Post 5.4 Veigar, how we can improve without going backwards
5.4 brought some much needed change to Veigar. I know a lot of us liked the old Veigar (myself included), and the new Veigar is in a pretty bad state, but we can't just revert the changes. Old Veigar was completely unbalanceable. Either he was overtuned, in which case you use event horizon and get a kill repeatedly until you win the game or he was undertuned, in which case you died repeatedly because you were immobile and didn't have enough damage to compensate (though I suppose event horizon could allow you to pretend to be a support). So let's look at the changes and see what we can do to help Veigar reach a better place where he's not just broken again.
Q) Is now a skill shot (was point and click) that passes through the first target hit to damage an additional target, its range is increased Upside: increases counterplay (good for game health), increases damage farming potential (good for Veigar endgame fantasy and identity), increases harass potential (good for Veigar's previously weak laning phase) Downside: decreases reliability in a fight (bad for Veigar's endgame fantasy of bursting targets)
Overall I think this is a very good change. It allows Veigar's most interesting and unique aspect (steadily increasing AP) to be even more prevalent while also increasing the game health of the skill. That said, the reliability hit is real, and could use some improvement. The missile speed change on the PBE is a good way of fixing this problem without reintroducing the game health problems point and click skills have.
W) Cost and cooldown decreased Upside: cheaper, both in mana and opportunity cost of using it Downside: is still completely dependent on event horizon for use against players
The changes here were good for Veigar, but not very relevant to the skill. It's still unusable against players without event horizon, which got much less reliable, so the skill got much less reliable. Furthermore, the landing delay on this skill will make it always have this problem. There are multiple options here, but many of them change the identity of the spell. For example, a shorter delay would be a buff that could make it usable (much like karthus or syndra), but would change the identity of the spell from unreliable nuke to reliable damage output, which is not necessarily super healthy for the game. Instead, I would suggest changing the spell in a way which kept the feel intact, but allowed it to be more usable. The change I would advocate is adding charges to the spell (like the current smite spell or Azir's Arise). This would allow strategic placement of the meteors to force targets in a direction or hitting a target fleeing from the first one with the second one. Furthermore, this would finally allow you to actually hit a target caught in your event horizon without them being stunned by the event horizon. Lastly, this rewards a successful event horizon stun with more damage as you drop multiple meteors on a single target. At the same time, it does not hugely increase the reliability of a single meteor, and if their individual damage was decreased (to compensate for the greater total damage) this could be very finely tuned. The upside to this change is huge; despite not being a huge power level increase the skill feels more strategic, but less than the full power of the skill is accessible reliably and the identity of the skill is not changed. Furthermore, it augments both Veigar's event horizon zone control playstyle and his stun and burst playstyle.
E) Added a delay, cost and cooldown decreased, range increased Upside: Greatly increased counterplay (good for game health) Downside: Greatly reduced reliability (bad for Veigar's endgame fantasy of bursting targets), made dark matter virtually useless
This change was necessary for game health so I'd like to leave it mostly alone. Right now the stun feels too hard to land, so maybe a slight increase to the speed at which it comes out would be appreciated, though that's a tuning issue and not a design issue. Again, the buff on the PBE addresses this concern.
R) Decreased AP ratio, mana cost, and cooldown Upside: Veigar is reliant on his ult for full burst and fulfilling endgame fantasy, therefore making it more accessible by reducing its CD and mana cost is good Downside: It is weaker so it's harder to use it for a kill, no counterplay was introduced
The ultimate is Veigar's burst combo cornerstone. It has to be reliable, because unreliable ults that don't offer incredible team power (like ashe arrow) would feel terrible when missed without feeling particularly good when hit. This means it has to be left as a point and click. Because it's going to always hit, moving power away from the ult is a good way of increasing the game health of Veigar's kit and, as a side effect, make him much less reliant on his ult so he can be dangerous more of the time. With that in mind I support this change, but only if the rest of his kit gets buffed to compensate.
Overall, I think the changes were a step in the right direction for Veigar, but could use some tuning and a larger scale change to dark matter. Feel free to disagree with me (though try to keep it polite) and post your own ideas on how we could get Veigar to a better place. More discussion is always better.
