Tentative Veigar Rework Suggestions

Veigar, the Tiny Master of Evil - whose heart has been twisted and tortured into a burning abyss of everlasting malice and spite. As one of the earliest infinite scalers in all of the League, Veigar has always been held in some measure of terrifying regard, for while diminutive - his powers know no bounds.

However, with the advent of a meta focused towards mobility and extremely snowball oriented scaling; Veigar has been hard pressed to hold up against the onslaught of dashes, flashes, and blinks that come at him from every corner of the map for him to make use of his kit or really have an impact on the game.

With the release of patch 5.4, much that already has been said still rings true; Veigar is unabashedly unsuited for the current meta - and worse still; in his current iteration, the niche he is supposed to fill so to speak has not been realistically made possible for him live up to in a fashion that he would be picked over any other champion. Furthermore, the notion and notoriety of his supposed 100-0 lack of counter-play is mostly moot, when other more capable champions can do so with greater safety, utility, and mobility to safeguard such an attempt.

Even prior to patch 5.4, the accessibility of the Hexdrinker , Maw of Malmortius , Quicksilver Sash , Mercurial Scimitar for AD Champions, Mikaels's Crucible for Supports, Zhonya's Hourglass for AP Champions, or the general go to of any Carry or even Tank, Banshee's Veil - he was largely a non-factor even with his single target burst potential, as beyond the power of (E) Event Horizon; Veigar offered neither utility, mobility, and limited zone control beyond that threat of single target burst.

Very early on, Kayle with her (R) Divine Intervention, or Morgana with her (E) Black Shield could largely negate Veigar's pick potential against Carries, which still holds true in contemporary times. With the introduction of Braum and his (E) Unbreakable, as well as Yasuo and his (W) Windwall respectively, the issue was further exacerbated where his abilities could be easily intercepted without much recourse or personal agency to re-position and hit his desired targets.

Bearing this in mind, I would like to re-envision Veigar with his core themes intact, whilst creating a healthy, fun, and distinct identity for the being who calls himself the Tiny Master of Evil. With that in mind, the elements distilled from his identity are as follows:

• Infinite Scaler
• Cosmic Abilities
• Low Mobility
• High Burst Potential

Which of course brings these questions into consideration:

1. Are his weaknesses meaningful forms of counterplay?
2. Are the strengths of his kit unique enough to make him distinct from other champions?
3. Is his presence in the game a healthy model of champion design?

[NEW] Innate Passive: Celestial Gift

Veigar regains a percentage of damage dealt by basic attacks, spells, item abilities, and summoner spells as Mana. (This include damage dealt by on-hit affects in response to being attacked such as Thornmail and Gift of the Toadstool, or spell-sword damage such as Sheen , Trinity Force , Iceborn Gauntlet , or Lichbane that source Veigar as the owner's damage).

This is calculated post-mitigation, so damage reduction, Magic Resistance, or outright damage immunity will lower or negate the mana recouped.

This ability's effectiveness is halved in effectiveness against minions and monsters.

Following along with interactive features to champion kits - the current live iteration of Veigar's passive, Equilbrium is a fairly passive and unseen power in Veigar's kit. With actual control and personal agency to impact one's mana sustain - and conversely, counterplay against Veigar by dodging/blocking/negating his damage with the above mentioned abilities or items; this interaction should be more impactful for making plays for and against Veigar.

[NEW] (Q) Fission Lance

PASSIVE: Veigar gains permanent bonus ability power when he kills a champion from any source of damage. This stacks with the active ability's AP gain.

ACTIVE: Veigar begins to channel for up to 3 seconds, slowing his movement speed, and extending the length of this ability whilst draining a percentage of maximum mana. If Veigar fails to release the ability before the full channel - the ability cancels and refunds half of the mana spent initiating the channel and the mana spent on the channel itself.

If Veigar releases the spell before the channel ends, he will deal magic damage as a linear pass-through skillshot.

If this ability deals a killing blow, Veigar gains 1 ability power permanently (doubled against large minions, large monsters, and champions).

Being the bread and butter of his kit, Veigar has been largely defined by his ability to gain power from farming minions and much later into the game, champions to gain terrifying amounts of ability power to augment his identity as a being that wields unlimited power. However, the throw-away mana cost once one staggers either mana regeneration or flat mana largely makes the ability unsatisfying if not primitive in terms of the decision making involved in its usage. In light of the recent rework to make it a skillshot, I've altered it with the telegraphed channel - and incentives to use it from range for safety, at the cost of far larger amount of mana per cast than the live iteration; Veigar has to carefully manage his mana as to when and where to poke, vs farming minions with this ability.

[NEW] (W) Dark Matter

ACTIVE: Veigar begins channeling for 3 seconds, pulling a mass of dark matter from the skies to strike a target point. Upon successfully channeling for the full duration - a meteor strikes the target point after a telegraphed 1.5 second delay, dealing magic damage on impact and stunning struck targets for 1.5 seconds.

Should Veigar take damage at all during the channel attempt - the ability is put on cooldown and the spell fails entirely.

This spell's mana cost increases with the distance cast away from Veigar location at the time he began channeling.

In a further discussion with regards to (E) Event Horizon I'll be getting into; Dark Matter has been re-tooled to match the fantasy on both a visual spectrum and the game-play spectrum of satisfaction. With a global presence at the tip of his fingers - Veigar has a terrifying objective tool at his disposal. Despite the range increase and added crowd control in this iteration, it does however come at a price. The first being, the ability is a channeled ability that can be interrupted by any source of damage much like Rek'Sai's ultimate. Secondly, the spell's mana cost scales with distance from the target point - meaning if it were canceled, or to not strike anything - Veigar would be largely hurt in terms of his mana sustain or worse still, left completely manaless. And while his base defense might gain some measure of edge as a result of sitting at the fountain - that nuance is largely offset by its inability to be used in the midst of a full on battle unless enemies are blatantly ignoring you.

[NEW] (E) Event Horizon

ACTIVE: After a brief channel of 1 second, Veigar alters the gravity at the target point, tearing a dense rift in the fabric of space that slows and pulls nearby objects towards its epicenter. Should an enemy Champion or X objects make contact with the center of the rift - it collapses upon itself, exploding and dealing magic damage to all nearby enemy or neutral units, stunning them in the process based on their distance away from the blast (maximum stun duration of 1.5 seconds).

This ability also intercepts projectiles from basic attacks, spells, and item abilities for the detection of objects making contact with the epicenter.

The number of non-champion objects needed to trigger the detonation increases with ranks in the ability.

Following along that fantasy theme of visual impact and gameplay satisfaction, this new iteration of (E) Event Horizon is meant to give Veigar a measure of defensive utility, as well as his enemies counter-play when dealing with a hazard such as a blackhole vortex appearing amidst the battlefield. Bear in mind, this ability also carries a hefty mana cost - and the interception mechanic affects attacks, spells, and item abilities from allied, enemy, or neutral sources, making its placement require a much more judicious understanding of how it can impact the influence his enemies or allies have in a skirmish or team-fight.

[NEW] (R) Primordial Burst

ACTIVE: Veigar ruptures the essence of archaic cosmic order, dealing heavy instantaneous magic damage to target unit. Should the target die from this initial blast - it ripples, dealing half the damage dealt to the primary target in an AoE and chaining rippling with each successive kill as a result of the blast's fall out.

Ah... Primordial Burst. The name evokes such awe and wonder as to something that can be called an Ultimate; a powerful absolutely universe shattering ability that ideally should have met both the expectations of visual impact and game-play satisfaction but has failed to do so with its lackluster visuals and generally unimpressive magnitude of effect (single target nuke only). In this new iteration - it's been spiced up to reward successful approximations of a kill threshold - being Veigar's only reliable close range spell, with the potential to wipe the floor of clumped up enemies, given that this ability can now also target minions, monsters, and pets instead of being exclusive only to champions.

While this is how I envision the Tiny Master of Evil reborn anew, I am curious to hear from the community and Riot themselves as to their thoughts as to where and how the development and future of our beloved and largely misunderstood Yordle Magus could or should be direct - for a dream of a day where Veigar can once again set foot upon the rift and make all who dare gaze upon give him the respect and notoriety as is his birthright.