Welcome to my in depth Viktor guide! I'm Yeager, a high elo midlaner in league of legends consistently reaching at least master tier on EUW since season 5, and challenger on EUNE. I spend some of my free time creating high quality educational content to help you improve and become a better player. Why should you play Viktor? Viktor is a late game scaling control mage with massive AOE damage who can turn entire teams into dust. The unique part of Viktor is his hex core mechanic that upgrades his existing abilities to give him one of the best wave clearing tools in the game. On top of that he also becomes a kiting machine with bonus movement speed on his Q, and no foe will be able to escape when he gets access to the free Rylai's Crystal Scepter passive. He has everything you need from a mid laner. If any of this sounds interesting, then Viktor might be the champion for you.

So... Why should you read my guide? Here is one of my season 11 accounts. Unlike pretty much every author who shows inflated win rates from duo queueing, every single one of my games are played solo only. I finished season 11 above 100lp Master Tier on EUW. This guide will show you exactly how to play like me and achieve the same consistent results.

Pros + Strong waveclear + High AOE burst + Insane lategame scaling + Powerful zone control Viktor can be a great pick in soloqueue if you know how to play around his powerspikes and scalings. The hexcore lets you safely waveclear in bad matchups and outscale. When played to perfection, he becomes one of the best teamfighting champions in the game, with his insane AOE damage and zone control.

Cons - Immobile - Weak early game - High skillcap - Squishy Viktor's biggest weakness is surviving the laning phase until you have enough stacks for the hex core. He is squishy and immobile, so if you are caught in a bad position, you can die instantly and contribute nothing to your team in fights. Because of the positioning and the fact that he has skill shots, he's also rather hard to master. If you miss your skill shots, you will do a lot less damage.

SUMMONER SPELLS - FLASH: Pretty self-explanatory. Always take this. HEAL: The standard summoner for most mages. It heals you and a nearby teammate, so if you are planning to skirmish a lot with your jungler, this is a viable option. Ignite: The go-to summoner for having kill pressure in lane. Viktor is really weak until he gets his 1150g first-back, but if you can get a solokill or two, it will speed up his scaling so much. CLEANSE: Underrated spell. If you are playing against a heavy CC mid + jungler, then you want Cleanse. The benefit of having cleanse is the fact that you don't need to buy Quicksilver Sash, and can focus on buying your core items. EXHAUST: This helps alot against champions that rely on burst damage to finish you off. Champions this can be good into, are something like Fizz, Zed, Rengar, Talon, Ekko. Having Exhaust also makes your 1v1 splitpushing alot stronger. BARRIER: The more selfish summoner spell compared to Heal. It has lower CD and is a much safer pick against opponents with Ignite.

Keystone Phase Rush: Great keystone on Viktor because it makes up for the lack of mobility in his kit. On top of the bonus movement speed you also get 75% slow resistance so it becomes extremely hard to shut you down. It's a keystone you can use every single game no matter who you are playing against. Tier 1 Manaflow Band: When fully stacked, we permanently get 250 bonus mana and a passive that restores 1% of missing mana every 5 seconds. It's not that great early game, but from mid game it can help a lot in fights. It's basically a free Sapphire Crystal but with the added mana regen bonus. Tier 2 Transcendence: Having lower cooldowns on Viktor means that you can constantly spam abilities, kite and get massive shields from Siphon Power Tier 3 Gathering Storm: Weak early on, but slowly ramps up. From minute 20 you will start noticing the difference this rune can make. Sometimes your team will get a huge lead, but since it's soloq, they will most likely fail to close out the game. This rune is basically the late-game insurance in case everything goes wrong. Alternative rune: Scorch is a early game focused rune that gives you more kill pressure in lane. If you are planning to carry the game by farming the enemy midlaner, this is without a doubt the best option with Ignite. Tier 1 Taste of Blood: Free sustain to help you get through the rough early game. It's also easy to proc without putting yourself in danger with Hextech Ray. Tier 2 Ravenous Hunter: Viktor has no built-in sustain in his kit so he is quite susceptible to being poked out at all stages of the game. The amount of healing you get lategame is just insane.

Keystone Electrocute: The second popular keystone on Viktor. You sacrifice mobility for more damage. Since Phase Rush got nerfed, i've been running this setup instead with great success. It doesn't leave you that immobile anymore because you still have the bonus movement speed from your upgraded Q and Luden's Tempest.

PASSIVE ABILITY

Glorious Evolution (Passive): INNATE: Viktor can augment his basic abilities after gaining 100 Hex Fragments, he obtains them by killing enemy units: Minions and monsters grant 1 Hex Fragment. Large minions grant 5 Hex Fragments. Champion takedowns grant 25 Hex Fragments. Chaos Storm Chaos Storm gets augmented once of all his basic abilities have been augmented.

Q

Siphon Power (Q): Viktor blasts an enemy unit dealing magic damage, gaining a shield and empowering his next basic attack. Augment: Siphon Power's shield is increased by 60% and Viktor gains bonus Movement Speed after casting.

W

Gravity Field (W): Viktor conjures a heavy gravitational field that slows enemies in its radius. Enemies who stay within the device for too long are stunned. Augment: Direct hits slow enemies by 20% for 1 second (does not proc on R ticks)

E

Death Ray (E): Viktor uses his robotic arm to fire a chaos beam that cuts across the field in a line, dealing damage to all enemies in its path. Augment: An explosion follows the Death Ray's wake, dealing magic damage.

R

Chaos Storm (R): Viktor conjures a singularity on the field which deals magic damage and interrupts enemy channels. The singularity then periodically does magic damage to all nearby enemies. Viktor can redirect the singularity. Augment: The Chaos Storm moves faster.

Hextech Ray is maxed first as this is our bread and butter ability. This ability is both our main source of damage AND poke.

Hex core: When you upgrade this ability, an explosion will follow Hextech Ray's wake after 1 second. You will have absolute no issues waveclearing after upgrading this first. From level 7, the augmented Hextech Ray will oneshot the caster creeps. ALWAYS upgrade this first

Siphon Power is maxed second. We put a point into this ability level 1 because it really asserts some dominance. You will be able to trade incredibly well since we will be doing a bunch of damage, while also getting a shield that will deny incoming damage. There are almost no champions that can deal with this level 1.
Hex core: Upgrading this ability gives Viktor a temporary movement speed boost and a shield. This is a fantastic upgrade as Viktor is very immobile, so it will help him a lot with kiting and repositioning. Always upgrade this second

Arcane Storm is maxed third. This is a great AOE damage ultimate that Viktor summons at a target location(can be controlled). It's his most powerful teamfighting ability, so we put points into this whenever possible.
Hex core: When you buy the Perfect Hex Core this will automatically be upgraded. The augmented chaos storm makes it move 25% faster.

Gravity Field is maxed fourth and last. This is our AOE slow and stun.
Hex core: Augmented W gives Viktor a 20% slow for 1 second whenever he hits targets with abilities. This is exactly what Viktor needed to be viable again because his kit was very unreliable before this change, but now he can finally keep targets within range[/color].

Doran's Ring

Doran's Ring: The most common starting item with built-in sustain. Grants you bonus mana or health when killing minions and also leaves you with enough gold to start the game with 2 health potions. The passive makes it easier to farm minions because you will deal more damage to them early on. Mana regen is also extremely useful for the early game. This is the item I start with 90% of the time.

Corrupting Potion

Corrupting Potion: The second starting option that gives a lot of sustain and trading power. You can start with this if you're in a lane where you will be trading very often early game, for example against melee champions like Fizz, Yasuo, Yone, Talon etc. You will be able to harass them and take control over the lane so you can help your jungler if he's trying to contest scuttle crabs or other objectives. If you're planning to start with this item, you have to make sure you have Inspiration in the secondary tree and Time Warp Tonic as it boosts the effects of Corrupting Potion. The other rune can be either Biscuit Delivery if you need more sustain, Magical Footwear for faster scaling or Cosmic Insight for more ability haste.

Luden's Tempest

Luden's Tempest: The go-to mythic item if you're playing against a squishy team because of the flat magic pen passive. Combine this with Sorcerer's Shoes + Lich Bane and you will start one shotting people. The mobility and poke is also useful as it allows you to reposition more easily and whittle down people with long range Hextech Ray's. Keep in mind that the passive is FLAT magic penetration and not percentage, so it's very similar to lethality. When people start itemizing defensive items, it becomes less useful so you never want this item against bruiser and tank comps who naturally builds a lot of resistances.

Liandry's Anguish

Liandry's Torment: This item is designed to shred bruiser and tanks with the maximum health burn and bonus damage passive. It's more effective in extended fights because of the stacking passive, so it's ideal against tanky comps. Ability haste is one of the best stats you can have on mages, so this is by far the best scaling item on Viktor.

Everfrost

Everfrost: If you want to go down the utility path by adding another CC tool to your kit, then this is the item you want. The active will root people if they are in the center, so it can help setting them up for another stun with Gravity Field or to keep them within Gravity Field range. It has a lot of uses because of the active so it's a versatile item. The passive is weaker than the other mythic options but keep in mind that it can scale with Gathering Storm.

Core items are items that you will buy every single game where you reach a full item build. They aren't reliant on the enemy team comp or builds. Viktor only has 2 core items that will guarantee his late game scaling.

Rabadon's deathcap

Rabadon's Deathcap: This is the ultimate late game scaling item for mages, similar to Infinity Edge for ADC's. The passive gives a massive increase in AP. For it to be effective, you want to make sure that you already have at least 2 finished AP items, otherwise you won't benefit as much from Rabadon's Deathcap yet.

Void Staff

Void Staff: Incredibly gold efficient item that you should buy against magic resistance stacking champions. The build path is perfect so you can even build it right after you completed your mythic item.

Plated Steelcaps: Is the standard buy into AD heavy teams. It offers armor and 12% damage reduction on auto attacks(Yes it counts magic damage from autos too). This is a good buy against champions like Jayce, Irelia, Tryndamere, Riven, Gangplank and so on. If the enemy team lacks CC, and has a fed ADC, Plated Steelcaps is still a decent buy.

Sorcerer's Shoes: Gives a big early-midgame spike with the flat magic pen. It's good into very squishy teams.

Mercury's Treads: Offers magic resist and 30% tenacity. If you are playing against hard CC, these boots are a must-buy. Viktor is very vulnerable to ganks in lane, so these boots will give him that extra bit of safety. Here are some examples of when you should buy Mercury's Treads. When you face Ryze + Sejuani or Syndra + Elise or LeBlanc + Skarner. Basically you want mercs, when you are up against any combination of mid+jgl, that has some form of hard CC.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity: My favorite boots on Viktor. He needs all the CDR he can get so you can spam your abilities in fights. As he is an immobile mage, the summoner CDR also helps a lot.

Lich Bane: The spellblade passive works so well with his low cd Siphon Power, letting you constantly proc it every few seconds. You get reliable burst damage and also some much needed movement speed.

Archangel's Staff: It has a very weak early game because you have to stack the Tear of the Goddess first, but it becomes a much stronger item once fully stacked. It converts 5% of your maximum mana into additional AP and also grants you additional mana based on the AP you have. This item is only bought for the complete late game focused build. It doesn't give any ability haste or a shield anymore, so it isn't as strong as it was in the previous seasons.

Morellonomicon: Buy this against heavy healing opponents like Swain, Vladimir, Soraka and so on. This is also really good against ADCs lategame because you can deny their self-healing from lifesteal items.

Banshee's Veil: Great defensive item against heavy AP comps, or against champions with heavy burst like Annie and AP  Gragas since the shield will force them to use one of their main abilities just to get rid of it, thus reducing their damage by a lot.

Zhonya's Hourglass: If you are facing a heavy AD team, or just AD assassins, this item will save you a lot. Rush this item 2nd(replacing Lich Bane) against Zed because we need the active to counter his Death Mark. Against for example Talon and Kha'Zix you can get away with just building Seeker's Armguard and then upgrading this item last.

Quicksilver Sash: This is a must-buy against Malzahar and Skarner, as it is the only item that cancels Suppression. I only buy this item to counter Suppression - for everything else you should get Cleanse, so you don't have to use up a item slot.

As level 1 Viktor you are stronger than most midlaners with Siphon Power. You should play really aggressive, constantly looking for trades level 1 because the damage and shield you get from Siphon Power, makes it almost impossible to trade with you. Afterwards, you should be a bit careful with trading because our main goal is to farm up for the hex fragments so we can get all 3 augments. Generally, you should play safe by warding one side of the river, and play around your vision. It can be really smart to freeze the wave right outside your tower range, as it makes it impossible for the enemy jungler to gank/kill you. It also puts a lot of pressure on the enemy laner, as he constantly has to overextend for every CS, leaving him vulnerable to ganks. In a game without any kills early game you should aim to have the first upgrade around the 10 minute mark. At this point you don't have to interact with your laner at all, and can instead focus on shoving waves over and over to get prio. The goal is to farm towards your 3 item powerspike so you have boots, Luden's Tempest / Liandry's Torment and Lich Bane because that's the point where you can really start impacting the game.

For the mid game, you should continue using your strong waveclear from augmented Hextech Ray to clear the waves and start taking objectives, or looking for roaming opportunities. Even though Viktor is not very mobile, you can still pull off some good roams with the AOE burst and CC in your kit. Every time you kill someone, be sure to take down objectives like towers, dragons or enemy jungle camps so you can get a bigger lead and scale faster. If everything goes well, then you should have either Luden's Tempest or Liandry's Torment and Lich Bane. Viktor spikes really hard from just these 2 items, so you can start looking for fights in the midlane and potentially secure some kills with Ignite. If you somehow end up on the losing team, don't lose focus because Viktor outscales most midlaners lategame! Try stalling the game by clearing waves with Hextech Ray until you are strong enough to carry. People always make mistakes when they are ahead because 1. They think it's won and lose focus and/or 2. They don't know how to close out the game. When they keep making mistakes and get punished for it, they will eventually get tilted, and that's when you can turn the game and make a comeback.

Late game for Viktor is all about objectives and teamfights. As Viktor you pretty much want to be constantly grouping with your team in the late game. You can still go to other lanes to pick up big waves, but you should avoid splitpushing. Champions that are good at splitpushing are usually high mobile champions that can move around the map fast, or hard-scaling ones like Tryndamere and Fiora, who destroys anyone in 1v1 and can take towers fast. This is NOT something Viktor can match so you should only be with your team. The way you play Viktor in a teamfight is the same as most other mages. You need to stay with the backline because you're incredibly squishy. Use your Gravity Field to CC the enemy frontline, so you can burst them fast with your ADC, before you move on to the next. Don't be afraid to use Arcane Storm on the tank if he is stunned by your Gravity Field because it will shred them FAST. If you do find yourself in a position to lock down and burst the carries without putting yourself at risk, then by all means go for it! The goal for Viktor is to pump out as much damage as possible while keeping yourself alive. When playing for objectives, you should use Gravity Field to zone off an entrance and keep the enemy at bay while your team kills baron, dragons, towers and so on.

- Always animation cancel Siphon Power because it will make the burst much more instantaneous. I found a video here that explains it really well. All credits for this video goes to Pyrodps.

- Use Gravity Field predictively! Don't just drop it where the opponents are(unless they are cc'ed), but use it in the direction they are moving. Always keep in mind which kind of gap closers the opponents might have, before you use the gravity field. This ability is also a super effective zoning tool in the jungle, as it can close off entrances, and zone enemies from objectives, fights and so on.


- Hextech Ray has no input buffering. It means you can keep moving WHILE using it. It makes it really hard for the enemy to predict.


- Arcane Storm will interrupt enemy channeling-abilities on cast. You can stop abilities like Katarina's Death Lotus, TF's Destiny, Malzahar's Nether Grasp, Asol's Astral Flight and so on.

Freezing is a advanced technique that lets you deny your opponent exp and cs if done correctly. Freezing a lane means that you kite/tank the minions without letting your tower hit the creeps. You need to make sure the enemy minions always beat yours. After the enemy killed your entire wave, you let 2-3 of the enemy creeps live, and kite them until the next wave is here. When the next wave arrives, the wave will freeze right outside of your turret range.

By doing this, you are safe from jungle ganks, while your opponent takes a big risk everytime he overextends for a cs.

You can Freeze the wave when you and the enemy are even or ahead, and it can be used to help you win back the lane after you screwed up and died. You can attempt to freeze the wave already from level 1, leaving your opponent vulnerable to jungle ganks or be within your kill range, if you are able to kill them. When you get a lead, and you can solokill an overextended enemy laner, that is exactly when you want to freeze the wave. You force the enemy midlaner to either be in your kill range, or miss a ton of cs and exp, putting them further behind.

Freezing a wave is a great way to snowball a lead, if you have no objectives to fight for, such as dragon, herald or towers.

Here is a youtube video that explains wave management very well. I recommend watching the entire video. All credits for this video goes to Blitz Esports LoL

That's it for my Viktor guide, I hope you found the guide helpful. If you still have questions, feel free to post them in the comments, or on my socials and I will get back to you ASAP!