Veigar Build Guide by Melink422

Nice guide, great job :)
In my next game i will try this and give u feedback :D

Against an Annie if I recall. Dropped her with my ult instantly and farmed both wraith camps with my Q instead of Dark Matter before recalling. Should add that to the guide considering you can one shot all the lesser wraiths mid game with Q.

Yeah, that's a good point. Normally, I just farm the wraith camps with Dark Matter cause I can use it over the wall, but that actually could be some extra AP you could stack up from that mid game.

Thanks to JEFFY40HANDS and Vort for the great signatures!

After I gather enough matches, I'll be posting some match results on the guide somewhere for those who want to see them. I have had to print screen and crop the pictures down because I didn't play these matches consecutively and didn't want them to go through the match history without being used.

Thanks to JEFFY40HANDS and Vort for the great signatures!

Thanks everyone who has visited my guide thus far! It's now at 5,000 views and counting! If you have any questions, please leave a comment and I would be more than happy to answer it!

Thanks to JEFFY40HANDS and Vort for the great signatures!

Abyssal Scepter and Void Staff don't mix. You should never have them in the same build. If you want, you could replace one with Morello's Evil Tome, allowing you to get Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power. Banshee's Veil is a good alternative if you need survivability.

EDIT: Personally, I'd recommend Void Staff, Morello's Evil Tome or Archangel's Staff, Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power and Greater Quintessence of Ability Power.

Good Hands > Perseverence . The math for Perseverence is just ****. It is one of the worst masteries in the game, second only to Expanded Mind .

EDIT: Okay, I noticed you explained your decision a little in your guide. Let me elaborate.
At level 18, with all of your items, you should have 14 hp5 and 32 mp5. 4 POINTS in Perseverence adds an extra 0.56 hp5 and 1.28 mp5. That is pitiful. Good Hands , however, can make the difference between victory and defeat by endgame, as it shaves off up to 7 seconds off every death timer.
It's good that you acknowledge the option of Good Hands , but I really encourage you to change your core build to show a maximum of 1 point in Perseverence , since the first point gives twice as much as subsequent points.

Thanks to Nyoike for the sig!

Okay, let me see if I can cover this in parts. I'll start with the items part that you addressed first. I do realize that Abyssal Scepter and Void Staff don't mix, however, I don't buy both for the magic penetration. I buy Abyssal Scepter almost strictly for the magic resist. What's nice about it is that it also gives 70 AP, which is why I choose it over Banshee's Veil.

I do, however, really like your suggestion about Morello's Evil Tome. If there is an alternate item in there, Morello's Evil Tome would definitely be it, simply for the cooldown reduction, if nothing else. However, if you were to get that and take the Greater Glyphs of Force instead of the Greater Glyphs of Celerity, you would have no cooldown reduction in the early levels. Yeah, you would have some more AP, but like I said in the guide, Veigar is best mid to late game if he farms up early game instead of focusing on harassing and possibly killing your laning opponent. I don't know what the numbers would be on it, but the cooldown reduction could actually be of more benefit in terms of AP too if it allows you to cast Baleful Strike more often and therefore make use of its passive more often. In the long run, the AP gained from the extra casts of Baleful Strike from the Greater Glyphs of Celerity could surpass that of the Greater Glyphs of Potency and still give you the benefit of the cooldown reduction after that mark has been passed. Again, not sure on the numbers, but it would be interesting to figure out.

I don't know if you saw the argument I made against Archangel's Staff, but I don't feel it really belongs on Veigar, especially considering the fact that rarely will you get the opportunity to max it out and that you would have to start with a Tear of the Goddess instead of Doran's Ring. But I feel like I'm being redundant and just repeating what's in the guide on the subject of Archangel's Staff, so if you want anything more against it that already isn't in the guide, let me know. The reason why I am against the Greater Quintessences of Potency is because they combined give a little less than 15 AP. Mid game, before you have a Void Staff, 15 AP will make a marginal difference compared to the Greater Quintessences of Insight, which gives you a little less than 6 magic penetration. Let me do the math since you worked to do yours:

-We'll assume the opponent has not bought any magic resist items yet and has a magic resist of 30, which is typical of most non-runed champions as well as a max health of 1300.
-We'll take into consideration the effect of the Greater Marks of Insight, since I'm assuming you were okay with using those, which therefore implies the enemy's magic resist has been lowered to 22, which results in 18% reduced damage from magic abilities.
-We'll also assume that Veigar's skills are all level 3 and his ultimate is level 2 (equivalent to a level 11 Veigar). A Rabadon's Deathcap has not yet been purchased and for the sake of this example, you have done a good amount of farming with Baleful Strike and have 175 AP without runes.
-For the purpose of the extra damage caused by Veigar's ultimate, Primordial Burst, we'll assume the enemy has 100 AP.
-We'll assume that the nuke combination is used, including Deathfire Grasp, and we'll calculate the difference in damage output that is further accentuated in favor of magic penetration as the game progresses.

-With the Greater Quintessences of Potency: 175 AP + 15 AP = 190 AP
Event Horizon = 0 damage
Deathfire Grasp = 30% + (3.5% per 100 AP) = 33.5% of 1300 = 435.5 * (1.00-.18) = 357.11 damage
Dark Matter = 220 + ((1.0)190) = 410 * (1.00-.18) = 336.2 damage
Baleful Strike = 170 + ((0.6)190) = 284 * (1.00-.18) = 232.88 damage
Primordial Burst = 375 + ((1.2)190) + ((0.8)100) = 683 * (1.00-.18) = 560.06 damage
357.11 + 336.2 + 232.88 + 560.06 = 1486.25

-With the Greater Quintessences of Insight: 8 MP + 6 MP = 14 MP (Enemy MR lowered to 16 = 14% reduced damage from magic abilities)
Event Horizon = 0 damage
Deathfire Grasp = 30% + (3.5% per 100 AP) = 33.5% of 1300 = 435.5 * (1.00-.14) = 374.53
Dark Matter = 220 + ((1.0)175) = 395 * (1.00-.14) = 339.7 damage
Baleful Strike = 170 + ((0.6)175) = 275 * (1.00-.14) = 236.5 damage
Primordial Burst = 375 + ((1.2)175) + ((0.8)100) = 665 * (1.00-.14) = 571.9
374.53 + 339.7 + 236.5 + 571.9 = 1522.63

As you can see from this example, more damage is done by using the Greater Quintessences of Insight over the Greater Quintessences of Potency, so I'll have to disagree with you on that.

Anyway, continuing to the Good Hands vs. Perseverance argument: there are really only two reasons why I take Good Hands over Perseverance.

1) I don't plan on dying, so why spec for it?
I do realize that dying is part of the game and it will happen quite a bit, however, the way I play Veigar, I die very infrequently. Frequent use of Event Horizon, Flash, and Ghost should allow you to escape nearly any situation. If by chance I am dying more often than usual, that means that I am not doing my job of killing the damage dealers before they get close to me. By the time that Good Hands would start saving me 6 seconds on my death timer, that means that it is late game (later than Veigar players want the game to go because his effectiveness is reduced after a certain point because the enemies will have enough gold to purchase magic resist items, especially Banshee's Veils) and you have not done your job of ending the game earlier. If you do die, you either spawn shortly before your teammates and end up sitting around waiting for them to spawn before being able to do anything to the multiple people pushing your towers/inhibitors or you spawn just after your team, in which case they likely cleaned up anyone that stayed around too long. If there is only one enemy left on the other team after a team fight in which your team was aced, they will surely be out of there before you can get close enough to land your Event Horizon on them. Most of the time, 5 or 6 seconds won't mean victory or defeat nor will it allow you to save a tower or inhibitor. Has it happened, sure it has, but I'm saying it's not likely.

2) The health and mana regeneration, despite being a small percentage, does help significantly throughout the game. For example: have you ever been in a situation where you are being chased down by an enemy and you are just a little bit short of having enough mana to cast Event Horizon and escape? Have you ever faced a strong poker in lane and died by an ignite on the last second of its effect? You likely answered yes to both of these questions, but if you didn't, then you probably haven't played as much Veigar as I have. Remember that as long as you don't have full health and/or full mana, the 4% increased regeneration will be in effect. To prove my point as to why I take Perseverance over Good Hands, I'll do a little more math to explain:

Health regeneration at level 18: 14.4 per 5 seconds * (1.00 + .04) = 14.975 - 14.4 = .575 extra health regeneration per 5 seconds
Mana regeneration at level 18: 32.13 per 5 seconds * (1.00 + .04) = 33.4152 - 32.13 = 1.2852 extra mana regeneration per 5 seconds

Now, say for example you use some mana and take a little bit of damage here and there, but stay in a lane for 5 minutes without full mana or health.

.575 * 12 sets of 5 seconds in a minute = 6.9 health per minute * 5 minutes = 34.5 extra health gained in 5 minutes
1.2852 * 12 sets of 5 seconds in a minute = 15.4224 mana per minute * 5 minutes = 77.112 extra mana gained in 5 minutes

Both of these values are significant in that the extra 35 health can keep you alive long enough to lay down an Event Horizon and escape that you could have otherwise been short 60 or 70 mana to cast.

Away from the math though. This could just be me being an optimist: seeing the extra health and mana as ways to survive when you needed just a little more of both. Is Perseverance under matched? Sure it is, but I still believe it benefits me more than say someone who may be expected to die more often like a tank that would make better use of Good Hands. As you can see in the Results section of my guide, in more than half of my games, I died twice or less. In total, I maybe saved a max of 10 seconds in those games of being dead, where I likely regenerated much more health and mana in proportion. On the other hand, the matches where I died more often, 4 times and 8 times respectively, were times when my team relied more on my killing power and I was focused down more. In those situations, Good Hands may have been a better option, but those were also games where I was forced to assume more of a carry role due to either subpar teammates or teamwork. With a well put together team, I don't believe you will make enough use of Good Hands because there will be other people on the enemy's priority to kill list.

Side Note: First off, I sincerely apologize for making this the longest post the world has ever seen and I hope you made it through without falling asleep. I do appreciate your feedback and I will try to test it out and see if I can get a better idea of how much more Good Hands has the potential to help you over Perseverance. If I do end up switching them, I will happily give you credit for the suggestion. I am glad that you took the time to read my guide and I hope you liked it enough to vote positively on it, despite our current disagreements. If you have any counter arguments, I would be happy to hear them! Thanks again!

Thanks to JEFFY40HANDS and Vort for the great signatures!

I appreciate the complicated response, but that is probably the longest wall of text I have ever seen in my life. I might have to upvote you. ;)

I'll try to keep this short and to-the-point:

I gathered that you were purchasing Abyssal for the base stats, but you're still wasting the unique passive. Wasted stats suck, and usually hurt the champion more than a different item would. Since you already have a bunch of flat pen with runes/sorc shoes, I'd say just get abyssal and replace Void Staff then.

I think you put too much stock in Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction. They are very situational, and are pretty much the worst scaling runes in the game. They pass Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction at level 13 I believe, so your early game really isn't boosted at all. Secondly, the CDR on your Q does not restrict the amount of AP you earn. This is only restricted by your last-hitting skill and the number of creeps available. It isn't too hard to last hit a whole wave all with Q, even with very little CDR. If you get morello's, Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power or Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction will do nicely. Last note: As a nuker, your job is to unload your combo on the enemy carry and get out. More AP is almost always better than cooldowns.

I'm really sorry for missing your AA staff explanation. To be honest, I didn't read your entire guide, but I still wanted to offer some advice. It's fine if you don't use it, but I want to defend it a little bit. That 120-130 AP you get (plus Banshee's Veil mana if you get it) is almost as much as a Deathcap minus the passive. You should be periodically last-hitting with Q, so the tear is almost as easy to max as it is on Karthus. AAS is great for spammability (not actually a word) and power, but you may or may not want to sacrifice a slot for it.

The point of Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is that it's a strong mage rune meant to boost early game power. By the time mid-game comes, most runes are less useful anyway (especially quintessences), so you should be relying on items for stats. Greater Quintessence of Magic Penetration are fine too, so I won't argue this more. They conflict a bit with Void Staff though (something you didn't include in your math. Nice math though), so there's another reason you might want flat mpen over % mpen.

I've heard those arguments for Perseverence before. I still disagree with you, but at least I know you're not ignorant of the actual stats. I would recommend a compromise: Get 1 point in Perseverence (2% regen instead of 4%) and put 2 points in Good Hands . This makes the most economic use of your points.
I myself die on average 2-4 times per game (tank or carry, doesn't matter), but as Veigar you ARE a prime target for the enemy team and SHOULD be focused. You don't have to plan on dying, but you should be prepared for it. Also, just a reminder: not everyone is you and me. Other people will die 7 or more times as a carry, and you should be making the guide to help them too, not just show what you personally use. Make the decision for yourself, I won't argue this point further.

Something else I noticed: You can leave Event Horizon at level three and max Dark Matter earlier. You don't need the full stun in order to land your combo, and by that point in the game you need to have enough burst. Guide "experts" like jhoijhoi will tell you to max ONE skill first (even if you get 3 points in Q early, I get that). In practice, this small change will make you a bit more formidable, but it looks even better in theory. Theory is what your readers see, so I think adjusting your skill sequence will make your guide look a little better.

Okay, it wasn't THAT short, but there it is.

Thanks to MissMaw for the sig!