Thank you very much fore the kind words, much appreciated.

Good question. Here are the biggest factors, in my opinion, that make it so...

• Un-Telegraphed Engage: Most champions that are mobile have some kind of factor that must be fulfilled or revealed before beginning a trade or engage. Yasuo has to use your minion wave, this can be monitored and managed with a bit of attention. Katarina, similarly, shows you her hand very early (most of the time) with her dagger placements. Now she can engage on you without dagger preparation if she is strong enough, but Vel'Koz is one of the few champions that has enough early game damage to dissuade that if she isn't fed. Other champions like Kassadin reveal their hand via their movements. Kassadin's Rift Walk's range is limited enough that before he trades he should be walking straight at you - to which you can react.
  
  Zed and Leblanc are often exceptions to this pattern like Fizz. They can start a trade with little or no warning. While this makes them very hard to deal with, Vel'Koz, in most situations, can retaliate if positioned correctly. Fizz however, cannot be punished so easily...
  
  
• Potent Trading: There is no doubt that Fizz's trading power is crippling for those who can answer it. Three aspects make this so... Mobility, Invulnerability & High-Damage. Earlier, I mentioned how Zed and Leblanc can be punished in their trades. Like Yasuo, Fizz refuses to be punished. Windwall and constant dashes mean that Yasuo can often only be bullied via basic attacks. Any abilities used will be nullified or miss completely. While Fizz's can be punished if they play sloppily, I think you'll find a player who can play Fizz correctly won't be taking much punishment. If a Fizz initiates a trade onto Vel'Koz he should be able to dodge Tectonic Disruption and/or Plasma Fission with his Q or E. At that point he is likely in melee range, and unleashing the incredibly high damage I mentioned. Even if you hit 1-2 abilities and some basic attacks, it's likely he won the trade or made even.
  
  Vel'Koz has the range to avoid these trades completely, however, to do so he'll lose a lot. He'll lose lane pressure, mana and most likely CS. On top of this, nothing is stopping Fizz from roaming and killing your allies. The lane's lost and a trade hasn't even occurred. Either you risk trades that are highly likely to not go in your favour can could lose you the entire game, or you lose the lane by default.
  
  
• Difficult Pre-6 Punishment: Before level 6, Vel'Koz may appear to have the advantage. Fizz is a melee champion without sustain built into his kit. As a lane bully, Vel'Koz should dominate early game - right? While most of the time I play this match-up I can get slight advantages (like 10-20 CS up), it's never enough to win the lane. Once level 6 is reached, the lane's essentially over. Vel'Koz is no longer playing the lane, he must try and safely farm from afar while roaming and finding advantages elsewhere. Chum the Waters, mixed with Fizz's mobility, is too threatening to even attempt dodging.
  
  Before level 6, this match-up reminds me of the Kassadin match-up. Kassadin too, does not have health sustain in his kit but is so hard to kill. While granted, Kassadin's passive and W means that he has abnormal tankiness and mana sustain, Fizz has other tools available like mobility and invulnerability. Most of the time Fizz and Kassadin pick up Corrupting Potion/Dark Seal + Teleport - that's a lot of lane sustain. This combination means that maybe you can push them out of lane 1-2 times before level 6, but you'll get marginal advantages out of it. A Fizz with Teleport scares me equally as much as one with Ignite.
  
  Keep in mind though, that bullying Fizz is no easy task. He might initiate a trade that I discussed earlier, therefore putting you in a worse position than before.
  
  
• Post-6 Danger: "Once level 6 is reached, the lane's essentially over. Vel'Koz is no longer playing the lane, he must try and safely farm from afar while roaming and finding advantages elsewhere. Chum the Waters, mixed with Fizz's mobility, is too threatening to even attempt dodging." If hit with Chum the Waters, unless Stopwatch is a available, it's likely Vel'Koz is losing one or more summoner spell and/or his life. Fizz also has the mobility to almost guarantee his ultimate hits. Q'ing to a minion into firing his R is a common engage that gives little counterplay to who wield a large hitbox and immobility like Vel'Koz. This threat is so dangerous, it's not even worth trying to outplay. Vel'Koz is forced to lose lane pressure by farming only from afar or when Fizz is roaming. Vel'Koz can perhaps answer roams with counter-roams, but he must be weary of jungle ambushes by Fizz too.

I've played Fizz into the match-up a couple times. I don't play Fizz much, maybe a handful of games per year. Even with that lack of Fizz mastery, I have no trouble rolling over Vel'Koz. As long as I keep track of Vel'Koz's cooldowns and react to his skillshots, I freely trade and engage often. While Fizz has a couple weaknesses like his melee range and mana sustain, good Fizz players can manage this easily. This is the only matchup I've played into Vel'Koz where I literally though to myself, "If I play correctly, there is no way Vel'Koz wins this lane. I dictate this entire laning phase's outcome".

Fizz gathers the strong aspects of all other Vel'Koz counters in one... Leblanc's trading power, mobility and un-telegraphed engages; Kassadin's early game sustain, Yasuo's skillshot-avoidance, and Ahri's long-range engage. Fizz is the ultimate counter in the game.

Apologies for the lengthy response, I enjoyed writing this :)

Not everyone like a Vel'Koz god like yourself know all the combos, the appropriate build paths, etc. - hence this guide. I appreciate your feedback, but if this guide gives you nothing, it isn't for you in the first place.

You could say the same for a majority of champions in the game.

Hey mWMellow!
Thanks for the kind words - it really motivates me to improve my guide :D
I'll be honest, I recently picked up Overwatch so I haven't been playing much League of Legends or Vel'Koz recently but I'll try my best to analyse the state of the meta.

Is Vel'Koz still a good pick for a mage? I'd say... yes and no. Yes because if you're good enough on Vel'Koz, you can pretty much power through any meta. Of course there are a reasonable amount of match-ups that give you trouble, but Vel'Koz's kit gives those with great skill the chance to take on even the most potent of foes. Also, outside of the lethality users and odd AP assassin in the current meta, Vel'Koz can take on most people well. The meta mages currently are Taliyah, Syndra and Orianna (I think), and Vel'Koz can take any of them on quite happily. I personally can pretty much win anyone of these lane match-ups 95% of the time.

However, let's address the elephant in the room... Lethality is back. This, obviously, is a problem. Vel'Koz isn't going to be an S tier pick for sure in this current meta because of this. I'd recommend taking Barrier and a second-item-Liandry's-Torment every game pretty much. If you're good, I'm sure you can win or stall out most laning phases against most assassins. That should be your goal. If an assassin hasn't killed their lane opponent in laning phase, they're essentially losing. All I can say is: Play smart and play well and you should be fine.

In summary, if you're a good Vel'Koz... Hell yeah, play him. If you're not so confident, maybe wait a patch or two for things to calm down. Also, tanks are strong at the moment and Vel'Koz shreds tanks better than most mages so you have that going for you.

As for your point regarding Support Vel'Koz... the current ADC's in the meta is kinda scary to deal with I think. Twitch can assassinate you. Tristana can run away and engage easily. Draven will kick your ***. Caitlyn can stay out of your range most of the time. Kalista is more slippery than soap. Xayah can be kinda slippery too. The meta supports are playmakers too as you mentioned - not ideal. Also, eventually lethality assassins will just end up roaming bot regardless. I'd say mid Vel'Koz is probably in a better spot right now, but who knows I don't play much support Vel'Koz as of late :P

Hopefully I had a good read on the meta and could help you out.
Good luck on the rift, buddy :D

Hey Eleweyn!

I have a lot to explain so bear with me. Also I apologise if some of the information is unclear, I'm trying to avoid writing an essay here and leaving out some details.

Rylai’s is a trap item. The majority of the community agrees, it’s the most overrated item in the game for Vel’Koz. For a start, as you probably know, the slowing passive only applies to his W since the remainder of Vel’Koz’s abilities feature crowd control that is equal to or greater than Rylai’s slow. This alone makes the item a questionable purchase since that is so much unused gold value. Then you also have to consider that if you are comboing correctly with Vel’Koz this passive slow should very rarely be used. Vel’Koz’s passive makes him very combo-reliant to output his full damage potential. Therefore, in order to play Vel’Koz correctly you should be using W in tandem with Q or E. Why is this important? This means that the Rylai’s slow won’t even be used since Q and E simply provide better crowd control and override the slow on W.

Rylai’s stats are also not optimal for Vel’Koz either. For a start, for an item with such low utility for Vel’Koz it has very low ability power. With 75 AP it isn’t going to provide much of a damage boost relative to other items. For other items with similar AP like Zhonya’s, they have great utility. However, Rylai’s, as explained just before, has some pretty poor utility. The 300 extra health it provides isn’t that great either. Yes, it can be useful but optimally you don’t want to be spending gold on health because you shouldn’t be using it anyway. As an artillery mage, you are supposed to be manipulating your long range, not getting up close in danger.

If this doesn’t convince you that this item is rather terrible I don’t know what will. It has some minor strengths but some major synergistic weaknesses. It definitely isn’t a “must”. I think it should only be considered for purchase if you are up against at least 3 immobile enemies who you need to kite.

As for Liandry’s, I was in the same boat as you for quite a while. I underestimated how good this item really is though. Damage calculations show that it actually provides a similar amount of damage to Luden's Echo, except it is 100 gold cheaper with easier-to-purchase components. On top of this the passive and magic penetration will shred tankier champions and health-stacking mages. This makes it a very efficient item to buy. Void Staff is only a good against tanks, Liandry’s is great against anyone.



With regards to ability maxing, I am well-aware of the waveclear implications of maxing each ability. I did in fact state that Q-max is worse waveclear, but it is still underestimated. You say that W is the best way to proc your passive on minions and champs. This doesn’t change no matter where you put your skill points. This is the exact reason why Q-max is viable in terms of waveclear. Vel’Koz passive does a lot of the waveclearing, and Q-max doesn’t change this. Also, I know I know, using E for farming isn't great but if you play smart this isn't even going to be punishable. Unless you're a dumbass who uses E and then walks up to trade nothing bad will happen as a result. Just give Q-max waveclear a try and you'll see what I mean. Yes it is slightly less effective for waveclearing than W-max but you're trading that for combat advantages.



Sorry bud, it's been a while since I've tried it and I don't know jungle routes that much. I know jungle Vel'Koz can work, but I wouldn't recommend it for ranked. It's just for fun :P

Thanks for the kind words, much appreciated! :) I'd be up to teach you if you wish (as long as you are on OCE). Feel free to add me: 'VelKunt'. Shoot me a message and I'll see what I can do for you. I've got all my big exams/assignments in the next 3 weeks so I might be a bit busy but we shall see!