Twitch: http://twitch.tv/hybradge
Discord: https://discord.gg/2aQnd6J6wE
Role (timeline power rating)
How YA GOING SLONGAS ITS HYBRADGE here and welcome to my volibear guide, volibear has been my 2nd most played champion in solo queue this year and I’m one of the rare pro players who has 100% wr on him professionaly. So if you want to learn how to play the strongest early and mid game jungler in the game and you think captain volibear is the best skin than this is the perfect guide for you.
Runes
First, I take press the attack and sorcery runes, the reason i take press the attack is so I can fully utilize volibear’s strong 1v1 kit and ensure he wins every single skirmish early and the reason why I take sorcery second over inspiration which I’ve seen some other pro players do is because I think voli’s biggest weakness is his ability to get onto enemy team especially when he has no flash or ult so by having the bonus movement speed from the runes in sorcery, engaging and participating in the fight is much easier. On top of that,.the waterwalking rune also just has a lot of value given how much you invade on volibear.
Abilities:
Passive- volibear’s autos and spells stack up to 5 giving bonus attack speed, when he gets to 5 stacks his auto attacks also cause chain lightning having a statik shiv like effect, this is good for waveclear and efficient camp clearing on multi unit jungle camps.
Q- volibear gains bonus movement speed for 4 seconds, and his next auto attack does bonus damage and stuns targets. The movement speed buff doubles if voli is running towards enemy champions and the ability can be recast if volibear is ccd during the 4 second duration, this can be used as an auto animation cancel. You can securely hit this ability on enemies during ganks if you chain it with your flash where you click on an enemy and then q and then flash into auto range.
And you can also securely hit your combo on enemy team if you chain everything off your q flash because its impossible to react to, and this is something ive realized a lot of volibear player dont know
W- volibears w marks his opponents as a special animation auto attack, and if he uses w on target that is already marked previously from his w, it heals you a lot and does bonus damage. In late game fights a lot of times you want to w a target that is easy to hit such as a frontline tank because even if its not the target you want to focus because, the healing you get from it is crucial in allowing you to stay in fights and disrupt for a longer duration.
E- volibear calls a circular storm to a location where after a 2 second delay it strikes the location, slowing and damaging enemies in the hitbox, if volibear is also in the hitbox he gains a shield from it. Given the delay of this ability, many times you need to predict where the enemy is going and not just e where they are currently, this takes practice and you’ll somewhat have to coerce enemy into your e by pressuring them to it, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes easy to hit it.
R- volibear leaps and lands, slowing all enemies around him and disabling any tower for 1 second, enemies directly under his ult including champions and towers also take significant damage but remember the damage hitbox is much smaller than the slow and disable hitbox so make sure you target it precisely. After casting his ult, volibear also gains health and attack range for 12 seconds,One unknown hack for your ult is that if you q and then ult mid Q, your q duration is extended for the duration of the ult animation, allowing you to catch enemies off guard with your heavily charged stun
Keep in mind that this ability is what makes volibears kit unique as it allows for you to go for dives no other jungler in the game should be allowed to go for.
Just to bring all the abilities together, the combo you do in early skirmishes and dives is you begin with q once you see enemy, then you e around where he is where you ult to get in range, auto attack with ur q still buffed. then w and auto procing ur pta and taking his entire health bar.
Core Items:
Now onto items, the core items you always go are sundered sky and boots of ionia. I know what you guys are probably thinking and I have been asked this question a lot in my discord and on reddit which is why I dont go the ROA and navori build and the explanation is just that that build is fine if you are top lane, but in jungle your champion is only good if you can dominate early and mid game and you just cant do it with the rod of ages build. Also even if you enter late game, you are not tanky at all and since you are a jungler you cant split and play side lane like toplane so, the sundered sky build I go is just 10x better because the sustain and burst you get it from it makes you the strongest mid game champion in the game and allows you to perma skirmish and always win.
Usually I like to buy boots of ionia off first back if i get a successful gank off because I don’t think attack damage is needed in the first few clears given volibear’s high base damage on abilities and boots of ionia just makes early ganks and invades easier. I like boots of ionia because it reduces your flash cd which is big because it allows you to get picks more often with your q flash and its also just an extremely valuable buy for volibear considering its high potential and lower price compared to other boots.
The item you build after sundered sky which if you see from my chart here is dependant on what enemy comps damage composition is, if you think enemy comps damage composition is more 40% ap then go spirit visage as your third item, otherwise build it as your 4th item because spirit visage is insanely broken on volibear given your w healing as well as your sundered sky healing. The only time you dont build spirit visage is if enemy legit has 0 ap, otherwise this item is too broken on volibear that it is genuinely reportable if you dont build it.
Magic resist items:
Magic resist- spirit visage- If there is any ap damage, spirit visage is a must buy given how its healing amplification works perfectly with conqueror, your w and sundered sky. Depending on how fed enemy ap carries are, you should go this 2nd if they are strong and 3rd if they aren’t.
Now onto the armor items you buy, if you’ve noticed I didnt put any specific items in my item path because on volibear there is no armor item that works perfectly with him like spirit visage does for mr, so the armor items you build can vary everygame depending on what your objective is, I’ve made a little cheat sheet as you can see on screen which gives a general overview of what you can buy depending on what your job in the game is and what comp you are playing against. So if you are playing against long range and you need to gap close to engage, then dead mans is good, if you are playing against short range and you want to peel then gauntlet is good, if you are playing against healing champs then thornmail is good and if you are playing against double adc which obviously is meta since may then randuins and frozen heart is good and if you have avery fed adc then knights vow is good, but im gonna be honest, knightsvow buy early is really on good if you play in super high elo like grandmaster and challenger because if you are not in those elos, I dont think you can trust your team in that way.
As my last item on volibear I usually go warmogs if enemy has poke otherwise if I am just a tank at the end I go jak sho so I can survive longer and disrupt more.
Regarding armor items situational:
There are really a wide variety of armor items you can build, if enemy team has long range, usually you want to go dead man’s plate so you can get onto them, if enemy team is short range and your job is to kite, the iceborn gauntlet is extremely effective, if you have a very fed adc, then knights vow is also a very good buy. If enemy has two ad carries which is common in the current meta then frozen heart or randuins omen are also great buys. I know I’ve talked about a lot of items here against ad, but given almost every comp in s14 is ad centric, usually you want to go for at least 2-3 items in this list but in the rare situation where you do actually play against double ap carries then you can also go abyssal mask or force of nature depending on your own comp.
Final items:
Regarding other items, usually I also like going jak sho so I can survive as long as possible but if you are playing against significant poke then warmogs is also a great other option.
Pathing:
Before I jump into pathing, there are a few important things you need to understand to successfully execute the pathings, first, these pathings are created with the intent that you are going to fight early because volibear is the strongest 1v1 jungler with the first 10 minutes of the game. Second, these pathings are optimal when you actually have vision of where enemy jungler is starting so to optimize the impact of the pathings either ward or ask your team to ward enemy buffs and identify where enemy jg is starting. Finally, all these pathings are geared towards playing for botlane, because in s14 where ad items are extremely broken 99% of the time what wins you soloq games under grandmaster is botlane
And just a reminder, the cheat sheet and the item path are available as images to download on my discord where you can ask me or other challenger players in there any questions and I’ll be there everyday to answer them.
Blue side:, the pathing I usually go is raptors into red into krugs into gank bot or invade enemy bot side. This pathing is optimal for volibear as it pretty much guarantees early action where volibear can either get a high success rate gank with his q flash and damage from his e or volibear is able to fight enemy jungler where at that stage of the gane, he is the strongest 1v1 jungler this will net you either a kill or the entire enemy botside where you not only get a tempo lead, but you will also gain an advantage bot lane because enemy has to place in fear that you can gank and dive them. I can’t stress this dive part enough because every volibear I see below challenger does not go for early dives at lvl 3-4 because they dont understand that normal rules when it comes to diving do not apply to volibear because your entire kit even without your ult is very good for tower diving, and remember if you trade 1 for 2 on enemy adc and support or 1 for 1 for enemy adc and there is a stacked wave it is always worth so dont be afraid to go for it, and you will almost always see me go for dive on voli everytime I play it on stream at twitch.tv/hybradge, all follows and subs appreciated of course.
If you have vision enemy is starting blue, because you have the waterwalking runes and your clear speed on raptors is super quick, you can start your raptors, take q second and then invade enemy jungler while he is doing gromp. This pathing will either give you a tempo lead on enemy jungler as you’ll be able to take his gromp and his wolves or will allow you to kill enemy jungler if he doesn’t respect your damage. Importantly, after you take enemy botside, you can either look for ganks or dives on enemy bot lane or you can run to contest enemy topside or take your own cmaps.
Red side: Now onto my red side pathing, you might see the pathing on screen and think its very similar and that is because it is the exact same as the blue side pathing except you are invading instead of starting your own camps. The same theory appleis when it comes to diving enemy bot after krugs but there are two things that you need to keep in mind, first because you are invading what you do is you stay in mid river bush until 1:25 and go, make sure to take sweeper so no wards spot you and you have the element of surprise. Second, if enemy does so happen to start red buff, remember dont panic, your clear on raptors is extremely quick, you can take raptors, level your q second and the neither fight enemy jg on red buff 1v1 while u have a level lead or you execute the red with either ur q burst or your e burst along with smite. I know this might sound like a risky pathing but trust me I do this every game on red side, hundreds of times as long as you are confident and do it right, it will work. Just keep in mind both these pathings are whats optimal currently, but there are other pathings you can go and I’ve also put them in the volibear channel in my discord so you can find them there as well if you are interested, but trust me these 2 pathings are by far the best and will win you games.
If you feel like you win early game 3v3 botside, which you often do, you can lvl 1 invade start enemy raptors, do their red buff and krugs and look for a level 3 gank or dive on bot lane. However, while this pathing is very effective, theres a few things you need to keep in mind. First, you need your mid and bot lane to half hover you when you first go invade the raptors, otherwise you can completely destroy your tempo if enemy stack and deny you entry to raptors. Second, when you go for this pathing, you’re effectively splitting the map for bot lane, so make sure that you are able to take enemy raptor camp on respawn during the 2nd rotation and not be late to it. Finally, after you do krugs and are looking for a gank on botlane, to maximize the potential of this pathing, you shoud make sure that your bot lane has properly stacked wave where by the time you are ready to dive with your bot lane, enemy is still lvl 1 or just turned level 2 and you want to q flash on enemy bot lane to minimize their ability to react and outplay you. While q flashing might make you die, just remember that because there is a stacked wave, a one for one trade on enemy adc is always worth it.
Having taken whichever of the mentioned pathings you like, I just want to say for general guidance on how to play volibear in the early game its just about exploiting your early burst damage and sustain as much as possible which includes just constantly harassing enemy jungler and pressuring and ganking enemy lanes.
Midgame-
In midgame, volibear is still the strongest jungler in the game but you do have to respect item spikes, for example if you dont have sundered sky yet and you are playing against a strong 1v1 jungler like xin who already has his first item, you could lose that skirmish. However generally speaking as volibear there are two things you want to keep in mind for mid game. First, you want to focus on playing for objectives because you do drake and grubs extremely quickly with the damage from your e as well as sustain and low cd from your w. Just a tip, when you are doing grubs angle your e to be in between the three grubs to get max value from its damage.
The second thing to keep in mind which would help you play aggressively, is that everytime your ult is up, you want to be making a play whether it is a dive or even just a regular gank. If you have this mentality where will your ult is on cd you are planning in advance where you want to make a play with it, it will streamline the way you play voli and this is probably the most important thing you can take away from this video because it gives you the aggressive mentality you need to fully utilize your kit. Also the last thing I want to say on volibears mid game is to put a lot more focus on getting your teammates ahead and putting enemy jg behind, so that means less farming your own camps and more invading and ganking, you can even leash your carries your camps so you ensure they are in a prime spot to take the game from your hands later on.
Late game-
Volibear’s role in late game is probably the biggest misconception people have over his tool kit, having played the entire early- mid game as this aggressive skirmisher who looks to 1v1 enemy champs, a lot of people think his role stays the same but the truth is that volibear just doesnt scale that well and his ability to solo skirmish enemies just ceases to exist, causing his role to shift to a more secondary engage, disruptor type of role. Not only this but since volibear only has a cc spell for 1 target, you’re often left to feel like you can pick people off only with your q flash or q ult which while is somewhat true, doesnt exactly define all of what you should do. I think one thing people fail to do on volibear in late game teamfights is that they fail to act as a disruptor, what i mean by disrupting is engaging onto enemy backline and surviving as long as possible thereby ensuring that your backline can hit enemy team whilst enemy backline has to focus on attacking you as well spacing you so they dont get ccd and can therefore not do as much to your teams carry champions.
With regards to acting as a disruptor, there are certain volibear specific tips I used for disrupting, first when you have other engage on your team, you should try to find a good flank angle that lets you to easily get onto enemy backline so you can cause greater disruption, second while you are on the enemy backline use your q to threaten and space enemy backline by acting like you are going to run at them and then running back, three when you are beng focused, you need to stay as healthy as possible, you can do this by Wing one target only so you can get perma healing and also autoing different champions constantly to proc the sundered sky healing as much as possible.
Obviously, there are a lot more things you generally do to disrupt better and maybe if there’s an interest I can make a video on it soon, I just want to thank you all for watching this volibear guide and if you want to show any appreciation please just like and subscribe, and if you can also follow me on twitch and join my discord I am trying to grow there and it would mean the absolute world to me if you can do that, stay hydrated and peace.
