A (not so short) analysis on Veigar and how he can be improved.

I was hoping to wait until all the fuss from Veigar's rework to calm down before I posted this, however, it seems his recent play at Worlds has caused a new wave of posts about him and I am tired of sitting on this idea.

Veigar has been a topic of discussion on the boards for quite some time now. His minor rework with the removal of DFG, , caused many long time Veigar mains to be understandably upset, myself included. I avoided playing him for a long time after these changes because I didn't want to have to practically relearn a champ I had already spent so much time with and enjoyed playing. However, I eventually decided to pick him up again as I could not abandon this fun fur ball of fear.

I found him much more enjoyable than before. Veig has traded some "guaranteed power" for a lot of "potential power".

He lost unavoidable damage on his Q in exchange for it having greater range, that ability to last hit 2 minions or kill one minion and harass, and most importantly being able to hit two champs with it. This changed his Q from being an early game harass tool (anyone who played pre-rework should now that it was better to harass with it early than to stack with it) into his most damaging basic ability. Now before you all start downvoting me right away and writing your posts about how I am an idiot ,hear me out. Veigar's Q at max level has a base damage of 260 with scaling of .6 and a cooldown of 5 seconds, his W has base damage of 320 with 1.0 scaling with a cooldown of 8 seconds, and his ult has a base damage of 500 with 1.0+.8 of targets ap scaling and 80 second cooldown. So, right off the bat it looks like i am wrong but one should always take in how easy it is to use an ability. In a teamfight W is not hard land but the chances of getting more than one enemy is still pretty slim. Hitting two enemies with Q is not. that turns the 260+.6 ability into a 520+1.2 ability most of the time. This trumps even the ult against non ap-building targets in a teamfight and the q is easy to spam with its short cd and relative minor mana cost come late game. In short, heh, his Q is hella strong bro.

His W doesn't need much discussing. It is an ability that fits with theme his Q put in place, little "guaranteed power" a ton of "potential power". The little "guaranteed power" W brings to the game is zoning. People don't want to get hit my that. It hurts. It's "potential power" is through the bloody roof. If you somehow manage to hit all 5 enemy champs with it you are looking at a staggering 1600+5.0 damage ability on an 8 second cd with amazing range. Thank Evil it has that 1.25 delay.

His E also fits with the little "guaranteed power" a ton of "potential power" shtick. It has a pretty solid delay on it making it practically impossible to land on anyone who knows what they are doing, but it is a freakin 2.5 second box stun that can hit or trap their entire team in it. Ill be the first to admit that the pre-rework almost instant ( it had a short animation) stun was shit. But if you land it your W is suddenly easy to land. If you land it on a lot of people in a team fight they probably lost. If you are laning against someone without a blink (it stops dashes at the edge of the box) and your jungler is ganking they better pray flash is up. It is even a really solid disengage ability. As hard as it was to get used to it needed that delay.

Now his ult is where stuff goes a bit off kilter. It is a targeted ability with a base damage of 500 with 1.0+.8 of targets ap scaling and 80 second cooldown. It gets rid of his little "guaranteed power" a ton of "potential power" identity that i feel was pretty sweet. It is also not that great in that is is technically weaker than his other abilities ,as it is single target, unless his opponent is building ap. Thing is, chances are his opponent is going to have to build ap in order to do their job. This creates a strange situation. Veigars pretty damn weak early game, no one is going to disagree with that. I don't think he is as weak as a lot of people make him out to be as he is hard to gank for a lot of junglers with his stun but he is still much weaker than most. His ults enemy ap scaling makes it where if you do what you should try to do and beat him early so he cant get to his amazing late game you just make it easier for him to kill you. That sucks for them. There could be an argument made that it works as Veigar's "catchup mechanic" allowing him to come back in a game than he should be out of, but I feel with proper use of his other abilities a good Veig would be able to do that anyway. So, you ask, what would you do BaronofBurst to fix this inconsistency? Well let me tell you.

Let us take a step back and look at Veigar as a whole. By most, Veig is seen at an anti-mage and the prominent burst mage. Personally I have always viewed him as more more of a control mage, but I digress. He no longer really fits the anti-mage arc type since the rework of his passive way back in the day and now his only anti-mage ability is his ult with the enemy ap ratio. I feel this would be an okay arch type for him to lose. fits it better anyway. So that leaves us with burst mage.

Thing is, most mages can do some form of burst. This doesn't really leave Vieg with a very fun or unique identity and while being able to instakill anyone that gets to close makes me cackle (I really think I have played Veigar too much) it is not a very fun or interactive experience for the opponents. So what if we gave him a unique identity as a Space mage? I mean most of his kits already there with the space theme. Equilibrium, Dark Matter, Event Horizon, Primordial Burst cool sounding abilities right? However, to really pull this off we would have to change his ult . I propose something like this:

R: Black Hole/Primordial Burst- Veigar creates an Black Hole on the ground doing X damage every .25 for 2.5 seconds. After 2.5 seconds the Black Hole explodes into a Primordial Burst dealing damage in the area Black Hole occupied based on the damage done by Black Hole. Primordial Burst can be activated early.

Now I make no claim on knowing how to balance a game so I'll leave the numbers to someone else but I feel this would be an interesting path to take Veigar. It would solidify him the Space Mage identity that no one else currently has, it would give him more synergy within his kit (who woudla though abilities named Event Horizon and Black Hole would work well together), he would no longer be the they guys that insta deletes one person that no one likes to play against but become someone has the potential to delete entire teams and bring the little "guaranteed power" a ton of "potential power" theme to his ult I have been raving about, and it even fits his lore pretty well. He is said to be cosmic mage that uses enemy magics against them thus having Primordial Burst do damage based the damage done by Black Hole thus using an enemies own strength against them. Hell its even a pun. A space mage that excels at controlling zones( or space) on the battlefield. I got Phreaks approval for this!

All in all, I feel this would give Veigar a much more unique identity while getting rid of the one thing that can make him super unfun to play against. Well that took a long time to write. I am gonna go que up for a Veigar game.

tldr: screw you I spent a lot of time one this.