I've played Viktor since Season 2 and have experimented with various things on him. This has included playing the ubiquitous mid lane Viktor (which is his best role), jungling with Viktor, trying to support with Viktor, playing ap duo bot with Viktor and playing top lane with Viktor. Essentially I've done every role. Sometimes these roles have been foisted upon me by circumstance (example: the enemy team has a Kassadin. To avoid an unfavorable matchup, I switch with our bot lane Draven). On other occasions they have been personal choice. In any case, I think I am fairly seasoned with Viktor at this point.

This guide is not going to suggest to you an optimal way to play Viktor. If you want to get the most out of Viktor, you should build Augment: Death, Sorc Boots, Rabadon's Deathcap and a Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Your other items after this should depend upon the enemy team (mercurial scimitar is a good idea for example if the team has the likes of amumu, malzahar, etc.; zhonya's hourglass can be good against karthus or if you want added armor along with a sizable ap increase). Viktor's core items: Augment Death, Sorc Boots, Rabadon's Deathcap and a Rylai's Crystal Scepter have been known forever. I am not challenging the validity of these items (personally they are typically what I build myself). Instead I am offering a slightly different way to play Viktor that I think is a bit fun to play around with if you want a change in your villainous machinations.

The simple answer is: for fun. Using the same thing every game gets tedious after awhile. One day I stumbled upon Ultimate-Bravery, a website which generates random builds for characters. I experimented with these (and yes they were mostly terrible) until I came across a surprisingly decent idea called [insert synonym for coward or female genitals] Viktor. The Cowardly Viktor build entailed making a Mejai's Soulstealer, Boots of Swiftness, Augment: Power, a Shurelya's Reverie, a Morellonomicon and Guardian Angel, if I recall correctly. As soon as I saw this ridiculous build, I feel in love with the idea. I ended up doing well and winning (and even carrying) the game where I played as this version of Viktor. After that, [insert synonym for coward or female genitals] Viktor became something of a joke among the circle of people I play League of Legends with. Since then I've been trying the basic idea out further and swapping out the useless items in the build for better ones. Obviously I am not using Ultimate-Bravery's recommended masteries either, which entailed putting 29 points into offense and 1 point in defense (although these were oddly not too bad either).

Since we are playing Viktor the Chicken instead of "murder everything" Viktor, we're going to be using movement speed quints so we can bravely run away. Magic Pen Marks are the best thing we can do for marks, so we'll stick with that. Aside from this, I like to run flat AP glyphs to make up for his lack of AP early game as a result of swapping out AP quints for MS quints. Finally, for seals we are going to build some armor so that we can take some hits without popping instantly.

My AP mid masteries barely changed from season 2 to season 3 for most characters. We're going to put most of our points into the offense tree with a few into utility. The utility points are directed mainly at having a larger mana pool-We want extra mana, extra mana regen and extra blue buff duration. In addition, we like having more movement speed as well because Viktor is clearly the type of character who wants to go FAST.

Viktor is middle-of-the-road in terms of difficulty. He's not the easiest character to play, but I never felt he was the hardest either. 3 of his abilities can be technically called skillshots. However, 2 of these are short-range aoe. His q (power transfer) is targeted and is one of his two main offensive moves in lane. Viktor's laser is probably the hardest thing to master with the character.

In terms of leveling up skills, your choice typically boils down to whether you want to level up Power Transfer or Hextech Ray. I disagree that there is a universally better choice about which to level up first. Power Transfer has a lower mana cost and does better single target damage. It also is getting boosted by the augment we are getting for this build. However, Power Transfer leveling suffers from a weakened minion waveclear, less zoning options and less aoe damage in early game skirmishes. By contrast, Hextech Ray is great at clearing minion waves, harassing your opponent from afar and hitting multiple enemies. The problem with Hextech Ray, however, is that it has a high mana cost and doesn't offer a big damage reward against your laning opponent in the early game. In addition, sometimes in the early game you might prefer to avoid pushing the lane. You should choose which skill to level based on your matchup in mid lane. For example, if you're up against a Lux you're not going to likely get in range to Q her. Furthermore, her minion waveclear is just insane because of all the aoe she packs. Therefore you should focus on leveling up your laser. A summary of Viktor's abilities begins below.

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Power Transfer-As mentioned, Viktor's Q is a targeted move and is therefore very easy to utilize. You mouse over an enemy and press Q to do damage as well as gain a nifty shield. If you are up against short-range foes who are weak before level 6, you should start with Power Transfer and consider leveling it up early. In many cases though, ap mids have a lot of range and you may need to start with the laser and focus on leveling that up instead.

In addition, we are building an augment that buffs this move by giving Viktor a movement speed boost. This actually adds a lot of strategy to this move because we are going to use Viktor to kite his opponents. When teamfights roll around, if you can safely get in range of an enemy champion to augment power transfer them for the speed boost, you should do so. However, you can also (augment) power transfer a minion for a speed boost, run in to fire a laser and then back off to safety. While Viktor would normally zone with his laser without needing Augment Power, Augment Power adds even greater safety to Viktor's kit.

The Augment Power upgrade allows you to get away with a lot of other goofy stuff as well. You'll be able to escape from nearly all enemies by judicious use of power transfer. Volibear charging after you? Q him and drop a gravity field behind you while you flee for your life. Augment Power transfer Viktor is a bit like Janna due to his ability to keep enemies off him. Even Singed and Master Yi can have a hard time keeping up. While moving around the map, you can also go to a jungle camp, power transfer a jungle creep and thus pick up a speed boost to move to your next destination faster. Power Transfer's fairly low mana cost actually makes this a fairly viable strategy.

As a last note, if you choose to build cooldown reduction on Viktor, you can actually have the speed boost from Augment Power on at practically any moment there is an enemy unit nearby you. This can make Morellonomicon, Deathfire Grasp or Athene's Unholy Grail potentially good items on Speed Demon Viktor. You can add these to your build or replace Mejai's Soulstealer with them.

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Gravity Field- Gravity Field is an aoe slow that can also stun. You can use it to block off entrances or exits, trap a group of enemy champs during a teamfight or secure your own escape by slowing down pursuers. If you know your enemy has a gapcloser, you can plant it on yourself or an ally to stun your enemy as soon as they move in. On the rare chance that you decide to play jungle viktor, you can use Gravity Field to gank or stun jungle creeps to take less damage. It's an extremely versatile move and is part of what makes Viktor a unique champion. With Gravity Field and Power Augment combined, your Viktor will be very hard to catch up with even if the enemy has a gapcloser.

This is the last skill you are going to level up. This doesn't mean it's the most useless. However, it is the least beneficial to level up. For leveling up, you want to increase your damage capacity first.

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Hextech Ray- Hextech Ray is arguably Viktor's best skill. Once you level up your ap, the death laser does hefty aoe damage, has awesome range and is great for csing efficiently. With augment power, kiting with death laser is very easy. Only cc will stop you from constantly firing lasers while retreating (even cc might fail if you build a quicksilver sash/mercurial scimitar). To use death laser, you hold down your mouse and drag it in a line. One way to easily aim it is to start the line right where the enemy is standing. This works easiest when you are relatively close to them. Otherwise you have to predict where the opponent will move in order to use this skill successfully. I follow a utilitarian policy when using death laser: I try to hit as many low health minions as possible as well as (preferably) the enemy champion while I'm laning. In teamfights I try to hit as many champs as possible with it. The downside of this move is that it has a high mana cost. You can't really spam it unless you have blue buff or mana pots. If you do have blue buff, you should spam it constantly.

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Arcane Storm-Viktor's ult is also a great move. You should level it up whenever you get a chance. Upon use, it silences enemies briefly. This can screw your opponent up if they are mashing buttons really fast, but it also is useful because it disrupts channels (e.g. Nunu or Katarina ult). The cloud does a huge burst of initial aoe damage followed by pretty good damage over time. Again, you want to try to hit as many enemy champions as possible with it in a teamfight. You can move the cloud around with R and if it gets close enough to an enemy champ, it will actually latch onto them and continue following them around. The cloud moves fastest if Viktor is nearby. Therefore, oftentimes you need to move with the cloud to make the most use of it. You can't move the cloud if Viktor is dead. In addition, the last time I checked you also can't move the cloud if you activate Zhonya's Hourglass.

The core of this build are the following items:

• Boots of Swiftness-You need these for maximum speed. However, if you're confident in your trailblazing, you could also get Sorcerer Shoes which are overall a better item on Viktor.
  
• Augment: Power-Augment Power is the crux of this set and it's what is going to allow you to go SUPER fast every time you Q anything.
  
• Rabadon's Deathcap-Rabadon's Deathcap is a must item for any ap mid character as it is simply the go-to item for getting a boatload of ap.
  
• Rylai's Crystal Scepter-The only thing better than GOING FAST is GOING FAST while your opponents GO SLOW. This item helps you fulfill the latter condition.

The following items are some optional considerations:

• Mejai's Soulstealer: I included this in the core build because I actually think it is something that should be seriously considered. Without Augment: Death you are going to be lacking AP pretty severely. Mejai's Soulstealer is one of the best items for filling this void. The fact that it builds out of an Amplifying Tome is also helpful because you can get an Amplifying Tome quite early in the game (especially since unlike Augment: Death, you are in no rush to grab Augment Power). With enough Mejai's stacks (let's say at least 10), you will not fall off that much late-game. The reason this is listed as an optional item, however, is because Mejai's is of course a very unreliable item that can just as easily be useless as godly. If your team is losing pretty badly early on and you're not doing so hot yourself, don't even bother with it. Instead go for the bigshot AP items like Rabadon's Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass and Deathfire Grasp.
  
• Lich Bane: Lich Bane gives you even more movement speed while also making your auto-attacks do good damage after using a skill. It's also an amazing skill for taking objectives like towers/inhibitors. If you decide to get lich bane, it should be the last item you buy. You should get it if you think you don't have enough single-target burst.
  
• Zhonya's Hourglass: This is always a useful item to have. It gives a lot of AP in addition to armor and an active that makes you untargetable. Its build use in our case is situational depending on how hard the enemy team focuses you/whether or not the enemy team has Karthus.
  
• Deathfire Grasp/Morellonomicon/Athene's Unholy Grail: All of these items give you CDR and AP. Just a slight amount of CDR allows you to keep your Q speed boost on near constantly if so desired and is generally beneficial on most AP characters. I feel that DFG is the best choice here because it gives you the most AP. Although it gives the least cdr, you don't really need that much CDR to begin with.
  
• Mercurial Scimitar: I am really reticent to include a mercurial scimitar in this build, but there are some scenarios where you really need the ability to escape from cc and therefore will need to build a quicksilver sash early. Because of Viktor's augment, you will then finish the rest of your items and have nothing to spend your gold on. Eventually you'll have enough gold to upgrade your quicksilver sash into a mercurial scimitar. Although mostly useless on Viktor, it's not like you have anything else to spend your gold on anyways at that point in the game. The rest of your income from then on will be dropped on buying dual elixirs and oracles.
  
  Only get a quicksilver sash/mercurial scimitar if it is absolutely necessary for your survival. It can easily be worth it if, for instance, if you bought a Mejai's and have a sizable number of stacks (let's say above 7). In other cases though, it's going to impair your AP development.

Pros:

• Exponentially more mobile than your typical Viktor build.
  
• Less likely to die because you can much more easily kite opponents.
  
• It's actually easier to zone with your laser so long as you have something you can hit with your q first (like a minion).
  
• Nothing without flash will escape you.
  
• With CDR, you can keep your speed boost on for very large periods of time. When roaming, you can Q jungle camp minions/dragon/etc. to get to destinations faster.
  
• Fast is fun.

Cons:

• Falls off late game compared to Augment: Death Viktor.
  
• Might be reliant on Mejai's or other very high ap items to keep up with a more standard Viktor build.
  
• The stats that you get from Augment: Power really suck even considering its cheap price. It's not an item you should bother rushing, unlike Augment: Death. You're going to start to feel "lack of itemslot syndrome" with Viktor even moreso than usual.
  
• The speed boosts will not always save you from CC unless you also build a Quicksilver Sash. However, building this item means that you will be lacking in ap since you're not building a high ap boosting item instead.
  
• The lack of burn damage on laser hurts his overall damage.

I personally think that Riot should change the way Viktor's augments work. The ability upgrades themselves are good. Augment: Power's ability upgrade, for example, adds a lot of versatility to Viktor. The problem is that only Augment: Death gives Viktor actually beneficial stats. Augment Power is a lot of fun to use but it gives Viktor terrible stats. If all the augments gave 45 AP+3 per level, I think you'd see a lot more usage of Augment: Gravity and Augment: Power.