Veigar Changes from a Veigar Fan

(Note: I know this is quite long, but there are a lot of points to make to effectively lay out the underlying chaos around Veigar's Event Horizon change)

Ya, powerful CC all needs counterplay to be healthy for the game. CC can't be allowed to run rampant because it's unfun when you get hit by it because you had poor positioning and blew up accordingly.

Oh, wait. That's how Crowd Control works. Oops.

Sassy sarcasm aside, let's break all of this down for the background before I get to the opinion piece. I understand Veigar's strengths and his weaknesses. I've fleshed them out over extensive time playing him since this game was still in closed beta. Veigar comes across as a very basic champion, but the simplicity of his ability effects is misleading. Veigar's ability to blow up squishy targets is potent and quite scary even if he isn't fed purely because he can farm his abilities to threatening levels without high end items. Passing 1000 AP isn't difficult in a 40+ minute game given the chance to farm even an average amount. This power is obnoxious and isn't fun to deal with because you feel incapable of responding accordingly because he could, at times, DFG -> Q -> R you and you would explode with no stun required. This power was nerfed via the removal of Deathfire's Grasp, giving some breathing room for squishier individuals. However, this inherent and more obvious power that Veigar possesses was very simply countered with Zhonya's, Banshee's Veil, and simple teamwork. And on top of that, the ability to blow someone up isn't exactly a niche ability, especially nowadays.

So why is it then that Veigar is seen as unfun to battle if he simply shares the same 100-0 potency that others do but has absolutely 0 mobility, 0 defensive powers, and 0 early game? There are three major pieces to this. The first of these three is inevitability, and is tied directly to his second piece which is his window of damage output. Much the same as ADCs, Assassins, and post-rework Cassiopeia, everyone knows that Veigar will inevitably be powerful given something as simple as time. Even if he's shut down HARD, he can so very easily come back from behind and do his job with relative efficiency. AP from champion kills, AP from last hits with Q, and his impossibly high AP ratios means that every single minute he's alive, every single last hit he gets (Q or otherwise but especially Qs), and every single kill he scrounges out works towards your inevitable doom. Should you find yourself going toe to toe with Veigar a good 30-40+ minutes into a match and you are alone, lacking QSS or a currently-active banshee's veil, or have no long-range hard CC; you will find yourself dead or near to it, tank or not. It's frustrating because it's long past the point that it can be dealt with. Nothing can stop him now because he already has the AP to obliterate who he chooses and it will just get worse.

His inevitable power also becomes frustrating because it's instantaneous and targeted. There is no response except Zhonya's, Troll Pool, Troll Vault, Unbreakable, or Wind Wall. Once his Q and R are launched, it's done. You don't get to play for a while. Enjoy the gray screen. Is this unfun to play against? Yes. Being 100-0'd is not fun. It's especially not fun when it just sort of... happens. You and your team are in the river hovering to contest dragon. The other team is hovering as well, unsure of whether to start the fight. You blink. Your screen is grey. Veigar is hopping away from the river into the bushes he came from as his team devours yours. It's not fun. How did it happen? Final piece of his aggravating gameplay: Event Horizon. His stun. It's range is ridiculous (it's 650 to cast the CENTER of it, not counting the distance from the center to the edges themselves), its duration is long, and it's just as instantaneous as his burst. Again, it just... happens, and you can't outdo its range. Your only hope is to take advantage of the situation should Veigar miss, which means none of his defeat was really your doing well but his doing poorly. This same complaint is used against characters like and . Even having a front line won't always save you. A good Veigar understands that he has the initiation power of an Amumu but without the risk because he can toss out an Event Horizion, lock down the enemy front line, and pave a golden path straight to the back line for his entire team.

All of these things make Veigar sound like a god amongst mortals in this game of explosive plays. So why on earth is he so unpopular? Because, despite his enormous strengths, he has infinitely bigger weaknesses that are becoming more and more notable as League continues to move towards mobility. Let's lay out his weaknesses.

• He has no early game
• He has absolutely 0 mobility, not even a decent movement speed
• His mana problems are ridiculous because he MUST farm his Q early
• His wave clear is actually very subpar early. His need for Q farm means a need to max it first to lower its cooldown, leaving his one AoE ability lacking the power to hold the lane
• Outside of using Event Horizon or having a teammate hold someone down, he essentially only has two damage abilities, one of which is his long cooldown ult.
• He is impossibly fragile throughout the entire match no matter what
• His fragility compounded with his farm reliance and lack of stable wave clear leaves him so very susceptible to early disruption
• His lack of an early game compounded with his mana issues makes his laning phase pure torture and so very easy to lose
• He has little to no cast range except Event Horizon so he is easy pickings for harassment when he wishes to last hit
• His window of time to shine extends to later and later times in the match the more farm he misses
• He can't roam; and even if he could, he couldn't afford to miss the farm
• His lack of presence early must be built around in a team, making him generally unfit for random play
• His cooldowns open up very obvious windows of opportunity to harass or straight up kill him
• Mages don't scale as hard into the late game, no matter who they are, because of their reliance on abilities as opposed to auto attacks. ADCs scale so hard because they can take objectives so easily.

The list goes on, but these are the major key points that make him unpopular. Mage players want flashy power spikes at level 6 that allow for equally flashy plays for kills early. Veigar doesn't offer that.

So what points did Riot focus on when changing Veigar?

1. His burst. They removed Deathfire's Grasp which made a big hit to his burst potential. Was this change warranted due to other abusers of the item? Sure.
2. His range. Changing Q into a skillshot and increasing its range allows for a generally safer time in lane. Event Horizon now has 700 range as well.
3. His lane holding power. The ability to hit two targets with Q is a bigger change than you'd imagine.
4. His late game mana problems. Oddly enough, he's been one of the only mages to ever have this issue and they're finally fixing it after all these years.
5. His lack of "counterplay." His ability to simply drop an Event Horizon and 100-0 his choice of targets had little "counterplay." Q becoming a skillshot means his burst is less inevitable doom when in the late game which is fine. However, Event Horizon gaining a delay because it's toxic is the WRONG way to change it for a healthier League.

I get what Riot is trying to do with the change to 's stun: fix a glaring issue in his skillset now and buff/change accordingly afterwards, but it comes across as just one final enormous nail in his coffin right now. Veigar is not popular. Veigar is not a maker of LC$BIGPLAYS. Veigar is not generally viable in any sense. Veigar is barely even viable as a rare niche pick.

You can't possibly think that this will be healthy for Veigar, Riot. I'll give ground and say that it's healthier for the game as a whole because Veigar's Event Horizon has almost the same power as an ultimate yet is a regular skill; but this change is going in the wrong direction. Veigar is fragile, immobile, and has absolutely 0 early game. He must farm, stay alive, and can't trade lest he miss out on precious Q last hits. Add on that mana regen has been hit a good bit and Veigar is in for a rough time in mid. To stay alive and fend off the endless hoards of mobility-centric assassins in mid as well as whatever junglers are popular at any given time, Veigar has only his Event Horizon and his Flash to fall back on should the going get rough. There is a give and take here within Veigar's skillset that is key to his design: he can be very powerful and very threatening; but he sacrifices early power, mobility, and defensive strength to hold that power.

However, this tradeoff is apparently "unfun" and "unhealthy." Why? Because Veigar can, at a safe distance, stop the popular mobility abominations from moving for a time. What does this mean for everyone else WITHOUT mobility? You're essentially screwed unless you spec towards countering him. Unless, of course, your team plays towards Veigar's glaring weaknesses and sends in someone tankier to either brunt the assault or bait his stun. Unlike assassins who also aim to blow enemies up, Veigar has to rely solely on his front line to get into the desired ranged of the enemy team to work his damage magic unless he wishes to waste his chance by being the initiator. So, instead of relying on players' sense of teamwork, Riot is making a drastic change by enforcing a delay on Event Horizon.

Riot, you have to understand that this isn't healthy counterplay. This is gutting a character for the sake of your current metagame (yes, this IS gutting him, especially the combination of the delay and Q being a skillshot). You're making playing against an already easily-countered champion even easier while simultaneously making him infinitely more frustrating and less fun to play. A character that isn't even popular and has never been a balance issue in all of League's history (minus his time while bugged with near-permastun). Zeds, Ahris, Katarinas, LeBlancs, and Kassadins: these are some of his worst matchups possible (and are all super popular right now) and you are making them WORSE because Veigar can no longer defend himself properly. Why? For the sake of "counterplay"? Have you considered that Veigar's Event Horizon is his only form of counterplay against assault on himself; or is counterplay only allowed against champions, not for that champion against others?

This change removes counterplay for the sake of counterplay. You took a step forward but took a step back first to do so. All that's changed is you've made a single champion even LESS viable in the eyes of players. You sacrificed Veigar's only self defenses all in one fell swoop. Before, he could obliterate his opponent just as quickly as they could him should he not be CC'd, at the very least resulting in their death along with his own if not allowing him to survive. Or, in the infinite amount of cases where Veigar isn't mega overlord levels of powerful yet or has stuff on cooldown, he'd simply drop an Event Horizon and pray to god he could get away in the time they're stunned. Then Veigar would sit back for upwards of 18-20 seconds for Event Horizon to be back so he could continue farming.

Now? His stunless 100-0 burst now requires being ridiculously fed due to DFG's removal and will also require a bit of luck due to Q being changed to a skill shot.

His infinitely more prevalent form of defense, Event Horizon, is no longer going to be able to consistently fend off opponents. This isn't even taking into account his ability to take down targets is going to be drastically inconsistent now as well.

Again, you've taken one problem and simply moved it into the hands of a different piece of the equation. Before? Veigar had to mess up. Now? Veigar's opponent has to mess up. This has solved no problems, only made the problem change places.

So how do we fix the glaring issue of Event Horizon? Simple number changes? A rework? This proposed delay? Text on an online forum may sound nice, but there's no telling how well it will work in practice. However, I'll still give it a shot.

Number Changes Lower the cast range?

Lower the radius?

Lower the duration of the ring?

Simple changes, but unfortunately just baind-aids to the bigger issue without truly removing it.

A Rework No suggestions for actual changes here, simply the idea of an entire rework of the ability. You have to admit that Event Horizon is by far one of the most powerful non-ult abilities this game has ever seen or ever will see, so a rework may very well be in order.

With The Delay The further Veigar casts Event Horizon, the longer the delay? Maxes at .75s and starts at .25s? Allows for better defensive purposes while requiring some luck and skill to lock down long range targets.

The wall of the ring closest to Veigar rises instantly, the ones adjacent to that one come up next, then the final two rise? Same total delay for the furthest, but still allows for instantaneous defensive power if needed. Would also look fucking badass because it'd instill a sense of dread as the area became quickly closed off piece by piece as opposed to all at once.

Have Event Horizon start as a hyper powerful slowing vortex that quickly moves out to the outer ring and solidifies as the stun? This would allow the ability to still hinder oncoming opponents without requiring the stun to hit and would ensure an infinitely higher chance of catching people within the prison.

Something HAS to be tacked onto Event Horizon should the delay make it through to live. As is, it is drastically punishing for Veigar without enough changes across his other weaknesses to make up for it. The problem is that nothing can be given back towards its long range offensive power without reviving the old issue of inevitable, "counterplay"-less death. Any one of these would be fine for fixing Event Horizon's defensive power while keeping it from being so oppressive offensively.

Please, Riot. Don't push these changes onto The Tiny Master of Evil and leave him as is. You have room to expand from these changes but you MUST be prepared to bite the bullet when the changes go live and everyone gets hostile. Don't let it discourage you, but also don't you DARE leave Veigar in that state for long. Fix his safety somehow, someway. With all the twitch gameplay you're pushing in this season's metagame, he's going to need on-demand defense.

Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?