Full Build Friday - Fiora, the Grand Duelist

I'm still covering the classes released in the Player Core 2, and I've been thinking about this build for a while. I figured it was a good chance to take care of two birds with one stone. As always, this build is conceptualized entirely in a vacuum, with choices made in my best attempt to fit the character. These choice may not hold up in a campaign with different themes and should be adjusted accordingly.

You can check out the video for the character over here on YouTube.

Let's get into the build for Fiora, the Grand Duelist from League of Legends!

FIORA, THE GRAND DUELIST

CHARACTER Fiora Laurent

SOURCE League of Legends

BUILD GOALS

o    A scion of the noble family of Laurent, Fiora claimed the leadership of the household from her father in the wake of a scandal that she caused

o    She seeks to restore her family’s honor and position in Demacia but is also driven by a desire for excellence and worthy opponent

o    In-game, Fiora is classified as a skirmisher, a type of agile melee damage dealer that has situational defenses and powerful sustained damage

o    Her passive is Duelist’s Dance, which identifies Vitals on enemies. Striking a Vital point deals extra damage, heals Fiora, and grants her increased movement speed

o    With her Lunge, she dashes in a target direction and stabs a nearby enemy to deal damage

o    Riposte causes Fiora to enter a defensive stance, denying her actions but preventing incoming damage and crowd control effects. She then strikes in a target direction and stuns enemies if she negated an immobilizing effect

o    Activating Bladework empowers her next two attacks with bonus range and attack speed. The first of these attacks slows the target while the second attack is a guaranteed critical hit

o    Her ultimate is Grand Challenge. Passively, this increases the speed of Duelist’s Dance but it can be activated to mark an enemy with four Vitals. If she triggers at least one vital before the target dies or triggers all four vitals, she creates a victory zone that heals herself and her allies

o    In Legends of Runeterra, she has the Challenger keyword and automatically wins after defeating four enemies

Summary of Goals: Fiora is a masterful duelist who strikes at her enemies’ vulnerabilities with fast footwork, swift swipes, and a parry that can leave enemies stunned. She can single out an enemy to duel her, creating a healing zone if she is able to claim victory over them.

LEVEL 1

Ancestry & Heritage: Ganzi Human

o    Ability Boosts & Flaws: +Dexterity, +Charisma

o    Ancestry Feat: Haughty Obstinacy

Background: Noble

o    Ability Boosts: +Charisma, +Dexterity

o    Skill Increase: Society (trained), Genealogy Lore (trained)

o    Background Feat: Courtly Graces

Class & Subclass: Fencer Swashbuckler

o    Class Ability Boost: +Dexterity

o    Skill Increase: Acrobatics (trained), Athletics (trained), Deception (trained), Intimidation (trained), Medicine (trained), Stealth (trained)

o    Class Feat: Extravagant Parry

Details

o    Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Charisma (Str +1, Dex +4, Con +1, Int +0, Wis +0, Cha +3)

I often default to the human ancestry when a character is a human given their adaptability, but for Fiora, we do specifically want some of its feats, which makes it a bit better of a fit than most. However, she will take the ganzi heritage to hunt for a specific feat down the line. The benefit from this heritage will stack with the use of her Haughty Obstinacy, which fits well with her general personality and alongside her noble background. This obviously reflects her place in House Laurent before we delve into her swashbuckler class. Fiora is League’s ur-example of a swashbuckler and as she seems to be a largely classically trained duelist, she uses the fencer style. A lot of what she needs is provided directly by her class, with a Confident Finisher resembling her striking the vitals created by her Duelist’s Dance. Additionally, even at first level, her stylish combatant class feature comes with a small speed boost to resemble the speed increase that her passive grants her. Rounding out her first level options is Extravagant Parry to enhance her Armor Class. This is a fantastic third action for her that also plays a little bit into the defensive properties of her Riposte.

LEVEL 2

o    Class Feat: Duelist Dedication

o    Skill Feat: Quick Jump

o    Gear: ring of discretion

LEVEL 3

o    General Feat: Fleet

o    Skill Increase: Acrobatics (expert), Deception (expert)

o    Stylish Trick: Cat Fall

o    Gear: +1 rapier, cloak of feline rest, ring of discretion

LEVEL 4

o    Class Feat: Duelist’s Challenge

o    Skill Feat: Rolling Landing

o    Gear: bracelet of dashing, +1 rapier, necklace of knives, ring of discretion

LEVEL 5

o    Ability Boosts: +Dexterity, +Intelligence, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +1, Dex +4.5, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +4)

o    Ancestry Feat: Natural Ambition

o    Class Feat: You’re Next

o    Skill Increase: Performance (trained), Society (expert)

o    Gear: +1 striking rapier, bracelet of dashing, ventriloquist’s ring, necklace of knives, cloak of feline rest, ring of discretion

Obviously, the Grand Duelist would take the Duelist Dedication, but her main reason for doing so is so that she can actually pick up Duelist’s Challenge. This ability to call out a target and deal extra damage to them, which will stack with her precise strike’s damage, is intended to represent her Grand Challenge. This is merely an initial foray into the concept, representing the damage inflicted by the ring of vitals that she creates around her target. Other aspects will be explored through other feats. With the new and improved stylish tricks ensuring that Fiora has scaling Acrobatics or style skill, which is Deception for her, she will eventually be investing in Intimidation so uses Natural Ambition during this block to take You’re Next so that she can threaten a foe after defeating one. However, between this, Rolling Landing, and Opportune Riposte coming in, she may be a bit starved for reactions so be sure to use them wisely. Quick Jump resembles the way that her Lunge allows her to leap over walls and Fleet stacks with her vivacious speed to further resemble the speed boost from Duelist’s Dance. As mentioned, this block comes with Opportune Riposte, which doesn’t quite match her Riposte ability itself but does let her take advantage of enemies that heedlessly and foolishly attack her.

LEVEL 6

o    Class Feat: Reactive Strike

o    Skill Feat: Leverage Connections

o    Gear: +1 leather, +1 striking rapier, demon mask, bracelet of dashing, necklace of knives, Jack’s tattered cape

LEVEL 7

o    General Feat: Incredible Initiative

o    Skill Increase: Acrobatics (master), Deception (master)

o    Stylish Trick: Kip Up

o    Gear: choker of elocution, +1 leather, bravery baldric (fleet), +1 striking rapier, bracelet of dashing, ventriloquist’s ring

LEVEL 8

o    Class Feat: Stunning Finisher

o    Skill Feat: Confabulator

o    Gear: venomed tongue, choker of elocution, cassisian helmet, +1 leather, +1 striking rapier, demon mask

LEVEL 9

o    Ancestry Feat: Glory and Valor!

o    Skill Increase: Society (master)

o    Gear: +1 resilient leather, ash gown, venomed tongue, choker of elocution, arboreal boots, +1 striking rapier

LEVEL 10

o    Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Charisma (Str +2, Dex +5, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +4.5)

o    Class Feat: Targeting Finisher

o    Skill Feat: Slippery Prey

o    Gear: thunderblast slippers, +1 resilient leather, shock weapon rune, venomed tongue, choker of elocution, +1 striking rapier

If enemies ignore Fiora and instead try to go after her allies, she can punish them with Reactive Strike, ensuring that her reaction doesn’t go to waste. She’ll follow it up with Stunning Finisher to represent the stun that she can dish out with her Riposte, meaning that she can use Extravagant Parry on a turn, hopefully avoid an attack with it, and then immediately follow it up with Stunning Finisher to really match the ability. She also takes Targeting Finisher with particular intent to target the legs to represent the slow of Bladework’s first attack. She takes some social skills with Leverage Connections letting her exploit the full weight of the Laurent family name and Confabulator making it easier for her to do multiple Create a Diversions against the same target since that grants her panache. Naturally, she uses her stylish trick for Kip Up as the best Acrobatics skill feat and Slippery Prey makes it harder to pin down – a bit inspired by her Riposte letting her avoid immobilizing effects. A very important feat in this block comes from her ganzi heritage, with Glory and Valor allowing her to gain some form of healing by making attacks – just how Duelist’s Dance heals her whenever she hits a vital. This can only be activated once per day, but lasts for a full minute and won’t be the only way to represent this. It just may end up being the truest.

LEVEL 11

o    General Feat: Fast Recovery

o    Skill Increase: Intimidation (expert)

o    Gear: +2 striking rapier, mask of the banshee, thunderblast slippers, +1 resilient leather, bravery baldric (restoration), venomed tongue

LEVEL 12

o    Class Feat: Mobile Finisher

o    Skill Feat: Intimidating Glare

o    Gear: +2 resilient leather, +2 striking rapier, charlatan’s cape, thunderblast slippers, shock weapon rune, crown of the fire eater

LEVEL 13

o    Ancestry Feat: Stubborn Persistence

o    Skill Increase: Intimidation (master)

o    Gear: +2 greater striking rapier, +2 resilient leather, greater ash gown, charlatan’s cape, bravery baldric (haste), thunderblast slippers

LEVEL 14

o    Class Feat: Vivacious Bravado

o    Skill Feat: Skeptic’s Defense

o    Gear: keen weapon rune, +2 greater striking rapier, greater quick runner’s shirt, +2 resilient leather, daredevil boots, charlatan’s cape

LEVEL 15

o    Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Wisdom, +Charisma (Str +3, Dex +5.5, Con +2, Int +1, Wis +2, Cha +5)

o    General Feat: Toughness

o    Skill Increase: Acrobatics (legendary), Deception (legendary)

o    Stylish Trick: Fleeing Diversion

o    Gear: +2 greater resilient leather, greater extending weapon rune, propulsion boots, +2 greater striking rapier, greater ash gown, bravery baldric (greater restoration)

Mobile Finisher more directly reflects the actual effects for Fiora’s Lunge, with a Stride and Strike followed into a single action. She further picks up Vivacious Bravado, which she can use to gain temporary Hit Points whenever she gains panache. This isn’t a heal, but it is meant to represent the healing of Duelist’s Dance through the creation of more Hit Points that enemies have to work through. By this point, she has started to increase her Intimidation and matches that with a few feats, making particular use of Skeptic’s Defense given Demacia’s distrust of magic. Her general feats enhance her survivability with Fast Recovery meant to serve as a stand-in for the health regen of League and Toughness gives her a few more Hit Points since she hasn’t been investing much into her Constitution while being a melee character. The effects of Stubborn Persistence target fatigued but I think this fits her general character as it was part of her own stubbornness that led to the duel against her father.

LEVEL 16

o    Class Feat: Revitalizing Finisher

o    Skill Feat: Battle Cry

o    Gear: greater thunderblast slippers, +2 greater resilient leather, soaring armor rune, greater extending weapon rune, +2 greater striking rapier, greater quick runner’s shirt

LEVEL 17

o    Ancestry Feat: Heroic Presence

o    Skill Increase: Society (legendary)

o    Gear: +3 greater striking rapier, greater shock weapon rune, greater thunderblast slippers, +2 greater resilient leather, greater ring of the ram, greater extending weapon rune

LEVEL 18

o    Class Feat: Parry and Riposte

o    Skill Feat: Terrified Retreat

o    Gear: cloak of swiftness, +3 greater striking rapier, quickstrike weapon rune, greater shock weapon rune, +2 greater resilient armor, greater boots of bounding

LEVEL 19

o    General Feat: Feather Step.

o    Skill Increase: Intimidation (legendary)

o    Gear: +3 greater resilient leather, cloak of swiftness, dread blndfold, +3 greater striking rapier, greater cape of illumination, greater shock weapon rune

LEVEL 20

o    Ability Boosts: +Strength, +Dexterity, +Constitution, +Wisdom (Str +4, Dex +6, Con +3, Int +1, Wis +3, Cha +5)

o    Class Feat: Panache Paragon

o    Skill Feat: Scare to Death

o    Gear: +3 major striking rapier, +3 greater resilient leather, mercurial mantle, dread blindfold, greater ashen weapon rune, greater shock weapon rune

There are two different ways that Fiora can create the healing field of her Grand Challenge. The first is Revitalizing Finisher granting temporary Hit Points as part of a finisher, which might be a bit truer to the actual ability, and the second is Heroic Presence. It’s mostly just nice to have this actually be a fitting feat that matches the character. In the spirit of her Riposte, she’ll take Parry and Riposte, which could be a good argument for taking Inexhaustible Countermeasures as her capstone feat. However, I think it too limiting – I wish it behaved more like Slinger’s Reflexes, especially with how many reactions the swashbuckler can get. Given all that, Panache Paragon seems a better fit for the character, making her permanently quickened and always able to bust out a Feint or a Create a Diversion for a potentially more defensive option. Given the limited usefulness of Acrobatics feats, she’s got most of the good ones, and not wanting much from Deception, she grabs up Intimidation feats for this block with, of course, Scare to Death. The best skill feat in the game. Even with over twenty of them, Fiora is pretty light on her feet, which lends itself to Feather Step for her build.

FREE ARCHETYPE SUGGESTIONS: Fiora can expand on Duelist Dedication further with options such as Watch This to get a bit more damage, Disarming Twist to divest enemies of their weapons, and then possibly Disarming Stance to increase her chance of success on doing so. Alternatively, if Fiora increases her Intelligence by another point, she could use an Investigator Dedication mainly to pick up Investigator’s Stratagem. She can use this to identify vitals and possibly help to identify when to best use a finisher.

BUILD CONCLUSION

Fiora Laurent, the Grand Duelist, is a ganzi human swashbuckler who employs the fencer style. She comes from a noble background and is trying to raise her family to its former glory as seen with her Courtly Graces and Leverage Connections. The various finishers of her swashbuckler class can represent the extra damage dealt by striking the vitals of her Duelist's Dance. The extra speed comes from Fleet as well as the Vivacious Speed class feature enhancing her movement and its healing can come from her Valor and Glory or Vivacious Bravado. She uses a Mobile Finisher to represent her Lunge, dashing and striking an enemy with a deadly blow for a single action. The more defensive aspects of her Riposte come from her Extravagant Parry with the Opportune Riposte creating the following Strike. She expands upon this with Stunning Finisher to have a chance at stunning an enemy as though she had negated an immobilizing effect. Alternatively, if she just wants to slow them down, there is her Targeting Finisher, which also resembles the first strike of her Bladework ability. The second is a guaranteed crit, which we don't quite have in the build though its Keen Flair increases her critical strike range. She represents the targeting of her Grand Challenge through Duelist's Challenge, allowing her to single out a single enemy to inflict extra damage, resembling the vitals that she marks her target with.

This deft duelist dishes out devastating defeats to the degenerates that dare to daunt her, deliberately deciding on a doomed disputant to dedicate her deep damage to.

Let me know what you think and what other builds you would like to see!

If you want to join in on the discussion of these builds and the ones I do for monsters or just hang out with a bunch of fellow TTRPG nerds, check out the Discord server. We also have a Twitter where we try to post teasers for the blog. Next week signals the start of Spooktober and with it, I'm gonna start start a set of builds inspired by classic horror monsters, so look forward to that!

Have a fantastic Friday!