Source
r/summonerschool•
Twevy

Volibear Builds

Volibear

Hey everyone,

Been playing more voli recently. I think he's super strong rn. Was playing Elise a lot, but do'nt love her around my elo (low gold) because of the ARAM mentality. Harder to catch people out when nobody rotates.

Anyway, was wondering how people itemize on Voli. There's the easy way to go SotA and stack health w/ cinderhulk, but I've also seen some people build devourer titanic (and even frenzy), then go pure tank, on him, which also seems to be strong. I know that which I go will depend on the matchup and the game, but I was wondering if people could explain those itemization choices to me.

Thanks!

Posted Mar 21, 2016, 2:09 PM UTC

112
crazycoopdogPlatinum IV•

He itemizes best as a tank because of his passive and W active. I really like cinderhulk into deadmans or if you have a good amount of burst damage in your comp go Rightous Glory second for those hard engages (This is very non meta because of how easily kitable champs are in this meta with ez and lucian). Elise is very strong though and should not be given up up. People in low gold will split up and make really bad warding decisions so picks are easy with her stun. Plus she is amazing in a poke comp because she offers so much disengage with her E in both forms.

3
TwevyOP•

Thanks! Yeah, with Elise, I still do like her, but I feel like she's just not as good an option for my elo, where people are constantly sieging mid and forcing team fights. She feels so strong during laning phase because her ganks are amazing, but I feel like she's weak in teamfights compared to other jgls that I see more of at my elo like Voli, Vi, Shyv, Amumu, Udyr, etc.

1
pkblaze78•

I'm like high bronze or something but I find Elise does fine grouping mid, especially with a splitpusher in a sidelane. Her disengage is pretty solid to help suppliment the support and she has the AoE on spider to waveclear if she needs to. She also pokes pretty well. It's not optimal I guess but I've made it work for me.

1
TwevyOP•

Yeah problem with that is that she's just squishy enough to be engaged on and, other than w, her poke and wave-clear has really short range. She's still ok for grouping mid if the other team's squishies are complete idiots and stand in cocoon range/in front of their front line, but that doesn't happen much at my elo. I'm kind of in the reverse goldilocks zone for elise: people not good enough not to aram, yet squishies too good to position really horribly.

1
seriouszombiePlatinum V•

Voli Main here,

Where to start:

  • Best bet to start is bot side (regardless of buffs) for the extra help on the first camp. As you kill everything bot and rotate top, keep an eye out for top/mid and see if you can gank them.

For Masteries:

  • Strength of the Ages, the health helps your passive, and the health per large minion or monster at the end of the stacks helps keep you healthy if you don't have any hp regen before then.

Jungle Item:

  • Cinderhulk for Tank (build bami's cinder if you get enough gold very early, but if you buy this make sure to gank if you can), it helps your W's damage, makes you tankier, and helps your clear.

  • If you want damage then you want Devourers, but make sure your team can handle losing the tankiness.

Devourers:

  • STILL GANK! The moment you buy it you'll want to farm the closest camps first, then pick an easy lane to gank (preferable bot for dragon) then pick up kills and objectives, most devourer champions won't gank so early, but your not most devourer champions and you're really strong early. The best times to build Devourers is against a insanely healthy team (so that Botrk will be extra awesome) or against another Devourer jungler (Ex: Yi) who you probably wouldn't be able to kill if you went tank.

First Item After Boots:

  • If you are doing insanely good against a mixed damage comp, then my favorite item to build is Warmogs (trust me, the moment you build this you'll have enough health for its passive). Let the passive do its job, early game it will keep you healthy and tanky enough for ganking at all times, and late its passive will let you tank poke damage so that you can sit back and heal up again.

  • Against a mostly AD team, build Deadman's Plate or Randuin's Omen and maybe later a thornmail if they are Auto Attack heavy.

  • Against an AP team, build Spirit Visage early (which you'll probably want to buy eventually anyways if they have any sort of decent AP), then maybe a Locket of the Iron Solari if your support won't buy it (but try to ask them buy it first before you).

Heading towards late game I like to build Titantic Hydra so that my damage will still be noticeable.

That's pretty much all you need to know about building Volibear, and he's a really easy champion to learn/master so gaining enough experience to play him well won't take long at all.

3
TwevyOP•

Awesome, thanks! One question about playing him more generally: I've found that ganks are really, really hard if either the target has any dash/peel (ez or lucian e.g.) or if they have flash. The latter is the case for most jungles, but I find it particularly difficult when playing voli. How do you structure your ganks to be able to actually flip the person?

1
seriouszombiePlatinum V•

If your opponent does have a dash or flash then see if you can wait for either of them to be used.

If not then simply wait for them to overextend.

If they still refuse to do either, then gank IF you think they're low enough to kill and, BEFORE they dash/flash, flash early and flip them (DO NOT do this if you can reach without flashing). They will still dash, but before they do that you can E and slow them after the dash so that you'll catch up again.

Also pick the enemy closest to your laner(s) and focus them. The easier kill is always better.

2
vncentwuMaster I•

Devourer/fervor really isn't all that great on Voli. You don't farm quickly and you get kited easily. Volibear scales fairly well with HP due to his W, and if you're in range to deal damage with devourer, chances are, tank volibear will do just as well.

3
hunkerd0wn•

I've been taking scaling health yellows, as reds, CDR blues, as/cdr Quints so I have 20%as 20%cdr at 18 and 218 health at 18.

I rush cinder hulk, then titanic, then full tank (spirit visage, warmogs, dmp, swifties) and maybe a phantom dancer. I've been absolutely wrecking games lately. He is so strong rn. I run 12/0/18 masteries

2
seredhrasGold II•

Voli gets plenty of damage on his W and survivability on his passive from just stacking health.

Cinderhulk just fits what Volibear does a lot better. Its a better single item on him than devourer, especially because he doesn't farm that quickly to stack devourer.

I do like building Titanic on him though, but it usually gets relegated to 3rd or 4th.

2
TwevyOP•

OK, Titanic seems to be a pretty good item for him. So do you usually do like Cinder, boots (I assume treads or swifties?), then DMP then titanic or something?

1
seredhrasGold II•

Something like that. But Titanic is only if I'm snowballing or really trying to farm fast, otherwise I build something else and in the end that slot is given to a Steraks usually. But they are more luxury items than essential so they get moved around a lot.

It really depends on the game after boots though, because Visage can be slotted in anywhere and some games extra armour is necessary so I build a Randuin's third or fourth.

2