Here is the problem I have with the Veigar changes

For those of you who haven't read it yet, Veigar is getting a huge gameplay change in his kit indirectly. You can see the changes in the link below http://boards.pbe.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/champions-gameplay-feedback/LKAEsmPM-veigar-changes-hitting-the-pbe-soon?show=flat

  Now after becoming very familiar with his play style these past months, here is how I feel the changes throw him a bad way. For a start, we will look at how he plays live. Currently, he plays as a deadly burst mage that excels at killing the first person to hit his wall. Now his wall has a significant cooldown for how effective it is and his safety and his burst relies all on the wall landing with the huge delay on his Dark Matter and that most of the targets in midlane now will outright kill him for trying to Q them or a minion without the wall. It acts as a safety buffer and an initiation tool or an escape. All his safety and damage relies on this wall getting the intended target, if he misses that, his only safety measure is gone and he is fair game. Now, if he were any other mage he would be screwed because of his crippling mana costs but this can be fixed with a chalice even after the nerfs. His passive+chalice keeps his mana costs from really screwing him over. It isn't perfect but it gets the job done and he can sustain himself with it if used correctly. The big thing to note is that he is incredibly squishy, more so than many other mages and has no forms of mobility. He is a pure glass cannon. He is a slow champ that packs a huge punch in to targets.


 Now think of big midlane picks at the moment. Think of how they are played, what they all are. The large majority of what you will fight there is high mobility assassins. Kassadin, Katarina, Leblanc, Zed, Yasuo, and Ahri are all highly contested picks at the moment. Look at the jungle and the bottom lane as well. You will notice these rolls are once again, filled with highly contested champs with freakishly good mobility. Now, think of basic champion balance at a range perspective. What would counter high mobility? What will force them down? That would targeted abilities and targeted cc. No matter how much mobility you have, if you step in to his range, HE WILL HIT and you wont get far. He currently has 2 forms of targeted damage, that also being his only reliable damage. That is straight fact, but the wall makes his other form of damage reliable too and in a world where everyone and their grandma can fly across walls and jump half the lane, you are going to need that reliable tool to get all forms of his damage to hit the target.

 Now we will start to look at his updated abilities at this point. His new Q being a skill shot is scary because of the reasons stated in the previous paragraph, mobility reigns the game and only targeted damage and abilities will stop those high mobile champs in their tracks. But now it has an increased range and can hit 2 targets in a line. That sounds like a fair trade off along with the mana cost reduction and the lower cd at low ranks but ends higher than before as the Q is more reliable in getting stacks and can gain more in the same period of time. His Q can now be used as a scouting tool along with his W to check for predators. The change in targeted to skillshot now will make it unreliable against mobility champions though so he will rely on his wall to have a sure chance of hitting a highly mobile target. I think it is a fair trade off all in all.

 His W didn't get much of a change to it. He got the cooldown slightly lowered and the mana cost slightly lowered too. Cool I guess, cool down on the W might as well be the same as the wall though since it's so unreliable in hitting even low mobility champions or champions with no mobility. No changes to the damage or the reliability of the skill have been made so it is the exact same thing as before. Nothing special.

 His E... This is where he will suffer. The delay of his stun and the warning that it is coming is what will completely change his play style. This makes a huge shift in his gameplay. His stun was a reliable offensive and defensive ability, using it to stop pursuers or divers or to catch the guy trying to get a free trade or take off. With the delay, you won't be able to catch someone who is getting away as they will walk through the end or stop a person from diving on top of you. It will be in this weird place where you have to preemptively use it if you think someone will dive or run. It becomes a reactive ability rather an a proactive ability. This also lowers the reliability of the stun, which will now affect 2/3s of his damage to a target instead of 1/3 as before. That is a huge amount of reliability on a 18-14 second cooldown to not only be placed correctly but to have someone panic and walk in to the walls to allow you the time to get your damage off. But if you remember, the highly contested midlane picks are highly mobile champs. Assume you put the wall perfectly with a person right in the center where the delay will get them before they walk out. Kassadin Riftwalks on top of you, Katarina shunpos on top of you, Zed shadows on top of you, Leblanc distortions on top of you, Ahri spirit rushes on top of you. The only person that wont escape Veigar's prison is the one guy with conditional mobility, Yasuo. Now, if you try to use it defensively, by the time the stun comes up it may well already be too late as those champions all have a high burst to get rid of you before you get a real chance to respond. I'm all for counter play but this is really something. I really do not like the trade off. Slightly lower cool down means I can use it slightly sooner and get the same response. It isn't effective as a means to dish out his damage like it used to be and it isn't a reliable form of cc to deal with the high mobility assassins he is facing. The one benefit it does allow is a chance to pop a banshees veil if you haven't already but that trade off is not worth the drastic reliability issues he will face.

 Now I will propose a few ways I believe we can try to make the ability have a huge cost to him for how reliable it is and how much he needs to land the spell if he wants to get his burst off. One way is to spike the mana cost of the ability and put the cooldown to 20 at all ranks or 24-20. That will mean that he will be defenseless if he burns all of his mana farming while keeping the cost relevant, giving his opponents the edge if they can bait out his stun and make it miss with the incredibly long cooldown. Something else to try could be a reduction on other scalings that just the ultimate to accommodate for having a reason to want to farm your Q. Another possibility is to give the stun the treatment of the Anivia/Zac passive where an icon shows on the player showing when their stun is available to the other team, giving them the knowledge of if they can afford to get close and secure a kill. A possibility also lies in making the stun have a small area at the beginning of the cast and expanding outward until it gets to the maximum range. With that he can stun his intended target and get off all his damage while allowing the other players around him to punish Veigar for entering the fray. The last thing I can think of is a % max mana cost instead of a flat amount, an alternative to the first suggestion. Now, I am not thrilled with the thought of it as I'm sure no other Veigar player would be but if that is what it needs to be kept at the state it is then I would take the chance. 2/3s of his kit relies on this stun against these mobility assassins and that .75 delay is nothing to them. It only hurts the low mobility champions that would have to burn a flash to avoid the trap, people that wouldn't be a threat in the first place. The %max mana is a devastating cost, but it needs to be so it can be a reliable and effective form of cc to get his damage off. 

 The last thing to look at is his R. His scaling is reduced by .2 which is a big change in the scaling but it now has a reduced mana cost and a reduced cooldown. The scaling makes up for itself in how much easier it will be to get stacks with the new Q. Overall that trade off is one I can live with. He loses a bit of burst right when he hits 6 but he also shouldn't kill a target from half health when he presses R at that point either. It also supports more of the farm up to delete AP stackers play style he is built around.

 In final thoughts, I am glad that Veigar is getting a bit of attention but I feel the change to his stun is a very drastic change and will only hurt his viability more than it will support it. Now that his Q is a skill shot he will rely on it more than ever and it not being instantly reliable is a huge problem for him against the hyper mobile assassins that have been dominating the game now. If he is to be a destroyer of immobile champs, he has no place in the game now since that is what every single mobility champ already does and excels at. Please don't make the Tiny Master of Evil the Tiny Master of Free Gold. Look for ways to keep the stun as it is live but have it mean something real to him. Counter play is ok, but champion interaction and kit interaction is very important too. I want a change to be excited about like the Sion change, not another one to make me want to leave another champion in the trash bin. Let's work together here Riot.

 I'm at the end of this, I wish I had something to reward all the people who read this entire wall of text but I honestly have no Idea what to put. I do appreciate it though and if you want to provide more ideas then please be constructive with how you do it. Thank you for the read, it is really important to me to me and other Veigar players to try and get this change to work for both sides.