How to crush your opponent as Viktor

Hello, and welcome to my complete guide to playing Viktor in League of Legends. If you're not well versed in League of Legends gameplay and strategy, please read my beginner's guide to League of Legends here.

Before we get started, take a couple minutes to watch the assortment of clips I provided in the video above. These are clips from the game I played as Viktor in the top lane. I will be referencing specific clips from this video throughout the guide.

First and foremost, I'd like to go over Viktor's kit, abilities, and skill set. All of this information can be found on the League of Legends Wiki.

Viktor is a burst mage, generally played in mid lane. I was queued for mid lane in this game, however my top laner requested to swap lanes. Viktor deals magic damage, and has a very unique skill set. His abilities are designed to allow Viktor to outplay and overcome challenges throughout the game.

Passive Ability: Glorious Evolution

Viktor is capable of augmenting all of his abilities for added effects.

Augmented Siphon Power: Siphon Power's active grants 30% move speed for 2.5s, and buffs the shield by 60%.

Augmented Gravity Field: Viktor's damaging abilities slow enemies hit by 20% for 1 second.

Augmented Death Ray: A wake of explosion follows Viktor's death ray 1 second after casting, dealing more damage than Death Ray itself.

Augmented Chaos Storm: Chaos Storm moves 20% faster.

Q Ability: Siphon Power

Active: Viktor hurls a projectile towards a selected enemy, and shields himself. The shield value increases with ability level, and ability power.

After using the active ability, Viktor's next auto attack will deal bonus magic damage. Siphon Power works seamlessly and synergistically with Sheen's passive. After using an ability, the next attack deals bonus magic damage. Basically a copy paste of Viktor's Q. ALWAYS build Sheen on Viktor.

W Ability: Gravity Field

Active: Viktor places a field that stuns enemies that have been standing in it for 1.5 seconds. Enemies are stunned for another 1.5 seconds.

E Ability: Death Ray

Active: Viktor fires an energy beam dealing AoE (area of effect) magic damage to all enemies hit.

R Ability: Chaos Storm

Active: Viktor places an electrifying storm that he can control. Every 1 second, it deals AoE damage to all enemies inside, and lasts for a total of 8 seconds. Viktor can control the storm by pointing to where he wants it to go, and recasting the ability.

Runes & Masteries:

I always take Sorcery and Precision when I play Viktor. Generally, I take Summon Aery. I also take Manaflow Band, Transcendence, and Scorch. In precision, I take Triumph and Coup de Grace.

Summon Aery: Damaging attacks and abilities send Aery, who deals bonus damage to enemies.

Manaflow Band: Hitting enemy champions with abilities permanently increases many by 25. Max of 250.

Transcendence: Gain Ability Haste (cooldown reduction) as you level up. At level 11, champion takedowns reduce basic ability cooldowns by 20%.

Scorch: Your first damaging ability against enemy champions sets them on fire, dealing 15-35 bonus damage. (Based on level)

Triumph: Takedowns restore 12% of missing health, and grant an extra 20 gold.

Coup de Grace: Deal 8% more damage to enemy champions under 40% health.

I also take Adaptive Force, Adaptive Force, and Armor or Magic Resist, depending on the matchup.

Items:

Starting Items:

Generally, I start with Doran's Ring, and buy a Tear of the Goddess on my first back. Sometimes, I'll start with Tear.

Boots:

Boots are always a mixed bag. I go on a game by game basis. Some games I'll build Mercury's Treads, others I'll build Sorcerer's Shoes. It really just depends on the matchup, and how my team is doing.

Plated Steelcaps are best against AD (attack damage) focused teams. They reduce incoming attacks by 12% which is a big deal. If I'm far ahead of the enemy team, I'll still build Sorcerer's Shoes to extend my lead.

Mercury's Treads are great against AP (ability power) focused teams. They have 25 magic resist, and 30% tenacity. Tenacity reduces the amount of time crowd control abilities affect you. If an enemy team has a lot of crowd control, but isn't necessarily AP focused, I'd probably still build Mercury's Treads. Crowd control can make or break a team fight, so it's important to take note of it.

For the most part, though, I build Sorcerer's Shoes. The magic penetration is helpful, especially if you already have a lead. 18 magic penetration might not sound like much, but against an enemy who hasn't build any magic resist, it could increase your damage by 30-40%.

Necessary Items:

Archangel's Staff is my favorite item of season 10. Riot Games recently changed the way Tear of the Goddess worked, and decreased the amount of stacks you needed for Archangel's Staff to upgrade into Seraph's Embrace. They also reduced the cost of Tear of the Goddess to 400 from 820, which means you can buy Tear at the start of the game, and have it fully stacked by 10 minutes. You'll see Tear in a lot of my guides this season.

Luden's Tempest is good, because it reduces cooldowns, increases mana and damage, and has an insignificant, but present, amount of magic penetration. The Echo passive is good for bonus damage in fights and duels, and overall Luden's works well with Viktor's kit.

Sheen Items:

Generally, I go with Lich Bane. It deals significantly more damage, and has ability power and move speed. Move speed is especially helpful on Viktor, because he has the ability to dodge lots of attacks, and deal sustained damage. I often take Ghost as a summoner spell on Viktor, because combined with the move speed from items, and his Q ability, you can dodge most skill shots very easily, and kill 2 or more opponents on your own.

The only case I'll purchase Divine Sunderer is if the enemy team has quite a few tanks. Damage doesn't really do a whole lot against tanky opponents, but percent max health damage does. The more health an enemy has, the more damage you'll do. Divine Sunderer also increases your survivability with health. The attack damage seems useless, but Viktor's Q actually scales off of AD. Still build AP overall.

Final Items:

Zhonya's Hourglass is very useful against assassins, and AD focused teams. It gives armor, and an active that makes you invulnerable for 2.5 seconds. Perfect for dodging Zed ults, Fizz ults, even dodging ignite ticks. All around great item. A popular strategy with Zhonya's is to dive in, kill one enemy and use the Zhonya's active while your team collapses in on a weakened enemy. Results may vary, though.

Void Staff is another item that simply depends on the game. If the enemy team isn't building any magic resist, there's really no point in buying this item as your last item. Rabadon's would be much more helpful. However, if the enemy team is tanky, and has a lot of magic resist, this item is necessary. Time and time again I see mid laners crush their opponents all game, and then fall off later because their damage can't keep up with the enemy teams resistances. Pay attention to how your opponents build.

Rabadon's Death cap is a classic. This item has arguably the dumbest passives in the game. Increase total ability power by 35%. 35%!!! If you had 600 ability power, this item would increase that to more than 800! Usually each item is only 100-130 ability power. Rabadon's can be 300 or more. If the enemy team disregards your damage, build this. They'll be sorry.

Finally, lets get into the gameplay.

My matchup in the top lane this game was against Quinn. Quinn has a very strong early game, so I played safe and towards my tower. I didn't go out of my way to start fights with Quinn, and I mainly focused on killing lane minions to farm up and get past the early game.

For the first few minutes, I played quiet. I didn't show my aggression, nor did I poke. I waited patiently for Quinn to push up, and make a mistake. If you'd direct your attention to the first clip (0:00-0:18) in the video at the top of this guide, you'll see Nunu, the jungler, gank my lane. Quinn was caught off guard here. She didn't see Nunu coming, and I took advantage of this. You'll see her engage on me, and I place my W (Gravity Field) behind her, so she can't run directly away. Quinn ends up fumbling, and gets stunned by my W, Nunu's giant snowball knocks her up, and from there it was a free kill. Vi attemps to save her, to no avail. After killing Quinn, I shove the minion wave into her tower, so she misses as much CS as possible. I recall, and buy items.

I now have an advantage over Quinn, despite her early game strength. I feel a lot more confident in my ability to out damage her, so I feel comfortable pushing the wave into her tower. The key to laning is trying to make the opposing laner's game as miserable as possible. Don't let her CS, don't let her push into your tower, especially don't let her kill you. It's all about denying gold. As stated in my "How to Play League of Legends" guide, gold is power. Denying gold is denying power.

Now that I have control over the lane, I place a Control Ward in the river bush. Not only does this grant me vision of the river, in case of ganks, but it also denies Quinn vision of the river. Control wards disable and reveal enemy wards, so here you can see me clearing Quinn's river bush ward.

On to clip #2 (0:18-0:47)

Here you can see Quinn flying into lane with her bird or whatever, and attempting to all in me. This is dumb for 3 reasons. One, I out level her. Two, I already have a lead in the lane. And Three, I have a 10+ minion wave. Minions don't do a lot of damage, but a lot of minions do. Quinn is also somewhat skill shot based, so you'll see me keeping my minions between me and her, so she can't land her blind on me.

Almost immediately she realizes her mistake and attempts to run. I rotate all of my abilities, and deal the final blow with ignite and Death Ray. I then proceed to push her tower. Quinn is missing at least 3 waves of minions here (worth more than a single kill) and on top of that, I'm getting turret plate gold.

At this point, Quinn has given up on top lane. You might be able to see Quinn in the river on the minimap in the bottom right hand corner. I don't need to chase after her, it's more worth my time to keep pushing and get more turret plates.

Clip #3 (0:47-1:15)

I almost threw my lead here. My main mistake was getting too close to Quinn's turret. Quinn doesn't have anywhere near the damage to kill me on her own, but a turret shot or two could make the difference. I take a significant amount of damage and back off. Quinn should never have chased me after that. I'm at least 2 kills and 50 CS up on her at this moment. My full ability rotation does 70-80% of her health. She transforms into bird mode, and flies over to me. I place my ult, and one Q and she's dead. She has no chance at this point. I've won lane. All she can do now is farm up, and get kills and assists in team fights to catch up.

I continue pushing her tower, collecting as much gold as I can, and denying as much gold from Quinn as possible. I have the river warded, so I'll see Vi before she can kill me.

On this wave, I'm able to kill the outer turret in top lane. This is the first turret to go in the game, so I'll receive bonus gold. After the outer turret is killed, there's really no reason for me to stay top, so I roam around looking for teammates to assist, and enemies to kill.

Clip #4 (1:14-1:48)

After killing the outer turret, I recall, and head back top to push it out, and follow Nunu into the middle lane. The enemy team seems to have grouped there, and so far, nobody besides Quinn fully understands my strength. I use this to push my lead as far as I can, getting four kills. From then on, all members of the enemy team are scared of me. They know my damage, and are all looking to kill me first in every fight. I need to be somewhat careful.

After the fight, I push up to mid outer turret, and kill it. I then rotate back to topside river, and help Nunu kill the Rift Herald.

From here on, the enemy team stands no chance. The remaining clips showcase our power as a team. We continue to complete objectives such as dragon, and turrets. Vayne nearly gets a pentakill, and the enemy team surrenders at 20 minutes. I don't feel that these clips really need explanation, other than the facts that for those last two, my positioning was terrible, and I had no vision of the enemy whilst roaming about in their jungle. It didn't matter, though. The enemy team was so far behind, even with the element of surprise, two champions weren't able to all in me. When I was bubbled by Nami, they should've collapsed on our team. I think if they played well, they could've won that fight and possibly turned the game around. Our support's ultimate in the jungle was absolutely insane, and it was just a matter of time before we won.

This concludes my guide to Crushing your Laner as Viktor. Viktor, if played well can win any matchup, and deal significant damage to the enemy team during fights. He differs from other mid laners in that his damage is a lot more consistent and sustained, than most burst mages, such as LeBlanc. LeBlanc is more of a one and done champ. She dashes in, kills one enemy, and then she's done for the fight. I don't trust my teammates enough in solo queue to clean up the rest for me, so I play champs that can carry every fight. Fortunately, in this game, my teammates carried their weight, so my shoulders were eased.

I hope you all enjoyed reading my guide. I also hope that you found it informative and useful, and possibly inspiring. Have a wonderful rest of your day, and have fun playing League of Legends!

Thanks - Zach