Veigar Main looking for advice

So, with Dynamic queue down, and me being just plain frustrated at league, I figured right now would be a great time to take a break and address some things about my gameplay with Veigar that is clearly sub-par in some way. I see people going legendary and ending game early with post-LCS Veigar, but I seem to be having some issues doing anything with him in season 6. I love his mechanics and when I get going I'm terrifying... but I have one problem, and that's getting things started.

Now, I'm going to explain to the best of my ability what the problem seems to be, and then talk about what I'm doing. How I handle laning, my typical build path, runes masteries, etc. will be after this description.

Now, my problem is that, far too often, the enemy laner leaves an all-in (whether started by them or me) with just a sliver of health. Now, if that happened maybe once per game or once every other game or so, I would think, ok, they got lucky that I couldn't just land one more auto. However, this happens so frequently, I feel like I'm doing something wrong. Seriously, this happens multiple times per game. They back somewhere far out of sight with between 10 and maybe 100 hp. Every time I get that low, I die with very few exceptions. So, I'm beginning to think that they're not lucky, I'm just shit.

So, to get to the root of the problem, I'm going to do my best to tell you how I play Veigar. I know there will be a lot that cannot really be explained unless you're in game with me, or you have a replay, but my computer is a toaster so I can't exactly record my gameplay, unfortunately. However, I can tell you the facts, starting with runes and masteries. My runes are as follows:

Flat AP Qunits Flat AP Blues Armor Yellows Hybrid Pen. Reds (only because I don't have enough IP for magic pen reds -.-)

This way, I figure, Veigar's slow start won't be quite so bad, even after the nerf to his base damages from months ago. As far as masteries go, I've been experimenting around for Veigar. He's in a weird place, where thunderlord's decree is so strong right now. Even though his stun does count for the TLD proc, I don't feel comfortable leaning so heavily on his stun. I know TLD is just for a little extra damage that you shouldn't rely on, but I don't see the point if I'll barely ever use it. Without the stun, your Dark Matter probably won't hit, so you'll have to get the final stack with an auto, if you miss your stun... and that also assumes you're blowing your ult and didn't whiff your q. Instead, I tried DeathFire Touch, but recently I've been going StormRaider's Serge. DFT just doesn't seem to do that much (really needs a buff or change in mechanic, imo. Most people say that you can't tell the difference on damage charts when you use DFT). So, instead, SRS gives me a burst of speed, pretty much whenever I ult someone. If I'm doing well enough, my q can give me the speed of Sonic the Fucking Hedgehog. I kind of like it, and the extra 5% CDR from the rest of the cunning tree is pretty great. Naturally, I dump the rest of my points in Ferocity, because burst mages need damage.

In lane, I play very passively and conservatively, especially early on. It's really easy to do since his q has such a huge range, you can farm pretty easy. If I'm up against another low-mobility mage, or someone who can't really get in close, I sometimes will buy Cull as my first item. Since games end so early, I figured the bonus gold is a godsend to solo laners what easily get left behind when the adc's start getting their items built. More often than not, I'll go with the safe pick of Doran's Ring. If I feel like dodging skill shots will be a problem, I may buy my boots first instead, but this is only for a few picks, where mobility will be important in the matchup.

Another early laning phase strategy I use, is to put a pink ward in the bush around the entrance to the river. It's the closest path from jungle to river on your blue buff's side. This covers the river from one side, and I usually keep vision on the other with my trinket. As I said before, I'm more focused on farming, but keeping an eye out for kill opportunities; once Veigar starts getting kills, he starts getting out of control... usually.

My usual buys are to rush Chalice of Harmony, usually going for Athene's Unholy Grail before I start building anything else. That is, unless I get a lot of gold for no reason... but almost always chalice first, to double-down on my passive. There really isn't much of a backup plan on this one, mainly because Chalice/Athene's is just so useful to Veigar, there aren't many better early game buys, unless maybe if you're going up against Fizz, or having trouble with Zed or getting camped or something. In which case I may buy a Seeker's Armguard if it will help.. and that's only sometimes.

My second item is usually Rabadons; by the time I can afford it, I will have probably stacked more AP than I can get from a second AP item, so I usually just go for it. Sometimes, if I really need the active, I'll rush Zhonia's, but I usually pick after the enemy mid, so if it's a problematic mid for Veigar, I usually either swap roles or play Annie.

At this point in the game, I go for what I need. If my team's front line is really good at holding people back and no one can touch me, I usually go luden's echo. However, this is very rare, so Zhonia's is usually my third item. If their AP is going out of control, I might pick up Abyssal Scepter instead, or may have picked it up earlier, but it's very situational. If I'm having trouble chasing, or my team is, I'll often times pick up Rylai's, but that usually only happens later in the game.

On rare circumstances, I may pick up a sheen item late game, but the following conditions MUST be met before I get a lich bane:

1. We are doing moderately well
2. My ad is having trouble taking towers/doesn't have a concept of what objectives are
3. We have the power to end it/I have over 1100 AP/similar circumstances

It's mainly to take objectives when my team just won't,. Very rare buy.

My finished build very often will look something like this:

However, if the enemy team has a lot of MR, it may change to add a void staff instead of something like athene's, especially later on. Another suitable replacement would be luden's echo or maybe rylai's.

I usually take Flash and Teleport for my summoner spells. I feel like this makes it better for roaming, or defending in the late game in the case of a split push comp. Not to mention, since I have so much range, most of the time I'd actually have to walk closer to the enemy in order to ignite them. They may jump into close range, but honestly I usually end up getting more use out of TP, and flash... well, that's a given.

So, what do you guys think? Any experienced Veigar mains have any tips for someone like me?