League of Legends Champion Guide: Fiora, the Grand Duelist

As requested by our viewers this week on the Summoners Champion Guide’s Facebook page, we are going to talk about Fiora, the Grand Duelist from League of Legends. Fiora is a strong melee attack damage carry that has both high burst and sustained damage; accordingly as a melee ad carry, she follows a very glass cannon build.  Fiora performs best in the top lane because of her excellent dueling abilities and sustain that she receives from her passive, along with the excellent synergy with life steal early game that she receives from the high base attack damage she gets from her W. As the name the Grand Duelist implies, Fiora is a strong dueling champion able to combat and thrive against most top lane champions with just the slightest lead turning into utter domination.  

(It should also be noted that although Fiora is typically regarded as a Duelist she is a very potent assassin who can very easily pick off almost any carry in just a few seconds.)

Champion Strengths:

High Base AD (Fiora receives a bonus 15 AD from her first point in W, and then a bonus 5 for every subsequent rank)

Strong Ability Power/Attack Damage Carry Assassin

High Single Target Damage

Strong Multi Target Damage with Tiamat

Snowballs Well if She Gets Ahead

Champion Weaknesses

Her Late Game is Not as Strong as Her Early or Mid Game

Weak Team Fighting Abilities without Her Ultimate and a Tiamat

No Crowd Control Abilities

Is Heavily Countered by Crowd Control

Champion abilities

Passive: Regenerates Fiora’s health over 6 seconds each time she deals damage. Striking champions will cause this effect to stack up to 4 times. The consistent health regeneration when attacking enemies will help with dueling other champion, so look for good engagements and punish frequently.

Q lunge: Fiora dashes forward to strike the target and can dash again within 4 seconds. This ability is a targeted ability. This ability is useful for both its high base damage/scaling, and it allows Fiora to gap close between enemy champions. What makes this ability especially useful, is that it is able to be used twice which can be very potent against champions with either a knockback or a blink. Fiora can also use this ability to quickly poke down an enemy champion or secure a minion with the first application and then with the second application, escape to an enemy minion creating a gap between her and the enemy champion. (Cooldown per rank: 16/14/12/10/8)

W Riposte: Fiora gains passive bonus Attack Damage for every point in this ability. At rank 1 she receives a bonus 15 AD, while with each subsequent rank she receives an extra 5 per rank. At rank 5, Fiora will have a total of 35 bonus attack damage. When activated, Fiora will parry the next champion basic attack or on hit ability (such as Ezreal Q or Kayle E); dealing magic damage back to that enemy.
(Cooldown per rank: 10/9/8/7/6)

E Burst of Speed: When activated Fiora gains an additional 60/75/90/105/120 percent bonus attack speed for 3 seconds. In addition Fiora will also gain a bonus 7/9/11/13/15 percent bonus movement speed for three seconds stacking up to 3 times whenever fiora basic attacks or damages an enemy with her Q (Lunge).

R Blade Waltz: Fiora dashes around the battlefield becoming un-targetable dealing physical damage to nearby enemy champions striking up to 5 times. This ability will do 40 percent less damage to any target that has already been struck by Blade Waltz. Each strike applies on-hit effects (Life steal, Trinity Force, Blade of the Ruined King, Wit’s End, Etc…). This item synergizes very well with Ravenous Hydra.

Recommended Skill Order

High Burst Damage (Recommended against most non-all in champions and ranged champions)

R>Q>W>E

Maxing Fiora’s Q during the laning phase will provide you with the highest burst damage, while at the same time giving you the safest harass through the use of a skill rather than multiple auto attacks. Maxing Fiora’s Q will reduce the agonizingly long 16 second rank 1 cooldown to a mere 8 seconds. Making good use of Fiora’s Q will create an overall a safe and versatile lane being able to more frequently close the gap between enemy champions or  to more frequently escape enemy engages will farming the minions farther away. W is then maxed second to synergize with Fiora’s  strong scaling on both her Q and her ultimate. E is maxed last because most trades in lane are quick in and out exchanges that are unable to make full use of Fiora’s E. However, Fiora’s E is an auto attack reset and should be used as such when you harass the opponent. An example of a Harass rotation would be as follows:
Auto-Q-Auto-E-Auto-Q-Auto.

Against All In Champions

R>E>W>Q

In this skill set, we max Fiora’s E against champions who very often will full on engage Fiora. Champions like Xin Zhao for instance who gap close and rely on overpowering their opponent in one go rather than having many early trades. It is important to max E in these instances because although Fiora has the most burst damage with her Q, the full duration of Fiora’s E will provide us with the highest sustained damage. This is especially effective against all in champions because… you guessed it, they’ll be attacking you! Rather than you having to chase them you will be able to make best use of your E and the whopping 120 percent bonus attack speed it gives! We then max W second not only because of the bonus attack damage it gives, but for the reduced cooldown which in an all in situation could be the one auto attack difference in your life or theirs.

High Sustain

R>W>Q>E

This skill set is very similar to the first but instead having W taking priority over Q. We would max W in a lane where we may not necessarily be able to kill our laning opponent (lanes vs Malphite or Shen) or lanes where our laning opponent is much stronger than us early game (Jax/Riven); where farming safely would be much more beneficial than  constant engages. The reason that maxing W is effective for difficult lanes is due to 3 main reasons. 1. Allocating points into W will lower the cooldown by 1 second per rank; and although that may not sound like very much, it is the only active mitigation Fiora has. It is much better to mitigate damage in the first place and at rank 5 Riposte is on a 6 second cooldown. Meaning every  6 seconds you can mitigate lets an auto attack for 110-120 damage around level 9. If we successfully make best use of Riposte for 1 minute we can mitigate 1100-1200 damage every minute compared to if we didn’t max W first we would mitigate 660-720 damage every minute. Of course this may not always be valid against champions who don’t use auto attacks very often but, for the most part it is your safest bet for preventing harass. 2. Maxing Fiora’s W gives Fiora bonus attack damage which will synergizes extremely well with life steal. More attack damage, more life returned. 3. Maxing Fiora’s W will give her the best chance to last hit especially under turret due to the increased attack damage… 15 gold is 15 gold right haha! It adds up!

Summoner Spells

Ignite/Flash

or

Ignite/Teleport

Although in the current Meta taking Teleport is very very important, Fiora relies very heavily on getting ahead in the early game and if Fiora takes teleport she gives up a lot of early kill and dueling potential. I would suggest only taking teleport on Fiora if you are very confident against your laning opponent.

Runes and Masteries:

Recommended: 2 Life steal Quints/1 AD Quints, 9 Attack Damage Reds, 9 MR Blues, 9 Armor Yellows

Armor Penn: 3 Armor Penn Quints, 9 Armor Penn Reds, 9 Armor Yellows, 9 MR Blues

Pure AD: 3 AD Quints, 9 AD Reds, 9 Armor Yellows, 9 MR Blues

Champion build

Core: Ravenous Hydra, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver

Situational Damage: Infinity Edge, Yomuu’s Ghost Blade, Blade of the Ruined King

Situational Defense: Hex Drinker/Maw of Malmordius, Randuins Omen, Guardian Angel, Mercurial Scimitar, Banshee’s Veil

Hypothetical Full Build Standard: Ninja Tabi/Merc Treads, Ravenous Hydra, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, Yomuu’s Ghost Blade, Infinity Edge

Full Build vs Ap/CC: Merc Treads, Ravenous Hydra, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, Maw of Malmordius, Mercurial Scimitar/Banshee’s Veil

Full Build Vs AD: Ninja Tabi’s, Ravenous Hydra, Last Whisper, Black Cleaver, Infinity Edge, Guardian Angel/Randuin’s Omen

Conclusion:

Fiora is a strong top lane champion and can duel almost any champion in game when used correctly in League of Legends. She has high burst damage but suffers from her lack of Crowd Control or escapes. Fiora takes time to master so practice and practice until your blade waltzing yourself to victory! Special thanks to Alessiia from NA! If you enjoyed this guide make sure to like share or comment! We are always welcome to hearing your opinions on ways you would build or play her differently than how we suggested!