Vel'Koz is an amazingly strong mage with a very high carry potential if played correctly. Always make sure to position far behind your own frontline, keep an eye open for any threaths and deal with them as such. Use your Q for poking in lane, E-W combo to deal a solid amount of damage to any target who gets too close and unleash hell with Q-E-W-R on any enemy who gets within slapping range.

VS 2 or more Magic Damage dealers on the enemy team, always get Abyssal Mask

VS Zed or Talon, ALWAYS rush Zhonya's Hourglass! (I cannot stress enough how important this is)

Luden's Tempest is a core item, to be purchased either as 2nd or 3rd item.

Only get Rylai's Crystal Scepter if you need the extra slows for kiting.

If you land at least 3 stacks of your passive followed up by a full ultimate channel, you will deal in excess of 2000 true damage to that target.

Hello everyone, my name's BatFitch and in this guide I will be teaching you the only true way of the tentacles: AP Vel'Koz Mid. I have been maining Vel'koz since halfway season 4, a few months after his release, and I currently have clocked over 200 ranked games with him. I climbed from Gold III to Diamond V playing (nearly) only Vel'koz in season 5. After a few months away from league and a rough start to season 6, where I stalled out, I'm currently beginning to climb again.

Vel'koz is an AP burst/kite mage, capable of dealing tons of AoE true damage in a matter of seconds or keeping those pesky juggernaughts at a manageable distance with long-range poke and CC. This guide will go into detail on how to play, position and build Vel'Koz as an AP Mid Mage.

P.s.
This is my first guide. All feedback will be highly appreciated and I'll try to keep it up to date as much as I can. I'll also add some videos from my games once I get the chance to.

Pros

• Exceptionally good waveclear
• Ridiculous true damage all-game long
• Great burst potential
• Very strong teamfight
• Long range poke
• Decimating ultimate

Cons

• Susceptible to ganks
• Very squishy
• Low mobility -> easy target if outpositioned

For runes I have three different rune pages, each specialized on dealing with different types of opponents. For those of you who do not have the luxury of appointing multiple rune pages, I suggest running the standard (Defensive) rune page with flat AP Quints, Magic pen. Marks, Armor Seals and flat MR Glyphs:

In the case of playing VS an AD mid, I use Scaling AP Glyphs in stead of MR:

When playing VS a midlaner with low kill potential:

For masteries I tend to use 12/18/0 or 18/12/0 pages, with deathfire touch and thunderlord's deecree respectively. These should speak for themselves:

Your Q, maxed first, is your main poking ability. Due to its interesting mechanic, namely the option to split the bolt at a 90º angle, adding over 50% to its maximum range. A perfect Q poke is to hit an initial target at such an angle, that the split bolts both also strike two targets. All three hits will apply a stack for your passive. With the recent updates to Vel'Koz, your Q now restores 50% of its mana cost per target killed. This means that killing 3 minions with a single Q actually restores 150% of the mana cost = profit.


Your W is your bread-and-butter (non-ultimate) damage output in a fight. You should max this second. Use your E to set up your enemies for a double proc from your W. Vel'koz his W is a very interesting spell as it applies damage twice (also two passive stacks) and it can be stacked twice before firing. Meaning that you can fire two W's in a very short period of time in a fight. These stacks replenish at around 1 stack every 9 seconds in lategame.


Vel'koz his E is an AoE stun/knockback. The closer enemies are to you, the further they are knocked back. Whilst the E does minimal damage, it serves as a strong kiting tool by CC'ing potential targets. Use his E to make sure that both damage procs of his W will hit your target.


His R is Life Form Disintegration Ray, one of the coolest ultimates (in my opinion) in the game. Not only does it deal a ridiculous amount of (true) damage to everyone in a straight line in front of you, it slows all targets by 20% and applies a number of stacks of your passive as an added bonus.

I like to take W at level one, so that I can instantly shove the lane into the enemy tower. Many midlaners will be unable to counteract this push and they tend to miss at least half a creep wave in the first minutes of the game. At level two, I personally prefer taking Q, so that when the wave that I shoved to the tower just now has reset and I can use my Q to regain the mana spent on the level 1 shove.

Vel'Koz has a powerspike comparable to LeBlanc at level two, as a Q-W combo will also proc your passive, Organic Deconstruction, for a bonus hit true damage. Take E on level three to maximize your lane bullying potential.

From here on I like to max out Q first, followed by W, logically taking points in R at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Vel'Koz excels at bursting down squishies at long range or dishing out plates of pain like a perverse buffet in an AoE mayhem of spells. Whilst outside of lanephase no standard combos exist, in a teamfight it is usually best to fire your W, immediately followed by an E and then proceed to channel your ultimate for maximum damage. Your W will apply a stack so that everyone in front of you can take two procs from your passive, whilst your E will CC enemies long enough to make sure at least half of your channel will pass by uninterrupted.

Your teamfight-carrying potential is out of this world with a solid 2000 AoE (true) damage in the lategame, excluding the regular magic damage from your non-ultimate spells. If the rabble disintegrates quickly and you are left to fend for yourselves against bruisers, the slow on your Q will allow you to keep them busy for long enough so that your team can regroup and assist you, or you can simply kill them yourself.

Lanephase is one of Vel'Koz his glory moments. He can spam spells indefinitely without running into major mana problems. Start at level one by shoving the wave straight into the enemy tower with your W. This will cause your opponent to lose CC, as he cannot waveclear against your push. Depush for level two and look for an opening to Q the wave to restore your mana. Keep spamming spells towards your lane opponent, but keep an eye on your mana bar. His mana costs are low, but his pool is not unlimited.

Your greatest enemy in lanephase is not your opponent's midlaner, but his jungler. Your immobility makes you an easy target in the early game. If you can afford it, always buy a pink ward every time you back, and use those to cover off a flank of your lane. There are of course the Nocturnes etc. which you simply cannot predict. Keep an eye on your enemy laner to predict ganks when you have no vision. Usually, if you have been bullying hard, your enemy will think twice before engaging on you. If he does position aggressively, there is a high chance his jungler is ready to swoop in: get some distance and wait for your opponent to back off.

As Vel'koz you do not have very strong ganks, so don't focus on roaming unless your sidelanes have a lot of hard CC. Your low movement speed makes roaming very costly, as you will be gone from mid for a long time. If your enemy laner starts to roam, use your spells to shove the wave into his tower. If he goes down to botlane for example, he may get a kill or two, but he will likely have to base after that, and in that time window of about 60-120 seconds, you can (almost) destroy his tower.

On the overall, laning as Vel'Koz is where you need to be cautiously ruthless. Have no mercy, but respect your opponent's strength. Anticipate his movements and act accordingly.

Farming with Vel'Koz is one of the easiest aspects of the champion, at the same level as Viktor and Xerath. Just spam your spells at low mana costs to clear waves fast and with ease. I noticed that on Vel'koz I can get to about 80-90 cs at 10 minutes, 200 at 20 and 300+ at 30 minutes in most matchups.
From the midgame on, you can shove the wave into the enemy tower with two W casts, maybe a Q extra to restore some mana, then leave lane to take either Raptors or Wolves (Ask your jungler if he is okay with this!!!). For Raptors, start with a standard E-W combo to kill the small ones, then kill the big one with a Q-W combo once your W comes back up. Wolves are cleared quickest by starting with a W-Q combo, so that the small wolves die instantly, then just kill the big one with whatever means nesessary. If all goes well you should have at least 1 stack of your W up when the next minion wave arrives. This allows you to maximize farm as you will get between 9 to 11 creeps per 30 seconds, in stead of 6 or 7 if you only farm your lane creeps. Do remember that clearing these camps does impact your mana pool quite a bit, so make sure you don't need a full manabar to defend your tower or yourself from enemy attacks.

In a teamfight you have one single role: stand at the back and fire your laser. Your team will (hopefully) CC the enemies in front of you. If they don't, your frontline will at least function as a distraction/barrier to buy you time. If you have the time to dish out a full combo, do it. Q - W - E - R in quick succession (purely accidental ability sequence) will drop almost any tank or squishy (or two). If you are ahead, Q-E-W usually suffices to kill the enemy ad or ap carry.

In a defensive teamfight, for example when the enemy team is sieging one of your towers, use your W to waveclear, from about 15-20 minutes on two W casts will clear a wave, if needed, use Q to kill the cannon minion. Your W will also help a lot versus a baron-empowered team, as it will proc your passive, and baron empowered minions will not mitigate true damage.

If the enemy team decides to dive, use your Q to slow their frontline, delaying their dive and giving your team more time to respond, then try to land your E on the targets who are the biggest threat to your team. You want to unleash your Ult as soon as possible, not nesessarily to kill the enemy team, but simply to dissuade them from continuing the siege or dive.

In an offensive teamfight, where your team is the one engaging or sieging, you want to stand a bit closer to the enemy team compared to a defensive position. Your frontline will constantly look to move forward, towards the enemy team, therefore you want to be able to poke/follow up an engage as soon as possible. If your team has a lot of single target CC, stand far back and use your main spells to deal damage, do NOT use your ult unless the enemy team has fully committed to a fight and are grouped. If your team has a lot of AoE CC, wait for your team to CC multiple targets in a stack, then proceed with casting your W first, followed immediately by E and then R. Because the enemy team is grouped and cc'ed, you will likely be able to fully channel your ult, which together with W will proc your passive twice, and thanks to these passive procs + ultimate, you will deal devastating true damage to all targets.

In conclusion, Vel'Koz is an amazing champion for those who do not shy away from being a priority target. His potential is limitless, and he is very easy to learn. At the same time, his skillcap is not as high as those of high mobility assassins like Zed or Riven, making him a valuable asset to your kit who doesn't require hundreds of hours of practise to master.

I'd like to thank you for your attention, your feedback and most of all, your interest in my guide! The best of luck on the Fields of Justice!