[Patch 3.14] PreSeason 4 General Discussion - Page 95

Starting items:


Doran's Blade is the starting item of choice if you are being aggressive in the lane. This will be the case against champions who you want to harrass heavily early on, for instance Jax, Riven, Tryndamere are examples of champions who you'd like start with this against. You are looking to harrass them with basic attacks right from level one, and to continue doing that throughout laning. This is rather risky because you only have a single Health Potion and can fall far behind if the enemy jungler catches you by surprise, so you need to pay attention to where he's likely to be and place your trinket well. This is the most common item I start with.
Doran's Shield is a good item to start with against a champion based around basic attacks and also is useful if you just want to play passively. For example, if you think that you cannot push that Nasus off the lane and he's going to continue outsustaining your harrass, feel free to start with Doran's Shield. It also is a viable choice against champions like Elise, Jayce and Udyr who either are ranged or are heavily based around multiple basic attacks. You will be looking to play a bit more passively, but should still harrass whenever a favorable situation arises. You will be able to deal better with jungler camping and getting denied with this opening.
Long Sword is the weakest of the openings. It gives you no extra health, and doesn't give you any sustain apart from your 3 health potions. I don't use this opening often. However, if you are confident that you can harrass early and that you will win your lane even without a Doran's item, for example against Vladimir, you can go with this opening. It gets you to your core items 440 gold faster, so it's a good idea if you can pull it off. Even so, I don't think that this is practically ever worth it.
It's also possible to open with a Cloth Armor, but I'd only do that against Pantheon while starting with armor quintessences as well. Doran's Blade is the way to go most of the time.

Situational



The Brutalizer is a pretty good item on Fiora. However, it is still situational. I would go for it if I'm winning in my lane, or at least in a position to harrass my opponent heavily. Basically, this means that the opponent would need to have low armor. I would not go for The Brutalizer if my opponent is a Nasus with a Chain Vest and Ninja Tabi, for example.

Now, this might seem confusing. Why would I only go for an armor penetration item when the enemy has low armor? The reason is simple enough. Flat armor penetration is much more effective the lower the opponent's armor is. If they have 150 armor, lowering it to 140 barely makes a dent. In that case, I wouldn't even bother concentrating on trying to harrass them down for a kill, and would instead work towards my early core and hence an earlier Last Whisper.

However, if they only have around 40 armor, lowering it to 30 is very significant and with The The Brutalizer, you can completely deny the opponent off any minion kills because if they get into your Lunge range, that's up to 40% of their health gone and they're already forced back because the next Lunge is going to lead into a certain kill. If you're far enough ahead, you might be able to just kill them right away, especially if you lead by a level or two.

My timing for getting The Brutalizer would be after I have my Doran's Blade and Boots of Speed. If I have the money, I might buy a second Doran's Blade here as well. I wouldn't go for The Brutalizer if I'm further along, or if I cannot buy it in one go.

The Early Core




This is quite a bit different from most Fioras' builds, it seems. Everyone seems to love rushing for Ravenous Hydra. I don't think that that's the way to go. That's an extremely passive build. In fact, if someone rushes a Tiamat against this build, they're immediately forced off the lane - You instantly win the lane. This just is far stronger of a build early on.

The Doran's Blades give you enough sustain to stay topped up pretty decently, because most champions truly cannot compete with you at this point and you won't be taking a whole lot of harrass, and will be dishing far more to them. No matter which champion it is, with these items you can be a threat. Even against a Malphite stacking armor I've been able to successfully harrass him down multiple times, although in that case it probably is adviced that you concentrate on farming and just harrass enough to get your dualist stacks up.

With the Phage, you're able to chase the opponent down all the way to their turret the moment you Lunge onto them. You can deal incredible amounts of damage because even if they jump away, you can use your second Lunge to catch up, and you will be able to attack them all the time with Burst of Speed. In addition, lasthitting a minion will give you the movespeed boost to get close enough to land a Lunge. Players who aren't stacking armor need to resort to turret hugging at this point.

Again, if we entered this phase even, I cannot recall losing a lane even once. Fiora is just incredibly powerful with these items, at this phase of the game. Especially in the case that you got ahead early and rushed The Brutalizer before this core, you can practically force the opponent out of the lane constantly and can also contribute well in skirmishes, although you're still squishy. While Phage helps you at escaping ganks, you still need to be careful about them at this phase.

Core



These boots aren't the ones you should always go for. Ninja Tabis should be gotten if you need them to survive against your lane opponent or are having a rough laning phase against a physical damage-based champion. Mercury's Treads can be bought if you're dealing with a champion like Kennen or another magic damage-dealing champion and feel like you need them to survive. However, my basic boots of choice is Berserker's Greaves when I'm doing well in the lane(which as Fiora happens very often). It is the cheapest pair of boots and also helps with your DPS and assassination, and that's what Fiora is made for. You might want to sell your boots for Mercury's Treads in the lategame - Do so if it's necessary.

You want to finish your Trinity Force before getting the Vampiric Scepter. You finish Trinity Force in the order of Phage > Zeal > Sheen. If you picked The Brutalizer up earlier, that'll be your sixth item and you might need to sell a Doran's Blade to buy wards. Trinity Force functions great with Vampiric Scepter and other lifesteal items, giving you significant amounts of healing every time you proc it.

With Trinity Force, Fiora is an absolute beast and a machine of destruction. Just a simple Lunge -> basic attacks -> wait for about 2 seconds -> Lunge -> Basic attack will make the opponent's health bar absolutely disappear. If you add in an auto attack reset with Burst of Speed after the second Lunge, and a Riposte after around 2 seconds has passed from since your second Lunge(for the third Trinity Force proc), you will be able to harrass even armorstackers down. If they aren't stacking armor, this is where they will die. Period.

Just in case that's not enough, your ultimate also procs Trinity Force, so if you can wait another 2 seconds after your Riposte, you can have the first hit of your ultimate proc your Trinity Force, causing it to deal up to 50% of a champion's health if they aren't building many defensive items(And still a significant chunk if they are). With Trinity Force, you can start properly roaming to other lanes, participating in Dragon Fights, flash-ult-ignite tower diving... This is the part where you singlehandedly can turn a losing game around.

If you managed to pick The Brutalizer up early and still managed to finish Trinity Force in a timely manner, your biggest concern is looking out for ganks because you will decimate anyone one to one. In fact, you will be able to evaporate 85% of a squishy Support player's health bar in around half a second with just double Lunge and a basic attack with those items. If you get this core in a timely fashion, you should be by far the most powerful champion in the field.

That was just focusing on the procs, too. Trinity Force also gives many more useful stats. You can use all of them except AP well. The movespeed is incredible for getting in range for Lunge, and the crit, AD, aspd all have uses for you. Fiora also tends to have some mana issues, so that is a very welcome addition as well. This item absolutely is worth rushing for. Do not believe the players who say it's a bad item on Fiora and that you should rush Ravenous Hydra - They have no clue. Give it a try. By the way, if anyone playing any champion rushes Ravenous Hydra against you in lane while being around even with you, feel free to collect the free kills every time they return to the lane.

Situational


Blade of the Ruined King is but a shadow of its former self. However, it still has its uses. While it's not the best choice for Fiora in most situations, it's a great item to get when you require it for a specific purpose. That purpose generally involves you being tasked with the role of stopping and killing the enemy splitpusher, like a Shen, Tryndamere or Singed. While Fiora normally would have trouble sticking onto these targets long enough to kill them, Blade of the Ruined King allows her to keep up with them long enough to either cripple them so that they cannot return to pushing until they base, or to kill them outright.

This item can also be bought if multiple members of the enemy team are building plenty of health without huge amounts of armor, although that rarely if ever happens because of how Warmog's Armor and Frozen Mallet see almost no use. This item also helps you with assassinating a single target like the AD Carry, but shouldn't be bought just for that purpose.

The Late Core



You want to get the Last Whisper before the Ravenous Hydra. As you get Last Whisper, you hit another enormous power spike and can practically one-shot squishies without effort, while also being able to be a threat to very tanky champions, especially if you decided to pick up the Blade of the Ruined King. This also is the time where Ravenous Hydra is becoming useful. Pushing lanes is more important and you want to have it for teamfighting due to its remarkable synergy with Blade Waltz.

At this point of the game, you will not yet have any survivability items, so you need to be very careful about engaging more than a single person at once. If you have a team providing some crowd control and distractions for you, you will be able to fully make use of your Ravenous Hydra with Blade Waltz for easily won teamfights. You need to be very careful about running in first, though, because at this point you have no survivability items. Wait patiently for your team to engage and join later.

Defensive Item




If you picked up both The Brutalizer and the Blade of the Ruined King, sell The Brutalizer to buy this.

Guardian Angel is the perfect defensive item for Fiora. It actually enables her to initiate fights somewhat, by crippling the enemy team with her Ravenous Hydra-powered ultimate and reviving as her team cleans up. It also gives her both armor and magic resist, which is perfect for a single survivability item.

She can also use it differently, especially if you have a secondary lifestealing item like Blade of the Ruined King along with the Ravenous Hydra - She can first burst a target down without using her ultimate, get killed, and then ultimate the clump of enemies, causing her Ravenous Hydra along with the second lifestealing item to heal her back to nearly full. This is very risky, though, and should generally only be used if you get the GA popped by accident.

Mercurial Scimitar is sometimes, although very rarely, a viable option over Guardian Angel. I would consider getting this if the enemy team had 2 or more Suppressions/targeted single target CC and they constantly spend those on me. Even then, I might get Guardian Angel instead simply because if they spend the suppresses to pop my revive, I still have my ultimate and my teammates didn't get targeted. Even so, I decided to list this item because it sometimes might be worth getting.

In short, get Guardian Angel almost every time as your defensive item.

The Final Slot



If you got Blade of the Ruined King, that's your final item. If you got The Brutalizer, The Black Cleaver is your final item. If you got neither of those items, it's slightly more complicated. However, I don't think that either The Black Cleaver or Blade of the Ruined King is worth getting at this point of the game over the two others if you didn't pick them up earlier. The Black Cleaver could be a smart item to get if you have multiple physical damage dealers in your team and no one has picked it up.

The Bloodthirster is the more defensive choice. It gives you incredible lifesteal in combination with Ravenous Hydra, and enables you to even 1v2 or 1v3 if they don't have enough hard CC to shut you down. You will heal from low health to full with just a single Ravenous Hydra activation in the middle of a minion wave. It also makes your Blade Waltz and Lunges more powerful than an Infinity Edge does. It makes your lifesteal almost impossible for a single champion to overcome. It certainly is, in my eyes, the better choice most of the time.

Infinity Edge is the more offensive choice. It's more about single-target damage than teamfighting. It's about eliminating single targets or splitpushers as quickly as possible. It also can be helpful if your team stuns a target and you need to kill him as quickly as possible. However, it gives you much less lifesteal and healing in teamfights, and also makes your ultimate weaker. Another situation where you might consider this is as a last-ditch effort in a losing game where stacking The Bloodthirster would take too long if you die constantly. It's a viable choice, but most of the time The Bloodthirster is better.


Full build example



The boots should be upgraded to either Homeguard or Alacrity . Furor should not be necessary.

* Atrioc is an exception because CSS and Photoshop is a biatch