[Champion] Vi

These counts as "level 0" stats, not level 1:
Health...............440 (+85)
Health regen......7.5 (+0.9)
Mana................220 (+45)
Mana regen.......7.0 (+0.65)
Attack damage..51 (+3.5)
Attack speed....0.643 (+2.5%)
Armor...............16 (+3.5)
Magic res.........30 (+1.25)
Range..............125
Mov. speed.......350

She's such a misfit, always ready to brawl.

It's like her business, roughing up your friends is the law.
There is no difference if you believe you're strong:
She's a bulldozer making sure you're flat on the ground

She's like a boomerang, who never gives up,
She flies in circles till she hits you and you're biting the dust.
So just remember this when she's chasing you down
Face first, you'll be thrown onto the Proving Grounds.
She'll knock you out.

Have you ever really wanted to be a total rebel flippin' tables on the enemy?
Did you ever try to further improve how fast you punch people through the roof? Oh!
Was there ever any certain time when you thought brute force and style combined? Well,
I guess now's time to shine. Cause finally, she's here, here comes Vi.

And as a matter of fact, the best bet one has is to quickly react
To the first attack that's aiming for the bones
Cause she'll never pull back and just risk it.
(x2)

Have you ever really wanted to be a total rebel flippin' tables on the enemy?
Did you ever try to further improve how fast you punch people through the roof? Oh!
Was there ever any certain time when you thought brute force and style combined? Well,
I guess now's time to shine. Cause finally! She's here! Here comes Vi!

Passive: Blast Shield - When Vi's activated abilities damage an enemy, she gains a shield equal to 10% of her maximum health for 3 seconds. Blast shield has a 18 (level 1) / 13 (level 7) / 8 (level 12) second cooldown.
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Q: Vault Breaker - On first cast, slows your movement speed by 15% while increasing damage and dash range over 1.25 seconds. On second cast, Vi dashes forward, dealing physical damage and applying Denting Blows to all enemies hit. Vi stops upon colliding with an enemy champion, knocking it back. Vault Breaker deals 75% damage to minions and monsters. It will cancel and be put on cooldown after a few seconds if you don't use the second cast; it will refund 50% of the mana cost and be put on a 3 seconds cooldown if you get interrupted (root, stun, silence, etc.) before the second cast.
Cooldown: 18 / 15.5 / 13 / 10.5 / 8
Cost: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 mana
Minimum Physical Damage: 50 / 80 / 110 / 140 / 170 (+70% bonus AD)
Maximum Physical Damage: 100 / 160 / 220 / 280 / 340 (+140% bonus AD)
Dash Range: 250 - 725 (the damage also extends in a ~200 range AoE in front of Vi)
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W: Denting Blows - Passive: Every 3rd attack on the same target deals additional physical damage equal to a percentage of the target's maximum health, reduces the target's armor by 20%, and grants Vi bonus attack speed for 4 seconds. Denting Blows deals a maximum of 300 damage against minions and monsters.
Bonus Physical Damage: 4 / 5.5 / 7 / 8.5 / 10% of target's max health (+1% per 35 bonus AD)
Attack Speed Bonus: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50%
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E: Excessive Force - Causes Vi's next basic attack to gain 50 range (to 175) and deal bonus physical damage to the target and enemies behind it. Vi periodically charges a new punch and can hold up to 2 charges at once.
Range/Cone length: 600
Cooldown: 1, Charge Reload Time: 14 / 12.5 / 11 / 9.5 / 8 seconds
Cost: 60 mana + 1 charge
Total Physical Damage: 5 / 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 (+115% AD) (+70% AP)
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R: Assault and Battery - Vi targets an enemy champion and chases it down, knocking it up for 1.25 seconds, dealing physical damage. While charging, Vi is immune to crowd control and will knock aside enemies in her way, dealing 75% damage to them.
Range: 700
Cooldown: 130 / 105 / 80
Cost: 100 / 125 / 150 mana
Physical Damage: 200 / 325 / 450 (+140% bonus AD)
Physical Damage to Secondary Targets: 150 / 262.5 / 375 (+105% bonus AD)
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ArPen marks, armour seals, MR/level glyphs, AD quints is the default/standard set.
You can swap out glyphs (CDR, flat MR, some kind of mix) and somewhat quintessences (using AD marks with MS or Lifesteal quints for example) depending on preferences. However, your focus will usually be on early ganks/skirmishes and bursting people down, so ArPen/AD provides you with higher champion-damage at the expense of a bit of jungling speed.

Vi used to be especially versatile, but the nerfs to offensive tree's earlier tiers and the monsters made tougher means that in season 4 her clear speed takes a heavy hit if she doesn't run 21 offense.
Obviously these points aren't set in stone, although 21-9-0 is advised.
Expose Weakness works both for your own damage and your allies', making it a good choice as a ganking jungler too.

Smite is obvious since you're jungling, and I favour Flash. While you have a wall-jumping ability in Vault Breaker (and Assault and Battery in some way), Flash gives you added safety, and also allows you to cover an terrifying amount of ground when combined with Vault Breaker (either during the charge or the dash), and even possibly with Assault and Battery (be mindful not to initiate that way however as your team won't be able to follow you!).

W at level 1, one point in each ability by level 3, then R > Q > W > E

At level 1 W is the best clearing skill no matter how much help you get, however it doesn't trigger your passive nor provides much help in level 1 fights. In the latter case Q gives you cc and some burst, however it's by far the worst ability to start with so you should ask for significant help on your starting buff if you end up taking it.

Q clears faster and is more mana-efficient as long as you use it fully charged on each camp, it provides the most burst for your ganks, and the CD reduction is key to your mobility and impact over the map.
W should be maxed second because it provides more damage on champions per level than E by the time you reach level 8 (no matter how many charges of E you use), and it's always better on large monsters like dragon and buffs.

You can start either blue or red buff, however assuming a standard setup (offlaner top, duo lane bot) you will probably want to start in the bottom side of your jungle so you're near top to gank it early on.
Most junglers do it so it will let you ward it for your laner or countergank if needed (Vi is rather fast as long as you get decent help on your first buff), and because of your kit you're likely going to focus on midlane later on, not to mention the opportunity to take the dragon after a successful bot gank. On the other hand if you're seen top it may gift said dragon to the enemy team, because of this you want to ideally put your offlaner ahead during the early game, when it's less risky for you to be there.
Avoid level 2 ganks: Vi can do it, but she gets much more (in terms of burst and clearing) from having her 3 basic abilities leveled, and you'd be better off jungling somebody like Pantheon, Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao or Lee Sin if this is your plan anyway.

Reasoning when building Vi:
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Starting items:
x5 or
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First recall/early game core:
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"Look at these huge Power Fists! ... but what about my feet?"
vs vs
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"I'm fed! What do I do of all this money?" vs "Standard game so far."
vs vs vs and/or...
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() or =>
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"Where have I seen this one before... ?" or "Will you look at the time! It's already full-build o'clock!"

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Vi has extremely safe and fast jungle clears, thanks to her passive and AoE letting her flatten camps without losing HP: you can move fast across the jungle charging Q to jump walls and cluster monsters, then autoE the big one AoE them down. Only her mana limits her, which is less of a problem with blue buff then spirit stone.

When ganking, red buff is pretty important to you as it lets you walk up behind people, auto them then use a charged Q (or ult, post-6) to catch up if they flash or dash away. Good positioning, avoiding wards or having your laner bait the fight is thus pretty important.
Avoid opening a gank with Q or R as much as you can (though R is more reliable).
Ganking ranged champions, especially mid lane is harder because you can't really get behind them and if you charge Q while chasing they'll often just reach their tower. In those cases, and particularly if your laner has burst and/or cc, you can charge Q in the brush/while coming for behind and try to initiate with it. The knock-back allows for easy cc follow-up, and both burst combined should be enough to drop most squishies from full.
You can come and gank people from behind a bit like Alistar, especially mid, your passive will absorb the tower shot and the knock-back will hopefully carry you out of range.
It's also very easy to burn a flash just by walking into mid, charging Q, and releasing it at the enemy laner. Make sure to abuse the timing window you created. Obviously, champions like Talon, Katarina, Kassadin, Syndra, etc. are especially difficult to gank (even post-6 you can ult but your laner may not be able to follow from that distance if they blink).

You can easily counterjungle by fighting most junglers, however be wary of your Q being on cooldown or bodyblocked (see general tips) as you're still squishy with your passive down early on, and it has a long cooldown. A "weakness" of her strong clears is that she can easily kill all little monsters with incidental AoE, so while she can easily steal a full camp, it ironically takes longer to let a little monster behind to waste the enemy jungler's exp and time.

The build in this guide focuses on early CDR and maxing Q. Once you have SotEL+Kindlegem/Locket or SotAG+Brutalizer, you have a sub-10s non-targeted dash/knock-back (level 7+) thanks to 20% CDR. At this point you should look for an opportunity to make plays every time your ult is up, which should be every 100s to every minute (depending on level and if you have blue buff or not). Your post-6 ganks are almost as strong as Malphite's or Warwick's, play as such.
With Vi's potential for long range initiations and tower-diving (ult -> Q to knock-back into your allies, and the passive to survive), and Denting Blows' %HP damage shredding the dragon, it's a good idea to focus your early presence on your solo lanes to put them ahead, then focus on bot everytime your ult is up and/or dragon is available.

Later, when initiating teamfights, remember to assess threats and positioning before you choose which target to ult, and when to go in (keeping track of flashes is harder but useful). Sometimes it can be more important to use it to protect a fed ally from a diver than to initiate on an opponent. Vi's kit is more suited to early/mid game skirmishes and pick-offs, but she's versatile enough that you shouldn't let yourself be constricted.

Once you're level 9, Q is maxed with a 5-6s cooldown depending on CDR. Don't hesitate to use positioning, your passive and Locket shield to walk away after initiating, wait for Q to come back up, and cut off an escape route, intercept a threat on your backline or simply punch a face in with a QautoE combo. Vi is no Kassadin or Jayce, but as long as you manage your Qs well enough (be wary or ranged roots and stuns that can interrupt the charge and put the spell on cooldown, time your casts right) you can rely on them and your passive to cover for your teammates (Q a chaser for the knock-back, run away and Q to safety 5s later).

Marks: AD (recommended), ArPen
Seals: Armour (recommended), scaling HP.
Glyphs: scaling MR (recommended), flat MR, CDR (if you value it)
Quints: AD (recommended), ArPen*, MS
* only if you have ArPen marks too: AD marks+ArPen quints is better than the other way round

21-9-0 (move the point from Destruction in the offensive tree wherever your want, and adapt the tier2 defensive tree points to your lane opponent) is the best, and most common, choice.
9-21-0* and 16-13-1* (including its variations) are of course viable too.
* The tree is bugged, move the points from Relentless into Unyielding. Of course adapt the 2nd tier to your lane opponent. You can drop a point of Alacrity for Summoner's Wrath when you go for 9 in offense.

Heal and Barrier can be useful for baits on top of her passive, and to make her deceptively dangerous even at low health, but I don't believe they are better than Ignite or Exhaust. Ignite gives you better kill potential, and is always useful against sustain champs in teamfights. Exhaust, especially with the mastery to reduce the target's armour, makes it easier for you to land your Q and more importantly more attacks (and thus more Denting Blows procs) while chasing. It's also better to reduce an opponent's damage output during teamfights later in the game, especially as said fights will get more and more drawn-out and rely on your dps rather than your burst.

E(WQ)(QW)E into R>E>Q>W
Maxing Q first is a waste, as you need to charge it to make this choice worth, and such a big tell will allow your opponent to get out of range or dodge it most of the time. This is even truer mid where you don't have bushes to conceal the charge.
On the other hand, maxing E allows you to harass and trade more often, and to push easily without having to burn your mobility spell for it. The cooldown is more important than the damage here. You still want Q maxed early-ish for the CDR so you max it second, but don't hesitate to put more than one point in W early on to compensate for its low level 1 value.
You can also experiment with only putting 3-4 points in E before switching to Q and W, to benefit from the reduced reload time while getting to level your mobility and dps spells earlier (especially as they gain a lot per level).

Starting: + Show Spoiler [Items and reasonings] +
Your new best friend:

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Core: tier2

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Staple:

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Luxury:

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Situational:

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Alternative build: boots,

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, rest tanky (see Staple and Luxury defensive items above)
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As Vault Breaker has very obvious tells and is a skillshot, you don't have the initiating ability of other divers like Jax, Irelia or Xin when faced against ranged champions. As such, Vladimir/Kennen/Nidalee/Jayce should give you trouble, though in Kennen's case if you manage to farm well you'll be able to outpush him later on and roam.
You can't trigger your passive without hitting something, so ranged harassers like Pantheon will give you trouble early on, as will bullies like Garen (you have to prime Excessive Force before he silences you to trigger Blast Shield, so you miss the auto-reset).
Your lack of sustain should also give you trouble against the likes of Warwick and Udyr.

(Those are mostly valid for top as I don't have any experience as mid lane Vi.)

• Though you can harass by using Excessive Force on a minion to hit the laner with the cone, be wary of triggering Blast Shield this way, as it'll leave you open to harass yourself.
  
• Use the threat of triggering Denting Blows on your opponent! If you get a stack off them with a chance autoattack or E, they shouldn't be able to stay near you under threat of a quick auto->E, and once debuffed it's even more dangerous for them to stay in range. Think Kennen managing his W stacks to zone melee opponents from last hitting in his glory days.
  
• Your ult isn't always the best way to start ganks. instead, if you can hold on it until your opponent flashes you can then ult him/her and use the suppression time to allow your laner to catch up too. Expending your shield "uselessly" to bait a bad trade for you can be a way to start a gank.
  
• Your ult is an excellent ganking/diving tool, don't be hesitant to nuke a wave down with E then roam to mid or invade the enemy with your jungler. Although no Darius, Vi is very strong in 2v2s.
  
• Like Wukong or Xin Zhao, you have absolutely no tool to farm from afar, as even Excessive Force needs a target in melee range to hit farther. If you fall behind to the point that your opponent can zone you, you'll have a ton of trouble getting any farm. When having trouble in lane, be particularly cautious about not letting the lane snowball against you.

Montegomery (Seuss here) for coming up with the excellent early Stinger into Zephyr idea, even though it fell off since.
SmashGizmo (Mogwai here) for leading me in the ways of the ballsy divers. He specialises in champions like Xin, Jarvan, Wukong, Vi top lane (check out his champion threads for playstyle input) and as a Rioter he amongst other things wrote the updated recommended items (so pay attention to that shit). Incidentally, he happened to give me input for top lane Vi on his stream.
Xj9 made Vi popular through his stream and came up with a jungle damage/carry build that has been heavily copied since in pub play.
Teutonica (Slayer91) and Scipeaus (Scip) whose input was used to update the item build for season 4.