Author's Note: I've only updated the build's runes at the top but haven't gone in detail to explain why below. You can use this guide as a quick reference instead.



I'll work more on this guide once the preseason/Season 9 comes out as there will probably be big changes (like every year).

Click on the titles to go to that section -->





























<-- Click this to return here



TheIvyX here. I’ve been a one trick pony for Fiora since Season 3 and have over 1,100 Ranked games played with her. With Fiora, I ended at Bronze II in Season 3, Platinum IV in Season 4, and Diamond V in Season 5 and Season 6.



Ever since her rework back in Patch 5.15, she’s been a lot harder to master and her playstyle has changed a bit. Even then, Fiora is still the duelist that has the potential to outplay many champions. I began playing more champions in Season 5-6 but I still main Fiora to this day. This guide will teach you what I have learned from my experience on Fiora.

From September 2014, the only screenshot I took of my LoLSkill stats back then. 238th Fiora in NA (during my second season :D)

I've gained a lot of experience from all the wins and losses throughout my games

As of June 9, 2016

This stat table was made by Counter Logic Gaming's analyst "Mr. Mandalcio" who created a whole list of all the other champions' revisions that can be seen here (stat table was from April 2016)

Fiora

In terms of difficulty, Fiora is definitely hard to master or even get good at. There is definitely a large gap between a beginner Fiora player to a veteran player. When starting out on her, it takes a while to get used to knowing when to use her abilities and misusing them will punish you hard as all of Fiora's abilities are relatively long early on. It's common for most people to not do well during their first few Fiora games. Don't worry about getting negative results early on; keep practicing.

Has an ability (Riposte) that blocks most damage sources completely , and one of the only abilities in the game to be able to

Has a dash that is on a short cooldown

Damage scales well later in the game

Great at dueling and split pushing The outplay potential on Fiora gives her a steep learning curve

Long cooldowns on her abilities early on

Very weak against armor and tanks, especially without items

Riposte is on a long cooldown and can be baited out easily

Semi-item reliant. Very squishy without items

The best summoners to take for Fiora are Teleport and Flash.

TELEPORT

FLASH

IGNITE

GHOST

Will update to new Runes Reforged in the next hour or year or so.

Runes Precision Fleet Footwork Dark Harvest Phase Rush

These are the runes that I use for Fiora in the majority of my games

x9 Greater Marks of Attack Damage



AD marks give you bonus AD which scale with Fiora's abilities and her auto attacks. Some people have mentioned taking armor penetration marks instead, but you won't do as much damage early on since you won't have as much AD for your abilities and your auto attacks. They are, however, better later in the game when you get items that give you AD but the early game damage from the AD marks are generally better overall.

6 flat CDR glyphs and 3 scaling give you a total of 10% CDR at level 18. The early CDR from the flat CDR glyphs helps with the long cooldowns on Fiora's abilities, especially on her W. You don't want to bring more or less CDR glyphs because all of the items that provide CDR and are beneficial for Fiora (like Black Cleaver and Youmuu's Ghostblade) have either 10% or 20%. There are NO items that gives 5% or 15%. This means that you can perfectly add up to 40% towards the end of a game. x6 Greater Glyphs of Cooldown Reduction

+

x3 Greater Glyphs of Scaling Cooldown Reduction





x9 Greater Seals of Armor



Armor seals provide defense from champions, minions, and jungle monsters. The damage reduction adds up at the end of each game which makes them a very good rune to take on many other rune pages.

Attack speed quintessences are better than flat AD quints, in my opinion. It lets you auto attack a lot more especially when it comes to mid game, letting you stack the Fervor of Battle mastery quicker than you would with AD quints. It may also help with CSing early on. If you do not prefer AS quintessences, you can replace them with AD quintessences and give more bonus AD to your abilities (although the quintessences give less AD altogether than the marks do). You can compare playing with the quintessences and feel for which one is better suited for you. x3 Greater Quintessences of Attack Speed



Situational Rune Setups

Runes Precision Fleet Footwork Phase Rush

Runes Precision Fleet Footwork Phase Rush

For Fiora I like to take 18-0-12 with the Keystone Mastery being Fervor of Battle

Ferocity Tree



⚠ WILL WORK ON LATER ⚠



Cunning Tree



⚠ WILL WORK ON LATER ⚠



Resolve Tree



⚠ WILL WORK ON LATER ⚠



Situational Masteries

Comparing Other Keystone Masteries

Whenever you're near your opponents, a small arc (called a Vital) will randomly appear on one of their sides (4 possible sides with there being up, down, left, or right).

This is what a Vital will look like when it appears on a person:





Hitting the arc will deal bonus true damage (based off the enemy's max HP), grant you bonus movement speed, and heal you. Hitting a Vital will spawn a new one. Vitals last for 15 seconds and take 1.5 seconds to identify a new one. This means that after a Vital disappears another one will appear but you are not able to proc it until after 1.5 seconds. Vitals can be activated with auto attacks, Fiora's Lunge, and Fiora's Riposte.

Quick Tip:

Vitals will appear on the top or right side of the enemy or the bottom or left side. If you don't like the positioning of the Vital on the enemy, you can walk away far enough so that it disappears and then come back for the Vital to appear in a different location.

For example, let's stay a Vital is on the right side of the enemy which is facing away from you. In order to change its direction before 15 seconds, walk away far enough so that you see it disappear, and then walk up to the enemy so that another Vital appears on either the left or the bottom of the enemy.

You can't simply go inside a bush and have the enemy lose vision of you in order to switch the positions of a Vital. If you there's already a Vital on someone, the only way for it to disappear is to be far away from them.

Quick Tip #2:

Quick Tip #3:

If you activate your ultimate on LeBlanc or Shaco before they ult, the clone will not have the four Vitals around them. Use this to your advantage to spot out the real version.

Quick Tip #4:

Here's an example of Duelist's Dance in action

Activating this will dash you towards the mouse's direction, hitting a nearby enemy. Lunge also applies on-hit effects and can proc Duelist's Dance.

Q is prioritized first to Vitals, then enemies that would die by Lunge, followed by the nearest enemy, prioritizing champions (there is a current "bug" that sometimes targets champions without a Vital first before a minion that is low enough to die from the Q).

Hitting an enemy with Lunge will reduce the cooldown by 60%. The base cooldown is 16 seconds at Level 1, so use the Q wisely if you miss a target.

Quick Tip:

You can use Lunge to dash over walls in the jungle. You can only dash over a short distance so don't expect to be able to jump over every wall.

Quick Tip #2:

Lunge is able to hit invisible targets.

Here's an example of Lunge in use

The first enemy champion hit by Riposte has their movement and attack speed slowed by 50% for the next 1.5 seconds. If Fiora blocked at least one immobilizing effect (snare, stun, suspension, etc.), Riposte will stun the target instead.

Quick Tip:

Don't use W to block just auto attacks, since there are usually better ways to block damage (unless it is to lower attack speed such as in most duels). Remember, the ability blocks damage for only 0.75 seconds, which is usually just one auto attack.

Quick Tip #2:

Quick Tip #3:

Here's an example of Riposte in use

Activating this will give you 50% bonus attack speed for the next two auto attacks. The first auto attack is guaranteed to slow the enemy for 1 second, while the second auto attack is guaranteed to critically strike for bonus critical damage (the critical damage increases as you level up the ability). Bladework's slow and critical damage do not apply with Lunge's on-hit effects.

Quick Tip:

Bladework also resets Fiora's auto attacks. Try to use it after you've auto attacked once so you get some more damage in your combos.

Quick Tip #2:

Quick Tip #3:

Here's an example of Bladework in use

Passively, the ultimate will give bonus movement speed to Duelist's Dance. Activating the ability will highlight all 4 Vitals on an enemy for the next 8 seconds. Duelist's Dance does not identify new Vitals on the target while this is in effect.

This is what activating Grand Challenge will look like on someone

If you hit at least one Vital before the target dies, a large circle is created where all allies are healed for the next 2 seconds, with 1 second being extended for each extra Vital that you hit (for a maximum of 5 seconds). If you hit all 4 Vitals even without the target dying, the circle is still created (for 5 seconds). The circle does not appear if you did not hit any of the Vitals.

Quick Tip:

When the ultimate is activated on someone, the area of the ultimate (the blue circle) gives Fiora movement speed.

Here's an example of Grand Challenge in use

Ability Maxing Order

Ability Sequence 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

From left to right: Q > W > E > Q > Q > R > Q > W > Q > W > R > W > W > E > E > R > E > E

The majority of the time, you will start Q at level 1. There isn't much to do with Fiora's E at level 1 and W is leveled up situationally (for example, if your team is invading and you want to catch someone out by stunning them with the enemy's CC).

Max Q first in any situation even if you're behind. Fiora's Lunge lets you dash in to chase the enemy or dash away to avoid skillshots or juke an enemy jungler that ganks your lane. Lowering the cooldown of Q allows you to constantly keep your enemy on their toes. Its lowest base cooldown is 8 seconds which can be reduced to 4.8 seconds if you hit an enemy with it.

Maxing W first doesn't make much sense because the lowest base cooldown it can have is 16 seconds which means all of your abilities (Q, W, E) will be on a long cooldown and you won't be able to duel very well. Even the 60% cooldown passive from hitting your enemy with your Lunge will knock it down to 9.6 seconds at level 1. 9.6 seconds is very long especially during the time you've put your final point into W (assuming you've maxed it first) which is at level 9.

Maxing E first lowers its cooldown to 5 seconds and increases the critical strike to 200%, but then you wouldn't have your Q up as much to chase the enemy. It also doesn't do as much damage as Lunge if you had maxed it first.

Due to the recent nerfs to Riposte's cooldown, I prefer maxing Riposte over Bladework. Here's the reason why:

Starting Items

Items to buy when you first start a game.

Starting Route 1

This is the most common start to go. Long Sword and x3 Health Potions is a good start against most enemies especially if you don't know which other starting items go get. Giving some damage and some sustain, this route lets you stay in lane with the Health Potions while letting you do some damage in trades with the Long Sword. The Long Sword can be rushed into items like Tiamat, Phage, or Hexdrinker.

Starting Route 2

Doran's Blade and x1 Health Potion is good if you want to go aggressive. It is very gold efficient as an item (134.63% according to the Wikia). The health, AD, and life steal give you better stats for dueling early on than starting with the items in Route 1. If you know you don't have the advantage early on in your lane, do not start with these items as this can be one of the worst routes to go.

Starting Route 3

Cloth Armor and x4 Health Potions is good if you're against someone with early AD harass and plan to play safely in your lane, specifically against someone like Pantheon.

Starting Route 4

Corrupting Potion is the new Crystalline Flask; buying it would be cost efficient compared to buying a lot of Health Potions. This should be taken against an enemy that has good lane sustain such as Cho'Gath.

Starting Route 5

The First Back

Items to buy on your first back.

Tiamat's main feature is the extra AoE it provides every auto attack. Buying the item allows you to push your wave so you can roam to other lanes. It also builds into Fiora's main item, Ravenous Hydra. Don't rush this item if you do not want to lose the ability to freeze your wave as it becomes difficult or even impossible to freeze with AoE for every attack.

A Vampiric Scepter can be purchased instead of a Tiamat if you are not wanting to force push your wave but you still want to rush a Ravenous Hydra. The Vampiric Scepter gives you some life steal to sustain yourself to make it easier to freeze minion waves.

Hexdrinker is highly recommended against most AP-based opponents as it provides some base MR and a great shield that can save you when fighting. The best situation to purchase a Hexdrinker is against multiple AP laners in the top lane, middle lane, and jungle. Champions like Ryze or Vladimir who you are likely to fight in lane a lot are examples of when Hexdrinker is beneficial.

If you're not looking to force push your wave but you also don't want to rush Ravenous Hydra, you can opt to go for Black Cleaver instead. Caulfield's Warhammer and Phage are both built into Black Cleaver and all of its stats (Black Cleaver) improve your 1v1s. Phage is better to buy for a 1v1 because it provides more HP and a passive to move around your opponent better. Grab a Caulfield's Warhammer if you have enough gold to purchase it but not enough for a Phage.

If you haven't gotten a Doran's Blade yet and are in a matchup where you're both very close when 1v1ing, buying a Doran's Blade will give you the stats to win the duel.

Getting a Control Ward when you have a little bit of extra gold is nice in order to spot out the jungler. Don't place it if you're being pushed back to your tower as your enemy laner can freely kill it while you're killing minions.

First and Second Items

Your first and second items to complete.

Ravenous Hydra vs. Titanic Hydra on Fioravs.

In Patch 6.6, Titanic Hydra was nerfed from 50 AD to 35 AD. Ravenous Hydra provides 40 more base AD (a B.F. Sword's worth) than the Titanic Hydra and gives a lot of life steal that helps you throughout a game. Titanic Hydra makes you a bit tankier but you lose out on a lot of damage and sustain. Titanic Hydra is better for those who stack more HP such as Dr. Mundo.

With this in mind, Ravenous Hydra

Titanic Hydra should be built if you are behind and haven't bought a Ravenous Hydra yet. It should be sold and switched to a Ravenous Hydra when you have enough extra gold to compensate the losses.

All of Black Cleaver's stats benefit to any 1v1. It gives a nice chunk of base HP and AD and passives that help you stick to someone and shred their armor at the same time. The armor shredding is very easy to stack on Fiora especially with the conjunction of a Ravenous Hydra.

Trinity Force's change in Patch 6.11 removed its critical strike chance and was replaced with attack speed. This makes it more viable on many champions who found the stats redundant if they did not build any other items that had crit chance. This includes Fiora. Compared to Black Cleaver, it does a lot more damage to squishier opponents but costs over 600 gold more. This means you should purchase Trinity Force over Black Cleaver when the enemy team has no or few tanks AND you're ahead.

Youmuu's Ghostblade provides good stats to improve your duels. It's best to buy if you're going to split push in a game. The bonus movement speed and attack speed that comes from the active lets you 1v1 whoever comes to defend the tower or you can use it run away if the enemy team decides to try to collapse on you.

Maw of Malmortius should be finished after completing your first item (usually a Ravenous Hydra) if you bought a Hexdrinker earlier on.

Mid Game Items

Items to buy after you've completed your first two items. Generally you want your third item to be a defensive one. If you're ahead and you feel like you're not taking that much damage, buy a third offensive item then get a defensive item.

Randuin's Omen is best to purchase against critical strike users with high attack speed such as Yasuo and Tryndamere. Critical strike will also typically build attack speed so you'll be reducing their attack speed and damage from critical strikes from the item's passive. The active also lets you stick to an enemy much easier.

Sunfire Cape is great to buy for the damage it deals from the passive. It's incredibly good for split pushing. Sunfire Cape also deals magic damage where most people would purchase armor against Fiora, letting you do more mixed damage.

If you've already gotten a Maw of Malmortius and need more MR, grab a Spirit Visage because it provides very good stats to defend against AP-based opponents and increases your healing from the item's passive. This means you'll be healing more from your Ravenous Hydra's AoE and just healing more in general.

Death's Dance should be bought if you would like extra sustain on top of the Ravenous Hydra. It also increases the healing you receive from the Ravenous Hydra's AoE passive/active. The passive can help slightly when fighting as you can heal up the DoT damage off a nearby minion or jungle camp.

Bloodthirster provides a lot more sustain than Death's Dance. You should purchase this if you want extra sustain but do not require the extra 10% CDR from Death's Dance if you have other items that already add up to 30% CDR (making the CDR cap to 40%).

Frozen Mallet sounds weird to build because not many people ever buy it. It's very good as a 4th or 5th item, possibly even as a third item. The item lets you stick to your target better than Black Cleaver or Youmuu's Ghostblade. It does not grant as much damage but provides a little bit more health. Frozen Mallet should be bought if you're having a hard time chasing some of the enemy champions. Some examples include Singed and Rammus. As Fiora you shouldn't have trouble having to stick to people which makes Frozen Mallet unnecessary to purchase in most games.

Frozen Heart is good to take especially if you're going to be in the middle of a team fight as you just need to be standing next to the enemy for their attack speed to be reduced. Randuin's Omen stacks with Frozen Heart multiplicatively for a total of 27.75% attack speed reduction. The item should be bought if you have problems with mana (unless you constantly use your abilities to farm which adds up over time) and need to use the armor and auto attack reduction passive to lower the attack speed of several champions at a time. If you already have another item that has 20% CDR such as Black Cleaver, you will hit the 40% CDR cap so you're going to lose some gold efficiency (because of the CDR from your runes).

A Quicksilver Sash may need to be purchased when the enemy team has long range CC that could catch you out or has hard CC. You can finish it into a Mercurial Scimitar later on but just having the QSS is enough to remove the CC.

Executioner's Calling is best against high healing enemies like Dr. Mundo, Aatrox, and Swain. Finishing it into a Mortal Reminder is recommended later as the passive from EC is enough to apply the Grievous Wounds status onto the enemy.

A Banshee's Veil should be bought against hard CC if a Quicksilver Sash won't be enough. Even though it provides a little bit more MR then Spirit Visage, Banshee's Veil shouldn't be seen too often unless you're in the situation mentioned above. Even though both items are very gold efficient, the extra HP and healing from Spirit Visage makes up for the -15 magic resistance of the Banshee's Veil.

Very Situational Items

Boots

Boots should be completed after finishing your second or third item.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity help add a bit more CDR to your abilities and reduce some time on your summoner spells. This is generally good although you should not consider buying it if you're going to get items that already add up to 30% CDR (this is excluding the 10% CDR from the runes).

Mercury's Treads give a small amount of magic resistance, but its main feature is the tenacity. Tenacity allows you to get out of CC slightly quicker so you can continue moving around. Best against hard CC opponents.

Boots of Swiftness are good for moving around faster than other boots and help reduce slowing effects. If the enemy team has a lot of slows but not much hard CC, buy these.

Ninja Tabi are best against an AD-based composition. If you're going to duel someone who is AD based, with Riven, Irelia, and Tryndamere being some prime examples, these boots should be taken into consideration. They will reduce a lot of their auto attacks and their abilities which makes it easier to win duels.

Your Final Item

These items should typically be built as one of your last items if you haven't already filled all of your inventory slots. All the items that should be used for Fiora are listed above and should fill at least 4-5 slots, including boots.

Guardian Angel can also be bought if you're very ahead early on. You get to be super aggressive while the enemy can only try to defend as best as they can.

Bad Items

Items that shouldn't be bought for Fiora.

Any item that provides critical strike chance is purely offensive and makes Fiora squishy. If you purchase any item with critical chance you will most likely need to purchase another item that also has critical chance because having low crit chance won't provide much damage for Fiora.

Guinsoo's Rageblade doesn't make sense for Fiora as you would be wasting gold for purchasing ability power. When fully stacked, the passive that triggers on-hit effects twice do very little for Fiora.

Blade of the Ruined King makes you squishy, provides little AD, and the price to purchase the item for its stats is overall horrible for Fiora. BotRK is best for those who highly rely on their basic attacks, and although you will be auto attacking a lot of Fiora, you don't have any attack speed steroids that would synergize with the item.

These are some example item builds just to show what a build may look like in your game. Boots should be bought after completing two or three other items. Note that most of these builds add up to 30% CDR to match the 10% CDR gained from the runes. Some may go over and will have less gold efficiency and are mainly just to show a certain situation when the build could be used.

Remember that your games will vary. This means your items builds will also vary.

A normal build.

If you're against someone like Riven and want to build BC early on. This also explains getting Ninja Tabi.

When you're ahead and want to split push to apply extra side lane pressure.

This is a build that is an example if you're extremely behind. If you're this behind, get resistance first and then offensive items later. If you go for an offensive item first, you'll be very squishy and be useless in team fights if the enemy decides to go for you. Once you get situated you can start getting offensive items.

Good against an AD composition.

Good against an AP composition with hard CC.

"How to Stick to your Target 101"

Good against attack speed users such as Tryndamere, Nocturne, and Master Yi.

This is good against massive sustain champions like Cho'Gath, Vladimir, Swain, and Dr. Mundo. Get Executioner's Calling early on and finish it into a Mortal Reminder later.

Don't go AP Fiora as the only AP scaling Fiora has is her W, which has a VERY long cooldown.

As you can see from the chart, Fiora has a higher win rate later in the game than early on. This means she scales well later in the game. However, this does not mean you will always lose early on. As Fiora, you can outplay the enemy at any time, snowball from that, and get yourself a win earlier than normal.

Early Game

Mid Game

Late Game

<Work in Progress>

<Work in Progress, you can see some brief explanations for matchups on the top of the guide.>

If you want to master Fiora, here are some important tips to keep in mind while playing. You may want to come back to these later on.

Don't waste Riposte.

Learn the cooldowns of other champions.

massive advantage

(May add more here later in the future)