Veigar Build Guide by Rage97531

Inactivity

I apologize for not updating this guide as I'm sure the viewers as getting tired of the same thing over and over. I am going through some **** with my hardware and therefore unable to test any new stuff out such as lane match-ups for example. I am currently working on the issues to get this fixed but in the mean time, please continue to provide me feedback. :)

Introduction

This is Veigar, The Tiny Master of Evil. He is loads of fun to play and worth the 1350 IP that you can save up for him. Use him in middle lane to unlock his full potential, but for those who are new to playing Veigar, choose a side lane. Get ready to roll up your sleeves and and press Q, It's Veigar time!

Patch Changes

" Veigar

No changes"

Lore

To most, thoughts of yordles do not conjure images to be feared. The easygoing half-pint race, though fierce, is often regarded with some degree of joviality. Their high-pitched voices and naturally cute forms inspire something of a protective instinct in the larger races, or at least bring to mind images of children playing at being adults. every now and again, however, a yordles turns so bad that, even at its small stature, it strikes terror into the hearts of others. Veigar is such a twisted yordle. As a master of the magical black arts, as well as a corruptor of cosmic energy, he is one of the most powerful sorcerers on Valoran.

As a child, Veigar was a normal yordle with one small exception - he had a deep curiosity for the world beyond Bandle City. The young yordle spent much of his time studying the rest of Valoran, and he jumped at the chance to join a business that traded with other major city-states. Unfortunately for both him and the world, a deal with Noxian trader turned into shady business and went bad; Veigar and his companions were subsequently set up to take the fall. Arrested by the authorities, he was imprisoned within the walls of Noxus for years. Such isolation is very dangerous for yordles - undoubtedly why his cruel jailers did such a thing - and Veigar was slowly driven mad. He eventually escaped, having become a twisted version of his former self. Instead of returning to his people and Bandle City, he sought tutelage from dark wizards across the land. With his demented will focused on one task, he quickly became a dangerous and powerful wizard in his own right. Now he seeks to end all conflict on Valoran by bringing all of the city-states to their knees, regardless of their affiliation. The League of Legends is the perfect tool to help him meet his ends - for now.

Who says evil needs to come in a fearsome-looking package?

Runes

I prefer 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration, 9 Greater Seal of Scaling Ability Power, 9 Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power, and 3 Greater Quintessence of Health. After the Magic Penetration nerf on the runes, I am now nowhere near opposed to anyone grabbing any Greater Mark of Ability Power, Greater Mark of Scaling Ability Power as well as Greater Quintessence of Ability Power, and Greater Quintessence of Scaling Ability Power. (how original amirite?).

You may also nab some mana regen per 5 runes if you wish, but this build makes his ap end game ridiculously high. Sure it's only 45 AP using my build but every bit of ap is well worth it. Flat AP seals and/or glyphs can be helpful to those new to Veigar

Your rune page should look something like this:

Runes
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Scaling Ability Power 9	Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power 9	Greater Quintessence of Health 3

Runes
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration 9	Greater Seal of Scaling Ability Power 9	Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist 9	Greater Quintessence of Ability Power 3

Masteries

Since the masteries have been completely redone, 21/0/9 would be optimal for Veigar. Taking the mana/mana regen with the gold trickle, improved recall and improved flash (pffff...15 seconds... <_<). The 21 points in Offense is the best way to go in my own opinion.

Masteries

1/1

4/4

4/4

3/3

1/1

3/3

4/4

1/1

1/1

3/3

1/1

3/3

1/4

Skill Sequence

I always start Q Baleful Strike as EVERYONE SHOULD on Veigar and place a point in it whenever possible. I tend to jump between maxing W Dark Matter and E Event Horizon so whichever you choose to max first is totally up to you and take R Primordial Burst when available. Maxing W Dark Meteor will provide more early game potency when it comes to damage and maxing E Event Horizon will provide more utility for the jungle ganks and escaping a gank. I normally go Baleful Strike, Event Horizon, Baleful Strike, Event Horizon, Baleful Strike, Primordial Burst, Baleful Strike, Dark Matter, Baleful Strike for my first 9 levels maxing Baleful Strike instantly, but after tests it would be better to hit a point in Dark Matter at 8 instead of Event Horizon.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Cons

Summoner Spells

Recommended:

Flash Teleports you away 400 units away to your cursor. and allows you to escape ganks, finish kills, or jump in and smack your CC on a target

Ghost Ignores unit collision and Increases movement speed 27/35% and in the guide you should have the 35% move speed. Allows a fast escape/engage when flash is not necessary

Great Alternatives:
Teleport Teleports you to an allied minions, tower, or ward. Simply used to mop up a lane for farm, jump to a tower to defend it, or jump to your team via ward and gain quick upper hand.

Clarity Restores 40% of your champions maximum mana. Also restores allies for 40% of their maximum mana. Good for helping your team, mainly your ad carry, with their mana problems. Heck when I started using Veigar I used Teleport/ Clarity.

Good Alternatives:

Heal Restores 90-345 health based on user's level to themselves and surrounding allies. if you can see yourself having problems with over harass and see yourself going back many times, take this.

Exhaust Exhausts target champion and reducing their movement speed and damage dealt by 30% for 2.5 seconds. Also reduces the target's attack speed for 50% for the duration.. If you see that you need to get that quicker getaway or turn a fight into your favor, take this and lay it on their ad carry to keep them in check while your team mops up the team.

Ignite Deals 70 - 410 true damage over 5 seconds. After a long thinking process, I have decided to put this spell under good. This will secure the kills if your opponent has that last little sliver of health and should they try to heal, they won't get enough to survive through 50% healing reduction.

Cleanse Removes ALL CC from you and grants you 65% CC reduction for 3 seconds. If you see yourself getting CC'd out of a team fight, get this and just get rid of any CC laid on you in a fight.

Shield Shields your champion from 115-455 (depending on champion level) damage for 2 seconds. That's not what it says in the League client but it is close enough. This is nice for surviving early burst but late game it loses it's value since chances are, you will be the first one targetted.

Just.....don't

Smite Deals 490 - 1000 true damage to target minion. I hope to god I don't need to explain..If so I have one word "Jungler"

Clairvoyance Reveals a target area on the map for 6 seconds. This is a spell used for supports...You are not a support. Do not get it.

Revive Instantly revives your champion at platform and increases max health by 220 - 560 for 2 minutes.....hue

Items

I normally start Boots of Speed and three Health Potions. A simple Doran's Ring is a starting item for those new to Veigar. Other start builds will be published when I get the chance to try them. :)

Question: Why not get Mejai's if you are having an excellent game?

Answer: I don't care how good you are, do not get it. Oh you are having a high kill game? NO. Veigar's Baleful Strike has an infinite snowball at 5 AP per kill and 6 if Baleful Strike is the last hit. Sure it is 3 and 2 less respectively, but Mejai's Soulstealer caps at 20 stacks and you lose stacks and AP if you die and losing AP is like not eating, Absolutely stupid. Late game you will be the target in every team fight so be careful.

Core Items
Archangel's Staff
Sorcerer's Shoes
Rabadon's Deathcap
Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Situational
Deathfire Grasp
Lich Bane
Abyssal Scepter
Rod of Ages
Banshee's Veil

I understand this is only five items, but nonethelesss, your final item build should look something like this:

Item Sequence
Archangel's Staff 2700	Sorcerer's Shoes 1100	Rabadon's Deathcap 3300	Rylai's Crystal Scepter 2900	Deathfire Grasp 3100

Lane/Farming

Take mid. Farm with Baleful Strike constantly and if you have enough mana regen you could prossibly use Baleful Strike to harass but only if you have blue. If you are under tower, Melee minions take TWO tower hits then you may Baleful Strike them and CASTERS take ONE auto attack, tower hit, then Baleful Strike to ensure that you get the last hit. If you have a jungler on your team, you can easily bait a Flash if you place them in the Event Horizon instead of hitting the stun. To most junglers, forcing a Flash isn't good enough. Well sometimes that is true and other times it is a good force. If you have warded both sides of middle lane and you see the opposing jungler coming, forcing Flash is better than your jungler dying in the attempt or even worse, you dying.

Shop

Okay you have done some farming with your Baleful Strike and got yourself a bit of gold. You now want to purchase Tear of the Goddess and Boots of Speed, if you have enough or unless you started with them. BUY Sight Wards WHENEVER POSSIBLE! C'mon guys they save lives and 3 minute safety for 75 gold is well worth the price. So don't be stingy, get wards. Second back should have you purchasing Kage's Lucky Pick OR Blasting Wand. I would prefer you grab Kage's Lucky Pick since the 4 gold per 10 seconds is excellent on anyone. Don't believe me? Your accumulated gold at the end of the game should speak for itself. Anyway, Third shop visit should include Archangel's Staff, if you chose to acquire the Blasting Wand first, or Archangel's Staff anyway, if you let the gold accumulate from Kage's Lucky Pick. Fourth back you want Needlessly Large Rod at the least, and added Blasting Wand, should you have the gold for it. Every visit after this, you should get some sort of item working toward your next "complete" item. Since Deathfire Grasp has been changed, it is now more efficient to acquire it earlier than last item. Rabadon's Deathcap is still the most important item in the way of priority, but still get the Kage's Lucky Pick for the extra gold income.

Creeping / Jungling

If you decided to place a quick point in Dark Matter, you may drop it on wraiths to grab some easy gold and a small heal. If your Dark Matter does not kill the wraiths, Baleful Strike them all one by one for 4 easy AP. Ask for Blue from your jungler when he doesn't need it to help with early mana regen and the extra cooldown reduction given by blue as well as using Baleful Strike to harass your lane enemy. Of course grabbing blue has its consequences as well. When you have blue, your opponent will likely play more aggressively and try to grab blue off of you. This is where you want to be extra careful for ganks. If you lose that blue to death, your jungler may be extra hesitant to give you blue until you can shake off that death or possibly steal it back. ALWAYS keep an eye on the duration of blue as you are laning!

Team Work

Be with your team when they want to initiate a fight, but if you see yourself in a one v one scenario with the enemy, I have listed a few combos you can look into:

Combos:

Enemy has NO tenacity Mercury's Treads or Banshee's Veil:
Event Horizon
Dark Matter
Primordial Burst
Baleful Strike
Why Event Horizon first? Well since Dark Matter drop time has been reduced, you no longer have to worry about aiming your Dark Matter BEFORE your Event Horizon, Kinda nice isn't it?
Why Baleful Strike last? Well I have been told that the +1 ap on unit kill adds to the passive +5 on champion kill. After carefully studying his AP on Baleful Strike before and after champion kill, The 1 AP does add to the passive. End Combo with Baleful Strike when possible.


Enemy has tenacity Mercury's Treads, but no Banshee's Veil
Dark Matter
Event Horizon
Primordial Burst
Baleful Strike
This goes back to the old combo. Predict enemy movement by placing Dark Matter in designated area, lay Event Horizon corner under the Dark Matter drop location, bing-bang-boom you have yourself a kill.

Enemy has Banshee's Veil, but no tenacity Mercury's Treads
Baleful Strike
Event Horizon
Dark Matter
Primordial Burst
Baleful Strike
This is the one on one scenario. Baleful Strike first to pop the Banshee's Veil shield, then combo as you would from the first combo listed. Simple right?....WRONG! Unless the enemy team is absolutely derping, you won't need to worry about this one as much the combo listed right above this one.

Enemy has both tenacity Mercury's Treads AND Banshee's Veil:
Ask for help. Chances are you will not be able to take this enemy down by yourself. If you do NOT acquire help, just leave them alone. If do acquire help, Combo is:

Event Horizon
Dark Matter
Baleful Strike
Why no Primordial Burst? If you have allies, your CC can slow the target down enough for your allies to close distance. Only in a last resort when your ally/allies have done a lot but not able to finish even then, I would recommend using Baleful Strike to kill for the extra 1 AP. Otherwise keep it ready for that single target explosion.

Playing with Veigar

Your Veigar needs his Q farm. Simple. Keep him protected in team fight until he can dish out his burst. Afterward he will be spamming his Baleful Strike on the low targets to wittle them down until his Event Horizon and Dark Matter come off cooldown. He isn't a tank. Don't expect him to be. He can only tag one target for death and possibly deal massive damage to others that are caught in the area of his Dark Matter. He unloads his skills then really can't do too much for nearly three seconds. Then again, that's what happens with most mages anyhow.

Playing against Veigar

One thing that I have learned playing against Veigar is to get a Banshee's Veil and Mercury's Treads. Why? If you are stunned, you can dodge his meteor rather easily. I got caught against a Veigar one v one before while I was playing a Veigar in blind pick. I had 50% health and could easily be picked off by his ult. To make a long story short, if I didn't have Banshee's Veil, I would have died before he did since he used his ult to attempt a quick kill. Another thing, BE CAREFUL HOW MUCH AP YOU HAVE! If you have a lot of AP as a mage, be very careful since his Primordial Burst not only takes 120% of his ap, but 80% of YOUR AP as well. Keeping Veigar with low cs and kills limits his damage immensely since he gets extra ap (1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 depending what level his Baleful Strike is) for ANY kill he gets and one AP for any unit slain by Baleful Strike.

Summary

Veigar is a high single target burst that excels against enemies who also stack AP. ALWAYS last hit with your Baleful Strike and before you know it you have plenty of AP to not worry about minions getting dangerously low health and miss a Baleful Strike. I honestly enjoy playing Veigar and after reading this guide I hope you do too :)

Changes to guide and self edits

Edited 2/29/2012 (Leap Day): Just because it's leap day and the day after a patch.

Edited 3/17/2012: Many changes to guide. Added BBcode, Special Thanks and Copyright section.

Edited 3/26/2012: Decided to keep all previous changes. Fixed some of the code that I missed and messed up on.

Edited 4/18/2012: Patch day..finally, I'm kidding there were quite an array of changes.

Edited 4/26/2012: More views, <3 and took out the sentence saying you should get Mejai's Soulstealer.

Edited 5/26/2012: More views, no changes from current patch, testing out a new build and will be posted when thoroughly tested.

Edited 6/17/2012: League patch.

Edited 7/13/2012: Friday the 13th and update

Edited 8/04/2012: Keep it phresh. Kinda hard to update given there are never changes to this little bundle of joy. Changed summoner spell Ghost for Clarity

Edited 8/31/2012: Gotta keep this ideal ya know?

Edited 9/15/2012: 3.8k views. Much appreciated <3

Edited 9/28/2012: 4k views <3. After some test runs, decided to have meteor maxed second and a point placed into it when possible. The .25 seconds stun for each level doesn't seem to be much of a perk. Added "Lore" chapter.

Edited 10/25/2012: Thanks for taking the time to look at this guide, it means alot <3. Changes to the skill order, Mastery Tree, and Item Sequence. Continuing to test new rune pages to give him more of an early game.

Edited 10/29/2012: Completely retyped Playing with Veigar section and added the description in Special Thanks section. Finally, tests are still being conducted :)

Edited 11/5/2012: After some discussions with other people about Ignite, I have decided to place it under Good Alternatives in the Summoner Spell chapter. Placed Ghost back in the initial summoner spells.

Edited 11/13/2012: End of Season 2. Veigar buff in patch.

Edited 12/4/2012: Big patch. New Items....Well, Gotta retype this old bucket, Keep checking back for updates!

Special Thanks and Copyright

I would like to thank jhoijhoi's excellent guide to making guides found here http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/making-a-guide-101506

This is my guide and may not be distributed without my permission, however, one may use this for their own individual use.