How to play veigar during laning phase?

MysteriousBootie·Mar 13, 2016·2 votes·2,848 views

What's the most optimal way to play the evil son of a gun early game!? What particular matchups should I be weary of when picking veigar?

11 Comments

CrettMar 13, 20161 votes

44% win rate... that KILLS me Veigar needs justice...

Although if you're really dogged, I recommend just farming unless you're up against a champion that you can outrange. Veigar doesn't like to trade until he has his first item.

GuillotineCutterMar 13, 20161 votes

You don't care about matchups as veigar, you stay under turrets and farm that Q. Get flash/tp OR flash/exhaust. DONT EVER EVER EVER QUIT LANING BEFORE 80 to 100 stacks. Your mid opponent will most likely get fed up of you staying under turret and not wanting to fight, so he WILL roam, tell your team and hope they're not dumb. Veigar doesn't win or lose matchups, because he doesn't take part in any of the laning squirmishes, but destroys teams later in the match. Also, for skills, max Q, get 2 points in E before maxing W, R whenever you can. Items... hmm this is really dependant on the ennemy team, but I can tell you what to never build : item 3001 (get item 3027 instead) item 3092 (it's shit) item 3151 (nope) item 3116 (useless) item 3100 (what the hell are you doing in AA range ?) item 3028 ( I can't fucking find the upgraded item and I forgot it's name ... but dont get it, get this instead item 3165 ) item 3115 (...)

MysteriousBootieMar 13, 20161 votes

{quoted}

You don't care about matchups as veigar, you stay under turrets and farm that Q. Get flash/tp OR flash/exhaust. DONT EVER EVER EVER QUIT LANING BEFORE 80 to 100 stacks. Your mid opponent will most likely get fed up of you staying under turret and not wanting to fight, so he WILL roam, tell your team and hope they're not dumb. Veigar doesn't win or lose matchups, because he doesn't take part in any of the laning squirmishes, but destroys teams later in the match. Also, for skills, max Q, get 2 points in E before maxing W, R whenever you can. Items... hmm this is really dependant on the ennemy team, but I can tell you what to never build : (get instead) (it's shit) (nope) (useless) (what the hell are you doing in AA range ?) ( I can't fucking find the upgraded item and I forgot it's name ... but dont get it, get this instead ) (...)

Is it worth it to try out a 40% cdr build on veigar? Rylaiis sounds like it could be good for kiting a team comp with a lot of melee or assassin champs. So otherwise I just build item 3089 item 3285 item 3157 ? Just pure damage items? If I fall behind in lane vs an AP lane is it worth it to take abyssal or just always skip no matter what? What if they got a heavy AP reliant team?

GuillotineCutterMar 13, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Is it worth it to try out a 40% cdr build on veigar? Rylaiis sounds like it could be good for kiting a team comp with a lot of melee or assassin champs. So otherwise I just build ? Just pure damage items? If I fall behind in lane vs an AP lane is it worth it to take abyssal or just always skip no matter what? What if they got a heavy AP reliant team?

Sure 40% CDR is fine, but the thing with veigar is that you rarely will need it, E W Q or Q R is usually enough to delete ANY squishy, and chunk a good portion of HP from a tanky, if your team isn't braindead they'll clean up after you. I dislike Abyssal because 1 : you'll never use the passive and 2 : Falling behind in lane is something you'll always do, your focus should be 25 min + and at that point RoA gives much more sustain than Abyssal, and late game it won't really stop a Lux from one shotting you with Q E R.

DeloricVIMar 13, 20161 votes

I'd disagree with RoA, and the rest of my opinion as a Veigar main is above. I personally think Abyssal Scepter is an OK item, but I usually recommend Chalice of Harmony for MR, and Void Staff if you need some extra spell pen. As for RoA... I don't really recommend it. I've never put it in any of my builds because I feel like it takes a bit too long to stack. Not to mention, you should be rushing Zhonia's if you really need defense, or, as I said, some other MR item.

If you're behind, turtle up with that Zhonia's; the active will serve you very well.

Also, if anyone convinces you that it's a good idea to shoot for seraph's embrace, don't listen to them. It is a late game item, that is pretty hard to justify before it become seraph's. Fun to use in normals, but keep it out of ranked.

DeloricVIMar 13, 20161 votes

I disagree on LichBane. It's just got a different purpose than what I think you're trying to use it for. I recommend this item for if the game has been going on for a while, and your other teammates can't take towers to save their lives. It's a niche item, but it gets those towers crumbling.

I agree with Frost Queen's... the ambient gold is nice, but until it's fully built, you aren't going to use its passive because it forces you to forsake cs, and you can't afford to do that. I don't know what you would use Liandry's for on Veigar, and Rylai's is a valid item, but ideally you're going to be melting their faces off with your spells, so the slow shouldn't really matter.

I also disagree with Athene's Unholy Grail. It gives you some stats that Veigar needs in lane. Doubling down on his passive really solves his mana problems, and the MR is great. You don't need to go whole-hog AP, because you should be farming your q more than enough to make up for the loss in damage items early on. In fact, you can sometimes get away with only buying Chalice of Harmony, and build around it until you feel like you need more CDR. In the late game it's valid to sell it if you don't need the MR in order to buy something else, but it's still a good buy. Morello is OK, but if you run ignite, its sole function is kind of replaced with your summoner spell, and it's not nearly as safe as Athenes. Remember, Veigar is bad in the early game and needs some help so that he doesn't get outtraded very hard.

Also, I want to slap anyone that builds nashor's on Veigar. XD

Sad TyrantMar 13, 20161 votes

Leblanc Talon Zed and Fizz are the worst match-ups in lane. but Junglers like LeeSin Nidalee and Rengar can be really bad for him as well.

In my experience, play as passive as possible, keep you distance, just farm and make sure you get your Q stacks, just like Nasus . I recommend maxing E 2nd cause it'll allow you to get a full set of damage off, and get away as well due to it's maxed stun being almost as long as Morgana 's Q. As for Early items health item 3010 /Mana Regen item 3028 /CDR item 3108 are usually the best items. My first 3 items are usually item 3027 item 3165 item 3020

I hope this helps

SohleksMar 13, 20161 votes

You last hit. Do not push. Using Q for stacks early is a tad greedy, unless you need it for its range. Your opponent is gonna want to mess with you, you have to first let him know you are not gonna take it before you get ambitious with your stacking. Most players are gonna telegraph they want to fight when they approach with their movements. Your Q is fairly fast and they won't expect it to the face.

If your jungler is a strong ganker that's excellent. He should know ganking for Veigar is easy and be ready to gank mid at 3-4.

Mid levels use your W the soften caster creep and double stack with the Q. Wave part dead. Now Q the melees from longer range. Wave nearly farmed.

Use your range as much as possible.

Curling VeigarMar 13, 20161 votes

i really wish i could answer this question but the truth is i really don't know. it depends on what champion you're playing versus so you can't just answer it with "do x vs everyone"

although the general consensus is just stack q and avoid fights till your jg ganks which I agree with.

DeloricVIMar 13, 20161 votes

What to do in the early game:

Grab a Doran's Ring, Boots, or sometimes Null-Magic Mantle, sit as close to tower as possible and go into Nasus-level farm mode. Use your best judgement on which to choose. NMM can be used to get athene's early if you know you're against a heavy poke champion or someone you know you're going to be taking damage from (i.e. le teemo mid). When farming with your q, I usually try to 2 stacks per q system (that I just totally made up). If your q gets two stacks on it, that's ok/normal. 1 stack per q is kind of lacking, but 3+ stacks per q is excellent. Use your autos to line this up. In early game you can ignore this rule until you get some AP going; it's not an Annie q, and it's going to be hard sometimes to last hit 2 minions at once when your wave doesn't cooperate. However, in all of this farming be sure you don't dip below about 150 mana or so, because that makes you really susceptible to ganks.

Max Q at all opportunities; it is the thing that keeps you farming hard, and hitting harder. Next, you're going to want to max your stun. Some people will say max your Dark Matter second, but I strongly disagree. This stun gets SUPER long the more points you have into it. Some exceptions are if you need some wave clear. Other than that, you can't really poke with dark matter, unless you have a melee mid that doesn't ignore unit collision; sometimes they'll get themselves caught in a cluster of minions and that's your chance to use it. As you can tell, it's hard to use early, so try to drop it to try to disengage more than anything else/under normal circumstances.

Against AD, I highly recommend rushing zhonia's as your first item; don't be afraid to grab cloth armor as your starting item against an AD assassin. Against AP, I highly recommend getting a chalice of harmony as your first item, then gauge what you need from there. Finishing Athenes is a valid option for the cooldown, but you already have the core important parts of the item with chalice; you get the same amount of AP, MR, and Mana Regen, so you can put it off if you feel like you're fine with your CDR at this point. You can rush rabadons if you feel like you're getting ahead, but I don't recommend it unless you have a lead and you really want to run with it.

As far as matchups, you need to be very wary of any assassins; depending on your level of play, you may or may not have some assassins with a high skill cap. You'll probably have issues with Zed, Talon, Fizz, and Katarina at pretty much any elo, but you can usually get by against lower level Yasuo and Ekko players; lower level ones are usually really bad; flubbed ults, missed opportunities, don't know how to use all of their champion mechanics, requires allies skills to work better, etc. Assassins have an advantage because Veigar has no defensive options, especially not up close. You can try to put your stun in front of you on the way to the tower, but there's no guarantee you'll make it that far. That's his achilles heel, so to speak; he's very immobile, and his cc no longer has it's former level of cheese that it had when it was instant-cast.

You may also have problems with Lux and Leblanc as well, because their base damages are higher than yours, making them hard to deal with during the early game especially, and they have consistent poke. They also are quite mobile, and Leblanc's distortion counters your stun hard because she can blink out of it.

If I may also recommend keystone masteries, there are 3 that are ok on Veigar, but none of them are super OP on him.

I personally run Stormraider's Surge. Chunking someone for 30% of their max health is super easy on Veigar, especially later in the game, and the MS it takes the edge off of his flaw of being way too slow sometimes. Use it to chase someone down and claim your stacks, or use it to run away if you manage to fuck up. One dark matter placed in front of someone can sometimes get this to proc, if the target is squishy enough. It's especially useful if your stun is down.

Another good/ok option is Thunder Lord's Decree. It's ok, but since you don't combo or get multiple stacks off of a passive or multi-hit spell, it's hard to proc. You can auto to do it and follow up with a spell, but it's hard to do unless you land your stun. In my experience it's not 100% reliable, and I ended up switching because I couldn't proc it very well. If you have more success go and use it; it's really good in the early game with it's level based scaling.

Final option is Death Fire Touch, but everyone will tell you it's pretty lackluster. It's less like having a mini ignite, or even mini brand passive, and more like something that barely exists until late game. If you can find some way to guarantee a prolonged game, take it. If you can't, I wouldn't recommend it.

NecrosideMar 14, 20161 votes

Against AP heavy comps you would want Athenes item 3174 + Abyssal item 3001 and depending how ahead the enemy is or how dive oriented they are you go Zhonyas/Void or Deathcap/Void.

Against standard matchups I recommend item 3165 + item 3001 as your two core items. Mainly because you'll be getting CDR boots most of the time and Abyssal makes up for the missing early pen from boots from the aura (which is pretty much the same range of your stun and people will be looking to be ontop of you regardless) and some nice MR stat boost.

Against AD heavy comps I suggest either item 3027 + item 3157 or item 3165 + . In this scenario you wouldn't get abyssal and go for the Void staff 3rd item.

Match-ups I think Talon/Anivia are your hardest match-ups to deal with in lane.... Zed can be annoying with his harass but people over-exaggerate how "bad" the Zed matchup is along with the Le Blanc matchup. (you'll be able to just press R on her and wipe her completely gone after 20 minutes, unless you get camped :P) Against fizz you really have to make him push the lane and to your best ability just freeze it hard while harassing him every now and then since you're going to scale more harder than Fizz with farm.

Standard full build: item 3158 item 3165 item 3089 item 3135 item 3157 item 3285