Volibear - The Thunder's Roar (Tankin'bear)

Hello summoners ! Volibear patch has arrived. And with it, of course, Riot has thrown into the field of justice a brand new champion.He has claws, fur, a big heavy armor and he's very angry. No ! Not Warwick. Common will you let me finish? So he's big, furry and angry. His name is Volibear a.k.a. The Thunder's Roar. According to reliable sources (Riot's old and wise story tellers), Volibear was kicking it somewhere in the North of Frejlord with his brother, the tribe's chief. When his brother died, he had to stand up and rule the mighty bear tribe, but like any other heroic story there was a quest that Volibear had to complete in order to gain the respect of his people and leadership of the tribe. So he went to a sacred mountain to speak to the storm itself and get some life experience ! (LoL). When he reached the peak of the mountain he had a vision about a war that would bring the end of his people...bears...whatever.
So he decided to go and change his fate. He formed an alliance with Queen Ashe to join the League of Legends and fight on the Field of Justice.

Anyway, lets get back to the purpose of this post. Volibear can be played as tank or offtank/jungler.
I usually play him as the main tank of the team, getting Warmhog's, Frozen Heart and Sunfire Cap as core items.

Base Stats:

Damage	54	(+3.3 / per level)
Health	440	(+86 / per level)
Mana	220	(+30 / per level)
Move Speed	320
Armor	14	(+3.5 / per level)
Spell Block	30	(+1.25 / per level)
Health Regen	1.4	(+0.13 / per level)
Mana Regen	1.4	(+0.13 / per level)

Masteries: 0-21-9

Defense Tree:

*Resistence 3/3 - because this build stacks more armor than magic resist, so you need to compensate on that.

*Summoner's Resolve improves your Smite, giving you extra 10 gold (if you take smite for jungle) and Heal by 15%. If you dont plan to jungle change it for Hardiness.

*Durability 4/4 and Vigor 3/3 - gives you 6hp/level and 3hp regen/5sec.

*Veteran's scars 1/1 30 bonus hp

*Evasion 2/3 - damage from area effect abilities reduced by 2%

*Initiator 3/3 - increased movement speed by 3% when your HP is over 70%.

*Honor Guard 3/3 - damage reduced by 1.5%. Any damage reduced on a tank is well apreciated.

*Juggernaut 1/1 - 3% more HP and 10% reduced disables duration.

Utility Tree:

*Expanded Mind 3/3 useful 12mana/level

*Good Hands 1/3.

*Swiftness 4/4 bonus 2% Movement speed

*Meditation 1/3  for a little more mana regen or Runic Afinity 1/1 for increasing monster buffs duration.

Runes Choice:
For runes I like to go "tankish", taking 3x Greater Quintessence of Fortitude (78 flat HP), 9x Greater Mark of Warding (8.7 magic resist), 9x Greater Seal of Vitality (175 HP at lvl 18) and 9x Greater Glyph of Shielding (24 magic resist at lvl 18).

Summoner Spells:

I usually go with Exhaust + Flash. This way I have a double slow (exhaust and majestic roar), blind from exhaust (very effective against autoattack champions like Tryndamere). Flash can get you out of trouble if things go wrong or can help you get the kill if u cant reach your enemy in other way.

Another good combo is Heal + Smite if you want to start in jungle.

Skills:

Rolling Thunder is a charge spell. It increases Volibear's movement speed by 45% while moving towards enemy champions (lasts 4 seconds) and flings behind him the first enemy he attacks (like Singed's E skill). Volibear also gains extra damage on his next attack: 25/50/75/100/125 .

Frenzy: Volibear's repeated attacks grant him extra attack speed. Once he has repeatedly attacked 3 times, he can bite his enemy, dealing damage based on the enemy's missing HP.

Passive: Volibear gains 8/11/14/17/20% attack speed with each attack and can stack up to 3 times.

Active: Once Volibear has 3 stacks of Frenzy, he can bite his enemy, dealing 90/140/190/240/290  physical damage + 20% of Volibear's bonus HP, increased by 1% for every 1% HP the target is missing.

Majestic Roar slows and damages the enemies within range. Minions and monster get Fear.

Volibear deals 60/95/130/165/200 + 0.6 magic damage to nearby enemies and slows by 30/35/40/45/50% for 3 seconds.

Thunder Claws is Volibear's ultimate skill. Once activated, his basic attacks deal 75/115/155 + 0.3 magic damage, which chains to 4 nearby enemies and lasts 12 seconds.

Chosen of the Storm: When Volibear drops below 30% HP, he regenerates 30% of his max HP. The passive has 120 seconds cooldown.

Tips:

You should always initiate teamfights, using your Rolling Thunder and Majestic Roar. Use Rolling Thunder to gain extra movement speed and target an enemy champion (usually low hp ones), then slow them with Majestic Roar. If a teamfight kicks in, use your ultimate to do as much damage as you can and dont forget to bite off your enemies with Frenzy.

Skill order (if you start on lane)

1. Rolling Thunder; 2. Frenzy; 3. Majestic Roar; 4. Frenzy; 5. Frenzy; 6. Thunder Claws

7. Frenzy; 8. Majestic Roar; 9. Frenzy; 10. Majestic Roar; 11. Thunder Claws; 12. Majestic Roar

13. Majestic Roar; 14. Rolling Thunder; 15. Rolling Thunder; 16. Thunder Claws

17. Rolling Thunder; 18. Rolling Thunder.

Starting items:

Doran's Shield (120 hp, 10 armor and 8 hp regen/5 sec) for laning Volibear.

Cloth Armor (18 armor) and 5x HP pots for jungle Volibear.

Early game:

Is very important that you farm with Volibear. As you will see later on this post, Volibear will build expensive items. Try playing defensive and bait them to attack you near your tower, were you can use Rolling Thunder to fling them into your tower range and easily get a kill. If they are not taking the bait (and good players will not, because they know what you can do), you must focus on farming as much as you can. I have learned that the best way to build a great Volibear tank is to take solo top when there's another jungler in your team. In this case, you will have a great advantage over them; you will gain more experience from creeps beeing solo on lane and you will have the chance to take the fight on your territory.
Start with a Doran's Shield. Your first Recall should be when you have money to buy boots of speed (350 gold) and Ruby Crystal (475 gold). If you have gold for 1-2 pots would be awesome.

Mid and late game:

Volibear is natural born leader. So use that. Lead your team and start the teamfights by using Rolling Thunder and Majestic Roar. Dont forget that using your ultimate will do alot of damage when the enemy team is gathered because the damage will chain up to 4 enemies. Always target their main damage dealer (AD carry or AP carry) and fling him back in your team's range, so they can finish him up. Pay attention to the fight and use Rolling Thunder + Majestic Roar to keep your carry safe.
My basic build for a lanning Volibear is Mercury's Treads, Warmhog's, Frozen Heart, Sunfire Cap and Atma's Impaler. But the build depends on your team and enemy team "combo".

I get Mercury's Treads because of the magic resist and Tenacity. Other choice of boots would be Berserker's Greaves, but I dont build attack speed on Volibear, unless I start jungle and there's another guy in the team that will tank.

Why Warmhog's? Because of the massive hp boost and hp regen that you will get with this item 920hp + 450 from passive and 30 hp regen + 15 from passive. And the cool thing about this item is that you dont loose your bonuses when you die, like Mejai's (you loose a third of your bonus AP) or Bloodthirster (loose all bonuses upon death).

Frozen Heart is a great item for Volibear. It gives you 99 armor and 500 mana. But this is not why this item is so good. It's the passives that make him great. 20% cooldown reduction combined with the amount of mana you will have allowes you to use your skills much often. You will not run out of mana in a teamfight, thats for sure. The second passive (yes there's another one :) ) is an aura that reduces the attack speed of nearby enemies by 20%. Champions with high damage and attack speed, like Master Yi, Tryndamere, Ashe, Sion and others will not hurt you as they should after you get this item.

I get Sunfire Cap mainly for the 35 magic damage per second aura. Also the 450 hp bonus  and 45 armor is very useful for my little bear.

Atma's Impaler converts 2% of your hp to attack damage. And trust me this is big. You can build easily 4000 hp with this guy and this means a 80 bonus damage on your attacks. The item also provides you with 45 armor and 18% critical strike chance.

If you're holding up pretty good as a tank and you feel the lack of damage, you can try getting Atma's before Sunfire Cap.

The last item pick is situational. You can either get Force of Nature or Thornmail.

Force of nature if recomanded when you play against a team that inflicts magic damage. This item also grants you 40 hp regen, 8% increased movement speed and the passive regens 0.35% of you max hp every second (huge).

If the enemy team has many "autoattack" champions (Yi, Tryndamere, Ashe, Miss Fortune and the list goes on), have a little fun and let them beat themselves. Get Thormail and watch how their own attacks will damage themselves. Why? Because Thornmail adds 100 armor to your stats and also return 30% of the damage taken as magic damage!!! By the time Ashe, for example, will drain your 4k+ hp (over 5k with elixir) she will be long gone because of that 30% damage returned.

So, have fun !