Vel'koz, his current state and suggestions for future changes.

Currently Vel'koz's rework has left him in a rather ok-ish state damage wise. He has a weak window early, where his poke and wave clear are meh compared to other champions at that point. But he scales pretty well with items, but only ever reaches a true damage fantasy late-game..... against squishy opponents. His kit feels solid for the most part, the passive is strong, the Q, W and E were tweaked to a state which I feel is a pretty good trade-off for the scaling ap bonus on his passive. However despite this, his ultimate feels very lack-lustre, despite the numbers and acknowledgement of what was a concerning amount of true damage. It feels like it deals next to nothing, against anyone, even if you land the research stack. These changes were intended to make him more of a "tank shredder" but his ult struggles to kill carries, let alone bruisers and tanks. And that's if everything goes perfectly and the entire ult lands. The original intentions of this rework, to me, have failed. They wanted him to be the tank-shredding, true damage mage. However.... he's anything but a tank shredder at the moment. Why? because it's flat true damage. You need to survive vel'koz? Build warmogs, 6 of them.

Now I'm not asking for a ranged fiora. SO DON'T YOU DARE GIVE VEL'KOZ %HP TRUE DAMAGE!

But his ratios on Q,W and E suck to say the least, but they always have :) But this was overcome with magic penetration centric builds that relied on his passives' damage. This was a unique build, as very few champions are centred around magic pen builds to compensate for low ratios (champions with DOT don't count as their ratios are usually decent, IE rumble, cass, brand) However now in order to deal damage, Vel MUST! buy the same old boring flat ap items as every other dam mage in this game, in order to jam as much true damage into his passive as possible. This contradicts vel'koz's 3 base spells due to their sh*ty scalings.

But here's the sad part. This so called new "tank shredder" shreds tanks better with the old full magic pen build (runes and all) with to boot than the new intended MASS ABILITY POWER BUILD. Generally a ludens and hourglass follows those items. That's 35%+95AP lost from runes and items that could buffer the passive/ultimate. And instead I deal what feels like several orders of magnitude in additional damage without ever using my ult, instead relying on kiting, base damage and my passive. The ult feels like it's just for show, or a kill secure spell.

At the moment 695.25 Ability power is achieved on average when a full build is reached, excluding elixirs, buffs and masteries and generally resembling something like this >>

With the old Lifeform Disintegration Ray, he was capable of delivering a total of 10 stacks of organic deconstruction over its duration, procing it 3 times for 213 true damage each time at lvl 18. This could accommodate a 4th proc if 2 stacks were pre-applied, maxing out at 852 true damage on top of 1317 magic damage if all ticks are applied. Total=2169 mixed damage.

Currently, without ult procs, you can proc it twice (once on multiple targets with w+e, second on usually a single target with Q+W) for around 1033 true damage from the 2 procs as a whole. But if they end up researched, just over 1800 true damage from the ult alone, can be dished out. But only if every single tick is applied, he lands organic deconstruction and remains uninterrupted for its duration. Now both these scenarios, rely on lvl 18 late-game fantasy. But pre-rework vel'koz scaled faster than current vel'koz. Because his true damage passive ramped up faster and his overall build was cheaper than the current.

Don't get me wrong, I'm bad, but not incapable of landing my combos. But there is very little reward for landing all your spells and then ulting a researched target. You may be wondering "WTF ARE YOU ON ABOUT YOU DUMBF*CK? LOOK AT THAT TRUE DAMAGE!" but think of it this way. YOU DEAL OVER 50% OF YOUR ULTS DAMAGE AS TRUE DAMAGE, and possibly in under a second(less than 2/5 of the ult duration), with basic spells alone. So why the hell would you immobilise yourself, make yourself easy to pick off and deal next to no damage to the front line tanks peeling for their carries? when you can just kite around until your cool downs are done, which would result in longer up-time, allowing you to help in peeling and to top it off, more damage.

As a consequence of slower passive damage ramp-up. Riot has also killed something very close to my heart, jungle vel'koz. This too, relied on the true damage and high base damages of pre-rework vel'koz. Now his early clear times are an abomination. And his ult is next to useless for kill secures. Obviously this is of little significance, but I miss de-constructing the doubt in my team mates when I lock him in with smite [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

Pre-possible solutions: Vel'koz does not need stat re-allocations. He does not need scaling/base damage/CD buffs. He needs a piece of his soul to come back from the past Possible solutions: 1: This one will likely get some flack, but riot won't revert these new changes so something has to be proposed that builds off their current design. This proposal with definitely give him a damage boost, and will allow him to ram up faster but he will still suffer if he doesn't land his research stacks (read Research) Obviously this is all theoretical, please don't go all nasi over the numbers. Just suggestions. Life form disintegration Ray: Base damage reverted and reduced to 500 / 700 / 900 from 500 / 725 / 950. Returning: Now applies stacks of organic deconstruction just like before the rework. Research: Passive procs as a result from LFDR can not apply a research de-buff to the opponent. In order to deal the true damage bonus, the enemy MUST be researched with passive procs from either Q/W/E before Vel'koz ults. Explanation Vel'koz is extremely busy splurging purple death energy all over his enemies and can't accommodate research and organic deconstruction simultaneously.

This maintains his skill cap, and by lowering the the base damage again, which may need to be lower as I just went with a buff revert to be safe. It will accommodate more RELIABLE DAMAGE that will allow him to actually, be a tank shredder.

2: The one we don't want. Convert passive damage to %HP true damage on proc. Enough said, we have seen it go wrong enough times but it may as well be up for discussion.

3: Decrease passive/ult scaling. Buff base damage and chuck a little bit of it into his P/E/R. This will allow him to have more reliable damage outside of his ult/passive during sieges or skirmishes.

Just my verdict. I love vel, I really do. But it's painful, for his most iconic spell, to feel so...................underwhelming at best. KrakenKnight out [zombie-brand-mindblown]