Boards›Gameplay

Vel'Koz's rework is a success!

Vanic998··7 votes·1,636 views

I am loving the new Vel'koz. the rework fixed the problems Vel'koz had and gave Vel'koz a real reason to pick as riot intended. However, for some reason, other players believe that the rework ruined Vel'koz and that he deserves more buffs. I disagree and here is why the rework was beneficial for Vel'koz. I will be using a lot of simple math and testimony to prove my point. I am a credible player because I am a gold Vel'koz main before and after his rework with 600k+ mastery points.

The old velkoz had problems. One problem he had was low scalings. This was a problem because when velkoz was fed, he doesn't snowball as well as most other champions. This happens even if you build magic pen on velkoz (Sorc shows, liandrys, and void staff). Other players exaggerate by saying that velkoz always does true damage with this build but that's only if enemies don't build mr, which they do. Vel can only do close to true damage. The low scalings also made vel have a horrible late game.

I don't know why, but some players describe vels new ult as weak and like a tickle beam but the old vel ult late game is the real tickle beam. Im not the only one who experienced this. If you search on youtube velkoz games that bjergesen plays, in the middle of one video, bjerg says, "When im fed as velkoz, I don't feel fed" and in another as bjerg is trying to defend his nexus late game by unloading everything he had on the enemy champions, he said, "Ahhhhhhhhh I do no damage!" and both games, he was fed (Research it if you don't believe me).The added AP scaling to his passive and the increased ap scaling to his ult helps to give him more snowballing potential and GIVES him A late game. Another problem velkoz had, which is minor in my opinion, was he didn't have a niche according to riot. im not going to go in depth with that because it seems mostly everyone understands that.

I have read that other players believe that velkoz was nerfed in terms of damage. Some players believe that the buffs weren't good at compensating for it and other players completely ignore the buffs. I'll use simple math to explain that the buffs MORE than compensated for the damage nerfs to his w and e. the AP scaling lost from his w and e total to 42.5. Riot compensated for that by giving his passive 40% AP scaling. it seems less since the difference would be 2.5 ap unaccounted for, however, its 40% in TRUE DAMAGE which more than compensates for the missing 2.5 AP scaling. in addition, the new passive does more true damage than the old passive right away at level 1. Assuming you have no runes and you bought dorans ring, the old passive at level on would deal 35 true damage while the new passive at level 1 would deal 39 true damage and thanks to the ap scaling, it gives vel better snowballing and late game so that passive will deal way more true damage late game too.

Some players believe that vels new ult is weak just because it doesn't do true damage by itself anymore, but the difference in damage isn't as great as it seems. Assuming that you have no runes and you have a dorans ring and you just finished the new morrelonomicon ( for me, its usually level 7), the old vel ult alone would deal 500+9+60=569 magic damage and 95 true damage. The new vel ult alone without research would deal 500+15+100=615 magic damage. Its true that the old vel ult would do more damage, but only by a small difference. Assuming the target has no mr, the difference would be only 49 damage. The fact that vels new ult has the potential of dealing full true damage to an enemy thus making a significantly bigger difference in damage in favor of the new vel more than compensates for the small difference in damage without research.

It is true that these changes to vel make him more combo reliant, but that was only to add more complexity to him. Before, it barely mattered what order you used your abilities as long as e was used before your ult most of the time. True damage was going to be dealt any way you used him. Now, theres more to velkoz than just spamming your abilities any way you wanted. This rework gave velkoz the unique niche of being a tank buster and gave him better snowballing potential and a late game. From these accomplishments, I believe that velkoz's rework was successful.

I am defending velkoz's state of balance right now even though my main champion could get stronger if riot chooses to listen to the players you are begging for buffs because right now, velkoz feels a little op right now. from my experiences, if velkoz snowballs, theres basically no reason to buy mr anymore. that's how good he is right now. additionally, throughout the 2nd and third paragraphs, I mentioned that the compensation buffs from the rework were more like overcompensations. I truly feel that if players learn to play him, velkoz will border on overpowered. If riot buffs velkoz, he'll be really overpowered and his pick and ban rate will increased thus causing me to not play my main champion as often. My plea is, just learn to play him. I love this rework and it is successful. Don't ask for buffs. I would hate to think that all that time getting 600K+ mastery points on velkoz went to waste.

17 Comments

Slamurai Jack4 votes

There's a reason Vel's winrate in plat and diamond is down 8%. The changes were a huge overall nerf.

Vanic9981 votes

The patch is only 3 days old. As I said, players just need to give it some time. They'll get used to it. Lux didn't becomes overpowered a day after her q was buffed last year. It took time for players to get used it . Plus his popularity doubled.

Slamurai Jack3 votes

They don't need to just "get used to it". It's objectively worse than it was before, and this is more and more evident the better players you're up against. The rework removed a large amount of Vel's unpredictability, significantly lowered his amout of possible combos, and made his basic spells significantly weaker, all for potential true damage on his ult that often makes no difference. I've been spamming the new Vel'koz since it came out; I'm one of the most successful Vel'koz players in NA. And I'm telling you, it's bad. It's really bad. I can still win with it but it feels far weaker than it did before. And even when it does work out, it still feels bad.

Richtard4 votes

Diamond 5 player with around 300k mastery on Vel'Koz here.

Here's what I think. Old Vel'Koz having low scaling was what made him more unique compared to other mages. He relied on base damages as opposed to ap ratios. Also, with the mpen build (which felt very unique as opposed to the generic ap heavy mage build which he relies on now) he could do complete true damage to any target that had less than 130 magic resist which is basically any carry. Vel'Koz having a very strong mid game and a lackluster late game was what made him feel balanced which is why many including myself thought he was perfect before the rework.

Also, his snowballing is actually weaker because his early and mid game are weaker due to the lack of multiple passive procs in a combo. You have to have around 3 complete items to make up the damage loss for the procs.

The new ultimate is worse in my opinion since it is now more of a single target spell because chances are in skirmishes and teamfights you will only be able to research an individual target unless the enemy team just clumps up within your E. Also they simplified his combo and made it feel a bit more sluggish. You used to be able to instantly follow up with your abilites as soon as you know you landed your E. New Vel'Koz has either follow up with a W and wait for the second portion of the W to occur which takes a couple milliseconds or follow up with a W and Q and wait for the Q projectile to connect which also takes time. Those milliseconds are so crucial in a teamfight.

Also, even GreaterBelugaWhale, the guy who worked on the Vel'Koz rework stated that he felt Vel'Koz is weak at the moment. https://www.reddit.com/r/Velkoz/comments/4hzlhs/does_anyone_else_really_hate_the_rework/d2uwjmi?context=3

Vanic9981 votes

Where are you getting true damage to targets with less than 130 magic resist? You don't do true damage. The target needs to have at most, 46 magic resist (a little more if you include your runes and little less if you include their runes) to deal true damage unless you're considering a fourth magic penetration/reduction item? Even then, it's still not close to the number you gave.

Richtard1 votes

Holy crap you're right. Sorry, was super sleepy when I was writing that post. Anyways, during the mid game (let's say level 11) where old Vel'Koz really shined if you had your haunting guise, sorcs boots, and void staff as well as your mpen runes and mpen mastery you would be sitting at around 44 flat mpen and 35% mr ignore. So, with these numbers you could do full true damage to any target with 68 mr or less which would be most adcs and some mid laners.

Vanic9981 votes

Where are you getting 44 flat from? Do you use that many magic pen runes?

Richtard1 votes

15 from sorc boots, 15 from haunting guise, about 8 from mpen runes and around the mid game at lvl 11 your precision mastery gives you about 6 mpen.

Vanic9981 votes

Oh yeah I forgot about the masteries.

runandscream3 votes

Hooray! A non salty post!! I am excited to play him. I think your assessment was good and thank you for the math.

redbull papi3 votes

He feels almost exactly the same to play to me... so far.

Vanic9981 votes

Exactly. The compensation buffs made VELKOZ not too different if you don't research your enemies. The real change lies once you research your enemies.

Goosetard2 votes

I don't have 600K mastery, only around 250K. I went from low gold to plat 3 last year due to two things: the servers moved to chicago and my ping dropped; and I started playing Vel.

Here's my summary of what I understood your points:

  1. Old Vel'Koz had a bad late game
  2. The ap scalings taken away from his kit are put back into his passive, making his overall spell + passive damage higher
  3. His old ult was marginally stronger than the new w/out research, and is weaker w/ research
  4. Combo reliance increases complexity (why is this good, in and of itself??)
  5. He now has better snowballing potential and a late game

Here is why I believe they are wrong:

  1. This is more of a gray area; I don't think his late game performance was bad, but his late game damage wasn't excellent like other champions (or like his mid game damage). He transitioned into a kite/poke late game champ who could delete squishies and win closely-packed teamfights with aoe damage, but not necessarily carry the whole thing by himself
  2. Moving AP ratios to his passive from his abilities and making his ult do true damage puts him in a weird itemization situation. Magic pen is now a much less efficient stat on him, but lower ratios on his magic damage abilities mean magic pen is more efficient for those abilities. Even with a 100% AP ratio on his ult, his base damage is so high that magic pen is still the more cost effective stat for it... unless it's dealing true damage. Old Vel's fixed true damage meant that it didn't factor into his itemization decisions. Now magic pen is a wasted stat on half of his kit but a really, really good buy on the other half. Even if the only effect to his gameplay pattern is to make him more combo reliant, the decision still feels bad.
  3. You're really taking advantage of selective math with this one. There is no question that his new kit does overall more single-target damage if you research a target before you ult it. However, your treatment of comparing the two ults at full duration on a single target with no other variables besides research is incredibly misleading. For one thing, all it takes is a single passive stack from another ability to add an additional passive proc of damage. Two stacks from another ability will make the extra tick come a lot sooner in the ult, making something like an 80% finished ult a lot better. This may seem trivial, but in a big teamfight where you're trying to put down a lot of damage on a grouped enemy team, you'll probably only be able to research one person at best before the optimal time to ult, while your q and w go on to put stacks on several other team members. You need absurdly high amounts of AP to recover the lost damage from ONE passive proc, and even MORE from two on these other enemies (at level 7, as in your example, two procs of old passive would do 210 true damage. You'd need 525 AP at level 7 to break even against a target with NO MR). When you're hitting many champions with your ult, this adds up really fast. At early levels you need 120 AP or so to break even on single target damage, which is attainable with your morello at level 7, but not before you've finished an item. Oh, and if you're going to get all that wonderful single target damage, you usually have to wait until they're out of your CC to start your ult for maximum damage. To summarize, you need items to keep up with half-itemized old Vel'Koz to match early-mid game single target damage, and the late game scaling comes at the dire expense of your AoE teamfighting ability. You compare the early case, showing they're equal, and then talk about how the scaling is better against a single target, but you fail to consider that his ult lost a lot of reliability and multi-target impact.
  4. I'm up for the challenge, but making something more complicated for no reason is not an element of good design.
  5. He may have better late-game single target potential, but snowballing comes from a strong early game, which is one of the places they took power from to give it to his late game. He is now the opposite of a snowballing champion.
A Loyal Support1 votes

I want to build Mpen on my vel'koz! >.< i don't wanna build him like the generic mage!

GenghisEmo1 votes

Ihave yet to play as him, or against him. I felt Riot OP'd him from the rework.

Once i get time to play him or against him ill see.

Doesnt sseem like much changed

TheDarkPhobos1 votes

First of all your ult does less damage early game . That s precisely because nobody stand for the full duration of the ult. Before most of the famge would come from the first stack of your passive, which synergiZed with your ult. Before I would shred any mid laner with the full combo and guarantee a kill, now they always manage to escape even if I land all my spells

Vanic9981 votes

I addressed that the ult does less damage early game. The difference is small though. How did your enemy get away if you landed all your abilities? The ult research damage does significantly more damage compared to the old ult.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by Vanic998

Zoom out during Vel'Koz's ultimate.
Gameplay87 comments
127
votes
Zed should be punished for making this stupid play.
Gameplay140 comments
112
votes
Riot please mke this change to the post game.
Concepts & Creations6 comments
36
votes
Can we have Bonus IP Weekend for Chroma Skins please Riot?
Gameplay1 comments
13
votes
Zolt, The Anti Mana
Concepts & Creations31 comments
12
votes
Can't wait for patch 6.1!!!
Gameplay17 comments
8
votes