because of her W passive you don't really need the stacking armor debuff from BC. Generally you can kill them in one Q>AA>E>E anyways.

item 3134 item 3078 item 3111 item 3156 item 3143 item 3035 (usually build Brutalizer>Trinity Force>Boots>Randuins>Hexdrinker>Last Whisper>Maw of Malmortius> Youmoos Ghostblade. obviously depends on matchup)

Combo Tank/bruiser: Q(Charged)>AA>E>AA>R>AA>E>AA>Q(charged or uncharged)

combing should always be done in this order for maximum effectiveness. although an AA or 2 can usually be skipped if you're an item ahead of someone.

Combo ADC/APC/support:

R>AA>E>Q(uncharged)>E if diving, otherwise follow the same script as tanks/bruisers.

In order to take turrets at a faster pace, make sure you kill incoming minion waves before they aggro your minions. one Q>E is all it takes if you're building full AD. I find AS to be virtually useless on her in terms of killing champions, but if you are that dedicated to split pushing then idk, probably buy item 3153 or grab item 3142 right after trinity force but i think it's a waste of your time. Even in teamfights a full AD Vi can just destroy the enemy carry then survive because there isn't enough damage left, or you just win the fight for your team and die. So i really think 100% splitting is a waste of your potential. Play tryndamere if that's what you are looking for in a champion.

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

I generally follow your combos already, I don't see much difference to how I approach a fight. But your build was unexpected. Without reading anything first, the images of the build you posted immediately made me think "That takes care of my turret pushing problem," though it doesn't have nearly as much defense as I'm running.. which I know isn't really necessary for a 1v1, but I'm generally hopping into a 1v2 or 1v3 and easily coming out alive. I'll just have to adjust my playstyle if I follow your build.

I've recently just been having a lot of fun playing Vi, I think her top early game largely goes underestimated because she's generally played in jungle. I 100% agree with you that she really isn't built to be a monster at split pushing, and maybe I should just change up my champion if that's my goal. If you look at my match history, you'll see a lot of defeats on that list. My split pushing with Vi dilemma comes from my team 90% of the time not taking advantage of the instances where taking out a tower or pushing a lane is an open opportunity. I can see those opportunities so easily and take advantage of them as often as I can, but with Vi I'm taking them out too slow or hoping my team will push while I participate in roam hunting and team fights, but they generally don't, and we end up just pushing a game to 45+ minutes until the enemy catches up.

I'll definitely try your rune and build suggestions and report back in, in a few days :)

Klax002saur1 votes

I basically shift Vi from being a tank into being an assassin. Got just enough defense that i survive ulting through the enemy team to kill the carry.

Team cooperation is always an issue and people not knowing when to take objectives. All i can say is if you are crushing with full AD vi, start chatting and making the calls. People are used to following Vi's since she's a jungler, so it shouldn't be that hard to get people to listen to you as long as you're winning lane.

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

That's a good point and it worked. I generally dont use chat myself, just read it and use pings, but me making calls were actually listened to 80% of the time.

I don't like the runes you suggested. I am not claiming mine are any better, but I feel much weaker when I take them. Maybe sacrificing some damage for CDR is worth it in some situations, but it's really hurting my games I feel. I'm going to play around with some rune builds unless you have a better rune page you'd like to offer?

Klax002saur1 votes

i only grab the 5% CDR in glyphs. You shouldn't be missing any damage as glyphs add a really negligible amount of damage. I've only ever used the 1 set up and never fiddled around with it so if you think you have something better then by all means use it instead. I will say i think she's like riven though in my eyes. The more CDR you have the better.

also, how do you max your spells? I max Q>W>E and play a burst poke game in lane.

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

The rune set up I've been going with is +15 flat AD (Quints, Marks), +12 armor (9 seals, 4 glyphs), +15 MR/level (5 glyphs) unless the top is an AP burst (not AP tank like Malphite or SInged), I'll sub for less armor for more MR. It's been serving me well, after I rush 2/3 of triforce (Phage/Zeal if against mobility like teemo/nidalee; Zeal/Sheen if against a gap closer/hop away champ like Shen, Lee Sin, Xin Zhao), 1st level boots, and Glacial Shroud, I have enough CDR to make fighting easier.

For jungling I max my Q but for top lane I start E, Q or W for level 2 depending on the matchup, and then level 3 whatever I didn't take at 2, and then I max W before Q.

The problem with not maxing Q is that your escape has a high cooldown, but the burst from W is scary even when the skill is at level 2. I have great map awareness, Im constantly looking at my minimap, so I won't use up my Q if I don't think the cooldown will reset before a gank. From maxing W first, though, I get so many first bloods from Qing in (it doesn't even have to charge), AA, E, AA, E, AA, Ignite. It just does so much damage, even for squishier champs.

Or if they're tanky (champs that are not going to die so easily, example malphite/shen), one Q, AA, E and then back off, using flasks to heal if necessary and waiting for Q to come back up. Smart players flee to tower, I get more gold and levels before they do. Not-so-smart players underestimate the poke and get ignited to death on the second or third jump in.

I dominated a Riven once by scaring her with a level 4 harass combo, and then just by charging my Q to telegraph/chasing she would back away in fear, and then I'd jump backwards into CS. She lost so much CS and I was easily 3 levels above her without getting a kill.

But like I said, a level 1 Q has such a high cooldown that if you use it up, you gotta be close to your tower or pray a gank isn't on its way. I generally stay close enough to my bushes to give me the extra 3-5 seconds, I don't normally get caught out even with Q on cooldown. I think it depends on play style.

Klax002saur1 votes

This discussion has definitely made me more curious about playing her top without feeling like i'm trolling. I'll probably have to start doing it more now. It's definitely a toss up whether Q or W in lane is truly better, W is definitely a safer pick. In jungle i max her W first though so i was always partial to it. I'm a pretty reckless laner though so i max Q cause i need the short cooldown. i don't like to ward and when i do i don't look at my map cause i'm a baddie.

Starting E in lane is also what i do since the probability of winning a trade with just your W proc is almost 0 against most top laners. I think you could start Q as well, the caveat being you have to max it out before hitting the enemy.

I've only played a handful of games but won most of them. Think i was against a Darius, Garen, Teemo, Renekton and Irelia for them. Irelia was really tough because of her healing, Darius/Garen/Renekton are pretty easy cause if they build damage they die, and if they build tank you build all armor pen and they still die and fall off mid game hard. Teemo you just bait out his Q and gg easy.

Phrite1 votes

You shouldn't feel like a troll because Vi top used to be legit until she kinda fell off. She's not god tier there but she's no where near useless or a troll IMO. Her shield gives her some nice ability to stay in lane, can take a bit of beating, and she's got a handy escape. Her biggest issue IMO is early level mana probs but this guy already has it figured out by maxing W anyway which used to be a common strat on Vi jungle as well prior to the popularity of prioritization of Q.

Also wanted to add that your Runes setup is missing Attk Spd which I think you're underestimating it's usefulness on Vi due to it's ability to proc W more frequently as well as get in more AA's for combos.

Klax002saur1 votes

Attack speed is only nice in theory for top lane. Using 0 attack speed buffs other than the one steroid in her W, you can kill an enemy 90% of the time without proc'ing W more than twice, and 4 of those 6 W stacks are from spells post level 6. Nobody will just stand there and duel you post bronze league.

I layed out the 2 main Vi combo's and attack speed doesn't help any of those because all of Vi's spells are auto attack resets. You would waste time trying to throw in another auto here or there and give more room for your opponent to outplay you.

MrPerson101 votes

My question is why are you running so much armor pen when you have built in armor reduction in your kit? Marks should be more than enough, running AD quints would benefit you more - or vice versa.

Also, as Vanisher15 said earlier, CDR + 3 scaling MR glyphs would help you a lot more.

I don't have anything to say on build, Vanisher's covered all that good stuff. Just your runes are a bit overkill

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

The +19 armor pen was an experiment, quite honestly. Nothing better than true damage (or as close as possible) right? D:

But I'm going to adopt some of Vanisher's ideas. No more max armor pen :(

MrPerson101 votes

it's honestly just a bit overkill. You're sacrificing your strong early game by getting so much armor pen, and you're reducing your overall damage

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

Agreed. I did some change up :)

Phrite1 votes

Personally I go with: Quints - 3 AD Marks - 3 Armor Pen; 6 Attk Spd Seals - 9 Flat Armor Glyphs - 9 Scaling MR or 3 scaling MR + 6 CDR

Reason behind quints and marks - AD quints help boost base dmg which feels a bit lacking IMO if you go full armor pen. Her W already gives some armor shred so she only needs the few points and the attk spd helps proc W more.

Personally I don't like CDR in the build from glyphs but I haven't played her top in a long time so it may be particularly helpful there.

So thinking on this discussion got me more curious so I decided to check out runes on champion.gg.

Highest win % runes: Marks: 8x Attack Damage

1x Critical Chance +0.93%

Glyphs: 9x Flat MR

Seals: 9x Flat Arm

Quints: 3x Attk Speed

While this is a jungle build I find it really interesting that there is 0 armor pen in this build. If you look at her highest played % of runes it also contains no armor pen either. Now I've taken the last year or so off playing Smite and only recently returned to the game so I may have missed the switchover, but it appears people aren't running ArmPen on her at all and are instead satisfied with W procs with Attk Spd bonus. Just some food for thought.

Based on this I may try the following this evening: Quints - 3x Attk Spd Marks - 9 AD Seals - 9 Flat Armor Glyphs - 9 Scaling MR

Also might give that CDR a shot.

Only Play Darius1 votes

Vi is a jungler because she has early game mana problems and is kited very easily, and her only gapcloser is heavily telegraphed so it is all to easy for people to walk back to their turret in order to avoid it entirely.

Sometimes it is best just to stick to the meta.

DeadlyQuestion1 votes

Her mana problems are solved by taking flask as your first item in many matchups. If they walk back to their turret to avoid getting slammed into.. good. Early game is for last hitting and gold getting. If the enemy is dumb enough not to walk back to turret, hooray more early gold for me. If they run back to their turret, I'm getting more levels and gold before they do.

The only relevant statement you made is that you can't fully charge her Q before using it (because of the mentioned telegraphing). But... if you focus on maxing W first (as opposed to maxing Q when you [or at least, I] take her jungle) then Q just comes a means to proc the damage from W quicker, or used for escape from ganks, and you don't need to charge it for early game.

Only Play Darius1 votes

Have you ever tried last hitting with vi? She has one of the longest attack windups in the game, she is my main jg and I still struggle last hitting minions.

DeadlyQuestion2 votes

I topped her for 15 games in a row. Yes, I've tried last hitting with her. It's not that big of a deal, just compensate for the extra time. If you're still having trouble, keep one of your E charges up and use it for the first two or three levels, eventually your AA should be doing enough damage that CSing is no problem :)

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