NOTE: Depending on how you read the patch notes, it's possible that the warning animation now plays for "only" .50s. Perhaps a Red could clarify this. Regardless, .5s is an awfully long time for enemies to click in any direction to not get stunned, even if Veigar has landed the stun perfectly on top of them.

http://i.imgur.com/zPdQvte.png

Riot says it admits it went too far with the "compensation" nerfs Veigar received for DFG's removal. (While I greatly respect Riot's balance team, I admit I have a hard time writing "compensation" without scare quotes in this context. I would be curious to know which Veigar players told Riot that making his stun no longer stun people unless they stand perfectly still for almost a full second would not be a major nerf.) It explains that it's now buffing him back up.

A variety of changes have been made, but the essential point that I think people should bear in mind is this: the 5.3 changes were a huge nerf because Veigar effectively lost his stun, and nothing Riot has implemented or proposed since then gives it back. I don't think I'm being melodramatic to say he's lost his stun; the 5.3 changes gave Veigar's enemy almost a full second of warning animation to move slightly in any direction to avoid being stunned, and that hasn't changed.

I understand that there were problems with the old edge-stun. I hated it myself, actually, because it felt weird that an ability that looks like a giant cage was actually just a really awkwardly shaped skillshot with a quirky curved hitbox. But until he regains some way to stun an enemy without them choosing to stand still for .75s, or quite literally throwing themselves into the stun, an already "meh"-tier Champion has been seriously, seriously nerfed—as "compensation" for the removal of his core item.

Before, Veigar's stun appeared .25s after button-press, and stunned anyone standing on the edge. The nerf changed that: after .25s, instead of the cage itself, a warning animation would appear, highlighting the edge in neon purple. That warning animation would play for .75s, the same time as the warning animation on Cho's Rupture. All an enemy has to do is move perhaps one Teemo of distance in any direction to avoid being stunned.

Riot is now changing that, but only a little. Enemies will still have .75s of vivid warning particles to make sure they're not standing directly on the edge of the cage. The principal change is that this warning now appears immediately, rather than after .25s of invisible cast delay windup.

They say they'll also make it so that enemies who end up inside the cage can't dash out of it. Before, enemies who dashed through the cage's walls would still get the full dash of distance, but would land there stunned; now, they can't dash through it in the first place. This is certainly nice, but doesn't do anything to allow this "stun" ability to actually, well, stun someone.

History

Here's some more detail as to what happened.

• Before the dark times. Pre-5.4 Veigar had an ability called Event Horizon. It created a "cage" with walls that would stun enemies on contact. It did absolutely nothing to enemies standing inside the cage, but if Veigar lined the the (somewhat thin) circular edge up with the enemy, and they didn't move during the .25s it took to appear, they would be stunned. Veigar players referred to failing to hit an enemy with the edge as "missing" the stun, which usually led to a swift death for the tiny yordle, as his would-be prey exploded him from inside the cage.
• Patch 5.3: DFG removed. Riot removed DFG. They stated that they would compensate Champions, like Veigar, who relied heavily on DFG. (There have since been some claims that Veigar actually didn't need DFG. I don't want to go off on a tangent, but suffice it to say that most Veigar mains disagreed: it dramatically increased the range of targets that he could burst, and when fed it essentially gave him an extra ult versus squishy targets that would die to DFG+Q+W alone. I do think that Meddler's remark that he didn't think Veigar actually suffered from DFG's removal may help explain the changes that followed.)
• While this is rather embarrassing to admit, my main concern was that they would have to buff Veigar so much to compensate him for the loss of DFG that he would end up a totally reworked Champion. I'm glad that didn't happen: Veigar was always weak, but I played him anyway, and at the end of the day I wouldn't mind Veigar becoming even weaker. Oh, how naive I was. It did not even occur to me that they would do all three of these things: remove DFG, not buff him, and rework him. Well, sometimes Riot surprises you. Actually, they went further than that, beyond the furthest bounds of my imagination: not only did they not buff him, but they applied a truly massive nerf.
• Patch 5.4: Veigar is "compensated". Riot announced their compensation in the next patch. Somewhat strangely, this "compensation" included a drastic nerf to Event Horizon. The .25s cast delay would now be followed by a .75s warning animation that essentially said "WARNING! IF YOU STAND HERE YOU WILL GET STUNNED! PLEASE STEP SLIGHTLY TO THE SIDE." Although .75s may not sound like a very long delay, that's the same as the warning for Cho'gath's Rupture. Unlike Cho'gath's Rupture, Veigar's stun is not a filled circle but a hollow ring. If Cho casts Rupture beneath you, you will get knocked up if you don't immediately run for the nearest edge. In contrast, even if Veigar lands Event Horizon directly underneath your feet, you need to move only a few steps in any direction to not get stunned. Also relevant: when Cho misses a Rupture, he generally does not immediately die.
• There was more to the "compensation" than that. The major points: they made his Q a skillshot, allowed him to potentially q-farm a larger percentage of the minion wave (in the fantasy world in which an enemy mid lets a Veigar who will always "miss" his stun free-farm), and nerfed the damage on his ult.
• Patch 5.5: Cast delay (but not warning duration) reduced. In Patch 5.5, Riot announced that they feared they had gone a little too far with this "compensation". They did not change the duration of either the cast delay or the warning animation, but they made them happen concurrently, rather than sequentially: the "WARNING: VEIGAR IS TRYING TO STUN YOU!" alert appeared instantly on button press, rather than .25s later. (Astonishingly, the earth does not seem to have resounded with the jubilant cries of euphoric Veigar mains.) They also made his Q, which is now a skillshot, travel a little faster.

I don't think Riot's really compensated him for DFG's removal yet. Actually, I don't think he's even been brought back up to where he was after DFG's removal. I suspect that if you asked Veigar mains to choose between the 5.4 "compensation" changes and the removal of DFG, they would happily choose the removal of DFG.

Maybe there's hope?

Riot Scarizard says that more buffs are coming in 5.6:

@CupcakeTrap Veigar will be receiving more changes in 5.6 alongside the inclusion of his wall-stopping.

(Source.)

Hopefully, that will include a way for him to stun someone without them losing their internet connection in the middle of his cast.