Fiora is a melee AD bruiser who excels in late game one-versus-one fights and splitpushing. Fiora is almost always played in the toplane. In order to properly play Fiora, you must have a strong sense of game knowledge and champion abilities in order to maximize your effectiveness. As a late game hyperscaling champion, Fiora can take over the entire game with a lead.

Abilities:

Passive – Duelist’s Dance

Fiora’s passive is “vital” to her general playstyle, as they provide her with the signature tank shredding that she requires. Fiora “identifies” a vital around nearby enemy champions. When the vital is damaged by Fiora’s auto attacks or abilities, the enemy is dealt max percentage health true damage. Also, popping a vital provides Fiora with a significant heal and considerable movement speed. This damage is particularly effective against armor and health stacking tanks who are usually harder to deal with for your midlaner and jungler. However, against squishier enemies, this passive is no joke. Being able to pop a vital in a fight will provide much needed sustain and movement speed to get the next vital. As Fiora, playing around her vitals is necessary to maximize damage output.

Q - Lunge

Lunge is what makes Fiora possess such high movement around the battlefield. Lunge can be used to deal extra damage, dodge skillshots, move towards vitals, or bound across terrain. Its uses are innumerable and can be extremely creative in the hands of an experienced player. Fiora lunges forward and then stabs a nearby enemy. If you stab an enemy, the cooldown of Lunge is reduced. The stab prioritizes vitals, champions, low health minions, then everything else. Lunge is obviously Fiora’s bread and butter ability and will enable her to dance across the lane while hitting all of her enemy’s vitals and dodging all crowd control. You will max this ability first (not including ultimate).

W - Riposte

Her only defensive ability, Riposte enables Fiora to completely outplay the enemy and potentially negate major abilities. Fiora strikes in front of her, dealing magic damage and slowing and lowering the attack speed of the opponent. During the charge-up of this ability, Fiora negates all debuffs and damage inflicted upon her. If the ability used upon her was intended to immobilize Fiora, Fiora instead stuns the opponent for a significant period of time. The difference between a good and a great Fiora player is the ability to use Riposte at the correct time. Knowing common trading patterns of enemy toplaners is important to know when to use Riposte. Also, knowing enemy abilities and how long it takes for the ability to travel will also help you time your Riposte correctly. While Riposte may seem to be only useful if the enemy uses a hard crowd control ability, you must note that Riposte also decreases attack speed. Against most toplaners, this is very useful in reducing the enemy's damage output. You will max this ability last.

E - Bladework

Bladework is just an added auto attack steroid that assists in Fiora’s chasing potential and general damage output. Fiora empowers her next two auto attacks. The first auto attack deals increased damage and slows, while her following auto attack critically strikes. In general, you should auto cancel to use your Bladework so that you can let out 3 auto attacks in quick succession. You will max this ability second.

R – Grand Challenge

Fiora’s Grand Challenge is a decently good tool for quickly bursting down enemies and generating a massive advantage for your entire team. Fiora selects an enemy champion and challenges them, allowing Fiora to view all four of their vitals. Each vital acts as a vital from Duelist’s Dance. If all vitals are attacked or the target dies, a large area is given massive healing benefits for both Fiora and her team. She is also given a movement speed buff while the ultimate is active. Grand Challenge is what makes Fiora such a viable tank counter, because she can apply nearly 50% max health true damage just from vitals alone in the later stages of the game. You will definitely max this first to take advantage of its extremely low cooldown and massive 1v1 benefits.

Keystone Runes

Fiora can choose between either Conqueror or Grasp of the Undying as her two keystones, with Conqueror being the far superior keystone in most scenarios. Conqueror amplifies Fiora’s tank busting abilities and gives her the raw AD at early levels that bumps up all of her abilities (except Riposte). Conqueror is meant for the long lasting 1v1s and outplaying the enemy jungler and laner. Grasp on the other hand, is meant for poking out a tough lane opponent, such as Camille or Renekton, and getting a tankier Fiora in exchange for damage. Grasp is generally only useful against harder lane matchups, such as the ones mentioned before. Conqueror is almost always going to be the best, and taking Conqueror at all times is still viable.

Items

Starting Items

Fiora really only has one choice for starting items, Doran’s Blade and Health Pot. After the Corrupting Potion nerfs, Doran’s Blade is the only viable option. Doran’s Blade provides her with the attack damage and lifesteal that Fiora is completely built around. There really is no other option for her in any other scenario.

Core Items

Fiora has a very detailed set of Core items that can be manipulated depending on playstyle and state of game. Generally, it is preferred that you rush Tiamat, then Phage, and then complete Ravenous Hydra (built off of Tiamat). However, if you have gotten a significant lead, you can opt to skip the Phage and Ravenous Hydra in favor of arguably Fiora’s best item – Death’s Dance. Death’s Dance is perfectly made for Fiora and after the recent changes to include true damage, it is now her most optimal item. It provides cooldown reduction, attack damage, lifesteal, and an amazing defensive passive that synergizes amazingly with her ultimate. After Death’s Dance or Ravenous Hydra, you want to build Trinity Force, then complete the remaining item, either Death’s Dance or Ravenous Hydra depending on what you chose initially. Trinity Force is great for Fiora’s later stage tower sieging with the Sheen passive and also gives her increased attack speed to keep up with the flurry of vitals. Also, don’t forget to pick up Merc Treads to boost Fiora’s slippery nature.

Later Stage Items

Closing out her build, you want to buy a Spear of Shojin and then some form of Defensive Item like a Sterak’s Gage or Maw of Malmortius. Spear of Shojin is great to up her 1v5 potential because of its unique passive that provides reduced cooldowns after using her ultimate with an auto attack. Fiora can slip past each skillshot and let out a lot more Ripostes with the passive activated. The defensive item just ensures that Fiora is able to get all of her vitals off before dying to a burst of Late Game mage or attack damage carry damage.

How to Lane as Fiora

As Fiora, the laning phase is mostly a farming fest with little to no action. Fiora is a late game hyper carry and to be that, she needs the money to fund her extremely expensive build path. Ravenous Hydra, Trinity Force, and Death’s Dance are all above the 3000 gold mark, making them among the most expensive items you can buy. However, Fiora becomes nearly impossible to beat if you get a lead. Taking advantage of her Lunge’s range against vitals, you can whittle down the enemy’s health and then pop your ultimate. In general, it is best to play smart around objectives and keep your Riposte up at all times to prevent ganks.

How to Teamfight as Fiora

Fiora doesn’t teamfight. Rather she splitpushes. Fiora is unique in the sense that she is arguably the worst teamfighter in the game, but also the best splitpusher in the game. She can take down towers with ease and 1v3 her way to an inhib. As Fiora, you want to coordinate with your team. While splitpushing as a whole is a deeper topic to dive into, the basics are that you want to push a sidelane while your team is attacking an objective. When splitpushing past the 30 minute mark, Fiora is nearly unstoppable in every single 1v1 or even 1v2. A good Fiora is even capable of landing 1v3 and 1v4 plays with perfect mechanical execution.

How to Duel as Fiora

Dueling is the key principle when playing as Fiora. Without a good sense of her mechanics, there's no point in trying to splitpush and draw in multiple opponents from the enemy team. Dueling requires that you manage the vitals from Fiora's passive and ultimate frequently and having a good sense of her cooldowns with her key items. When dueling, you will always want to use your ultimate on the squishiest target so that you can get your heal off quickly. Your Death's Dance will help tremendously with staying alive from burst and CC, but you do need to heal the bleed that you take from Death's Dance. Also, you must make sure to save your Riposte for the CC that is most predictable. Rather than trying to predict a Pantheon stun, it is better if you Riposte the obvious Veigar box. Lastly, you want to make sure that you are always moving and hitting vitals to increase your movement speed. Even with your Riposte, you need to avoid skillshots and other projectiles.

Harder Matchups

Pantheon

Pantheon is such a nuisance due to his insane burst + high poke. The combination completely counters Fiora's dueling playstyle which relies on longer fights. Instead, Pantheon pokes you out with his spear throw and then finishes you off at a later point with his full rotation of abilities. In lane, this is arguably one of the hardest matchups because his crowd control is point and click and extremely hard to predict or react to. Versus Pantheon, it is recommended that you take Grasp of the Undying and try to slowly poke him out and regain health.

Renekton

Similar to Pantheon, Renekton has high poke and all-in potential. While not as potent as Pantheon, Renekton can poke you down with his quick dashing and can all-in easily with his stun and ultimate. The issue with Renekton is that his ultimate gives him insane amounts of tankiness in the early stages which prevents Fiora from taking him down, even with the true damage from her vitals. To counter Renekton, you need to take Grasp of the Undying and try to outpoke him with your Lunge.

Any Ranged Toplaner

Against ranged toplaners, Fiora just needs to sit tight and get creeps from underneath the tower. If the opposing laner oversteps, you can easily take down the squishy target with just one engagement. However, finding that engagement and failing may result in a load of poke damage. Fiora struggles due to Ranged toplaners general safety.

Conclusion

Fiora is definitely one of the hardest characters in the game due to her need for both a good macro sense and micro sense with a high mechanical aptitude. However, when learned, Fiora can be abused to easily climb past lower elos and give you a good time while you do that. Thank you.

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