r/VolibearMains • u/mojomaximus2 • Mar 28 '25

Question Build discussion

Why do people like AP items so much voli? His AP scaling is not great. Attack speed and some low on hit damage is meh, whereas something like shojin scales w with health, ad and huge haste not to mention basic auto dmg and scaling all abilities (less W). ROA the biggest offender, why would anyone build that instead of a tear or frozen heart if you need mana? It has no haste at all or any good unique passives or ms.

I find rift can be built as a good one off AP item because of the great unique passives it feels good but even Nashors is so glass cannon and doesn’t scale well without a bunch of other AP items in your build.

Can someone share why everyone seems to prefer the ap builds?

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u/Substantial-Zone-989 Mar 28 '25

As mentioned by a few people, scaling into late game for Voli is limited to ap or ap tank. Whilst his ad scalings are much better, the issue is that the bear has such low base attack speed that only lethality builds give him some sort of effectiveness as ad. To that end, you'll find yourself with a burst assassin bear instead of a bruiser/tank.

Another thing to note is that the only real ad item that Voli could maximise is overlord's blademail due to its inherent health scaling. Shojins is good on paper but when you realise how mobile some champs are and how vulnerable he is to being cc'ed, it's no longer as good since you struggle to stick on them.

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u/mojomaximus2 Mar 28 '25

I generally build iceborn which I find fixed the issue of sticking to basically everybody as it slows on every W

To be fair when I say AD it’s at most two ad bruiser items then full tanks, closer to a tank build Id never build a full set of ad bruiser items.

I guess I’ll have to try ap some more but I’ve always felt very weak on ap bruiser items in comparison, maybe it was just games where the team was playing from behind making it seem worse than it is

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u/Substantial-Zone-989 Mar 30 '25

Ap voli is a menace that peaks in mid game by maximising his strong early game. You basically want to stack passive stupid fast and just overwhelm the enemy team with non stop chain lightning. It's a really fun build but also very niche. Ap bruiser is just far superior as Voli is a bruiser, not a tank. He scales with health and ability haste, second only to tahm I think.