Real life made me part ways from LoL for a second, but before I left I remember Riot wanted Vel'Koz to have a "strategic niche" I think they were calling it. What did it end up being, and how is it different from pre-mage re-work?
They tried to make him an Ant-tank mage. Honestly, it doesn't really work for him. Just like being a long-ranged siege-mage didn't work for him prior to the update. At the moment, there is no reason to pick him mid lane when you could pick Anivia, Aurelion or Xerath, who both basically do what Vel'Koz does... but leagues better.
The niche they're going for is "WE NEED TRUE DAMAGE ON A SINGLE TARGET"
I don't know why changing a champion literally NO ONE had a problem with to give him a niche NO ONE WANTS with negative consequences on the coherence of his kit is GOOD, but hell. That's what happened.
They messed up Vel'Koz because Riot can't balance, I've already uninstalled the game and likely will not be back, just this month alone playing with the community i've had has been the worst its ever been for me, I have uninstalled 7 times total. My friends keep wanting me to come back, and I want to keep coming back but I am putting my foot down, Riot cannot balance anything correctly, we have champions with overloaded kits, and a HUGE, I mean HUGE Zed buff incoming. His ult will now do 50% of proc'd magic and physical damage at max rank of 5. That is completely ABSURD!!!! Vel'Koz was good before the mage update, and my first game as him I thought he was broken, but then I got to see Annie/Brand/Malzahar, all the mages surpass Vel'Koz in damage and that is completely unacceptable. Brands % damage means he can build stuff like Rod of Ages/Rylais/Liandrys and still output tons of damage, As Vel'Koz you are actually forced to rush stuff like Ludens or Rabadons to output the same damage, Brand does it in a shorter time frame than Vel'Koz, just Annies ult out damages Vel'Koz whole kit and comes with an instant aoe stun. Veigar gets so many stacks now, it just isn't fair to Vel'Koz, and he needs some major buffs on his AP Scaling to make him worthwhile again, I love Vel'Koz, I used to main Vel'Koz, but I don't anymore because he gets outplayed, out damaged and pretty much doesn't fit any niche. They failed once again to make something worthwhile.
Edit - I forgot to add Brand is meant to be a more supportive mage now, yet out damages Vel'Koz even while buying support items. If that isn't enough to convince you try this one on for size, Zyra can lay up to 8 plants, 4-5 of them is enough to do more damage than Vel'Koz with rabadons when Zyra only has a Spellthief and no true damage.
As a Vel fan, the changes were a strategic buff, but overall a nerf. His skillshots are much weaker (except for his q) by themselves, but if he procs his passive the burst is higher later on in the game and he is able to use an ult with a 125% AP true damage beam. Before he was struggling as a burst mage with low enough CDs to be DPS and enough waveclear to be a siege/anti-siege mage while never really surpassing the other mages in any one of these aspects. His base damages were phenomenal and his supporting abilities actually weren't bad either.
Post-rework Vel is now supposed to be anti-tank, but excels at bursting even more now than he did before, leaving him as a tank-shredding burst mage whose CDs are still low-enough to almost make him a DPS mage. With unreliable damage sources, his skill floor has been raised and his skill ceiling is way up there now. Vel's damage is almost disgusting if he can hit his abilities on someone reliably, so a good Vel can easily take down 50+% of your HP level 2 or 3 with his early combos, and his scalings keep that true for squishies at most points of the game. With the "research and disintegration" theme that they put on his passive to allow his ult to deal true damage rarely being necessary against squishies, and usually being needed vs tanks, which he can melt now way better if he hits his skills.
As for his total niche now, I believe he is just a really well-rounded immobile mage. He still has waveclear, scaling, poke, skillshots of all sorts, CC, and burst, and I am of the opinion that he should be much cheaper to purchase and used as an ideal beginner mage to help new players learn how to use those things (also, having Ryze as the 450 IP mage really doesn't make the most sense. He certainly isn't the easiest to pick up or learn from and he's not too forgiving).
Overall, I am satisfied with the new Vel much more than the old. Hitting one skill shot is meh right now, but hitting three feels fantastic (more so than it used to) with the higher scaling on his passive. He does everything you could want in a mage and he does it with more ease than most at the cost of performance quality (a lux will out-burst a Vel, and a Cass should out-DPS Vel, but he will outburst the Cass and out-DPS the Lux, and his cast times are non-existent except for ult). If you want to play him, I reccomend getting a Rylais and Protobest withing your first 3 items (if I'm doing really well i get Ludens first, if not I get those two) and then some CDR and you literally are ok against anyone. Assassins don't even wreck him too hard with the new Protobelt and his e. He's a very well-rounded mage and is currently my favorite of all the mages.
He can dish out a fair amount of aoe true damage
Uh from what I see a lot of the vel koz mains consider his change a nerf. Since his ultimate does NOT give stacks of his passive anymore, If you want to make it do true damage then you need to apply three stacks of your passive first (its only going to do the true damage to the guy(s) with 3 stacks on them). I don't know how its going to go in a team skirmish/fight trying to get 3 stacks on that backline with your q and w trying for a true damage ult, but people say he is a tank buster now so I guess you will be aiming to true damage the front line :(? Also the vel'koz mains say you lose damage on the ult if you try the E W R combo, because the laser beam will be on them before the 2nd proc of w goes off to apply the 3rd stack in that combo meaning you won't be doing all true damage .
Tankbusting. Not different, just enhanced. They shifted some of his damage onto his passive and gave his ult true damage on targets that have been hit with three stacks. Also his Q restores mana for killing things with it, to make his laning a bit better I guess.
