Viktor is one of the oldest mages in League of Legends, being released all the way back in 2011. Yet after going through major reworks and changes, Viktor has always been an under-the-radar kind of champion. This guide will provide an in-depth look at Viktor’s abilities, runes and build path, good and bad lane opponents as well as tips to improve your Viktor gameplay.

Abilities

Viktor’s passive is called Glorius Evolution. When the game starts, Viktor starts with a unique item that is only available to him known as the Prototype Hex core. This item permanently occupies one of Viktor's item slots and cannot be sold. The Hex Core can also be upgraded in the shop and each upgrade will give bonus effects to each of Viktor's basic abilities via evolution points.

The Hex Core also gives Viktor scaling ability power and mana based on level. The base Hex Core gives Viktor 1-18 bonus Ability power and 10-180 mana based on level. The first upgrade gives Viktor +1 evolution point, 3-54 ability power based on level and 15-270 mana based on level. The second upgrade gives Viktor +1 evolution point, 6-108 ability power and 20-360 based on level. The final evolution gives Viktor +1 evolution point, 10-180 ability power and 25-450 mana based on level.

Viktor’s first ability is Siphon Power. Viktor selects a target and deals magic damage to them. When the ability returns to Viktor, Siphon Power gives Viktor a shield that blocks 30-115 (based on level) plus 20% of Viktor’s ability power worth of damage. It will also empower Viktor’s next auto attack, dealing 20-120 (20/45/70/95/120) plus 60% of Viktor's ability power as bonus magic damage.

When Viktor upgrades this ability, Siphon Power’s shield is increased by 60%, now shielding for 48-184 (based on level) and 32% of Viktor’s ability power. It also gives Viktor a burst of 30% movement speed for 2.5 seconds after using Siphon Power.

Viktor’s second ability is called Gravity Field. Viktor places down an AOE (area of effect) field for four seconds that slows (30/34/38/42/45%) all enemies inside. Every half second that enemies are in the field they are given a stack, and at three stacks enemies are stunned for 1.5 seconds. This can only happen once in the duration of Gravity fields cast.

When Viktor upgrades his Gravity Field, all of his damaging abilities except his ultimate will apply a 20% slow for one second. It will also pull enemies toward the center on the field once they hit three stacks.

Viktor’s third ability is Death Ray. Viktor fires an energy beam down a line that deals 70/110/150/190/230 (+ 60% AP) magic damage to all enemies hit. The Death Ray can be fired in any direction so long as it is in the range of the ability.

When Viktor upgrades Death Ray, the trail that Death Ray leaves will explode after a brief delay, dealing 20/60/100/140/180 (+70% AP) magic damage.

Viktor's ultimate is called Chaos Storm. Viktor calls down a circular storm of energy that, when casted, will silence any abilities that are being channeled and deal upfront 100/175/250 (+ 50% AP) magic damage. For the next 6.5 seconds, enemies caught within the storm take magic damage (100/175/250 + 50% AP) every second. Viktor can recast his ultimate to move the storm, which will hone in on the first enemy it damages. The storm will also move faster the closer Viktor is to the storm.

Once Viktor has upgraded all three of his base abilities, he will automatically upgrade his ultimate. When the Chaos Storm is upgraded, it will move 25% faster.

Runes and Build

Viktor is a high burst mage that has large amounts of AOE damage and a surprising amount of kiting potential. But in order to reach the point where Viktor’s damage starts becoming a major factor, Viktor needs items and levels under his belt. So runes should be a blend of tools to help Viktor through the early game but also give Viktor the tools to become a monster in the later parts of the game.

Phase Rush: Phase gives Viktor some much needed movement speed in fights and skirmishes, since it can be activated by simply using your Siphon Power, Death Ray into empowered auto attack. As the game goes later, Viktor will be able to kite and output his damage more effectively in fights.

Manaflow Band: Viktor has early mana problems in his laning phase, and while the Hex Core upgrades give him bonus mana, they do not give Viktor any bonus regen, so Manaflow Band helps mitigate some of these issues in the early part of the laning phase.

Transcendence: Viktor’s build doesn’t give him a ton of CDR (cooldown reduction) so Transcendence gives Viktor a bonus 10% CDR to help him use his abilities more in teamfights to output more damage.

Gathering Storm: This gives Viktor more ability power as the game goes on, so once Viktor has come online in terms of levels and items, it will give Viktor a good amount of ability power to help with his overall damage.

Magical Footwear: This gives Viktor free boots at a certain point, which lets him focus on getting his Hex Core upgrades as fast as possible.

Biscuit Delivery: This helps Viktor sustain his health and mana in lane for free without having to buy any additional pots.

Two adaptive force and one magic resistance or armor helps with early farming and damage reduction against whatever damage source the enemy mid laner is.

There are some optional runes and keystones that you can take for certain situations.

Presence of Mind: This rune helps Viktor with mana sustain once he gets a takedown. It is more consistent in teamfights and skirmishes, but less consistent in the laning phase.

Because you take Presence of Mind, you will need to take another rune on the precision tree, and while most other runes don’t really help Viktor, either Legend Tenacity and Coup de Grace can be taken as your second precision rune.

Fleet Footwork: This rune helps Viktor sustain in more difficult matchups for Viktor, namely assassins who can easily jump on and burst down Viktor in the early game. Plus the added movement speed can help Viktor get out of sticky situations.

Summon Aery: This rune helps Viktor trade in the early laning phase, since it can activate on either the damage part of Siphon Power, the empowered auto attacks of Siphon Power or Death Ray, it will also activate on normal auto attacks. This keystone is usually taken in lanes where Viktor wants to poke out the enemy mid laner as much as possible.

In terms of summoner spells, Flash is always taken no matter what, but the second rune is open to change. If you are in a Viktor favored matchup and want to have kill pressure, taking ignite will add to your kill pressure in lane. If you want to play more defensive and scale, exhaust or cleanse are safe options against assassins and heavy crowd control mid laners/junglers respectively. Teleport can also be taken if you want to answer roams and ganks since Viktor lacks natural roaming power.

When focusing on Viktor’s build, it is important to itemize offensive items to where squishier champions easily burstable for Viktor, but enough defensive items to where Viktor is not just as burstable.

First, always finish your Hex Core before anything else. This is because having all of your upgraded abilities is vital to not only Viktor’s damage, but also his survivability plus it provides Viktor a good portion of his total ability power.

After you finish your Hex Core, A good option for Viktor is either Luden’s Echo or Lich Bane. Luden’s Echo is good for when there is not a whole lot going on in the game and you want to focus on scaling rather than fighting. Plus, it gives Viktor some much needed cooldown reduction and mana sustain so Viktor can dish out his spells more efficiently. However, Lich Bane is such a potent item for Viktor because his empowered auto attack from Siphon Power gets even stronger because of Lich Bane’s passive. Even if you do not buy it second, Lich Bane should always be a part of your build as Viktor.

After that, the items become more situational, so let’s start with Viktor’s main defensive item, Zhonya’s Hourglass. This item lets Viktor enter a state of invulnerability where he cannot move or use abilities but enemies cannot damage him. Zhonya’s lets Viktor use a full rotation of his abilities, then activate Zhonya's if the enemies decide to jump on him and shut him down so even if he does not live after his stasis, he will have dealt a large amount of damage in the team fight because of the shear amount of damage Viktor’s abilities do. Plus, Viktor’s Chaos Storm will still be doing it’s damage per second while Viktor is in the stasis effect.

Another item that benefits Viktor in certain situations is Liandry’s Torment, because Viktor lacks any form of percent health damage in his kit, Liandry’s helps Viktor chew through tanks much easier because of the percent health burn that it applies. The bonus damage from Liandry's will also apply due to the slow that Viktor’s upgraded Gravity Field provides.

If you are looking for more straight up damage. Void Staff or Rabadon’s Deathcap can provide just that because of their large ability power numbers for Viktor as well as Void Staff’s bonus magic penetration for later on in the game. Plus, Deathcap synergizes well with your finished Hexcore because of the large amount of bonus ability power you get from Deathcap’s passive.

For your boots, the most common one is Sorcerer's Shoes, because they give you a flat amount of magic penetration which helps a lot in the mid to late game. However, Ionian Boots of Lucidity also helps because Viktor’s build can lack cooldown reduction. Mercury’s Treads can also help if Viktor is in a tough lane matchup because of the magic resistance that it provides.

Synergies and Counters

Viktor is a late game mage, so he needs time to scale up and get items under his belt before he fully comes online in terms of damage. With this in mind, Viktor works best against mid laners who also want to sit back and farm up for their items because Viktor will start to out wave clear his opponents once he hits his second Hexcore upgrade, so 2150 gold. Viktor excels against champions like Azir, Vel’Koz, and has a decently good laning phase against Orianna.

Where Viktor struggles in lane is when he has to lane against an assassin or a mage with early kill pressure like Syndra or Zoe. Most assassins have a lot of kill pressure on Viktor because he lacks mobility and early trading power against assassins. So champions like Zed, Qiyana, and Ekko have favorable matchups against Viktor.

Viktor wants a team composition that wants to kite back and control chokes or have large amounts of AOE damage and setup. This is because Viktor has very good kiting in his kit once he has his completed Hexcore because of the bonus movement speed on his Siphon Power and the slow from his upgraded Gravity Field. The more Viktor can draw the enemy team into his abilities the better.

Tips to Improve your Viktor Gameplay.

Viktor is weakest in the early game, so make sure you focus on your early game farming. A good tip is to let your opposing laner push the first waves so you can catch them right before they crash into your turret. Try and hold the wave just outside of turret range by just last hitting minions that are about to die. This is because Viktor lacks any early trading and roaming potential, so trying to freeze on your opposing laner to accrue a large farm lead can circumvent Viktor’s weak early game. It also helps Viktor because if he pushes the lane too much, he will draw the attention of the enemy jungler which usually results in either an early summoner spell blown for Viktor or an early death. If you do try to freeze the lane under your turret and are against a roaming champion, you need to be able to track them and let your side lanes know when the opposing mid laner went out of vision to potentially gank their lanes.

When trading on Viktor, it is important to center your Gravity Field on either the opposing laner of yourself depending on the situation. If you are against mages and other ranged champions, try to center the Gravity Field on top of them because most mages lack natural mobility to get out of the Gravity Field in time before they are stunned. If you are against more mobile champions or melee mid laners, or you are getting ganked by the enemy jungler, then put the Gravity Field on top of yourself. This is because most melee mid lakers have ways to go in but not many ways to get out, so they will receive all three stacks of Gravity Field before they have a chance to get out, setting up a really easy trade for Viktor.

As stated above, Viktor excels in teamfights where he can control the choke points with Gravity Field and Chaos Storm. But Viktor cannot be the one to start a fight with Gravity Field because of its longer cooldown compared to the rest of his abilities. Be patient with this ability and let either the enemy team come to you through a choke point or let one of your teammates start off the fight with their engagement. Once the fight actually starts, finding a priority target to burst with your Siphon Power and Death Ray while the Chaos Storm is ticking is vital to Viktor’s success in teamfights.

Here, Viktor is able to funnel the entire enemy team into a small pathway and catch four member of the enemy team with a Gravity Field into Chaos Storm combo, followed by a Zyra ultimate to chunk just about every member of the enemy team. Viktor then finishes them off with a combination of Death Rays and Siphon Powers to secure the pentakill for himself.

Once Siphon Power is upgraded, it becomes a very good tool for Viktor to kite around in teamfights and win what would appear to be unwinable fights for him. The bonus ratio on his shield can also save his life from fatal blows multiple times because it is such a spamable ability once the game goes later and Viktor starts picking up some more cooldown reduction.

Here, although Viktor loses his two teammates in a bot lane fight, he is still able to turn it around in a one versus three fight because of the burst damage from Viktor's Siphon Power as well as the shield that Viktor gets from the ability saving Viktor's life from the last Trundle autoattack.

Closing Thoughts

Viktor is certainly a unique champion, and while his time in the spotlight has come and gone, he is certainly still a pocket pick for those who are willing to understand Viktor's playstyle. But one thing is for sure, once you get the hang of Viktor, you too will join in the glorious evolution.