Violet: Bring Guns to a Knife Fight

Build and Guide Violet: Bring Guns to a Knife Fight

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build

Concussive Rounds > Fire in the Hole > Tactical Fire (First point should go into Tactical Fire!)

Recommended Talents

Flicker, Heal, Purify

Items

The Beast, War Boots, Claves Sancti, Slikk's String, Muramasa, Fenrir's Tooth

Arcana

Blitz, Assassinate, Skewer

Introduction
Violet is a marksman proficient in mobility and trading blows with other heroes. In lane, you can expect Violet to spam her Tactical Fire to hit you at a distance, not allowing you to retaliate.  However, this doubles as her best form of escape, so if you’re playing as Violet, be careful using it against people who excel at catching heroes without any form of ranged escape. Example: If you use it in a lane with Thane, he will probably instantly engage unless you are far ahead.

Skill Build
Concussive Rounds, Fire in the Hole, Tactical Fire (The first point should go into Tactical Fire!)

Concussive Rounds is nothing more than a hard-hitting skill shot with good range. What makes this an ult is the fact that its cast extremely quickly and gives no real downsides to Violet. She doesn’t have to stand still for some cast time or anything. We level this first, as it gains a bonus +100 damage every level and a 5-second cool down reduction. 600 damage every 20 seconds is a good way to both start and end a team fight with that kind of cool down.

We level Fire in the Hole before Tactical Fire, even though Tactical Fire is the better ability. The reasoning is that Tactical Fire only gains 30 damage per level and nothing else. Fire in the Hole gains damage and cooldown reduction. Now this ability is a short range, small AOE that slows enemies hit for 90% for one second. It’s a great way to either escape or catch up to an enemy. However, I wouldn't say I’d trade blows with it. It takes 30 more mana than Tactical Fire and doesn't even do half the damage. Just use Tactical Fire safely and level this first. When maxed, it goes from a 10 second cooldown to 6.

Tactical Fire is the ability Violet will be using a majority of the game. It gives you a huge damage boost on your next shoot, and increased range. The subsequent shot afterwards keeps the range buff as well, making this a great way of exchanging blows with enemy heroes. If enemy heroes are nearby after Violet rolls, she gains a 50% movement speed buff for 2 seconds. This ability allows you to roll through terrain and resets your attack cooldown, allowing for 2 rapid attacks.

Your passive Reload reduces your Tactical Reload by 0.5 seconds each normal attack.

Recommended Talents
Flicker, Heal, Purify

Flicker is going to be a good ability regardless of who you are playing. Any ability that causes you to get out of a bad situation instantly for free is good. Just be sure you are good enough at controlling the direction you blink towards, and learn its range. It can get you over most walls, but not all of them.

Heal is great for anyone who spends time in a lane with someone else. Considering ranged carries usually have some form of support, this ability is right up your alley. However, if the support takes it you can always grab something else. However, the support is probably better taking Daze if they are close to the enemy carry. This talent heals you 15% of your max health and you gain 15% movement speed for 2 seconds.

Purify is great for carries. The enemy will do everything they can to lock you down both in and out of fights. Use Purify to stop that from happening. Purify is a 120-second cooldown that removes all debuffs and control effects on yourself and gains immunity to them for 1.5 seconds.

Items
The Beast, War Boots, Claves Sancti, Slikk's String, Muramasa, Fenrir's Tooth

Start with boots and rush Bloodied Club. This will allow us some sustain before we get The Beast finished and have our lovely 25% lifesteal.

War Boots for obvious reasons-- more attack speed means more damage and Tactical Fires.

Get Claves Sancti before Slikk's, in my opinion. I prefer the additional +100 attack damage over attack speed to buff my Tactical Fires damage early.

If you went Claves first, rush Slikk's-- if not, finish Claves.

Arcana
Blitz, Assassinate, Skewer

A good mix of stats Violet uses across the board. Attack speed and crit chance from reds. Attack damage and movement speed from purples. Attack damage and armor pierce from greens.

If you couldn’t afford one, I’d have at least 1% crit chance in reds. Other than that, feel free to place anything with Attack Damage. Purple can easily be swapped with anything giving attack speed or crit. Green is probably the one you should prioritize. +6.4 armor pierce per is a lot. I am actually surprised you can get this much from Arcana.

Early Game
Early-game Violet should be bot lane, farming and pushing the lane when she can. Due to your roll and good mobility, you can easily escape bad situations like ganks as long as you pay attention. The range increase on Tactical Fire also gives you the ability to trade with almost every ranged carry with no way to take a hit back. This is also true of poking their tower with Tactical Fire! Just be careful not to over extend into the enemy, or roll into them.

This is your strong point in the game. Violet is all about winning lane hard and using that advantage to snowball. You do not scale as well as other carries for free just farming. Kill them and snowball.

Middle Game
I would assume you've taken your tower. If not, do it. Call for help if you need to-- you need to work with your team at this point to take objectives and push other lanes. Your range will help anyone poke down their lane opponent and tower easily.

Late Game
You don't scale as well as other carries, but you can use your abilities to poke and out play them. Violet doesn't gain the same scaling but she makes up for it with her range. Feel free to poke with your roll and ult with your team. Just stay at a safe position. Assuming you won lane hard, the enemy carry should be behind anyways.

FAQ/Tips
Violet’s roll is reduced by .5 seconds every auto attack. This is one of the reasons we rush attack speed as hard as we do. Continue to poke and hit minions and you will find yourself constantly poking the enemy with Tactical Fire.

Tactical Fire will allow you to roll through terrain and some enemy made terrain! You can use this to trick the enemy into chasing you away from your team and rolling into a safe place and rejoining your team.

Matchups
Valhein, Easy

Valhein does not have the range or mobility to deal with you. Tactical Fire is much longer range than anything he has. Beware his support, though-- if Valhein does get within range, he can stun lock you if RNG plays in his favor! (His passive allows for every 4th hit to do a random effect, one of those effects is a stun. You will know if the shuriken above his head is yellow).

Zanis, Easy

Zanis doesn't have many ways to stop you from leaving. So, if you are against a jungle Zanis, just back off until he leaves. Do beware his ult though, it will leap on top of you. So, if you are afraid he will be able to reach you, roll after his ult, not before. Unless you have enough time to get your rolls cooldown low enough that it'll be up after he stuns you that short second.

Yorn, Hard

Remember how you outrange almost every ranged carry? Yorn has a few abilities that allow him to have some impressive damage output and range. You still outrange him with your roll, but with his ability to slow and cast further, you will have some issues.

Batman, Hard

Batman gains movement speed from being near you, can stun you, and will approach stealthed. He's just made to kill you-- and every other carry without a form of escape. This is the kind of character you take flicker against 100% of the time.

Diao Chan, Hard

While in lane she wouldn't be the biggest issue, it's really her team fight that messes with you. She gains a massive amount of armor during her ult as a channel that you cannot cancel due to you not having any form of crowd control. During her ult just get out of its range to avoid damage and shoot someone else.