Is Viktor a Bad Pick?

He's extremely powerful if you can reliably land his E, for some reason many can't. I've never had that problem, but I also don't play mid so it's moot.

410 base damage at max lvl+65%ish AP scaling if you can land aftershock is pretty extreme for a normal spam spell, add that it's AOE and can hit multiple targets and you're looking at overall damage. It's pretty extreme in team fights and better than many champion ults. Also great for pushing waves. The pay off is he tends to be somewhat vunerable in the super mobile meta.

Basically W even if it isn't stunning is creating a zone of control in teamfights for your team to exploit, and the E also exploits that area control. The thing to remember is you don't have to try to stun people with W, sometimes it's enough to place it in an area you don't want the enemy to be able to move through.

Look up "dun blows" profile on NA for replays, a Diamond 1 with 62% W/R Viktor. (156 games) Also "RoflTrico" on NA Diamond 2 62%. (147 games) "Hoon Dog" for GrandMaster 57% (98 games)

I find the best way to learn new champs is to watch replays of top players on the champions. Picking 3 and going through them you usually learn different tricks, even at that level of play usually people have very different play styles, and sometimes 0 overlap on those styles (though that's more often with JG) meaning some have gaps in their play. You can pick up tons by reviewing even a handful of people.

Also, some are just naturally talented and you won't see as many tricks you can abuse with them as they don't put in as much effort/research, also, their rune choices tend to be different. Others pull tricks out of their hats like a drunken jester. I find the ones that stand out from the crowd at high Elo are the ones that have different runes based on the teams, and will sometimes build the champion in a totally different way one game to the next. Those are usually also the ones with the highest win rate on the champs, the true "One trick ponies" in a way (even if they aren't OTPS)

Viktor is an interesting case.

His kit is similar to TF's in that it's so simple, both champions scale more heavily with your base mechanics than your actual skills and knowledge with that champion. There are a few you might need to know, but you could easily just hit Challenger by knowing how to move correctly.

Viktor's numbers are rather weak at the moment, and that's because his kit so so easy to land that it's almost binary; either you do damage and kill him first or he kills you. There's no "aiming" the laser, you should hit it reliably 9/10 times, with the 1/10 being because your opponent preemptively used a mobility spell. This is why he's always a much better pick in pro play than he is in solo queue.

As for solo meta, Riot has tuned the numbers down to the point where you go OOM very quickly using the laser, and it takes a decent amount of time for you to scale. This makes him weak to champions that either outsustain his damage and hard shove him, or champions who kill him whenever he tries to contest a push. The latter of which is top tier in the meta right now.

Overall, strong kit, weak numbers, bad in meta. I'd give him a 3/10 if you were to just pick him up, 6.5/10 if you're a long time Viktor main.

He is too squishy for how immobile he is.

I'm going to call him bad because his 52% best win rate is so low it's not really worth maining him. He's also one of the few champs with a negative winrate by experience. Generally you want to pick champs that reward you for playing a lot and trying to git gud with. Right now victor doesn't fit that criteria.

Basically you should avoid him like the plague.