Your reaction was my initial reaction to mah fave mid laner/mage jungle, that he would be broken af, then I had a long, hard think about it.
Yes, there is potential for an absolute F*CKTONNE of true damage from our tentacle pal, however it is not free true damage that some other champs can dish out just cos they can, looking at you yi, pre-nerf fiora, irelia and pre-nerf vayne.
Currently (before these changes take place) vel'koz get's on relatively fine in today's meta, with enough true damage to bust open hexdrinkers/wittle down tanks and the utility to be somewhat useful when behind. His base damages are high enough to make building allot of magic pen viable in the absence of good ap ratios, and he has the self peel/ build path to kite for his team; rylais, liandries, void staff, sorc shoes ect. The koz has also been in a very good spot balance wise for a very long time (which is more than I can say for allot of champions in this game, who're either OP, UP or broken AF). That is, he has his good match ups (twisted fate/melee ap), bad match ups(akali, azir(IMO)) and those in between (zed, LB, ahri). But doesn't completely pub stomp a team 1V5 off of 1 kill and is actually pretty fun to play against.
As for their changes. The scaling true damage. I don't really see as an issue here. As they have reduced his ap ratios on his w and e by a decent amount and his ult no longer gives free procs for secures when they're out of q range. And all of his ratios were pretty average to begin with. The result here will be players either opting for a full ap build, relying on landing their full combo and killing people with the ult. Or playing it standard with magic pen, leaving the "disgusting" true damage on his ult/passive much to be desired. Maintaining his rightful spot as a utility mage.
As for the w/e changes, this will weaken the laneing phase a lil of a vel'koz who can't proc his passive on the enemy lander. As he won't be able to clear waves for eternity, and for free while pressuring the enemy/having enough mana for self peel at the same time.
The ult changes. As first, same reaction as you. And tbh I'm still a lil edgy about 7 seconds. However that buys a lil time to get into a better position/ for ult to come off CD. And since there is now SO MUCH riding on landing your entire combo on everyone b4 ulting, that kinda balances itself out in the difficulty aspect. Risk=mess up combo, your team dies. Reward= LCS BIG PLAYZ!
And finally. I've seen some say that they've made him overloaded/difficult to balance with these changes. I beg to differ. They have directly taken damage out of his base kit (w and e) and transferred this damage to the ult and passive. If it turns out he is in fact OP AF, they can simply do this. Lets say that the issue foreseen is in fact the true damage. They could take say 10-15% (I'm just picking numbers that sound right-ish) of scaling/damage from his passive and/or ult, and transfer them into either base/scaling magic damage on his w and/or e.
Just my verdict. Overall I'm pretty happy with how he's turned out. Just gotta wait and see how his true damage out put seems when he's released.
[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]
> R - Lifeform Disintegration Ray
> Passive: 3 Hit proccing Deconstruction on Champions become Researched for the next 7s.
>** R Deals True Damage vs Researched units instead of Magic.**
> R No longer applies stacks of Organic Deconstruction
> Damage: 500 / 700 / 900 + 60% AP >>> 550 / 800 / 1050 + 100% AP
> Cooldown: 130 / 110 / 90 >>> 120 / 100 / 80
are right now good anti tank mages, even 
with 
Welcome to the R-bot club.
We are all happy here!
I'm in too now!
