League of Legends: I finally updated the player list in the OP!

[Seven]

I see him more as a mage, and there are reasons why you don't really see traditional mages anymore outside of Ziggs.

Banshee's is also a huge deterrent to his whole kit as well. He is still playable, but off-meta champs are as such for a reason. You have to master these types of champs to consistently break even against some of the overbalanced FOTM picks like Ziggs or Gragas.

[k-wix]

The new AP/Poke support item is pretty nuts on Xerath in the support role. I'm good enough with skill-shots that I can land a fair chunk of them, and I'm just blowing people out of lane and single-handedly winning my lane for the ADC with a full AP-Burst rune page. The new activated ability is very, very strong for disengage as well. 80% slow is huge. Combine that with his built in slow/stun and I find that I have plenty of tools to 'save' the ADC in a 2v2 scenario.

The changes to Dorans Shield and the Support Shield make it easier than ever to pull this sort've stuff off in a lane comp too, though you are still fairly weak against strong 'all-in' gank types. I'm really really happy with this patch. Would love to find a good ADC to test this more with, most of my ADCs so far have been passive and wont engage when we're at full health and they are at 25% health.

I hope we see more of a shift away from the 'tanky-cc-support' meta that's been pretty common lately.

[The Derrit]

magic penetration and bleedy mask are more effective than 110-130 MR, and zhonya's doesn't work when you're stunned

i get veigar has things that don't suit him well to high level team comp based games, but he still crushes if played conservatively

[kitty]

The stun doesn't last long enough and you're assuming he'll have the mobility to even be in range to get his combo off instantly, which he doesn't. Like, I don't understand why people just assume a champion is in range to dump a full combo off. This is why I talked about mobility in my post. I can just say, yeah *insert champion name* is in range for *champion combo* 100% of the time s/he destroys Veigar. Hurp.

[The Derrit]

no i do get it but if you have the ability to stun people at long range and kill them, they have to respect it. you have to catch someone out, or stand back while your team gets engaged on and catch someone with the stun that you want to kill. you have to stand wayyyy out of your range for the majority of fights. but for the most part, i've found that two or three out of 5 people on the enemy team is 0-deathable, or very close to it, if you've played well and have farmed up enough. one of them will be within your range while you're still safe during a teamfight, and if you can instantly kill them and do damage to other people as well, you're doing a pretty big thing for your team. on top of that, the aoe stun can be used to box people in for other aoe things, like an amumu ultimate, galio, leona, whatever.

being able to kill people is powerful but not as powerful as the tools he has surrounding his kit that allow him to do so, while setting up the rest of your team.

veigar is not god tier but if the other team has to fear him (which often happens if you can farm well) he punishes bad initiates and poor positioning as hard as anyone.

[zircon]

IMO his problems involve range, cooldowns, and lack of AOE. Take a look at Syndra. She basically does everything Veigar does but better. Her primary attack (Q) has more range, more damage, better scaling, and an AOE effect. It also has a 4s cooldown at all ranks. Veigar has his meteor ability, which DOES hurt. But it's also kinda easy to dodge. Syndra's Force of Will (W) also does high damage, but has more range, more utility, and a shorter cooldown (!).

Syndra's E is yet another AOE nuke, and combined with Q is an insanely long-range AOE stun / poke / nuke. This too is on a shorter cooldown than Veigar's E, and has the bonus effect of pushing people back. It's a better skill in basically every respect - range, speed, surprise, aoe, damage, etc.

Lastly, her R - though it does not scale off enemy AP - is blisteringly strong. It has MORE range at rank 3, a shorter cooldown, and actually can do more damage if you have more spheres out.

In short, if I want a mage that can AOE stun, nuke, and blow a single target up, I will pick Syndra every time. Ultra-low cooldowns, extremely high damage (both AOE and single target), and insane range that can practically extend the whole screen. Veigar is sadly outclassed here

[kitty]

if you've played well and have farmed up enough.

This can apply to anyone in the game so it doesn't really "count."

[BardicKnowledge]

I think there are a lot of viable mages mid at the moment -- I just don't think that Veigar is one of them in solo queue, haha. I'd place Annie, Lissandra, and Syndra together in a clump of casters than have at least one major stun/root (that isn't an ult) and possess significant wave clearing skills. They aren't the best at every matchup, but they are almost always safe picks given a lack of information.

As a result, in solo queue I find it hard to pick outside of this pool of casters without knowing the team's (or enemy's) lineup. That being said, I've rocked a number of things lately mid outside those three...but not if my team won't talk to me.

[relyanCe]

I mess with vlad every week he is free, and I've noticed that right now he is seriously in need of updates. His cast animations on transfusion and tides of blood are ploddingly slow, enough to make him a complete gimp in pitched fights. Nidalee can throw her spear and connect with you at your max q range before your q animation finishes and your spell actually casts, and that's just kind of sad, especially given how slow Nid Q's projectile speed is.

anyone else notice vlad's clunkyness? is that why we never see him played anymore? His passive seems very weak now as well, since his best items aren't high in ap values

[Nabeel Ansari]

sure you can

kill the first person to the party with a long range stun and burst, win the ensuing 4v5, keep tons and tons of range until your cooldowns are back up

that's about how veigar works

That's not how solo queue works.

[zircon]

I mess with vlad every week he is free, and I've noticed that right now he is seriously in need of updates. His cast animations on transfusion and tides of blood are ploddingly slow, enough to make him a complete gimp in pitched fights. Nidalee can throw her spear and connect with you at your max q range before your q animation finishes and your spell actually casts, and that's just kind of sad, especially given how slow Nid Q's projectile speed is.

anyone else notice vlad's clunkyness? is that why we never see him played anymore? His passive seems very weak now as well, since his best items aren't high in ap values

Vlad has been nerfed in many ways over time, along with his core items like Will of the Ancients, Spirit Visage, etc. Riot has said that he's an example of a badly-designed champ. They want him to be a little underpowered at BEST, because he would just be impossible to deal with otherwise. I agree he's particularly weak right now and there just isn't much point in picking him.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Skipped to Silver III!

Whee!

Shooting back up to original place.

[prophetik music]

haha, vel'koz is SO BROKEN

[Koriantor]

haha, vel'koz is SO BROKEN

Broken as in ultra-mega-gosu-melt-the-enemy-team-broken or this-champ-sucks broken? I haven't had much chance to play League since he came out.

Edited February 28, 2014 by Koriantor

[prophetik music]

he is everything i've ever wanted in an ap champ. and his ult is hilarious.

[zircon]

So far I'm not too scared of him, from the one game I played vs. a fairly fed Vel'koz. As Syndra (can you tell I like Syndra?) I can kinda just stun and kill him, and he can't really escape.

Edit: Did I mention Syndra is really good?

[relyanCe]

I don't see his midlane being very terrifying, since the big picks in mid are usually high mobility champs that can basically avoid all his shit. I'd love to take shyvana mid against that octopus bitch and laugh my way to the bank

against slow champs or other mages like him, I can see him dominating with straight up base true damage

[BardicKnowledge]

I'd be interested in seeing Vel'Koz as a counterpick top laner, going against other characters that like to farm passively (Mundo, Zac, Nasus, etc).

If he can get geared up, he is an absolute beast -- I agree with the comments that it's unlikely he gets that done given current midlane trends though.

[Nabeel Ansari]

Vel'Koz sucks with current meta. True fact.

[Seven]

I don't think he's that bad, but he does seem to have some hard matchups. Haven't played him yet, but I imagine you just wanna farm and stall out the laning phase. I'm not convinced that you'd have a ton of reason to pick him over Karthus to fill a similar role, though.

[zircon]

Hmm, I think Vel has more range and damage than Karthus. Sure, Karthus has Q, but he kinda needs to be close to do his true potential with Defile. Plus Vel has a knockup (hard CC) which Karthus doesn't. Still...

[Ryan Jobson]

just played him... his ult is totally useless if ANYONE gets close to you because you'll always be interrupted. If you can just stay the heck back he's pretty ballin'

[Koriantor]

I found this really amusing Hide and Seek game. Basically, one team of 5 hides from another team of 2 in the inner circle of Dominion. Each hider has 5 lives. The hiders can only use CC abilities, while seekers can use anything to kill the hiders. The game ends when the hiders survive 40 minutes, or they run out of lives.

Anyone interested in trying it out?

[zircon]

just played him... his ult is totally useless if ANYONE gets close to you because you'll always be interrupted. If you can just stay the heck back he's pretty ballin'

Well, Kat's ult is the same way, no? Except with that you also have to be at point-blank range. She's still viable.. mostly. So, I can imagine Vel's ult can work as well, particularly in comps where you can lock them down for a couple seconds (Leona / Malphite / Wukong etc)

I suppose time will tell if there is reason to be afraid of him.

On a related note, I am very close to reaching Gold by playing Syndra almost exclusively (with a bit of Orianna mixed in). I'm on Game 2 of my Gold promo series with 1W 0L.

[ArmadonRK]

I laned against Vel'koz as Karthus the other day, and found it to be a really tough matchup. His passive makes his harass extremely strong, and his all-in potential is very high against a low-mobility champion like Karthus. On the other hand, Karthus scales better and still wrecks in teamfights with good farm. In particular, Karthus offers more consistent damage and better zoning than a combo-mage like Vel'koz.

I think Vel'koz is good, exceptionally so in low-mobility matchups, but he's easily played and picked around. In my opinion, he's viable enough that we'll see a bit of him, but his presence outside of lane is too low to make him a really popular pick. He can play well with lockdown and wombo combo, but those comps do have better options, like Ori and Lulu.

That said, I am interested in seeing how Vel'koz plays out as a combo mage. He has a lot in common with Syndra, with the AoE skillshots, the combo, the CC and the damage potential. Though with Syndra's single-target assassination strength, I feel like she fills a more useful niche than just "AoE combo-mage".

On a personal note, if OCR Heroes is fielding a second team or looking for subs, I'd love to put my name in the hat. I main mid, off-role jungle, though I can also adequately fill any role but toplane. Keyword being "adequately".