[Champion] Volibear

season 2 guide
Abilities:


Passive - Chosen of the storm: When Volibear's health hits 30% or lower of his maximum health, Volibear heals himself for 30% of his health over the next 6 seconds. Chosen of the Storm has a 120 second cooldown.

This is a very effective skill for a couple of reasons. It can be deceptive in trades early game, it also if available, makes tower diving for a kill possible at very low levels, because of his passive it is very hard to 1v1 Voli at low levels with it not on cd.

Passive also makes it possible to be extremely greedy on your first pass through the jungle, Vamp Scepter and Regrowth openings are viable if your team is ok with no gank potential before first back.

internal cd starts when the regen begins not ends. if it comes off of cd when Volibear is below 30% it will not trigger unless he takes further damage. The cd does not benefit from cdr.


Q- Rolling Thunder: Volibear gains a 15% movement speed increase for 4 seconds, if you are chasing an enemy champion the speed increases to 45%. His next auto attack will then deal bonus damage and flip the opponent behind him similar to singed.

CD: 12/11/10/9/8
Mana: 40
Range: 300
Bonus damage: 30/60/90/120/150

This is Voli's gank tool both as a jungler and for gank support Voli, usually leveled last because of the far higher damage increase on w and the slow utility on e. In combination with the slow on his E, it creates very high % gank sucsess if the q is hit.
The speed boost does require vision so if you are ganking a side lane and they run into the brush you will drop to 15% move speed, try to maintain vision if possible

you can use e while the dash is active to ensure that you land the q, for obvious reasons e second is superior but don't get stingy and let them get away for free, if you need to e to catch them, do it. After Phage/Frozen mallet this becomes more of a no brainer.





W - Frenzy: (Passive) Volibear gains bonus attack speed after an auto attack. This bonus stacks up to 3 times and stays active for 4 seconds.
(Active): If Volibear has 3 stacks of the passive he can use the active, although it does not consume the passive. The active is a bite doing damage based on Volibear's bonus health and the missing health of his opponent(1% increased damage for every 1% of missing health), this combined with it's 18 sec non scaling cd, makes it best used as an execute if possible.

Physical Damage: 80/125/170/215/260 (+15% of bonus health)
Mana: 35
Range: 400

This is Volibears most damaging ability any way you slice it, the attack speed bonus is substantial even if the active didn't exist and the active is amazing for kill stea.. Securing. Volibear is not a support jungler (if you subscribe to such a role) he scales as well as any champion in the game, and if a gank results in no kill it can set you way behind, what I'm getting at, is if W will kill use it.


E - Majestic Roar: An Aoe Slow/fear with 425 range dealing magic damage, slowing champions and fearing minions, monsters or pets.

CD: 11
Mana: 60/65/70/75/80
Magic Damage: 60/105/150/195/240 (.6 ap)
Slow: 30/35/40/45/50%

Volibear's other utility. It also does a fairly good amount of base damage so even building ad bruiser the damage isn't negligible. Generally leveled first to increase the slow, and to help with jungle clear speed.

As mentioned earlier it has no cast time so it can be used during other activities mainly it can be used during q dash. also good for trading in lane as you will take less minion damage due to the fear.


R - Thunder Claws: For 12 seconds Volibear's auto attacks gain an on hit magic damage that can chain up to 3 additional enemies with 0 damage reduction (all targets take the full damage)

CD: 100/90/80
Damage per attack: 75/115/155 (.3 ap)
Chain range: 300
100 mana

Not much to add here, it's free damage, obvious utility for teamfights as well as shoving before a back. I've seen it used to get that last bit of damage on a fleeing opponent by attacking a near minion for the chain but I'd call that lucky. My advice activate in situations you would use Riven sword or any other steroid ult.

GUIDES

Jungle Volibear
Summoner Skills: Flash/ghost + Smite. Not much to say about smite you don't really have a choice so I'll touch on the second summoner. Mobility summoners are best for ganking on Volibear, between his q and his e, movement is going to do you more favors than exhaust. Personally I've been falling in love with ghost lately on a lot of melee champions and Volibear is no exception, but a definite argument can be made for flash.

Masteries: 9/21/0 (10% arp)

Runes:
Marks: Armor Penetration
Seals: Flat Armor
Glyphs: Scaling MRes
Quints: Movespeed.

Nothing to controvercial here, movespeed quints I think benefit a jungler in almost every way. clearspeed and gank potential are both increased by having them, and movement quints compared to other stats and the items that provide them just have such a huge opportunity cost advantage over say health or ad quints.

Some people might tell you to go attack speed reds or perhaps mix in ad reds, but I disagree and I will elaborate when I get to starting items

Skill order and Starting items are all very closely related for jungle Volibear in my opinion and the choice is largely based on champion select.

x3
You have three basic options on Volibear here are some questions you want to ask yourself
Purple side: Top matchup, does my team have a snowball top? does opposing top have low mobility lvl2 or Blue side the same thing for the bottom matchup, if you think you can do it, start boots3 and do wraith>red>gank. if it is top you can do golems, but not bottom, it is imperative you get there before wards or you potentially put yourself way behind. Mid is also an option regardless of side volibears lvl2 ganks are extremely strong, however most cases you just get a flash mid this early, unless your mid has strong gank support lvl2.

For lvl2 gank, E > Q, followed by E>Q>W>E, into R>E>W>Q

Next you have 2 relatively greedy options,

or


I'll be honest here, I haven't done the Regrowth open in a long time, I almost always go Vamp Scepter if I don't plan to gank level2, but I'm still a major fan of Wriggles as I'll get into later. the idea of getting Philo rolling asap is appealing, but to be honest I don't know what happens. However if you start Vamp Scepter I suggest you start blue, and open with W, the passive attack speed is what lets even the nerfed version of vamp scepter keep you alive indefinatly even on your first clear.

This is a very greedy build so it requires two conditions,
a)I do not reccomend vamp scepter open vs CV
b) I do not reccomend vamp scepter open vs Shaco, you will be very low when doing red and will trigger your passive clearing it.
your team must also be aware that you will not be ganking before first back, which can go all the way back to wolves if you like, but after first back you can have boots1 a scepter and a longsword at a point in the game that makes you an untouchable duelist with passive available.

I imagine Philo first would put you in a similar situation only slightly later in the game, however now we are talking very mediocre gank potential on a character with pretty strong ganks, his dash is the same, his throw is the same and his slow is the same, but I personally prefer the clear speed and the ability to man mode you get out of wriggles on Voli. LIfesteal interacts really well with his W passive, combined with passive and the armor/longsword damage, as well as the ability to ward for your mid, and Dragon control, I just think Wriggles is the total package for Voli.

if you start with the greedy build I reccomend going

W>E>E>Q, into R>E>W>Q

-Tested out Regrowth open in a normal, first clear actually higher on life than with vamp, went E>W>E>Q open and I was able to buy boots1 and finish philo on first back. However unlike vamp open in which you sit at 100% hp while clearing from here on out, with this build I was constantly sitting at 50-75% while clearing, I went Philo > HoG and finally bought a 2nd regrowth for my eventual warmogs which finally kept me topped off at all times. I transitioned into the full tank build mentioned in the item portion of this guilde, which while hilarious 366 hp5 w/Baron it re-enforced my feelings towards the build vs. my standard build, that being said Regrowth open into wriggles, has a lot of potential with a slightly later power curve than vamp open, but it will push back your gank potential a little more.

on a final note before moving on from skills, if at any point you feel like either your lanes are too far behind, or too far ahead, or just playing to aggressive to gank for. swap W and E, W will benefit you personally more in the long run than E.

Core
+ + +


I actually consider boots2 to be a core item on junglers because of the importance of movement speed. you could make an argument to get phage which will be talked about in the next segment, before boots2 but I disagree. obvious order is to get your gp10s rolling as soon as possible after wriggles, I prefer philo first as it will allow you to give 2nd blue without seeing as much of a dip in your clear speed. Finish up your core with either Merc's or Tabi.

What Next:


pretty self explanitory. more damage, more stick, and health for tankiness and his W. basically more of everything Voli benefits from including some double dip.



The order of these two items is more nebulous both are very good for Volibear but which will benefit you more at the time is very game dependant, if you are ganking a lot or fed shurelya's can exasterbate that fact. If you need the MR Wits can be strong. Sometimes if I'm feeling greedy I'll go Bow > Reverie > Wits for maximum personal benefit.

Why wits end? I think it's important to touch on

as an alternative to Wit's end here. if you go Philo opening and skip wriggles, this might be a better option or if the other team is double ap and are doing good/well in lane. Wits scales better with his w and life steal which is why I consider it the standard build but this is an option if you want to go the regen route, and opens up the door to a warmogs where wriggle's would have been. This is a very strong build, but I feel it is situational mainly because volibear is not a true tank, I mean to say he has to create a reason for the other team to focus him in teamfights because he has no hard cc or taunt. For that reason I think the damage you get out of W passive + Wits+ Ultimate is more useful than the extra longevity this build would give, thats not to say it isn't useful and thats why I bring it up, but again, you give the other team the option to ignore you with this build in my opinion.

My Standard Final Item Build
+ + + + +





When you get Mallet and Randuin's is really up to you, like with all things Volibear it can be volatile you aren't building any armor after wriggles until randuin's so you cercumstances might dictate you have to build it much earlier than you would like to. despite the fact that it brings the least personal benefit to clear speed and kill potential. You will be getting plenty of health so you can usually get away with it.

Frozen mallet is nice because it alllows you to hit confirm your q with e, because frozen mallet Volibear is a one touch kill, Frozen mallet means a fight to the death, which because of Voli's strong duels is almost always a good thing for him.

Lastly I'd like to touch on:

I'm not a huge fan of Oracle's on Volibear, but it definitely not out of the question. he definitely is tanky enough, and he definitely has the gank potential to benefit from removing wards from the map, but I feel Volibear's item scaling makes it a really hard pill to swallow. that combined with his ability to not give a shit under towers with his passive available, sometimes Oracle's can remove that killer instinct. Never a bad choice, but if you do buy it, you can't play like a pussy because you have it or you will be a terrible Volibear.

I'm not going to delve too deep into jungle playstyle, I'm actually not even a jungle main but when my team needs a jungler I like to break out the Volibear from time to time, because I think the lack of familiarity the community has with the character hides my inexperience as a jungler, by allowing me to take advantage of things they don't know I can do.

If you want to know more about jungleing in general I begrudingly reccomend T_D's Jungle guide:
Two_Down Jungle guide.

ty to Mogwai used your Panth thread as a template
ty to anyone who's ever edited the wiki, used it for ratios and exact damage numbers.