Xerath or Velkoz?

Mid or support lane?

Mid

Depend on what you mean by better. Vel'Koz is a combo mage who shreds through squishies and tanks alike, while Xerath is a siege mage who gradually lasers you down, no matter what stands between you and him, then finishes you off with his ult.

Xerath has better poke, Vel'Koz has better teamfights.

by far. He outranges every other midlaner (besides ) and is one of the safest mages in game.

Well, I just stomped Xerath as Vel. He chunks my health with his Q, but I retaliate with a lot of combo damage.

Range isn't quite as important to me as damage and cc. I already main lux, and she has arguably the best range of mages.

There's trade offs to them both, they're both relatively slow, and have next to no escapes.

In my experiences, is better, but this may be more suited to my playstyle the true damage that he does from his passive is insane mid game, and like a lot say he has good range to make up for his squishy tendencies.

This being said, Fits better into stall/siege compisitions much like ziggs. Due to his high waveclear and poke ability, as well as mana costs feeling almost negated due to his passive.

Eventually i'm sure you'll own both, but for now i'd say start Vel if you're climbing solo and can rely on your own skill/mechanics to carry you to wherever you need to go, and start Xerath if you have a duo buddy [I.E.* A jungler main] to work with and poke them into a face down submission.

In my experiences they both get ruined by high mobility/burst champions unless you've played the match up more than 4-5 times and you know your limits. In example

I hope that this helps you make a choice and wish you the best of luck :)