The terrible Veiger rebalance

I can't believe I'm actually seeing this. Yeah, it might suck getting 100-0'd by him at 40min, but it's entirely your fault for letting the game drag on that long after allowing him to farm uncontested. And you know what? You can just choose an AD champ against him, and laugh. In case you're one of those people that complain without ever have actually played him, a good portion of his damage is his ult scaling off his targets ap. That's right kids, he is an anti-mage mage. Zed, yasuo, and Talon will quickly teach him about the concept of counter-picking. It's about as smart to first pick Veiger as it is to first pick Darius.

Have you even once seen him in LCS? I'll admit I don't follow as closely as some and only started watching last season, but I have yet to. His 5% pick rate tells me he doesn't see a lot of non-LCS play either. He's easily the least mobile and squishiest ap mid in the game outside of maybe vel'koz. Punish him. He has no poke unless he wants to harass you with his Q. But then he's not farming with it. Pick an aggressive jungler. If you have to pick a mid ap, go for Ahri, Xerarth, or Ziggs and laugh as you zone him out of all farm for 20min. Pick something like Hecarim or Rek'sai jungle and collect a free kill when he's dumb enough to leave his turret.

Play Katerina. The real broken freelo. Jump on his face and you realize that it's a lot harder for him to land his stun when you'te teleporting on top of him, he's ignited, and 3/4 of his health has just disappeared. How many penta kills do you ever see Veiger get? Oh that's right, he can only kill one champ with his full burst before 30min and even that relies on him getting his bonus ap for targeting your AP champ. Anything else and he's a cc dispenser that tickles the bruiser who should be going H.A.M all over his face. At 45+ min, he might be able to nuke your midlaner and then play whackamole on your ap support if he saved his Q after W-R'ing you mid.

Yeah, his stun is strong. He's screwed if he misses though. A nice 16sec cooldown at max rank. Get in his face and beat the little guy. Stop blobbing when you wait for a fight. Who's fault is it really if he manages to get all five of you in a single stun? It's a freaking circle that does absolutely nothing unless he lands the edge on top of you. We aren't talking about a point and click. Are we really complaining about the late game mid, when Annie support is getting double kills in bot lane and can stun/wreck teamfights with her aoe point-and-click insta-stun tibbers? Annie mid is getting popular again. She'll gib your adc and apc half as early as veiger. Nothing says your team was outplayed like the tibbers flash/stun ult. Trying to flash/stun with veiger is a great way to die and lose the match because the late game hyper carry missed the stun and died with no escape.

The dfg removal pretty much fixed his ability to gib the tanks and bruisers. I think that was actually a positive change. But why is it that after an incredibly heavy hitting nerf to his kit (regardless of need) , we start seeing people cry about him? It takes a nerf for GD to realize he's supposedly broken? When has he ever been FOTM? I hardly encountered more of him after his legendary skin, rarely before that, and he hasn't been buffed or changed since 4.5 when he got a base armor increase. Wow, game-breaking stuff that happened months ago. We are almost halfway through February and I have yet to play against him once. I can't speak for higher elos but I'm told he's even less popular there.

The meta is all about mobility right now. The only real reason people are crying is because veiger is one of only a few champions capable of instantly shutting them down. His counter play is his counter picks and his atrocious early game. For being so OP, I see far more leblancs, annies, zeds, and talons. A quick look at Lolking showed me that veiger's win rate didn't break 50% on a single day (for the dates displayed) for ranked until Gold. Taken as a whole between all ranks, it didn't break 50% once. He sits at a crazy 5% pick rate between all ranks.

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One look at the PBE changes confirmed that Riot has no idea what they're doing and/or are just lazy.

Let's take a look at the Q:

1. More damages - yay

2. Skillshot - Why are we making Veigers sole ability to scale rely on a skillshot? Let's give him one of the most atrocious early games in the midlane and make it even more unreliable. It will stop the crying at least.

3. Passes through minions - ok, but I'd rather farm reliably like every other champion in the game.

Conclusion - Late game champ that relies on farming can't farm as well. Good start.

Now R:

Ok, now that farming was made more difficult let's reduce your late game burst as well. Hurrdurr. But that 10sec cooldown reduction. And now that Q's a skillshot the full damage rotation isn't 100% reliable as well. Never mind that he probably has less farm and won't being doing as much damage already.

The real joke here is the change to his E:

A delay. Really? With all the mobility creep you've been shoving down our throats, this is your magical re-balance. Great, now it's going to be all but impossible to lock down the leblanc, kalista or katerina. I'm sure it will never occur to anyone to just walk, dash, troll-pole jump, swap, zhonyas, or tele out of it. At least we can still cage Garen... unless he burns flash. You know, that one summoner spell we all run for situations like this. Even if they stick around, it's not hard at all to dodge a W (the only skill that didn't get a damage nerf and relies on them standing still). Good work, time to go home.

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So here is how you now beat Veiger. Nothing changes from how you beat him before, only now you simply walk away from his E, dodge the W and Q if you manage to somehow get caught in it, and absorb the ult because the damage was gutted and his farming has become even more difficult so he can't compensate.

Make sure to get the jungler in on this as well, because now he can't even peel for himself and will die before the walls come out. Do you really think Hecarim or Lee sin or going to give any ****s?

In all seriousness, Veiger was fine after removing DFG. I think that was a good decision. He can't gib anyone he pleases. I think a delayed E would have been workable had they not touched his Q and R and keeping his reliable damage rotation. Riot's solution to nerfing Veiger (deservedly or not) is further nerfs. Where is that give and take balance (LOL) Riot has been patting itself on the back for?

I would have preferred no change to his live kit. He's not seeing a lot of play now, he only does well in extremely selective match-ups, and he is incredibly weak in the early game. The necessity of nerfs aside, these current PBE changes go way to far. Don't make his sole ability to scale into the late game more difficult. Don't nerf his late game damage, when his early game is already so weak. Don't render his only cc useless if you're going to gut his ability to do reliable damage.

AND DON'T DO ALL 3 AT ONCE AND TELL ME YOU'VE FIXED HIM AFTER REMOVING A CORE ITEM. This is not compensation. This is breaking the horses legs, beating it to death, and dancing on top of it.