Hi, welcome to my Fiora guide. I'm Yamikaze, a Challenger Talon player. My peak rank is around 30 on the NA server and I ended rank 100 Challenger in Season 8.

Hi, welcome to my Fiora guide. This guide is co-written with Forgotten Project, a Grandmasters Fiora main. He has 1.5 million mastery on Fiora across all his accounts, peaking top 400 in NA.


Fiora is a high risk, high reward champion. Requiring the player to hit the enemies from a certain angle to maximize damage. Fortunately, Fiora also has a high mobility kit, the movement speed buffs from hitting the vitals from Duelist's Dance and moving towards a target with Grand Challenge. Lunge is Fiora's gap closer which also helps proc'ing vitals. Although Fiora has to get deep into the heart of the battle to deal damage, her kit is not lacking when it comes to keeping her alive, the heal when proc'ing vitals Duelist's Dance, Riposte that can negate any damage(except for turret shots) for 0.75 seconds and the heal from Grand Challenge can often help her turn a losing fight around.

Fiora is very hard to master, but the feeling of success when making plays with this champion is definitely worth the time and patience. For those who like using high mobility champions ( Riven, Yasuo) and like to challenge themselves, Fiora is definitely the champion to go.


▲ top





+++High potential damage+−+Continuously hitting vitals can maximize damage dealt and sustain through fights with the heal and movement speed.

+++High mobility+−+After level 9, Lunge has a CD of two to three seconds if she hits something, making her really mobile, and hitting vitals or moving while inside the range of ultimate will increase her movement speed.

+++Can often turn fights around+−+ Riposte makes Fiora invulnerable(except for turret shots) for 0.75 seconds as well as stun targets if they tried to hard CC her in the duration. If used well, it can negate most if not all bursts from a champion and can turn a rough fight in her favour.

+++Good survivability+−+The passive Duelist's Dance and ultimate Grand Challenge provides Fiora with heal and movement speed which helps her sustain through fights and reposition herself quickly.

+++Little counter+−+Due to Fiora's high potential damage and survivability, she often has ways to outdo her opponents with enough skills and experience, making her a hard champion to play against.

+++Good sustain+−+The passive Duelist's Dance and ultimate Grand Challenge both provide Fiora with a lot of healing, her core item Ravenous Hydra also gives life steal which helps her sustain through fights.

+++Good mid game to late game damage+−+The passive Duelist's Dance and Lunge both have very high scaling, 4.5% bonus AD and 115% bonus AD respectively, as well as the crit on Bladework which doubles her damage for one auto attack. The low cooldowns on her abilities also mean that she is able to do more spell rotations than other champions in a shorter period of time.

+++Low mana costs early game+−+Her main ability Lunge costs only 20 mana at level 1, 30 mana at level 3, which means she can spam the ability without being out of mana that easily.


−−+Mistakes can be fatal+−+Enemies can take advantage of your high cooldowns if you somehow miss a Lunge or used Riposte, as it leaves you little to no defense against engages.

−−+A pain in the arse to master+−+ Fiora requires a lot a lot of practice and experience to be effective, while she has high potential damage, the player has to have a lot of skills to turn the potential damage to actual damage.

−−+Bad bad wave clear pre-tiamat+−+No area of effect abilities means that her wave clear is bad, buying at least a tiamat is essential for her to put up more lane pressure.

−++High mana costs mid/late game+−+ Lunge costs 40 mana at level 5, while Bladework costs 60 mana at level 5, coupled with the low cooldowns, spamming the abilities or after teamfighting usually leaves her manaless.

−++High early game abilities cooldown+−+ Riposte and Bladework both have high cooldowns early game, being 24 seconds and 13 seconds respectively, even her Lunge at level 1 has 6.4 seconds cooldown even if she hits somebody with it. If the opponents bait the abilities out and then fight you, you will be at a great disadvantage without both Riposte and Bladework.

−++Requires substantial game knowledge+−+ Fiora is a skirmishing champion, great for dueling and splitpushing. Knowing how to read the map greatly increases her effectiveness when splitpushing and dealing with incoming enemies.


▲ top















▲ top






Lunge start is the most usual and the most logical, since it is a dash without needing a target, it can be a versatile tool, either for escaping level one in case of an invade, early engages or backing off in case of a bad level one trade. It also has the lowest cooldown out of all her abilities, making her less vulnerable after she uses Lunge for farm or poke.

Riposte start is generally a bad choice because you can only hit one champion with it, and you cannot move in the duration, making you extremely vulnerable during an invade. And with its high cooldown, during level one trade, you will move certainly lose since you do not have your Lunge which is your main damage source early game. Smart enemies will take advantage of the long cooldown and bait out your Riposte and zones you out early.

Bladework start could be useful during invades since you can slow one champion down, allowing your teammates to catch up to them, but like Riposte start, you'll lose a lot of early game pressure and is usually not worth it unless you get a lot out of the invade.

Learning Riposte next helps you win level two trades since you can often negate one and even two spells from the enemy which is huge early game, or at least slow the enemy attack speed, which will easily win you a trade. And even after you use it, you will still have Lunge to trade or back off.

If you did not get Lunge at level one, level two should be when you get it, it applies a lot more pressure to the enemy and it helps you farm, a very useful ability to have.

Learning Bladework next is also viable if you know that you will absolutely win a trade even without Riposte, as it slows the enemy while still allowing you to move, plus the auto attack reset and the small crit allows more damage burst early game. However, Riposte is still the safer choice since it completely negates one attack from the enemy and slow down the enemy's attack for 1.5 seconds.

As with most other champions, at level three you should level up whatever spell you did not level up during at level one and two, which should be Bladework. Having all three spells at your disposal reduces the impact of mistakes where you miss an abiliity or two, plus it is often more efficient to have all spells at level one rather than have one at level two.

By this time, you should be able to start maxing out a second spell. The most usual spell to max right now should be Bladework, it lowers the cooldown on the abiliity substantially(from level one 13 seconds to level five 5 seconds), it allows you to slow the enemies even more and chase down running enemies with the already low cooldown Lunge.

Maxing Riposte next lowers the cooldown, but not by a huge margain(from level one 24 seconds to level five 16 seconds), it is generally not worth it as it only gives you a little bit more AP damage and the ability itself still has a long cooldown.

If you somehow did not max Lunge, now would be the time to start, the cooldown on this ability after leveling it up is extremely low(from level one 16 seconds{6.4 seconds if hit anything} to level five 8 seconds{3.2 seconds if hit anything}), and being the main damage source and utility, you should always have this ability leveled to level five as soon as possible.


▲ top





Duelist's Dance reveals a vital on enemy champions in one of the four directions, attacking the champion from the vital's direction proc's it dealing percentage maximum health true damage, heals and gives Fiora a movement speed buff. It is the main source of damage from her kit, with most if not all of her abilities being centered around this ability. ( Lunge for easier proc on vitals, Bladework for slows and auto attack reset, and Grand Challenge which reveals four of these passives.)

Hitting vitals also serve as Fiora's main steroid as it gives her moderate amount of heal, healing 25HP per hit at level one and 110HP per hit at level 18, which is often enough to tank two or three more hits during a fight, and surprise your enemies with the sudden burst of health. The sudden burst of movement speed it gives when Fiora procs a vital allows her to go for the next vital easier or back off after a poke. Hitting as many vitals as you possibly can can help you win a lot of trades, I have forgotten the amount of times I had messed up a fight because I could not hit a vital. Practice is the key here.

Assume that the arrows represent the directions in which vitals appear.
■■■↑
←■■■→
■■■↓
They will always alternate between ←■↓ and ↑■→, following that pattern.

Also, the first vital will always appear pointing towards ← or ↓, therefore if you are blue side, you can take advantage of this to trade early when you arrive in lane. Or if you are on red side, you can try to search for the enemy top laner before the minions arrive so that when you both arrive in lane, the vital will be pointed towards ↑ or →.

To start a trade, always make sure that the vital is pointed towards you, and you should try to use an auto attack to proc it instead of using Lunge, because using Lunge to proc the vital means that you cannot hit the vital that will then appear behind the enemy. So you should always try to auto attack to proc a vital, then Lunge behind them to proc the second vital, unless you are only trying to poke them.


Below is a map of the summoner's rift where green lines means you can dash through with Lunge and red lines means you cannot.


Lunge is a dash ability(the speed of which is determined by your current movement speed), which also deals damage(can target invisible targets as well) and applies on-hit effects(excluding auto-attack buffs from Bladework) on a single target nearby, priortizing vitals facing her, targets that would die from said Lunge, then champions and minions. Since you do not get to choose the targets yourself, you should not always rely on your Lunge to finish off your enemies.

For example, the enemy Darius is one hit away from dying, and you Lunge in trying to secure a kill, but the enemy Lee Sin came up and his vital is facing towards you, Lunge would hit Lee Sin instead of the low health Darius, but since you expected Lunge to kill Darius, you backed off instead of trying to secure the kill, and you missed an opportunity.

Hitting an enemy with Lunge will reduce the cooldown of the ability by 60%, therefore you should always try to hit a target to avoid the long cooldown, if you want to gap close to catch up to/finish off an enemy, but is too far away to hit them with Lunge, you should Flash first, then Lunge, or wait until their minions arrive or he runs next to monster creeps, then Lunge to them and Lunge again.

Since Lunge is the main damage source and utility for Fiora, ALWAYS make sure that this ability is up(or nearly up) before fighting the enemy, it provides damage, procs vitals and is a gap closer, fighting the enemy with it on cooldown takes away half of your fighting capability, and will lose you trades or even get yourself killed.

One last thing that you can do with Lunge, is to use short Q instead of a long Q. Since your Lunge hit range is much larger than your auto attack range, what you can do is to go up to a vital, and instead of Q-ing directly into the enemy and take an enemy spell rotation, you can instead try to hit the vital with a far away Q. This allows you poke without taking much damage in return, some enemies may also react by using their spell and missing you as they would predict that you would Lunge into them.




Riposte has a 0.75 seconds cast time, negating any damage(except for turret shots) or CC(including Ignite, Exhaust and Smite) thrown at her while casting, then launches a projectile forward which will stop at the first champion hit, slowing both their movement speed and attack speed. But if she manages to get hit by any hard CC, like Lissandra's Frozen Tomb or Orianna's Command: Shockwave while casting, then the champion hit by the resulting projectile will be stunned instead of slowed.

Riposte is an ability that can completely turn a fight around when used in the right time, creating amazing plays. But since it has a really high cooldown(24 seconds cooldown at level 1, down to 16 seconds cooldown at level 5), it can only be used sparringly, and once it's down, Fiora becomes vulnerable to damage and CC, and competent enemies will take advantage of that to engage on you.

Even though Riposte is best used to counter the enemy's CC and stun them instead, it does not always have to be used this way. Hitting the enemy and avoiding damage should be the highest priority, even if it means not riposting their CC. For example, riposting Darius's Crippling Strike or Trundle's Chomp is often more useful than riposting their Apprehend or Pillar of Ice.

If the enemy is obviously baiting you into using Riposte, like Irelia or Rek'Sai, then just hold onto your Riposte, even if they do CC you afterwards, and you did not react in time to avoid it, riposting them after the CC is finished will still reduce their attack speed, and significantly lower their combat effectiveness, and you will be able to easily beat them after that.

Riposte is a very strong ability by itself because of the attack speed slow, even if you do not parry any CC. Therefore, you should always hit your Riposte to get the debuffs off, otherwise, you will be put in an extreme disadvantage. Focusing on stunning the enemies should be your second priority.


Bladework resets the auto attack timer and increase the attack speed of the next two auto attacks, providing the first attack with a movement speed slow(but cannot crit) and a second one with a crit(120% damage at level 1 to 200% damage at level 5). The attacks also gain 25 auto attack range, buffing her auto attack range from 150 to 175 for two attacks.

Bladework is best used after you use your ultimate Grand Challenge on an enemy, since the slow and attack speed buff allow you to hit the vitals easier and faster, and will give you a significant burst of damage. But before level 6, it can be used to give a little bit more damage for trading since Lunge->AUTO-> Bladework is a very quick attack that usually gives the enemy little time to react, or to farm under turret.

Try to use Bladework after auto attacking, as it resets your auto attack timer and can give a slight burst to damage. Also, due to the high mana cost later into the game(60mana at level 5), it is not advised to spam the ability before team fights, as you will most certainly run out of mana mid fight, and it will severely impact your effectiveness in a fight.


When activated, Grand Challenge places four vitals on an enemy champion, each facing a different direction, and creates a healing zone for all allies(similar to Janna's Monsoon when all four vitals were proc'd, or if they die(including when Aatrox's Blood Well, Anivia's Rebirth, Zac's Cell Division Zilean's Chronoshift, Guardian Angel are proc'd) after at least one vital is proc'd.

Grand Challenge is another one of Fiora's abilities where she can absolutely turn a fight around, since proc'ing a vital provides her with heal, and deals tremendous amount of damage to the enemy, proc'ing all four in quick succession usually means she can turn a dire situation to a favourable one. This ability allows Fiora to often 1v2 successfully during ganks or splitpushes.

Since the ability has a low cooldown, especially after Fiora's CDR core build, do not be afraid to use it, even if you only managed to hit one vital or none at all, it is better to use it just in case rather than not and miss an opportunity. But it should only be used when both your Lunge and Bladework is up, as they help you proc the vitals much easier with the dash and auto attack buffs, ulting without the abilities up means you can only auto attack to proc the vitals, and you will likely not proc them at all.

Be aware of enemy's positioning when you ult them, if they try to stick close to a wall after you ult them, you will have a very low chance of hitting that vital, thus preventing you from hitting all four and activating the heal. Also, keep in mind that if you stick too close to the enemy, the vitals will not be proc'd even if you attack from a certain angle.

Even though Grand Challenge is a really strong ability, it does not actually damage the enemies directly, often require secondary input from the player to be impactful. Therefore, practicing hitting vitals is very crucial to using this ability successfully.


The fancy combo that is Lunge Riposte, casting Riposte while mid- Lunge allows you to block damage and cc while mid-air, useful against spells like Poppy's Steadfast Presence and Jinx's Flame Chompers!, as you can Lunge across to them and stun them.

Though, most of the time it is not recommended as stated above, Riposte should be used to block damage first and stun enemies second, if you Lunge Riposte, it means all you blocked is the said CC, and a disadvantage for being a squishy champion is that you will fall quickly if they focus you down.

As of Patch 9.2, the projectile of Riposte now matches the visuals, as opposed to it launching from where it was originally casted to the casted direction. Therefore, chasing people down with this combo is actually a viable option now.

Also, since the combo reduces the time that your champion will be standing still, it is actually very useful if you are running away, as you can Lunge away while simutaneously casting Riposte to slow the enemy advancing towards you while escaping. If your reaction time is fast enough, and you Lunge in to have a CC thrown towards you, just understand that you can still cast Riposte mid- Lunge, and that would have the same effect as if you are walking towards them and riposting enemy CC.


If you are close enough, there is a very easy method of proc'ing all four vitals in quick succession. Ult them, auto attack one vital, then quickly move to an adjacent vital to quickly proc it with Bladework since it resets auto attack timer, then Lunge to the opposite direction of where the remaining two vitals are still standing, which will proc one more vital, then move to the last vital and proc it with the second Bladework attack.

This combo is useful if you are ambushing unwary enemies, or to catch enemies off guard while they are chasing very close to you. The sudden burst of damage and healing will quickly turn a fight around or kill enemies very quickly. However, this require a lot of practice to pull off, since messing up an attack means you need to take extra time to readjust and that will allow the enemy to react appropriately, and that can be fatal at times.



▲ top







Doran's Blade is a strong start since it gives health and AD, it provides you with a lot of early game tools for aggressive plays, useful for people who likes to play aggressive early game and apply pressure. However, this start is susceptible to poke champions, as you can only buy one Health Potion along with it. Therefore, you should consider starting with Doran's Shield into a poke matchup like Kennen or Pantheon and using its health regeneration to help you survive lane.


If you happen to back with about 500 gold, you should consider going Long Sword and Refillable Potion rather than Doran's Blade. Since Tiamat is a little bit more expensive now, spending 450 gold on an item that does not build into anything delays your build. The Long Sword allows you to start towards Tiamat earlier, and the Refillable Potion also allows you to save money on potion.


Get this if you have enough gold leftover, useful for Fiora to chase people down and proc vitals easier. Should be priortized if the enemy has already bought boots. But since it does not give you any combat stats, rushing boots is usually not recommended unless they also have boots or if you are ahead and confident.


This is an absolutely essential item for Fiora. Since Fiora has no wave clear at all, she must get this item as soon as possible to gain the much needed lane pressure. Since freezing is something that only very specific situations allow, it should not be a concern to you that buying Tiamat forces you to push.


With Essence Reaver reverted to being an ADC item, it is no longer viable in Fiora's kit. Ravenous Hydra returns as the priorty item, since it provides a lot of useful stats that Fiora needs, i.e AoE clear and sustain. It also provides 80 AD which is a lot for an item. It's straight forward build path also makes it easy for the Fiora player to finish it. It is extremely recommended to finish this item before moving onto the second one.


After Ravenous Hydra, you might want to get Phage before moving onto any item or finish Trinity Force. Having this item will allow you to chase down enemies more effectively, as well as gain some pressure in lane as you can kill a creep and try to run up to them to poke them. This is considered a core item rather than Trinity Force as it provides just enough that Fiora requires, while Trinity Force is an expensive option of which not every stat is useful.


Trinity Force seems like the next natural item to finish due to you already having Phage. If you do build it, you should buy Stinger first as your next component as it gives you more DPS than if you built Sheen. It also allows you to proc vitals more easily as it gives you more chances to do so. You may also choose to skip this item entirely to start towards your next item, as not every stat is useful on it.


This item is now considered core by some high elo Fiora players due to the change to its passive that allows you to heal off all damage sources, not just AD, which includes your passive. Since Fiora does about ~30% damage as true damage and ~60% as AD damage, you effectively heal ~50% more with Death's Dance now than before. Also gives quite a bit of useful stat to help you curve a little bit better into mid game to late game.


▲ top




Please note: The threat levels only reflect the difficulty Fiora may have in lane, and does not reflect actual winrate against these champions.







































































































































First, I'd like to say that thank you all readers for taking your time to read this guide, without the readers, this guide will serve no purpose. I have put a lot of time and work into it, my goal has always been to help players and I realize I have the knowledge and resource to accomplish the goal.

Secondly, I'd like to thank my friends from League and the wonderful crowd of the Fiora Mains club (thanks to TheIvyX for shouting me out, his guide is linked here), I have only gathered the motivation to write this guide because of my discovery of /r/fioramains, I figured that I would share what I know with people who also share my enthusiasm.

Thirdly, I'd like to thank Riot Games for creating League of Legends, a game that I had played since Beta, and for reworking old Fiora into a champion that I enjoy playing so much today.

Lastly, if you had enjoyed the guide and would like to see more, please follow me at twitch, where I stream my Fiora gameplay. If you want to ask me a question etc, you can join our Discord Server that also has other high elo Fiora players such as Giraffe_Hugs, Albus Nox and ForgottenProject.


▲ top