1. Introduction 2. Change Log 3. About This Guide 4. Roam Characters 5. Roam Items 6. Seven Deadly Sins 7. Armor vs Health 8. Thank You

BLGRNT BUILDS

I've been playing Vainglory casually since around 1.6 when Rona was released. I've always been a fan of VGF guides and they've helped me a lot through the game. I never felt my understanding of the game was good enough to create build guides, I just played.

I started collecting stats and compiled ways to understand the game, and what effects the builds truly have. Hopefully that will translate well to my build guides. I'm not a pro player, but I think I am pretty good with analysis, and I think my guides will contribute to other players enjoying the game further. If you've read my guides before you'll be familiar with the format. I try to keep them all similar, so enjoy!

A final note on my guides and guides in general: The author of any guide has a particular play style. I am no different. My guides reflect my play style. They won't fit everyone's style. Typically for my builds I look for different ways to build characters. There isn't a reason to repeat the same stuff over and over, but mostly I look for what works for me. So understand these guides may not reflect the typical thought process towards a character.

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Welcome to BLG3RNT BUILDS: Roam

No changes yet

Why did I want to create this guide?

Roam is easily my favorite position. Part of that came from the acquired taste. I solo queue a lot and I grew tired of constantly ending up with unbalanced teams because I would pick quickly and then no one wants to roam. Lets be honest, it isn't the most prestigious position in the game. After all it's the k/d that gets you noticed. Ending a game 14/1/5 feels much better to most people than going 1/5/14. So I ended up roaming a lot and I acquired the taste.

But my love for the position goes beyond that. I grew up in a competitive team sport environment, and participated all through high school in competitive sports. I was never the biggest, the fastest, or the most talented, but I could excel in specific areas. For me it's always been about the W, not the stats. The running back doesn't gain 1000 yards rushing in a season without the offensive line (unless they are Barry Sanders), but the running back gets the glory.

It's my belief that the roam position, while not having flashy stats, makes or breaks the team. As I write this about a match I recently watched which included Team Phoenix Reborn, where R3cKeD single handedly turned the tide of the game from the roam position, with a play that easily ended up being the main factor in their win, in which he stole the Kraken with Phinn's Forced Accord.

There's no stat for that though is there? But in so many other ways than just spectacular plays like this. When you watch the pros play you see amazing plays made by the jungle or lane player, and many times they happen because their roam triggered a Crucible at the right time, or used Fountain of Renewal at the precise moment. I know for me personally when I lane I like to be aggressive - as I can often push the enemy laner against the turret or push him close for the kill, but if my roam isn't providing me with vision in the bushes either I can't be aggressive, I have to waste resources on my own vision, or I get ganked and loose all of the progress I've made by being aggressive.

Too often I play with roam players who steal the minions in the jungle, or come to help in the lane, but then proceed to steal minion kills in the lane. I see roam players who don't build any team oriented items, don't provide enough vision, or a plethora of other Roam Sins.

Do I think this guide will change the landscape of the roam position, no. I'm not fooled into thinking these guides are that powerful. Hopefully, though there are a few players out there who will take something away from my opinion of how to roam.

This guide strays from my typical guides in that I'm not offering a specific character build. Instead all I've done is offer my preferred skill order above. With few exceptions, I find myself, and I've also seen in the recent PAX 16 championship matches, that for the most part the items used on roams are very limited. There aren't many tricky builds, there's no magical formula of items. So in this guide I plan to examine the roam characters (which I still think should be called support, because EVERYONE roams), examine the items that are available for roamers, and discuss some tactics. This guide will be just as information heavy as my other guides, but in a much different format.

Adagio is one of the few roam characters that I place into the other category. His best composition isn't going to use most of the items listed in this guide. Instead you'll use mostly CP items like Shatterglass & Clockwork to buff his abilities. You'll in turn use Gift of Fire & Agent of Wrath to buff your carry(s). He's not really a tank type support. You could tank him up, but then you are missing out on his true advantage. He is only average in health, being ranked 4th out of the 8 characters I'm covering in this guide in health stats.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

Ardan is easily my favorite roam character. He seems to have fallen out of favor as of 1.20 as players are more and more going towards Phinn, Lance, and Lyra it seems, but with TSM winning the Summer Championship I think FlashX really displayed how effective a good Ardan can be. I feel he is the most versatile roamer. Julia's Gift gives him an innate tankiness, Vanguard protects your allies including a movement buff, Gauntlet can zone the enemy team for AOE skills, and Blood for Blood makes Ardan an effective combatant. It isn't unusual for me to have matches where I lead the team in kills, while still playing the roam position appropriately.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

It wasn't too long ago that it felt like Catherine was the pick for roam. She can be extremely tanky with her built in shield ability, and let's be honest, few things are more fun than watching the opponents kill themselves because they are attacking an overdriven Stormguard. However, now she feels weaker, because players are learning how to counter her, and there are simply just better options most of the time. Her Merciless Pursuit can make players waste an ultimate like Verse of Judgement or Dragon Breath, but now many players are learning to wait to see her use Merciless Pursuit before triggering their ultimates.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

Fortress is probably the most underrated, underused, and misunderstood roam in the current meta. I suspect that is because at first glance all of his abilities are offensive in nature. It's easy to say that he buffs only himself with Attack of the Pack, and all of his other abilities are attacks in nature. In fact his stats also back this up. He has the second highest base damage in the game (only Lance has more), and he has the second fastest base attack speed (only Vox is faster). He also has the highest base movement. In fact I see a lot of Fortress being used as a jungler quite often these days. Fortress' strength lies in chaos, and initiation. He protects his team through distraction rather than buff, and during a fight he is quite capable in dealing damage. With Fortress you want to initiate with Truth of the Tooth and then cause mass chaos with Attack of the Pack. Most enemies will immediately start fighting the wolves (who do more damage than it seems, especially with the bleeding they apply), or they will retreat. Attack of the Pack also works extremely well for vision. In a situation where you don't know where the enemy is, or do you want to check and see if they are far enough to take the gold mine or kraken while providing a distraction the other team needs to deal with at the same time? Attack of the Pack will search out and reveal every opponent on the minimap.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

glavie may fall in the other category of roamers, simply because he's better suited to be a jungler. However, if you look at glavie closer he is a viable roam. He has the second highest health stat, only Lance is higher at level 12. With Afterburn he can easily control the battlefield by slamming fleeing opponents back into his teammates, or by knocking an enemy away from a fleeing teammate. He can also provide ridiculous harass to the laner (how many times have we all been ganked by a Glaive Afterburn right?) by pushing an enemy laner into his teams laner and turret.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

Lance is becoming very popular as a roam character. I believe this is due mostly to his damage ability. Lance not only has the highest health at level 12, he also has the highest base damage. For me Lance is my second preference only to Ardan. Impale + Gythian Wall combo can spell doom for many characters. I also like Lance because he has potential to play every position (though somewhat limited in the lane, he's very similar to a Blackfeather type laner), which means if your laner goes down it's very easy for you to hold the lane until they return. Lance's weakness is that if you match up against a Phinn your kit is almost completely useless against that character since you can't root him with Impale or push/stun him with Gythian Wall

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

What can I say about Lyra that I haven't already? I have the highest rated Lyra guide on VGF. She is easily the strongest healer in the game. Her Imperial Sigil makes Adagio's Gift of Fire look like a band-aid, not to mention it functions as a ward revealing anyone in the bushes. The only reason I don't call her my favorite roamer is that I prefer her in the lane. Over and over during the PAX 16 Summer Championships I heard the analysts say she wasn't strong in the lane when players would try to use her there. I say they are wrong, but I don't play on that level, so what do I know? Lyra's down fall as a roamer is that she has hideous health, the 3rd lowest in the game only behind Celeste and Petal. She's not a tank, she's much like Adagio in that she must support from a distance, and if she gets jumped she has no escape. Yes, yes I know you'll say Arcane Passage is an escape, but the enemy can use your portal also and so it's kinda pointless. (I wish they'd include some type of damage, even if small, if enemy players use your portal).

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

Phinn seems to be the most popular support pick in the current meta. I don't recall many matches during the summer championships where Phinn wasn't involved unless he was banned. His heroic perk Unstoppable negates so many other character abilities. He basically eliminates Lance's kit, and I could go on and on about other characters who just have no answer for this perk. Forced Accord might just be the bane of my existence when playing against him, and once it reaches overdrive the cooldown is so ridiculously small he can throw it out an ungodly amount of times. With the overdrive he can use Forced Accord about 3 times during the cooldown of Crucible. Then consider that a Quibble shot on overdrive has the potential to stun the entire team at once, you can understand why Phinn is such a formidable roam.

Lore:

Hero Spotlight:

Abilities:

Synergy:

As it goes, roam kits are typically very similar no matter who they are built on. So rather than talk about specific builds, let's just look at the items you should be thinking about, and what their strengths truly are.

Must Have Items

Fountain of Renewal

Passive: Lifespring Active: Heals you and nearby allies for 2 health for each % missing health per second for 3 seconds. (60s cooldown) +200 Max Health +75 Shield +30 Armor (Heal is especially powerful on allies who are almost dead.)

This is a must item for every roam character. There wasn't one match in the summer championships in which the roam didn't build Fountain of Renewal. More to the point in nearly every case this was the first tier 3 item build by the roam. I'd say only Adagio and Lyra could get away with not building this item first, but they should still build it. If you don't build Fountain of Renewal and you don't master the timing of when to use it, you will never realize the roam position.

Crucible

Activate: Trigger Reflex Block for you and nearby teammates. (45s cooldown) +600 Max Health (Protect your friends with Reflex Block!)

This is another must item for every roam character. First of all it's the single greatest health boost in the game. As a roam you should be able to soak up damage. Second, you need to master the timing of using Crucible especially when facing someone like Phinn and his Forced Accord which is probably the single greatest reason this item is used in the current meta. But there are many abilities this can be used to counter like Verse of Judgement to avoid the stun capability.

War Treads

Pasive: +0.4 move speed. (Does not stack with other boots.) Passive: Travel. Activate: Grant a sprint to all nearby teammates for 2 seconds (60s cooldown). +500 Max Health (Help your entire team engage the enemy team or flee from battle.)

This is the final must have item for every roam character. Again max health. This is the second largest health increase from an item in the game. You are going to build boots, these are the boots you need.

Note: In the PAX 16 Summer Championship these three items were almost exclusively the first 3 items of every roam player.

Now we can get on to the option portion of the roam item kit.

Optional Items

Atlas Pauldron

+85 Armor +35 Shield Active: Reduces attack speed of nearby enemies by 65% for 5 seconds in a 4-meter range. Does not reduce below the base attack speed animation. (15s cooldown) (Counters enemies with high attack speed, but you must get close to the enemies to affect them.)

This is nearly a must have item. It is especially effective against characters like Krul, Rona, and Glaive. On occasion I have built this first if facing one of these characters typically known for attack speed based melee builds. However, because there are a couple situations where this item may not be necessary, and a couple characters ( Lyra & Adagio) who shouldn't be close enough to use this, I leave it out of the must have section. Keep in mind the active on this can effect more than one enemy if close enough, and its effects are applied for the entire team.

Aegis

Activate: Reflex Block (35s cooldown) +125 Shield +30 Armor +200 Max Health (Greatly reduces damage from enemy abilities.)

This is the main tier 3 item to counter crystal builds ( Fountain of Renewal is also a strong shield item). Depending on your opponents and your resources you may choose not to build to tier 3 defenses. There was a match in particular at PAX 16 where a Phinn facing a team entire composed of crystal power builds chose to build Fountain of Renewal and 3 Kinetic Shields which is a ridiculous 300 shield.

Metal Jacket

+170 Armor +35 Shield (Armor reduces damage from basic attacks.)

This should almost never be prioritized over Atlas Pauldron. As a roam your job is to protect your team. Atlas Pauldron accomplishes that, Metal Jacket does not. If facing a WP heavy team you may choose to build both. Personally I think Lyra & Adagio could be the exceptions to that rule, as with those two roamers you don't want to be in the middle of the fight. However, chances are you will eventually be jumped or pulled into the fray, and thus you may choose to go with Atlas Pauldron anyways.

Note: It is very common as a roam to never reach tier 3. This depends on the length of your match. In the recent summer championships it was quite common to see multiple tier 2 items built instead of a single tier 3.

Utility

Contraption

Active: Target yourself to place a Scout Trap. Target the ground farther away to fire a Flare. 3 charges max. 20s per charge. +350 Health +40% Cooldown Speed +3 Energy Recharge (A great way to save inventory space while still being able to control vision.)

At pax it was far more common for the roamers to buy Flares and Scout Traps than to build Contraption. I personally typically prefer to build this item. The stats synchronize very well with roam players. There are only 2 tier 3 items that have a greater health increase, and they are in the must have section of the items. This provides the exact same amount of cooldown as Clockwork, and the energy recharge is the 3rd best in the game. I've seen many roam players build Clockwork for cooldown (note: that without any other crystal items Clockwork provides no crystal power), when instead they could be roam friendly items that are very similar in stats. My only issue with Contraption is you can't fire a flare directly above you, which sometimes (trying to locate a Taka or Kestrel) can be useful.

Stormcrown

Passive: Basic attacks deal 50-150 (level 1-12) bonus true damage per second to non-heroes, 20% to heroes +30% Cooldown Speed +4 Energy Recharge +200 Health (Substantially increases your damage to objectives.)

A sometimes misunderstood item. I recently (at the time of this writing) commented on a thread on this very site about Stormcrown. First, let's look at the passive. This gives you true damage which means that armor and shields do not effect that number. At level 12 you're dealing 150 true damage to non-heroes (turrets, gold mine, kraken, minions). Without taking into effect what shield/armor turrets & minions have, that 150 true damage is more than the base damage of Catherine, Ardan, Adagio, and Lyra. That's significant when trying to take down an objective.

Even if you don't care about that, let's look at what else you are gaining. This item has the second best cooldown percentage, the second best energy recharge in the game, and the same amount of bonus health that you gain from Fountain of Renewal. I recommend building Stormguard Banner quickly, and then waiting until later to build fully to tier 3 if choosing this item.

Shiversteel

Activate: For the next 4 (6 if you are melee) seconds, your basic attacks slow the target by 40% for 1.2 seconds. (18s cooldown) +500 Max Health (Use this to slow fleeing enemies.)

This is somewhat of a luxury pick. It does offer 500 health, but unless your team is quite far ahead, your resources are probably better spent somewhere else. I did notice a few builds in the PAX 16 summer championships that included Shiversteel, namely FlashX, and both times I recall him choosing to build it his team was quite far ahead. Then this item just adds insult to injury when you are already winning the team fights, and now you add the slow to make it even harder to escape.

Power
Power items generally aren't used with roam, and we will discuss why shortly. That being said I'm going to include a couple power items that I think find great synergy with a few of the characters.

Aftershock

After using an ability, your next basic attack deals 15% of your target's max health as damage with +50% lifesteal. Max 400 damage vs non-heroes. 1.5 second cooldown. +25% Cooldown Speed +2.5 Energy Recharge +35 Crystal Power (Very effective against enemies with high health.)

Tension Bow

+8% Armor Pierce +45 Weapon Power Passive: Every 6 seconds, your next basic attack will deal 180 bonus damage. (Ann effective way to surprise enemies with a sudden burst of damage.)

Both of these items do essentially the same thing for Roams, which is give them a quick burst of damage. Now, Tension Bow can synergize with any of the roamers decently because it's just a timed passive. Personally I think Aftershock synergizes very well with Ardan, Fortress, and Glaive. Blood for Blood, Truth of the Tooth, and Afterburn respectively, are all abilities with built in basic attacks. So while with Aftershock you have to cast an ability and then perform a basic attack to trigger the passive, with Blood for Blood, Truth of the Tooth, and Afterburn the effect will be instantly applied (this is assuming you land the stun attack with Afterburn). The other aspect to this is that all three of those roamers are already naturally offense oriented.

Bonesaw

On Hit: Your basic attacks shred 6% of the target's armor for 3 seconds. Max 8 stacks. +15 Weapon Power +50% Attack Speed (Effective against turrets and enemies with high armor. Best if you or your team are already dealing lots of weapon damage.)

This is probably the most rare item to be used on this list. Chances are you will have another player on your team carrying it. I only include it because it's armor shred is an effect that benefits the entire team. If you find yourself in a situation where your opponents are build very heavy armor protection, this may be a consideration for you. You probably can't fit it into your build at a useful stage of the game, but it is a team oriented item that could be used situationally. Just keep it in mind.

Alright. This is the section that inspired this entire guide. This is a collection of things I see roamers do wrong a lot.


Sin # 1 Farming. As a roam it isn't your job to farm. Even if your lane or jungle respawning or shopping. If your jungle is down, then move to the lane to support there, or vice versa. This doesn't mean you can't help attack them, but don't take the last hits. The pros understand this. Let me show you a few examples if you think I'm crazy.

In this short video clip you will see FlashX( Ardan) holding the lane while Lyra returns. He's not attack minions, instead he's standing far enough away so that the minions aren't attacked by the turret and letting them attack him so they are still there for the laner.

Need more proof? Here are screenshots of the final stats in the three games of championship match. You see roams on both sides never have even as high as a 20 CS score (CS stands for creep score, which are how many minions you scored a last hit on).

Note: the final screenshot looks a little different because they didn't show us the final stats, they were cutting to the celebration instead, so it's from the in game stats during the final attack on the vain crystal.


Sin # 2 Lack of vision. Strategy and protection lead to wins. Vision provides both. Use Scout Traps and Flares please! When playing in the lane nothing sucks worse than owning the other teams laner, and then getting ganked because you had no vision provided by your roam. Don't make your carry positions be responsible for vision. At the very least you should be using flares and regularly rotating.

I personally put Scout Traps everywhere. More often than not I build Contraption, so I want as many placed as possible. I've put together a few screenshots to show you some of my favored trap locations. The goal is to place them in a location they won't get triggered (ghost traps), because you just want to see the enemy, you don't need them to explode.

Back Camp Areas


Mid Camp Areas


Shop/Gold Mine


Jungle-to-Lane


Lane Brush


Gold Mine


Base Location


Sin # 3 Being overly aggressive. Now, I'm not saying don't participate. Not at all. This sin applies mainly to Lance, Phinn, and Glaive. Any roam character that has an ability that moves the enemy player. To often Lance players don't think, they just try to deal damage, and they end up Gythian Walling someone away from the damage. The only time this is acceptable is if you know they are going to escape, and none of your teammates can make a play, and you want to get one last attack in. Or you end up grabbing someone with Forced Accord and pulling them out of the way of a perfectly aimed Death From Above. There are many examples. Use your abilities to set up your teammates, not just to use them.

Sin # 4 Fountain of Renewal & Crucible. To be a truly great roam you have to master the timing of Fountain of Renewal. Use it too soon it's not as powerful. Use it too late and your teammates die.

Don't use crucible as a personal Reflex Block unless necessary. As a roam you can probably withstand some damage. You are looking for team saves with Crucible. Save your team from a Forced Accord or Verse of Judgement, AOE abilities, etc. Crucible has a 45 second cooldown. The team fight will be over before it cools down.

Sin # 5 Tunnel vision. As a roam your goal is to be the quarterback. You need to see everything that's happening to everyone. You need to watch the action with your teammates closer than you watch the action with yourself. It is likely the other team will focus your lane and/or jungle rather than you. You need to be ready to protect them with Crucible, or an ability like Vanguard, or heal them with Fountain of Renewal.

Sin # 6 Don't leave your wingman.

Perhaps at some point you've wondered the same thing I have. Is it more beneficial to build health or armor? I think we can probably agree that both are needed. After all, all of the pros build plenty of armor, and when it comes to the roam position you are already giving yourself 1300 bonus health if you build the 3 items I listed as must build items and that's like walking around with Petal strapped to your chest (1346 health at level 12).

So. If you're like me you still want to understand this question better. After all perhaps you want to experiment with your builds. Perhaps you want to know if building a Shiversteel (+500 health) is better than building a meatal jacket (+170 armor) after you've built the necessities.

Now if you are a stat junky like me read on. If you just want to know the answer and really don't care about why click below:


Okay there are a ridiculous number of variables that could go into this. Let's pull aside all of the stats and simply look at how a particular build does against a particuluar item, because that's really what we are talking about here, right?

Let's use Sorrowblade as our damage. +150 WP.

Since this is a roam guide let's give you 1642 health which is the average health of the roam characters.

Ok now. If we build that Shiversteel the math is easy. 1642+500=2142 health - 150 damage leaves us at 1992 health.

If we build that Metal Jacket we run a few calculations and we figure out that that 150 WP is reduced to about 56 damage and so our 1642 turns into 1586.

So let's build a Shiversteel! Hang on. When was the last time you were hit with just one attack and cared? I believe to really understand this we need to go further.

So, let's divide our health by the damage being done and see which version of us will live longer.

2142/150=14.28 so it will take 15 hits to kill us.
1642/56=29.32 so it will take 30 hits to kill us.

Still want that Shiversteel?

But you also have to remember that you cannot become invincible, and so you have to grasp the idea of diminishing returns. Otherwise we'd just build 3 metal jackets and 3 Aegis and all run around slapping each other with limp noodles because no one would ever die. Armor and Shield reduce a percentage of the damage. As long as that's true you can never rid yourself of the damage. I could get into a bunch of what if scenarios, but I think it's easier to explain it like this.

We just determined that a single Metal Jacket cut down the 150 damage of Sorrowblade to 56 damage. So that's a reduction of 94. So is we add another reduction of 94 that eliminates the damage done from Sorrowblade right? So let's build another. The truth is if you build a second Metal Jacket in this scenario the damage falls from 56 to 34.

So the reality is you negated about 1 point of damage for every 22 gold spent on your first Metal Jacket.
You only negated 1 point of damage for every 96 gold spent on the second Metal Jacket. Not nearly as efficient is it?

So after all the great stats we understand that you truly need both Armor and Health, but Because there is diminishing return on Armor and shield, if you already have an armor & a shield item built you are probably better off choosing another health item.

Thank you for reading my roam build guide. If you enjoyed it, please consider giving it an up vote. If you are familiar with my other guides then you know you can expect more content to be added to this guide. Stay tuned.

I hope this build guide has helped you better understand the roam position. I genuinely would love any feedback you might have for my guide. If you have any questions on this guide, the stats and calculations, or would like me to run through any scenarios leave a comment and let me know. I will do my best to answer as many as I can, though as I said earlier I can't handle every single scenario this amazing game can produce.

~BLG3RNT