Boards›Gameplay

"Veigar Lacked Counter Play"

Trundle Bundle·2/15/2015, 11:16:00 PM·139 votes·7,860 views

It's getting really disturbing that this is a thing. I have never doubted that Veigar was in many ways poorly designed, but three seasons ago no one would have looked at the champ and thought themselves unable to find a way to beat him. His weaknesses were obvious. His power was deserved. He was inflexible and easily understood.

This isn't the case of champions like Nasus that grow out of control by other champions being nerfed too hard in comparison; Veigar can still be delayed. He can still be worked around. Each of you has plenty of opportunities to get a bountiful lead over him and, as someone who playes mages like Swain, Malzahar and Anivia, I'm not in any way threatened by his current state.

It's not the changes that bug me. I don't particularly like them, as they seem half assed at being meaningful and seem to have been done more so for the sake of making a change, but I understand the reasoning. You can't put too much power in one basket, particularly when it's got a decent level of certainty to it. That's not the issue.

It's the community that's asking for coddling that's out of control. Three seasons ago seeing his bad early game and his lack of resilience against ganks would have been enough to give us something to work with. The group mentality has shifted to something much, much worse now. "If he lines up the stun perfectly and I don't have the edge, I still shouldn't be punished for it."

The essence of strategy is really dying here. Swiftly at that. This game is being pushed to become more and more shallow, and it seems like a large enough portion of the community is encouraging it.

168 Comments

LoLKiru2/15/2015, 11:26:09 PM33 votes

This is an interesting issue. Personally I think this NEEDED to be done at some point (same with the mana regen changes that happened previously), the question remains did it have to happen now; when Veigar still has other issues.

I'd have just left him like he was for now, until his changes actually became a priority.

Malzahar ironically has the same issue Veigar does on live, once he has an advantage over you, theres nothing you can do to him (alone anyway), simply because no amount of skill allows you to outplay a point and click CC, that doesn't (in my opinion) make them overpowered (not currently anyway, power is always relative to the strength of others), just badly designed

Edit: As an elaboration on the mana regen changes; I feel those should've been done after some of the problem assassins (or just manaless champs in general) were toned down (preventing the mana-regen nerfs from indirectly buffing them too much; by nerfing the mages that were significantly affected by those changes.)

Freako2/16/2015, 12:20:26 PM18 votes

Rito: "Veigar lacked counter play"

Me: "Veigar lacked play"

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

SephAgro2/16/2015, 2:41:42 AM12 votes

{quoted} The essence of strategy is really dying here. Swiftly at that. This game is being pushed to become more and more shallow, and it seems like a large enough portion of the community is encouraging it.

We all know what's going on here. Mobility Creep is the issue here. Its no longer about "ooo Veigar survived lane against leblanc mid and Lee Sin jungle and has 300 cs at 30 minutes. Wow he got really powerful and deserves every bit of it." It's more about "omg did you see that big LCS play, she dashed at the perfect time and moved into the brush right when it was about to hit and then flashed! Wow. just wow so much counterplay". Macro game is dying rapidly in league and Veigar - along with Nasus - was the undisputed champ of scaling.

Meep Man2/16/2015, 6:52:45 PM9 votes

Veigar lacks counterplay just as much as:

Akali R Annie Q+E+R Fiddlesticks Q Irelia E JarvanIV R Lissandra W+R Malzahar R Pantheon E Poppy R Ryze Q+W+E Syndra R TwistedFate W Vi R Warwick R Yasuo W Zed R

Except his also does no damage and can be ignored by flashing. Also, guys, you do know that summoner 1 is a thing against Veigar in Ranked right? And item 3102 ? And item 3140 ? And item 3222 ?

Kowe The Ewok2/16/2015, 5:33:29 AM9 votes

Actually you are wrong. The community dislikes the Veigar changes. The agree with your view. However Riots "balancing" team apparently doesn't agree with us.

If there was an award for ignoring user feeback it'ld go to Riot.

SionideCN2/15/2015, 11:21:15 PM6 votes

It's not that Veigar lacked counter-play, it's that his STUN lacked counterplay

Veigar's counterplay is obvious, punch his punk-ass face in when he's weak.

ForgiveColour2/15/2015, 11:40:28 PM6 votes

um no his stun lacked counteplay you get stunned all the way from his turret with an instant click of e and targeted dmg is always retarded

Boulderox2/16/2015, 6:56:36 PM6 votes

The thing about veigar, is he had damage to pop one target, but then was boned, little mobility, and cooldowns that are precious to him. I feel that veigar needed to be left alone and his counterpart Nasus needed a hard nerf, his build tank and 3 Q you is just over the top idiotic. Veigars mechanic was hard to get, but if you put in the time you could kill someone very easily at high ranks. But that out of nowhere stun is bad gameplay, while blitz mobility into grab, morgana root, lux double bind are just fine. They keep nerfing champs that don't need anything done to them and dodging the real problem champions.

MOBILITY CREEP is the reason I really hate this season, everyone needs a dash or something or it can't be played. It bothers me to no end because on top of that mobility they have insane damage and are able to get out without a threat to themselves. "OH just hard cc them", ok, cus that is the only thing that works on them, not every champ has that and not every player wants to play champs that conform to the meta and how to counter said meta. I want it to go to a point where someone can play Urgot and not just because hes OP and is freelo. And on the flipside you have characters like Zac ,Galio ,Mordekaiser (rework idk how well he will do),Quinn ,Aatrox . All these champs have little if no play at all because they just can't fit into the meta, They were all borderline insane on release, but then the nerf hammer smacked them out of play.

I have to blame the LCS for all that is wrong with the game, it always comes from the LCS playing champs that enevitably get nerfed, because everyone wants to win so they take advantage of the champs that "cheat", have lots of Pros and little drawbacks, and from there millions of people say "hey, that is op, i never thought to do that but now i'm gunna do that every game so i can win." It's all fine to watch but at the end of the day it's "who can pick the 5 broken champs and ban the other ones so they can't have them"

Long rant but i really love playing certain champs that have a really hard time in the game right now because everyone bullies them out in one way or another. for me it's Zac(can't be buffed ever cus he would be too strong, so he is useless from here on out) Diana(forgotten, one speed buff on w rotation... wooo, still too squishy to deal with destroyer tanks and carries) Viktor (he is good but is never played and everyone choosing mobility outplays him everytime),

Volt Cruelerz2/16/2015, 6:57:37 PM6 votes

Done some more thinking about this and I agree. Veigar himself has so much counterplay that it shouldn't matter much if E doesn't. I think people have started to assume all abilities must have counterplay. Veigar has always been about strategy. Trying to force him to be tactical doesn't work.

CupcakeTrap2/16/2015, 10:14:09 PM4 votes

Well, I suppose this is a safe time for me to share some of the things that, when playing Veigar, I'm always afraid the other team will do to counter me.

  1. Don't beat him in lane: CRUSH him in lane. He's not trying to beat you in lane: he's trying to survive, and if he can even just survive, he's got a shot. (Also, now he hates you passionately, and will not hesitate to obliterate you once the tables are turned.) One of the dumbest moves I've seen against me when playing Veigar is an enemy mid who decides to just passively farm. As Veigar, I am DELIGHTED to have a passive farm-lane with you. No, you need to crush him. His mana costs are huge. He's squishy. If he throws his stun in lane, he is lunch for a jungler. Gank him. Watch his mana bar. When it's low, beat the fluff out of him.
  2. Don't get cocky if you beat him in lane. Even if you trounce him in lane, that's no reason to think you're the next Froggen and start fantasizing about going 30/0 this match. The worst thing you can do is get full of yourself and go hardcore glass cannon in search of pentakills. If you pour all that gold you got from him into purely offensive stats, you had better be good, because he will mercilessly punish you if you get out of position. Instead, you should get a little tanky. Tankiness is extremely strong against a Champion like Veigar: if his burst destroys you in one shot, he gets to giggle. If his burst takes you to 5% health, you can beat him to death with his own hat.
  3. Positioning. "Waaa, there's no counterplay to his stun, I can't use dashes to jump around and avoid it like I was playing some kind of demented DDR game." The counterplay isn't about bouncing around the map with your fifteen dashes, KALISTA. (How I loathe you.) It's about slower, subtler, less-twitchy counterplay. Are you rushing to the front of the pack to try to get a super-awesome initiation? Well, you'd better know where Veigar is. If not, let your frontline do their job. If Veigar gets greedy and just makes a beeline for you, he will get 100-0'd himself very, very quickly by your frontline, and they won't even have to blow an ult to do it.
  4. It's not all about the 100-0. Everyone obsesses about his 100-0 single-target potential. When Veigar has been played at the pro level, do you know what the announcers talked about? Not his burst, but his stun. From a pro perspective, his stun is his greatest strength. Burst? Whatever. Vayne can burst you with her stupid crits. Darius can burst you with his axe, and then do the same to the rest of your team. Veigars who win games use their stuns (and those meteors, which HURT) to break the enemy team. Bursting a squishy mage or ADC is frosting on the cupcake. If you are a squishy, and the Veigar is good, you are not his primary target: you are a target of opportunity. If he catches you out, he'll destroy you, but if he chases obsessively after you, he'll get killed himself. He's thinking about how to use his stun to win the fight.
  5. Bait his stun. Being Veigar means being very, very scared of the enemy team. Every one of them can delete you. Your stun is your protection. It's easy to freak out and throw it prematurely to save yourself. If you can scare him into throwing a misplaced stun, you only have to wait for it to disappear before your team is ready to counter-initiate hard. Once the battle-lines close, a Veigar without his stun available is an easy lunch for any halfway-durable bruiser or dash-y assassin. He can't waddle away from Zed or Akali, and odds are good he won't even be able to push "R" before he's stunlocked and killed. Once his stun is down, you should be seeing red.

So, just some thoughts.