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Diamond Vel'koz main with thoughts about his changes

Rümor·1/24/2016, 12:59:51 AM·6 votes·1,076 views

I've mained Vel'koz mid since his release and just have a few thoughts about his current state in the game.

1: Vel'koz is not overpowered 2:he has a distinct playstyle operating around trading with his passive stacks 3: due to low mobility and ult channeling is an extremely niche pick that really suffers against dive comps

in my opinion from the rediculous amount of games I've played on vel'koz is this:

his passive immediately rewards you for landing 3 hit combos with extreme damage spikes (coupled with thunderlords you can evenly trade or outrade most meta picks in the early laning phase) unfortunately this also makes his damage extremely inconsistent against higher level players.

the inconsistency in his damage output was reduced, along with most poke mages, by the introduction of frost queens to mid lane but due to the nature of his ult was still in a healthy spot to allow team to strategize against him. (basic rule of thumb for vel is you gapclose to him hes more than likely not ulting or he's dying based on enemy cooldown availability.)

so how do we alter him to allow him to fit a niche while still keeping his healthy play style?

Passive: Organic Deconstruction; current state: damage buff; not very unique

lets first of all look at the definition of Deconstruct to learn and develop a better theme and direction to move in

de·con·struct verb to analyze (a text or a linguistic or conceptual system) by deconstruction, typically in order to expose its hidden internal assumptions and contradictions and subvert its apparent significance or unity.

reduce (something) to its constituent parts in order to reinterpret it.

basically my thoughts are this; his spells in their current state act as a analysis of the target(s): which fits with the stacking identity of passive so no problems there. however the payback of reaching full stacks only heavily damages your opponent. it does not allow you to "learn" anything about your opponent in game. which to me is the most unique part of vel'koz's personality (or lack thereof).

possible changes that come to mid would be placing a decision making tool into the hands of vel'koz players rewarding them for learning about their opponent. I'm no champion dev so please bear with me here.

maybe allow spell interactions after reaching full passive stacks? (extra slow?, enhanced range?, longer knockup time? magic resist debuff? cdr?) or possible champion style related interactions? (assasins get reduced damage output against you for a time?, increased mobility against poke mages?) not sure if this is even in the realm of coding possibility however.

Last thoughts. vel'koz is an poke/sustained damage mage who is reliant on team comps, levels for base dmg in passive, magic penetration, and cooldown reduction. often times you can fall behind in lane but due to the fact that your damage output is only reliant on sorc shoes and haunting guise, makes him almost relevant in every game as long as he can stay safe and stay up in levels.

I'm very much looking forward to seeing what you can do with this champion and hope that you can still maintain his healthy kit.

forever EYE, IGN: Deconstruct Velkoz

10 Comments

YossarianSensei1/24/2016, 11:53:21 AM3 votes

To be frank, I'm another 'diamond player' and I do find him to be OP

He's not the most OP champ by a looong shot, but IMO he's another one of them mage champs that are low risk high reward. You never have to go hard with VK because he's perfectly content farming and poking from 20 miles away, yet he has insane damage potential even when behind (See: every 'support' VK ever). His waveclear and harass is crazy strong and his teamfight presence is equally strong. So essentially you have a champ that can deny you, but can't be denied himself.

Champs like VK are balanced just like ball-of-stat champs, except since he's skillshot based it's just estimated that he lands X% of his spells and he's balanced around those numbers. As a result, if you land more than avg spells then you're OP as fuk, if you miss more often then you suck. If you fall behind on items you can always make up for lost damage by playing better, whereas that's not true for a lot of champs (ex: If a tank falls behind they're just not going to be durable enough or do enough damage to be a real threat).

Or even consider Lux - it's kind of expected that she lands most of her spells because her CDs are so long, so if she falls behind she doesn't have the same fall-back cushion of extraneous damage that VK has which means she won't be effective in fights and it's going to be really hard for her to properly waveclear.

runandscream1/24/2016, 1:14:33 AM2 votes

I agree with you. I love playing him and am excited to see what they do for him.

Slamurai Jack1/24/2016, 11:18:21 AM2 votes

Am I allowed to disagree as another Diamond player who's had Vel'koz as my best champion the past 2 seasons?

Frankly, I do think he's OP and I think he's actually rather strong against dive comps, provided your team comp isn't complete shit and their divers don't just go right through your team. So long as you aren't getting initiated on, Vel'koz has one of the strongest counterengages in the game which is a massive deterrent to dive teams. I'm also personally looking forward to what Riot has in store for him because I do think his W is pretty bland and his skills don't really interact with each other all that well.

http://imgur.com/jEV8pzY