"Vel'koz is fun to play with and against, distinct to play as, fair to play against, and healthy."

Because "fine" isn't good enough.

Because all he does is deal damage. If he was unfun and unbalanced, all they would have to do is reduced his damage and he would be back to being fine again. If he was UP, then they would just increase his damage.

His kit is nothing but damage with small amounts of crowd control mixed in there. He's fun because big damage numbers ARE fun. Who doesn't like to see 1000 damage right?

As I have said before, it is next to impossible for the current Vel'Koz to be unbalanced and unfun because:

1. He is the easiest champion to balance in the game
2. Damage is never not fun
3. His character is fun to play as

It's like this. You could develop a new computer brand that does EVERYTHING a PC could do and looks different. However, people would still buy the PC over your new computer brand. Why? Because it offers NOTHING new.

The only people who play Vel'Koz are people who like his character or people to where he was one of the first Mages they ever played and therefore are pemanently atatched to him since, due to the fact that he is so generic, it will always appear that Vel'Koz is doing the same thing other Mages are doing. People that play other Mages look at Vel'Koz and see nothing but a slightly different method of dealing damage and that isn't attractive. People would only switch to Vel'Koz from another champion if they liked the character itself and not his kit usually. His kit is easy to transition into since it has no incredibly unique mechanic you have to learn.

Land abilities. Do damage. That's Vel'Koz.