ABILITIES

Sovereign's Domination (Passive) - If an enemy champion dies within 3 seconds of you damaging them, you may autoattack the wraith that spawns on their corpse to copy their enitre kit and items, barring their ult, instead getting a free cast of Heartbreaker. When taking a body, you regain hp based on your bonus Attack Damage and Attack Speed. Technically it also scales with your Ability Power but firstly Lmao and secondly it doesn't give as much as bonus AD or AS anyway. When taking a body you also gain 10% MS toward enemy champions, don't underestimate it.

Blade of the Ruined King (Q) - A surprisingly long straight line skillshot, Q is the first ability you use in any close range engagement, be it farm or champion. Landing Q (or W) applies a passive mark that, upon autoattacking (or ulting) the target the mark is consumed, dishing out an empowered auto/ult that deals significantly more damage while offering self heal. Usable as auto reset.

Spectral Maw (W) - A channelled stun that can be released at any time, channel length directly correlates to stun duration, maxing out at 1.25 seconds. During channel you slow yourself by 10%, when chasing, either tap W to cover quick distance or cast Harrowed Path to maintain your MS while charging up a lethal stun. Usable as auto reset.

Harrowed Path (E) - Instantly spews out MS granting mist that forms around the first bit of terrain that it hits, standing in the mist briefly grants camoflauge that is broken by charging Spectral Maw, being to close to an enemy champion, or leaving the mist. Being in the mist grants significant Attack Speed, E will be most often used as an engage/disengage tool, also seeing use as a pressure weapon in teamfight situations. If it's up when you can take a body, the compounding MS and camo gives you so many more skirmish options after that possession.

Heartbreaker (R) - Relys on execute damage as a burst tool, granting additional damage per 100 bonus Attack Damage. R damages all champions/units in its hitbox but focuses and locks down the lowest % HP champion inside, applying a brief slow, pushing away all enemy champions, and detonating any passive marks left by Blade of the Ruined King or Spectral Maw. Advanced R usage utilizes its Unstoppable quality, dodging any and all lockdown spells to finish a kill or survive in a crucial moment. However many times you will be forced to ult to safety when needed, don't be hesitant to use it that way.

STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

Short, Basic Outline

Viego tends to play towards botlane, the squishier targets lend well to his executes and the possessions can be utilized more often. I would recommend pathing bot in most situations, in the case of a double ignite toplane it may be prioritized if botlane looks difficult

Pre 6 you want to farm your camps on/very close to spawn. Exp and steady progress to first item is king on Viego

Regardless of clearing direction, Viego should take a guranteed gold approach to lane ganks, and should usually wait until learning Heartbreaker at 6 before contesting objectives and counterganking (unless guranteed gold obv). Contesting objectives post 6 in an even fight will usually favor a Viego, ping your team well before objectives, reset for items + a Control Ward, take safe short trades, and survive until an enemy is executable

Despite becoming more skirmish oriented post 6, League of Legends is a race to full build, not first item. Don't show if you have resources in your jungle that can be taken advantage of, if you do, you need to be certain the trade is worth it or the enemy jungler can't get to it

Early Pathing and Finding the Right Path Every Game

Outside of your typical red/blue buff start, you may opt for a more selfish start on your raptors or wolves if you feel no lanes can be realistically ganked. This maximizes your ability to take objectives very early in the game, especially vs a gank heavy jungler whose unlikely to do the same.

The details of this path is explained fully in the image below

Blue For the path to Drake

Red For the path to Voidgrubs



It should be noted that as Viego you may need to use both smites when starting on raptor/wolves, (specifically wolves) in order to kill Rift Scuttler on spawn, that said, losing scut isn't the end of the world, as the enemy vision will time out before the objective is up.

Doing this clear path is also a commitment to farming your camps on spawn leaving little time for your lanes, once you take the objective (or fail to) you will either run to the opposing objective if your laners can contest or resume your full clear, taking your respawning buffs, starting on the same side as the objective you pathed toward.

It goes without saying that you should monitor lanes throughout all of this as a freebie kill is worth pausing your clear for. That said, if you have nothing juicy to play for after this clear, reset and clear again for a clean jungle in time for the second spawn of whatever objective you pathed toward at about 10:30

Finally, once the fate of this objective is decided, you should stay on the map a bit longer looking for any good play you can find, even if it's placing or clearing vision. Let your camps respawn and decide what you want to path towards, be it a strong sidelaner or simply denying/stacking drakes, clearing responsibly with an attentive eye on your lanes.

However, a VERY COMMON MISTAKE many to most junglers make under a farm responsible mindset is not recognizing when and how they can pressure the map, particularly when ahead. Slinking back to your camps after a successful play just because there isn't a neutral objective up isn't really earning you as much as you would think, as Viego, you want to cut short the enemy teams time to breathe as much as possible

In advantagous situations (being a man up for example) this means shoving waves and pressuring turrets solo if your team is neglectful of doing so themselves, and if they are presssuring turrets with you, you can easily steal camps while shadowing their push for potential picks, further snowballing you



The time to alleviate this turret pressure comes when the advantage ends, such as the dead enemy champion(s) coming off death timers, Or a neutral objective you want to play for is about to come up. In which case you'll want to reset about 1 minute - 45 seconds before spawn to get as many items as possible and a Control Ward.

Of course in disadvantagous situations such as your team gigagriefing or being unable to contest an objective while having no neutral to trade for, the same strategy applies, albeit much shorter most of the time. Playing to push waves/pressure turrets on the other side of the map, there are few times to have passive mid games on Viego, don't let your bad gamestates blind you to the free gold and infintely powerful map pressure

One thing that persists in every game you'll play from behind is that one of your teammates will be stronger than the other three, even if all 3 lanes are being stomped you will be able to reasonably play around 1 teammate, be it they have more items than your other teammates or their kit still works while 0/20 such as Malzahar or Malphite. When faced with choices to go fight or contest 4v4 or 5v5 while behind, simply look to trade anything on the other side. Try to create number advantages in the small spaces you can. To visuallize:

Viego is a cleanup menace, not presenting himself to damage until the free kill presents itself and the resets run over the fight

But most people already know that. Hanging behind frontliners looking for that perfect moment... that doesn't come, all too often many Viego players watch in horror as the enemy team maintains a good position and runs over your team without giving you a chance. So how does a Viego maximize their effect in fights without offering themselves up to be killed early?

The answer lies in using Harrowed Path oppressively to chunk out the enemy, typically using Q + auto and getting away with W, the camoflauge from E making it nearly impossible to catch you



This way you can keep taking chunks out of the enemy or force them to reposition, both of which will have a significant effect on your teams ability to fight

Always play fights slowly with an in and out pattern, never press your luck greeding for more, be ready to Heartbreaker out if you make a mistake

In an even fight, executing those strategies well should enable your team to help get the action started and burst down that first kill

When it comes to performing after getting that first kill, try to do all the damage you safely can as base Viego if your spells are up before possesion. After that it's all about understanding your defensive abilities, always keep track of cc spells the enemy has access too and use your unstoppable ult to bypass them, not letting the chaos die down.

Once the fight is won Viego has a plethera of tools to chase down the stragglers. For example, Viegos lesser known Sovereign's Domination effect of gaining 10% MS toward enemy champions during possesion. At this stage of the fight you'll also more often use the ult reset as a gap closer near the end of your possesion into your W and/or E to close the most distance as possible

Long range Ult Play Video Spectral Maw + instant Flash (like instant instant, basically pressing them at the same time) wait for the W dash to finish before casting Heartbreaker, if you can see the target at all from your champions natural vision circle without any assistance, you can land it.

Long range Q Play Video Spectral Maw first, cast Blade of the Ruined King halfway through the dash, Flash immediatly after pressing Q, the dash will be nearly over by this point and the distance closed will be optimal. Similar range to the Long range Ult

Ranged E Animation Cancels Play Video While in melee range, a simple auto attack or any of your abilities will cancel the animation. However Spectral Maw and Heartbreaker can let you gap close while simultaneously getting a good spot for your Harrowed Path, shaving precious microseconds off of your play.

Clearing Trick with W Play Video Massive time saver everyone that plays Viego should be aware of, essentially saves you the time equivalent of having another auto reset, it can be done on all six camps, it's just easiest to showcase on red

With how many games are thrown at Atakhan due to a lack of respect or understanding of his abilities, here are some visual guides with tips on how to greatly minimize damage from both forms of the objective

Optimal Ruinous Atakhan Take Play Video When starting Atakhan, they will auto you twice before you need to kite laterally to dodge their orbs, once dodged continue autoing while kiting until they use their shrinking circle ability, for which you want to stand as close to Atakhan as possible and continue hitting them, note that Atakhan will always auto you twice and then shoot their orbs after using the circle

Optimal Voracious Atakhan Take Play Video The Voracious uses the same orbs and patterns as the Ruinous, however, you cannot greed for damage during their mini fiddlesticks W, it simply deals way too much damage to be considered optimal