Trouble Picking Runes for Veigar

As much as I hate to admit it, these runes really seem to put Veigar at a disadvantage. Regardless, I wanted to go and try to optimize my loadout, and be more dominant than ever before.

So, there are 2 major problems I'm having in a broad sense. The first of which is that Veigar is hard-locked into Manaflow Band. He NEEDS manaflow band, because early game, before you buy an item to curb his excessive hunger for more mana, you will run out super fast due to your increased spell casting to farm up your stacks of Phenomenal Evil Power. The second probably requires a much more in-depth explanation for my thoughts, and that is that a lot of the runes, while they are good overall, are not a good fit for Veigar.

My knee-jerk reaction is to go completely for the Sorcery Tree, but I stop when I realize that the Keystones are useful in only some situations. The biggest contender on the list is Summon Aerie, because of your natural inclination to poke and need to land spells. And, against champions like Zed, Katarina, and Ekko, this is a great choice. Early game, most of these champions don't take their major mobility moves as their first, which leaves them vulnerable letting you line up some sick Q's, or get some auto's in if you miss.

However, this keystone is useless against ranged champions, because they can dance at the edge of your Q's range, while still farming effectively, even if they have to use abilities. Champions like Annie, Xerath, and LeBlanc are probably going to get out of the laning phase getting hit maybe once or twice by Aerie, meaning its impact is next-to-none. Also, Veigar also has no way to use Aerie's defensive ability, which would help justify picking it.

Next in terms of usefulness is Arcane Comet. Veigar lacks any way to use this effectively. His stun deals no damage, so it won't launch a comet. If you take too long to follow up, then the comet will not land. Regardless of that, roughly 90% of the time, if someone gets caught in your stun, you either a) need to run the fuck away because they're seconds away from obliterating you, or b) they'll be dead before the comet can even hit the ground. I've tried this keystone, and the numbers at the end game screen are even worse than the ones I get from Summon Aerie, so it's not all that helpful in the end.

Finally, we have Phase Rush, which is awful. Veigar has no multi-hit abilities or sticking potential that he can abuse this with, and missing your stun means you're most likely not going to be able to activate this one. Even when you manage to, as I said, you've most likely landed your stun, and they're most likely dead, so you'll be running away from the enemy corpse. Last season was really the time to be taking the mobility rune on Veigar, because he could proc it easy in the late game by just landing one ability, but now it's super difficult to use.

So, I actually think that Sorcery is a bad main tree to have Veigar, even though I'm hard-locked into it as my secondary tree because of Manaflow band.

As far as the rest of the tree goes, I can't think of any runes that are particularly useful for Viegar. His main problem is that he's super mana-hungry and pretty weak in the early game unless he's allowed to bully his opponent because they have too short a range, or are highly immobile.

That being said, Tier 3 only has Transendence as a rune that would be even remotely helpful, considering celerity has nothing to scale from and you're so squishy that you'll never be able to deal damage using absolute focus.

Tier 4 is even less useful - scorch has the same problem Summon Aerie has, Waterwalking is only good for roaming, which Veigar's kit doesn't support well, and Gathering storm seems to be just more of your passive. With Veigar I always think twice with straight up damage runes, because raw power is usually not a problem. The problem is either surviving long enough to obtain it, or sustaining the mana require to use your power, and early game damage is where he lacks. Gathering storm doesn't even kick in for the first 10 minutes of the game, and when it does it's really not that much extra damage.

My next thought was to use the Domination tree, as Electrocute is basically a buffed Thunderlord's Decree from last season, and that early game damage could be useful. And, while I've had some limited success with it, the damage numbers off it are still unimpressive.

Not to mention the rest of the runes are questionable at best.

At first, for tier 2, I shouldn't have to explain why I was suckered into taking cheap shot before trying anything else, because Veigar hinges on his ability to lock you down and burst you into another plane of existence. But, when I looked at the end game screen, Cheap shot was dealing damage in the hundreds over games that take 40 to 60 minutes. So, I decided to try Taste of Blood instead with marginally better numbers, but not substantially so.

The final tier contains one helpful rune for Veigar, as there is only one item active I can think of that Veigar uses to great effect, and he doesn't roam well, so Ravenous hunter seems to be good for him, because he deals a lot of damage, and it heals a percentage of that damage back to you. But, since riot decided that how many headhunter stacks I could obtain in an hour-long game (spoiler, it's always 5) is more relevant information than how much damage I healed off it, I can't actually tell how helpful it actually is. I didn't notice any Akali-level or Nasus-level healing, so.... I just kinda figured I have to take it because there isn't anything better.

Regardless, the "vision tier" is really where I start to hate this tree even more, because it does nothing to help Veigar solve his more glaring issues. I don't have a problem keeping vision on the map - I usually put a control ward in the river bush, where no one ever sees it until late game, and keep a trinket ward on the other side. So, most of this is pretty useless when you consider that I'm constantly out of mana, and early game I'm at serious risk of falling off before I even start to get good in the first place.

Then, we have Inspiration, which I'm tempted to take, but I don't know what to do with it.

I can instantly rule out Glacial Augment, because you don't use any item actives that slow, the slow on ranged attacks is less than on melee range attacks, and it isn't all that potent to begin with. It definitely won't keep LeBlanc over there from nuking you in the face and dealing 90+% of your health bar 5 minutes into the game.

Kleptomancy is another keystone I'm iffy on, because it requires you to auto-attack to use it, which typically is not a great idea on Veigar. The extra gold is nice, and sometimes you can get mana potions from it, but I'm still incredibly suspicious of taking it. Sometimes I have a great time with it, sometimes my lane turns to shit instead.

And the one I'm least certain about is Unsealed Spellbook. I'm usually pretty happy playing with just Barrier - I tend to play defensively, and when I start getting aggressive, it's usually when I'm 100-0'ing people, so ignite really isn't necessary. In fact, the only spell I can think of that I'd want to swap for is teleport, but Veigar's TP ganks are iffy at best, and being forced to back a bunch isn't all that common a problem for me. Sometimes, when I'm severely counter-picked, sure, but I'm not sure how much use I'd get out of this rune. Sometimes in the late game, I have to back when we're hard-pushing the nexus, but it's incredibly rare that the rest of my team needs me at that stage. I can only think of once or twice off-hand when me being up with my team would have ended the game, and not my team being driven back away from the nexus.

I mean, tier 2 runes are pretty useful with perfect timing or biscuit delivery, giving either progress on zhonia's and a free stasis, or some much needed mana sustain, respectively. Flash-traption, I'm not sure about, but I have enough indecision between the others, so I won't bother.

Under the third tier, Future's Market is looking pretty good, even if I'm kinda iffy on it. Magical Footwear is also pretty decent, because if I'm pressed for gold, the last thing I need to worry about is needing to blow 300 gold on boots.

And for the final Tier, Cosmic insight is the clear choice here - approach velocity is not very relevant to Veigar's abilities, and Celestial Body is really, REALLY not worth it, because your early game damage is super low as it is.

As for Resolve and Precision are concerned, they don't offer good stats to Veigar for taking them as your main rune set, and their keystones REALLY don't fit for Veigar. All of the defensive ones don't scale well, or do sweet fuck-all for your kit, and all the Precision ones deal with you auto-attacking enemies, often multiple times, which is a rather questionable strategy when you're playing Veigar.

I mean, taking Sorcery gives you good stats, and allows you to take Precision as the secondary, which also allows you take Triumph and Coup de Grace, which are both very nice, but I feel like when I take this loadout I do even worse than usual... but I'm really not sure why.

On the other hand, what other secondary would I pair with sorcery? I could get the questionably useful healing off the Domination tree, but I'm not too sure about that. I could take a few inspiration runes, but then I'd be lacking the extra utility of having extra potion duration, and being able to double-dip into Sorcery's stats by flipping it around.

So, now that I've outlined the conundrum I'm having, what do you guys think? I'm really torn on this one. I mean, I do OK, but I feel like there's some optimal combination that I'm not seeing.