My idea for the Vel'koz Rework
tl;dr Vel'koz gains power (knowledge) as he kills opponents. Upon death he losses all knowledge and must begin collecting it again.
As a Vel’koz main since season 4 I can agree that Vel’koz feels very similar to other mages. His kit in essence is land your slow, land your AoE, land your Hard CC, and if they aren’t dead land your ult. His Q transform is cool, and the same with his 3 burst mechanic. After being mad at the update for a bit, but then thinking critically on his kit I’ve come to a few things that probably should be changed.
Before we get into that though some things that CAN NOT be changed about Vel’koz is his Q and his Ult. Both of those moves label Vel’koz as Vel’koz. I think talking to anyone about Vel’koz the two things they would say they like about him from his gameplay is his ability to redirect an ability (Q second tap) and his giant laser ultimate eye of destruction. They simply feel 100% like they make Vel’koz well Vel’koz. Taking them out would honestly make him feel odd and would strip the core of who he is at a champion.
Now onto the first change I’d like to see. I’d like to see Vel’koz get a completely reworked passive. While his current passive is cool it doesn’t feel like it fits him as a character. It just seems like a mechanic meant to boost his skill, and give him a little more damage in his kit. I’ve come up with an idea.
My idea for the new Vel’koz is a creature who evolves as he kills targets (aka gaining knowledge and adapting), and upon death losing his knowledge. I think his new passive should revolve around champion classes and how killing them ‘increases his knowledge’ and thus becomes a better killing machine. So let’s get into the meat of the idea.
Basically this entire passive is called Preliminary Testing: Upon killing an enemy champion of a certain class Vel’koz will gain their power. Upon death Vel’koz will lose all bonuses from his testing.
Let’s get into the specifics.
Organic Deconstruction: Killing an assassin (Zed, Akali, Katarina etc.) would give him a worse version of his old Organic Deconstruction. Upon killing an assassin let’s say that the enemy was a lvl 6. You’ll get a lvl 4 version of your old passive or 65 bonus damage upon combo completion instead of the normal 85. The value can never drop lower than lvl 1, and to update the passive the enemy needs to level up and you need to kill them again. Let’s say you’re sitting with a lvl 4 version of organic destruction. To get a lvl 5 you’ll have to kill them again at lvl 7.
Organic Sedation: Killing a Juggernaut (Garen, Darius, Poppy etc) increases the effectiveness of your CC. Again dependent on champion lvl this will range from an additonal .1-1 second more on his Q slow, .05-.5 on his E knockup, and on his ult by .1-1 second. Or by lvl 18 on both champions a 3 second slow on his Q, a 1.25 knockup on his E, and a 2 second slow on his ult. The type of slow doesn’t change on his Q/Ult so you’ll still be dealing a 70% and 20% slow respectively.
Organic Uncertainty: Killing a Mage (Swain, Lux, Ziggs etc) increase damage the lower your mana becomes. The damage increase will happen at 75%/50%/25% mana reserve. It will also depend on enemy champion level at 75% you’ll range from a 1-5% increase, 50% will range from 3-7%, and 25% will range from 5-10%.
Organic Imperfection: Killing a tank (Mundo, Malphite, Maokai etc.) increases your team's penetration based on enemy champion level. How this works is by hitting an enemy with an ability will shred 1-5% (dependent on the level of the tank you killed) for 3 seconds while hitting an enemy with an AA will shred 5-15% of their resistances for 5 seconds (AA will override the 5%).
Organic Determination: Killing a Marksman (Cait, Corki, Ezreal etc) increase the range of your abilities. Based on enemy level this will change from 50-250 on your Q, W, and Ult. 40-200 for his E. At level 18 this will make your abilities go 1300 (first cast) 1350 (second cast) (with angles remember it will never stretch to the full 2650 range in a straight line). His W will also go 1300, and his ult will go 1800 units. His E will now travel 1050 at lvl 18 of the enemy as well.
Organic Momentum: Killing a Support (Sona, Janna, Soraka etc) will give you another 3 hit mechanic. By hitting 3 abilities you’ll gain a burst of speed 5-45 (dependent on enemy support lvl).
Special passive: Killing Zilean will grant you one death without losing your knowledge. This passive can only be acquired once in a game. Zilean will also grant you Organic Momentum every time you kill him.
What do you guys think?
