League of Legends XXXI: I'll Start My Own Team! With TF! And Janna!

[Dogmantra]

Also, Arbitrarity, thanks for grabbing the idea and running with it. These are great so far.

I agree, but one minor nitpick:
Could I suggest using orange instead of yellow for the seals?
it's much more readable and still obviously seals

[Arbitrarity]

Is there ever a point to go 9/0/21 with a fighter or brawler? Or even a carry? (I'm referring to AD here.) Just thinking of whether or not Awareness is still good/necessary for junglers, or if getting to 6 first would help a toplaner.

Also, Arbitrarity, thanks for grabbing the idea and running with it. These are great so far.

No longer. Once, offense tree wasn't that good, at least for casters (past the first 9 points), and higher level utility masteries were good (movespeed, flash mastery). But now... well, Awareness isn't worth it, especially since the jungle change. The equivalent is getting XP quints, compared with AD or something. All you get out of utility tree past 9 is XP (miniscule), gold (modest), CDR (not that useful in lane), and summoner spell cooldowns (can be good, but often doesn't make the difference). Compared with scaling AD, Arpen, lifesteal, and Executioner, utility doesn't really help AD carries in lane, or bruisers. It's totally useless for junglers. Extra XP might make a small difference top lane for getting to 6, but the difference is literally 2 melee minions. That's MINISCULE.

[Eldariel]

Currently Utility is largely a consideration for Supports, and most prefer to go full Defense for tankiness.

The biggest difference is that now Defense has both, Move Speed and CDR Masteries which you could previously only get from Utility so the high level Utility doesn't offer much that high level Defense doesn't, and while Utility Capstone is alright, the whole tree just doesn't measure up.

[toasty]

Currently Utility is largely a consideration for Supports, and most prefer to go full Defense for tankiness.

The biggest difference is that now Defense has both, Move Speed and CDR Masteries which you could previously only get from Utility so the high level Utility doesn't offer much that high level Defense doesn't, and while Utility Capstone is alright, the whole tree just doesn't measure up.

I really like Utility for two reasons:
Greed Mastery and Buff Mastery.

that's about it, honestly. I'd rather get more tankiness on my supports.

[Math_Mage]

I really like Utility for two reasons:
Greed Mastery and Buff Mastery.

that's about it, honestly. I'd rather get more tankiness on my supports.

As a support, starting with +30 gold lets me buy Faerie Charm, two sight wards, a vision ward, and a pot. The pot is valuable as it lets me skill QW as Alistar or EW as Taric in offensive lanes; as a defensive support it lets me take harass in an engage while healing my carry early on, before the heals become strong. The combination of wards lets me consistently gain vision control in lane and/or eliminate the enemy's protection against jungle ganks.

However, I did finally transition from a 9/0/21 build on Kennen to 9/21/0. Defense offers many of the useful bits of Support along with lane tankiness.

[Neoseanster]

I've taken to using the +40 gold from two points in Wealth to start a Faerie Charm, healing potion, and four sight wards. It's nice to be able to actually afford to spare one to help secure mid from an early gank and catch counterjunglers in the act without crippling yourself too harshly at bottom.

[Arbitrarity]

Continuing on
Bruisers:

Probably the most heavily populated category of champion, Bruisers (also know as Tanky DPS, Fighters, off-tanks, and Brawlers) are melee champions who mix damage with significant durability. Bruisers typically have significant damage steroids that do not improve significantly with crit (such as on hit effects), strong base stats, inherent sustainability or defensive abilities, and some CC. Bruisers have a wide variety of builds, depending on the champion in question, and typically either act like bulky assassins, charging after the enemy carry, or as the beefy "front line" of a team.
Compared with tanks, bruisers have more mobility, less CC, and better reward for building offensive items.
The usual bruisers are: Dr Mundo, Garen, Gangplank, Irelia, Jax, Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, Nasus, Nocturne, Olaf, Nocturne, Renekton, Riven, Shyvana, Skarner, Trundle, Volibear, Udyr, Warwick, Wukong, Xin Zhao, and Yorick.
Some other champions that can act as bruisers, but are also (either moreso, or additionally) effective at other roles include: Alistar, Blitzcrank, Fiora, Gragas, Malphite, Master Yi, Nidalee, Poppy, Shaco, Sion, Shen, and Tryndamere.
Specifically for Fiora, Master Yi, Nidalee, and Shen, bruiser builds may be better than their expected roles in some cases.

Bruisers typically go top lane, or jungle. Their natural sustain, tankiness, and powerful damage abilities are very good for killing jungle monsters safely, and their CC makes for strong ganks. The strongest junglers in the game are all bruisers.

Early Game:
While this varies heavily depending on the bruiser in question, general top laning advice applies. Know the matchup, control the wave, deny your opponent when possible, keep track of their cooldowns, be wary of the enemy jungler, and call for ganks if necessary. Know how to engage, how to disengage, and when to do so. These things are all champion and matchup dependent. Sometimes you should be aggressive, sometimes you cannot.
In jungle, you're typically quite powerful (fast clear speed, great health retention, strong CC). Consider aggressive routes that allow you to gank early, or invade the enemy jungle.

Midgame:
Dragon control is crucial here. As a jungler, ensure it's warded, and find opportunities to go for it. Oracles is a solid pickup on survivable junglers, like Udyr, Shyvana, Trundle, and Lee Sin. You can clear wards all over the map to set up your own ganks, swipe dragons, and it's REALLY HARD to bring you down.
From top lane, either continue to farm and control the lane, and/or go down to help with Dragon. This requires some team coordination and/or Teleport. Before going down, be sure to push the lane to make retaliatory tower taking harder. If you choose to stay and farm while your opponent leaves, again, you want to push so you can take the enemy tower. If you both stay and farm... well, zone and control the lane if possible. Freezing the lane if you have lose your tower is less viable than it is for AD carries; other top lane bruisers are often large map threats, and gank/counterjungle very well (i.e. Akali, Shyvana, Jarvan). By farming and pushing, you farm up and apply pressure to the lane, which helps protect your team from the enemy roaming presence.

Lategame:
Baron control, ward up. You may be a good oracles carrier. If your team has a tank, you can leave the soaking and initiating more to them, but you can certainly adopt that role situationally, or in the absence of a proper tank. You rarely do any good in poking, and don't take unnecessary damage, but you be forward enough to zone enemies from initiating on your carry.

Teamfights:
Most bruisers act like a mixture of a tank and assassin. They form the "front line" of engagements, and often try to directly kill important targets, or damage and CC as many enemies as they can. It really varies a lot, depending on the champion. Champions like Olaf, Irelia, Jarvan, Riven, and Xin Zhao prefer to act like assassins, chasing down enemy squishies and killing them quickly, while Udyr, Trundle, Shyvana, and Nasus tend to stand on the frontlines, peeling enemies off their carry, and focusing targets of opportunity. Mostly it has to do with what sort of skills each champion has, though all bruisers can do either with some proficiency. You're a big scary threat, you do enough damage to kill a carry, while being tanky enough to live. Let your tank initiate. Know how much damage you can take. CC and kill major threats. Protect your carry.

Masteries:
Many bruisers run 21/9/0 masteries, getting all AD and armor penetration masteries, and Vampirism or Havoc. In defense, they either get armor and Veteran's Scars, or work up to Bladed Armor for jungling. If they have smite, they get the defensive summoner spell mastery. This is optimal for jungle speed and bruisers that scale well with AD (Riven, Renekton, Nocturne, Lee Sin, Gangplank)
Many other bruisers run 9/21/0, getting defenses of choice (but not Evasion, because it is TERRIBLE), and usually armor pen in offense. This is more for tanky bruisers, who usually don't jungle (Possibly Nasus, Udyr, Renekton)
Finally, some bruisers run 0/21/9, getting movement speed or mana in utility. This is for either bruisers who rely heavily on movement speed, or for mana hungry champions (possibly Nasus, Udyr, Irelia, Jarvan)

The choice between these three is partially champion dependent, and partially playstyle dependent. For example, Irelia and Jarvan IV can succeed with any of these mastery builds, depending on what their expected role on the team is, and their personal preferences.

Runes:
Bruisers usually run Armor Penetration/Flat Armor/Magic Resistance (flat or scaling)/Flat Attack Damage
Yes, this is the same page as like every AD champion I have mentioned. It works.
For jungling, substituting 8 Attack Speed and Armor Pen or 3 Attack Damage is helpful, depending on the champion. Some bruisers may benefit from Tons of Armor Pen, due to having armor reduction or strong physical damage spells. Runes can also be matchup dependent, if you are in Draft and know who is going top. Sometimes you're against Garen, and just need more armor


Summoner Spells:
Flash or Ghost and Smite/Teleport/Ignite/Exhaust are the norm. Some Heal is showing up as well. Smite is for jungling, Teleport is for lane dominance, Dragon presence and lategame utility, Ignite is for burst, and Exhaust is for duels and shutting down the enemy carry. Ghost is useful for sustained chases, especially if you already have some sort of dash/blink that goes through walls (Renekton, Jarvan, to some extent Lee Sin, Shyvana, and Jax), but Flash is always a competitive option. Some junglers are taking Exhaust with Smite, for counterjungling and ganking; Lee Sin and Shyvana mostly.

Itemization:
Most bruisers start with boots+3 potions, Cloth+5 potions, and occasionally Doran's Blade, Longsword, or Vampiric Scepter. Boots are good for top lane mobility, and for early ganks as a jungler. Cloth+5 is safe, and good for invading/ganking, as well as fighting more dominant laners top. Doran's Blade is viable for some junglers, and results in quick clears and very damaging ganks. Longsword is pretty much Warwick exclusive, since he wants to clear as fast as possible, and get Madreds, while he already has lots of sustain. Vampiric Scepter is useful for passive jungling and getting Wriggles quickly, on champions like Nocturne and Gangplank.
Bruisers love gold efficient items that mix survivability and damage. The most popular are Wit's End, Atma's Impaler, and Phage (and it's derivatives). Wriggles is also common for lane sustain and quick jungling, and can shore up weaker laners.
Wit's End and Phage are important parts of many bruiser midgames, and the choice between Frozen Mallet and Trinity Force depends on whether you need the stickiness, and whether your champion benefits from Sheen a lot.
Brutalizer is also a strong midgame item for AD reliant bruisers, like Garen, Riven, Renekton, Wukong, and Xin Zhao.
Warmogs (or Frozen Mallet) and Atma's Impaler are a common combination on bruisers that like additional AD, and have free defensive stats. They often come in late in the game, however. Garen, Olaf, Jarvan, Lee Sin, Nocturne, Nidalee, Renekton, Shyvana Volibear, and Yorick all like this, eventually.
Some mana-reliant bruisers (Nasus, Yorick) like to get Frozen Heart, which comes with a nice aura, lots of armor (and thus, lane dominance) along with the mana and CDR.
Almost all bruisers get Mercury Treads by default. Unless the enemy team has very few stuns/slows, no other boots really fit nicely. Cooldown reliant bruisers can get Lucidity boots, and fighting an autoattacker in lane may justify Ninja Tabi.
Some bruisers are just weird. Jax usually gets Gunblade and other hybrid items, with assorted defenses. Riven likes Bloodthirster and Guardian Angel.

Generally remember to play to your champion's strengths, and to counteract the dangerous members of the enemy team. If this seems unclear, check a champion specific guide.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Continuing on
Bruisers:

Probably the most heavily populated category of champion, Bruisers (also know as Tanky DPS, Fighters, off-tanks, and Brawlers) are melee champions who mix damage with significant durability. Bruisers typically have significant damage steroids that do not improve significantly with crit (such as on hit effects), strong base stats, inherent sustainability or defensive abilities, and some CC. Bruisers have a wide variety of builds, depending on the champion in question, and typically either act like bulky assassins, charging after the enemy carry, or as the beefy "front line" of a team.
Compared with tanks, bruisers have more mobility, less CC, and better reward for building offensive items.
The usual bruisers are: Dr Mundo, Garen, Gangplank, Irelia, Jax, Jarvan IV, Lee Sin, Nasus, Nocturne, Olaf, Renekton, Riven, Shyvana, Skarner, Trundle, Volibear, Warwick, Wukong, Xin Zhao, and Yorick.
Some other champions that can act as bruisers, but are also (either moreso, or additionally) effective at other roles include: Alistar, Blitzcrank, Fiora, Gragas, Malphite, Master Yi, Nidalee, Poppy, Shaco, Shen, and Tryndamere.
Specifically for Fiora, Master Yi, Nidalee, and Shen, bruiser builds may be better than their expected roles in some cases.

Severe lack of Udyr here, Arb. Severe lack of Udyr.

Also, I'd consider adding Sion and Nocturne to the list of at least potential bruisers.

[Dogmantra]

As a support, starting with +30 gold lets me buy Faerie Charm, two sight wards, a vision ward, and a pot. The pot is valuable as it lets me skill QW as Alistar or EW as Taric in offensive lanes; as a defensive support it lets me take harass in an engage while healing my carry early on, before the heals become strong. The combination of wards lets me consistently gain vision control in lane and/or eliminate the enemy's protection against jungle ganks.

I am sad because I love the utility tree and I love some of the masteries but it's just so underwhelming compared to offense now :(

However, I did finally transition from a 9/0/21 build on Kennen to 9/21/0. Defense offers many of the useful bits of Support along with lane tankiness.

Why not 21/0/9?

[Arbitrarity]

Severe lack of Udyr here, Arb. Severe lack of Udyr.

Also, I'd consider adding Sion and Nocturne to the list of at least potential bruisers.

I have no idea what you are talking about >.> <.<
I suspect I removed Nocturne from the prototypical bruisers and forgot to readd him. Considering how he's usually played, I feel comfortable dropping him under bruisers, even if his kit screams melee carry/assassin.

[Joran]

Meh, this is true, I admit. However, the fact that you are pretty much assured to be constantly attacking with your spells means you will get a lot of procs anyways.

Manamune is good, however, I feel as if Fratmas might deal similar damage with more CC. I dunno, I haven't played Yorick enough to know which builds are better when, in general Yorick's kit is so strong that you can basically build him anything (except AP) and he will be useful. He's more useful if you build him tanky-dps.

Yorick's base stats:

At level 18: 1951 hp, 865 mana.

With Manamune, fully charged: 2215 mana, 44 bonus AD + 20 AD = 64 bonus
Manamune + Frozen Heart: 2715 mana = 74 bonus AD

I don't normally build any more mana items on Yorick.

With Atma's: 39 damage
With Atma's + Frozen Mallet: 2651 HP = 53 AD + 20 AD from Frozen Mallet: 73 AD

So, it's basically about even damage wise.

I build my Yorick fairly tanky actually, with 9/21 masteries, and start with a Philospher's Blade and I have hp/scaling seals, so the analysis is going to be swayed more toward

Assuming I have Philospher's Blade, Frozen Mallet, and Manamune, Yorick's hp is at 3226 and the bonus AD is 104 (counting the 20 AD from Frozen Mallet and Manamune).

P.S. This analysis doesn't build in the fact that Yorick loves to spam his ghouls. I normally buy Manamune as a way to be able to spam and poke as much as I like without really worrying about mana.

What this analysis shows to me is that if I'm up against a mostly physical damage type person, I should build Frozen Heart, then Fratma's Mallet, skipping Manamune. I think I'd still buy Manamune against someone I'm not building Frozen Heart against, like a mage.

[fred dref]

I just popped in here to say that atmallet is so much better than fratma's.

[Math_Mage]

Phage --> Atma's --> Mallet IMO. Phatmallet?

I am sad because I love the utility tree and I love some of the masteries but it's just so underwhelming compared to offense now :(


Why not 21/0/9?

Who knows. I guess I hate having damage, because I don't do as well when I have that setup.

[dgnslyr]

Does Fratmas necessarily imply the Mallet has to comes first? Because somehow I'd imagine Phage then Atma's then Mallet would be a better rounded sequence.

[Chumbaniya]

I'm not sure it makes sense to do a bruisers guide that covers both top lane and jungling. The two roles are pretty different - more different than the differences between bruisers and alternative types of top laners, for example.

I think if you're looking to do really general guides, a guide on concepts that are independent of role would be really good. If players understand concepts like pushing or freezing lanes, ganking, objective control, warding, diving towers etc. then that goes a long way to helping them to understand the individual roles.

[Lix Lorn]

Here we are.

Spoiler

Show

I feel like such a boss.

I am SO curious as to what the annoying comment was.
SO curious.

[Dogmantra]

Does Fratmas necessarily imply the Mallet has to comes first? Because somehow I'd imagine Phage then Atma's then Mallet would be a better rounded sequence.

Five Doran's for enough health, then Atma's, then sell them for Mallets.

Boots are for neebs.

Who knows. I guess I hate having damage, because I don't do as well when I have that setup.

Fair enough. I just find it curious that people pretty much all praised the mastery rework for adding reasons to put more than 9 points into offense for casters then promptly discuss whether it's better to run 9/21/0 or 9/0/21 on half the mages

[dgnslyr]

Also, that Fiora, building full tank. I'd have expected something more glass cannony, because if they're killing you hard, the only response is to kill them before they kill you.

[fred dref]

I actually just prefer the term Atmallet to Fratma's. When buying I prefer Phage>Atma's>Mallet, like any sensible person.

[Math_Mage]

Fair enough. I just find it curious that people pretty much all praised the mastery rework for adding reasons to put more than 9 points into offense for casters then promptly discuss whether it's better to run 9/21/0 or 9/0/21 on half the mages

Well, to be fair, the discussion was about fighters and bruisers. I just brought Kennen in randomly. The other caster I run 21 util on is Ryze, because lots of the caster offensives are AP and Ryze likes pretty much everything in Utility.

[Eldariel]

Well, to be fair, the discussion was about fighters and bruisers. I just brought Kennen in randomly. The other caster I run 21 util on is Ryze, because lots of the caster offensives are AP and Ryze likes pretty much everything in Utility.

I run 21 Defense on both, Vlad and Ryze. Seems to give them about everything they want far better than the two other trees combined (0/21/9 on Ryze, 9/21/0 on Vlad).

[Mephit]

I'm considering buying Olaf because I feel like his latest buff has really made him a competitive jungler.

[Arbitrarity]

I'm not sure it makes sense to do a bruisers guide that covers both top lane and jungling. The two roles are pretty different - more different than the differences between bruisers and alternative types of top laners, for example.

I think if you're looking to do really general guides, a guide on concepts that are independent of role would be really good. If players understand concepts like pushing or freezing lanes, ganking, objective control, warding, diving towers etc. then that goes a long way to helping them to understand the individual roles.

This takes time. Generic Bruiser is there for the teamfighting, but it's admittedly too general in most respects.

Lane Control

Top, mid, or bottom lane, it's important to control the minion wave. Push too much, and you find yourself overextended at the enemy tower, or zoned out of experience range. Don't push at all, and you find yourself frantically competing with your tower for last hits.
Here we will describe a variety of different ways to interact with the minion wave, when each is useful, and why.

Freezing

Freezing the wave is accomplished by keeping a few more enemy minions alive than friendly minions, each time a minion wave arrives, and keeping the enemy minions away from your tower. Freezing, as the name implies, stops the wave where it is; it will not push towards your tower, or away. Since you are the only one hitting the minions, it is important that you keep more enemy minions alive than friendly ones, so that they push ever so slightly, which you counteract with damage from last hits.
Freezing is a great method for denying experience and gold to your opponent. (in top and bottom lanes) Freezing the wave at your first tower forces your opponent to extend a lot to get last hits, which makes them vulnerable to ganks (this is less true in middle lane). Additionally, if you have a strong laning presence, you can zone your opponent completely away from your minions and their delicious experience.
Freezing at your second tower is even more effective, since your opponent will be ridiculously overextended, and the implicit threat of your jungler will zone him further.

However, freezing comes at a price. You have no vision or control over the rest of the lane as long as you freeze, which leaves your opponent free to roam and gank, or get his jungler in for a bush gank. Be aware of opponents with strong map presence if you plan to freeze, and warn your other laners.

Pushing
Pushing is simply hitting minions as often as possible, with as much damage as you can, while still getting last hits. Many champions have AOE skills that are useful for pushing.
Pushing is the opposite of freezing. Rather than stopping the wave, you're sending it straight to the enemy tower. Pushing serves a few major purposes.

Denying Gold
Some laners do not have the ability to tank minions for extended periods, or clear them quickly. Against these opponents, pushing forces them to last hit under tower, which can be quite difficult (depending on the skill of your opponent, and their selected champion). Champions like Kassadin, LeBlanc, Katarina, Warwick, and Yorick are vulnerable to pushing, and have some difficult last hitting under tower (especially if you harass them)

Removing enemy lane presence
When you push the wave to the enemy tower, your opponent is stuck there. If they leave, they miss an enormous amount of experience and gold. This leaves you free to do all sorts of other things.
You could back, buy items, return to lane missing next to no experience, and dominate your opponent with item advantage (and being fully healed)
You could roam to another lane, and gank them.
You could fight over Dragon.
You could go into the enemy (or your own) jungle and kill some minions.
Superlative pushers like Mordekaiser can often steal both teams' Wraith camps, with wards, and amass a giant experience and gold lead that way.

Applying lane pressure
When the enemy is away from the lane, pushing forces them to return, or risk having their tower taken (and losing tons of gold and experience to the tower). If the enemy is dead, or backed, doing this punishes them pretty effectively; this is why you push after killing your lane opponents, if doing so is safe. Sometimes you can also bait your opponents into staying, to get one more last hit; this opens up the possibility of tower diving.

Resetting the wave
Forcing the minion wave into tower means it will push back towards you, since the tower kills minions quickly. If you lost control of the wave, and you want it back, you can push hard to recover. Be warned that if your opponent can push as effectively, this can backfire; he can freeze the wave at his tower.

Manage the Wave
Managing the wave is as simple as countering your opponent's lane pressure, and understanding how to most effectively prevent them from getting gold or experience.
Some champions are really bad at this. Champions who cannot push effectively, or cannot tank minions, are vulnerable to pushing, and cannot push back. Others, like Singed, are very effective pushers, and so can choose to push, or to let the wave be stuck near their tower, depending on the matchup.
If you're playing a champion that cannot push, learn to last hit under tower, because it's going to happen a lot. If you can push... if you can zone your opponent out of experience, it's most effective to freeze the wave near your tower for as long as possible. Stand in the middle of the enemy minions, last hit, and stop your opponent from getting closer.
If you can't zone your opponent, you want to wreck their ability to last hit. If they are poor pushers, push them to tower, and roam. If they are also good pushers, or at least on par with you, you have a standoff; the lane will be decided by ganks, harass, and other skills.
Generally, you want to keep the wave thin. If your opponent has massively more minions than you do, you cannot trade effectively with him, since minions will hurt you an enormous amount. If you have more minions than your opponent, you are probably immune to harass, but the wave will push his way, and last hitting against a dozen caster minions is hard. Whether this is good or bad depends on if you're concerned about him zoning you, or if you want to roam or go back.

Make sure to take opportunities. If you aren't paying attention to the wave, or your careful freeze is ruined by your jungler, check if you need to spend gold, or if other lanes are overextended. You could push and roam. Did your opponent leave? Smash the wave into his tower.

[TechnOkami]

I am SO curious as to what the annoying comment was.
SO curious.

The enemy team trying to compensate for their horrific loss by saying something vulgar and riddled with swear words. It was a single phrase, and I didn't feel that showing it on GitP was appropriate.

[Lix Lorn]

Fair enough. Thanks.

[Maeglin_Dubh]

I'm doing pretty well with the new girl using a mix of Doran's, Brutalizers, Wriggles', and Bloodthirsters. Boots tend to be defensive, since CC is not her friend.

I'm doing -really- well, though. Is she broken, or have people not figured out how to stop her yet? There was one on each enemy team I've played against as well, and I always outplayed them, despite having a 1v2 lane each time (nobody jungles anymore... )

[fred dref]

(nobody jungles anymore... )

I've noticed a direct correlation between low-Elo games/non-arranged 5 games, and a lack of junglers.

[ex cathedra]

I'm doing pretty well with the new girl using a mix of Doran's, Brutalizers, Wriggles', and Bloodthirsters. Boots tend to be defensive, since CC is not her friend.

I'm doing -really- well, though. Is she broken, or have people not figured out how to stop her yet? There was one on each enemy team I've played against as well, and I always outplayed them, despite having a 1v2 lane each time (nobody jungles anymore... )

She seems alright to me. Her E is really easily nullified and her R has woefully short range. On the other hand, if you aren't interrupted she pumps out respectable DPS and her ulti is just really strong. QQRD just slays single targets. Her numbers are all mostly solid, really. I don't feel like she's distinctly on either side of the power spectrum. I'm not really digging the glass cannon build, personally, and so I find that generic bruiser builds (Phage + Wit's End all day err day) suit me just fine.

The main issue with giving her the Riven (BT-BT-GA) treatment is that she scales really well with crit and thus Atma's lends itself especially well to her.

[Ivellius]

The biggest problem I can see with Fiora is her sustain. It seems like her passive makes her pretty hard to move out of a lane unless she's against someone with high burst.

That's said with no experience in playing with/against her, mind, just watching some GuardsmanBob streams. But I dunno.

[ex cathedra]

Her passive at level 1 is ~7 HP/5. Her passive at level 18 is ~ 21 HP/5. That's not a great deal. Her sustain is weaker than Irelia's and Nasus' at pretty much every level.