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The Vel'Koz changes are a sizable nerf and make him feel horrible

Goosetard··9 votes·1,427 views

Vel'Koz midgame is a shadow of its former self. The inability to proc his passive with his ultimate makes him feel so much weaker, in large part because he is.

"But true damage on ult! But AP scaling on passive!"

No. I tried to defend these changes with math. I put a lot of graphs on these forums detailing how he was trading squishy-bursting power for late game tank-busting, but it was ok because he'll always be able to destroy squishies. Bull****.

At level 8, Vel'Koz used to be terrifying. You could reliably blow your opposing midlaner's flash if your ult was up and they took a bad trade, because you could proc your passive three times. With one rank in your ultimate, you now need more than 120 AP to deal the same damage you used to against a target with 40 mr. Now that more of your ratio has moved to true damage, mpen is worse on you, so it's best to just rush that AP and enjoy being much weaker until you get it.

Riot, you managed to take a champion that people liked to play as and against, that everyone thought was fair, and screw with his power curve in a way that feels really, really bad.

9 Comments

HEAljvLykd4 votes

HIs entire kit is the same. STFU.

Vanic9981 votes

I wouldn't say that his kit is exactly the same. I believe that it was improved.

Jezbo3 votes

His Ult hits like a wet noodle unless you land combos. This has HUGE implications. Not only does the bulk of the damage rely on your target sitting inside the beam for it's full duration (which is almost never the case because it's wiser to use it at distance and champions these days have mobility up the ass) it also lacks the burst used for on demand situations.

So in a sense it's use was nerfed. No more flash/ult plays or hiding behind a wall ready to assist an ally for a kill.

Sir Hammerlock2 votes

I don't even play Vel'Koz and I feel bad for Vel mains. He really does seem a lot weaker, I used to get pretty frightened if an enemy Vel'Koz landed a 5-man ult in a team fight, everyone would melt.

Last time I had an MYMU enemy Vel ult out team, it was like being hit by a tickle-beam.

TheOvermind1 votes

you blow things out of proportion , velkoz changes were good and very well justified BUT Some things i don't like however: -full combo was either a kill or a flash most of the times before rework, now the damage is not enough early on due to the loss of his passive on his ultimate. That is a reasonable tradeoff given how his lategame is now terrifying. -The research thing is not quite working as well as I wanted it to. I always try to get a clump of people knocked up with my E(W+Q) and then Ult to ensure I maximise damage on 3+ people for the majority of the ults duration. INITIALLY I thought that i didnt have to change my playstyle at all since I always land a passive proc combo on my enemies before I ult them. I would Always get the most out of my new true dmg ultimate right ? WRONG! If you Ult as they are knocked up half of your ults damage will be magic and the other half will be true. That is because you begin channeling as they are knocked up not when they are researched. research takes almost another 2nd to be activated with ur 2nd W proc. And no Im not willing to ult after the research because my knockup is now gone and they are spread out.

They should have done what i recomended with his ultimate, lower base damage but make it apply an increased number of passive stacks with each rank. So that it does more true damage in the lategame but is not useless early game. ( also keep the AP scaling passive )

Goosetard1 votes

I don't understand... The changes were good and well justified BUT you don't like them either?

FiddlesOnTheRoof1 votes

They're all weaker man. Malz is arguably stronger, but he's no fun to play anymore. They destroyed his ratios and scaling, and removed his secret ability to deal with tanks. This whole season has been an absolute disaster. Mages were already weak, and being pushed out of the meta. now they're completely dead. The only ap you need on your team is maokai and maybe a support..AP doesn't become good until almost 45 minutes now, at which point, the enemy team has four insanely strong Dragon buffs, and you're about to lose. I'm already playing Overwatch more than league now. My league hours have pretty much cut in half this season. I'm getting close to quitting altogether.

Martyrofsand1 votes

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2179555209/43282169?tab=overview

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2179177604/43282169?tab=overview

Yeah small sample size, but frankly I'm not seeing any of what you are talking about. The TT game at level 5 I hit that enemy Vel with W-E-Q combo, while he was under turret, and it out right killed him, and that was with 2x Dorans and Codex. In the SR game I had the enemy Rengar jump me and responded with a full combo just to watch him melt faster than he normally melts me.

In general I find the damage I put out as Vel is completely insane and I melt pretty much anything I face off against. Frankly I love him being focused more on true damage than straight magic damage, it allows me to focus CDR and straight AP items, such as Morellos/Lucidity Boots/etc instead of needing to go after Sorcs and Void staff just because my opponents built mr.

Goosetard1 votes

Those are instances of single target damage, which is the one category that new velkoz can exceed old velkoz in.

If the reason this is an ok rework to you is that "his single target damage has improved," then it's a failure anyway, because all it will have done is moved him from an artillery mage to a single-target burst mage, where the same problem riot had with him before applies:

He's only good if he does more damage than everyone else in that category, and if he does, he's probably too strong.

So then the rework simply turned him into something he didn't used to be and replicated all of his problems anyway.

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