(^_^) o 0 O (Hi everybody!)

This is my first guide, and I only played for about the first 5 months of 2012; sporadically for the next 4 months; and then not at all for about 6 months (which brings us to now: St. Patty's Day 2013), so please be nice xD

The GOAL of this guide is to keep my thoughts and current builds written down and to get feedback so that I can become a better player and form my own thoughts about what works and what doesn't.

This guide is a work in progress. I wan't to learn. I hope and expect to receive helpful input. I have no patients for trolls. If you see something that doesn't make sense to you, let's have a discussion; I know that I am probably wrong, but if I don't get an explanation, it will take me longer to figure it out on my own. I refuse to listen to people who are arrogant or condescending and who say things like 'why don't you run Y instead of X?' and nothing more. That is not helpful.

I'm hoping the community will help me climb the learning curve for the item/mastery/etc changes that have happened since I started this about a year ago. That being said, if you are a veteran in the league, or just feel like you have something positive to offer, feel free to comment or send me a PM. Credit will be given for helpful advice.

*DISCLAIMER*
These are just my opinions on how someone CAN play Volibear, or how I would like to think he could be played. If you want something less experimental, go try another guide. Don't worry, I won't be mad, I won't even know.

As always thank you for taking the time to read this guide and consider my opinions. Please don’t down vote without giving me a chance to hear your reasons and perhaps amend the guide.

So without further ado, my guide of Volibear

Ok, so Volibear is my favorite <3 and he is the first tier 3 champ I bought [took forever to get all the IP]. He is a really fun champion to play if you enjoy charging in headlong and tearing your foes to bits. Volibear is an excellent offtank that is very balanced and can be built to suit almost any play style. He scales best off of HP and AD; his Thundering Smash and Frenzy both deal physical damage. He has tremendous heal that scales with his The Relentless Storm. As well as AoE slow and minion fear in Sky Splitter.

Since Frenzy will be your primary source of damage, we want as much HP as we can get to boost it; not to mention HP is what makes Volibear so durable. Also we want to grab some attack speed to help us get the stacks of Frenzy more quickly and otherwise take advantage of our AD. Move speed is important as well to help us initiate, chase down kills, escape or help allies escape.


Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find in her awesome guide Making a Guide. More than the guide, jhoijhoi has been an inspiration to me as a new summoner to the league and MOBAfire as has NoobyPower. I just want to encourage her to keep up her hard work, it makes a difference.

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Pros + Really fun to play + great passive heal [30% max HP] + can soak up tons of damage + great kit [toss/AoE slow] + can jungle or solo lane + good pushing + abilities scale well with HP and AD

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Cons - gets shut down with hard CC - can get ignite-locked - weak early game -> hard to farm early - has trouble against ranged casters - no escape other than mini ghost - can be mana-dependent if not careful space

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Tier 1 >> Standard 3 points in Brute Force for AD champs with 1 in Butcher to help us farm and to finish out the points we need to access more of this tree. Alternatively, if you plan to grab one of the offensive summoner spells, put the 1 point into Summoner's Wrath instead. Tier 2 >> 4 points in Alacrity because it synergizes well with Frenzy and we want the ArPen Tier 3 >> 1 point in Weapon Expertise is pretty standard for any AD champ and is the reason we put the 9 points into this tree. ArPen allows you to get the most out of your damage.

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Tier 1 >> we grab 1 point in Summoner's Resolve for the 10% boost to Heal and the +10gp on Smite if you decide to jungle. 3 points in Resistance and 2 into Hardiness standard resistances for a tank, however we want to save a point for later in the tree. alternatively you can give up the point in Summoner's Resolve for the last point in Hardiness but you wont be lacking in armor without it. Tier 2 >> Max out Durability and Vigor for some HP5 and bonus Health. Again, these are standard for tanks, but the bonus HP works really well with Volibear's Frenzy . Tier 3 >> We take Veteran's Scars for early game survivability by adding even more HP. Tier 4 >> Max out Initiator because we plan to do just that, it stacks well with Thundering Smash. Tier 5 >> Tanks need to absorb as much damage as possible and 3 points in Honor Guard along with your massive HP will help you do that. with these points we can finally grab our most precious Mastery.... Tier 6 >> Juggernaut was made for beefy tanks. +3% HP adds to our Greater Quintessence of Endurances and we also get 10% reduction to those pesky slows/disables that will try to keep us from being effective.

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• 3 Greater Quintessence of Endurance: >> Best HP runes if you can cap 3880 HP which you will. Also these are better than flat/scaling HP Quints because they scale better and thus scale into Volibear's The Relentless Storm and Frenzy . Also, it allows him more AD through Atma's Impaler. Alternatives would be Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed or Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed.

• 9 Greater Mark of Desolation: >> Good offensive runes to go help with all the physical damage you will be dealing. Alternatively, you may use Greater Mark of Attack Speed or Greater Mark of Attack Damage.

• 9 Greater Seal of Armor: >> Standard Tank seals. give you lots of armor which is great for the melee champs you will face top lane or the jungle creeps if that is your mission. These are a MUST.

• 9 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: >> You will get plenty of armor with your runes, masteries and items but you will need some MR. That is why we grab these glyphs. Alternatively, use Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist which scale better into late game. However I recommend the flat ones because they are better early game when your only other MR is coming from your Mercury Treads, that is if you grab those.

So I am going to publish this guide that I wrote about a year ago now even though it is incomplete.

3.17.13

Changed the intro to reflect coming back to this incomplete guide after a year, and after not playing at all for 6 months.

Added this Change Log.

3.18.13

overhauled masteries and items to reflect S3 changes. untested build, just wanted to get something up for input.