AN IMPORTANT UPDATE ABOUT 14.10

14.10 :
First Strike is still playable (if you can get 15g on cd on your opponent you can go for it), but Unsealed Spellbook is in my opinion clearly your hest option now.

Contesting lane with Aery/Scorch is also an option if you feel super confident in your matchup, but it's up to preferences in the end.

Fleet Footwork is the new addition of this patch since the Precision rune tree is simply the best rune tree in the game at the moment.
This rune tree grants basically anything you want: movement speed, lane comfort and scaling runes (15 ability haste and %damage!).
Fleet heal got nerfed but in exchange the duration of the move speed buff is now 25% longer! The rune heal also still scales from your AP, which is always good on Veigar, even if it's a small ratio.

As far as items are concerned, Shurelya got *heavily* nerfed, especially if you're low elo. The active is still good if your mates aren't headless chickens but it's an even less selfish item now, I wouldn't recommend building it anymore and have therefore removed the Shurelya options from my guide.

———


This guide's purpose is to grasp Veigar's identity and deduce rationally from this his best builds. This guide doesn't aim at revolutionizing Veigar, but rather to avoid people from making mistakes and have an open mind about Veigar instead of picking the exact same items every single game because an app or website recommended them.

I felt the need to write this guide because there is no detailed up-to-date guide on Veigar, and no guide recommending what most high elo players perceive to be the correct way to build Veigar, and the reasons why they chose one build rather than the other.

The popular "in-depth" guide available on Mobafire is nice looking and provides some useful tips, but the items and runes section is disastrous.

The author recommends going Electrocute/ToB/Eyeball/Ingenious. Ghost Poro is better on Veigar than Eyeball, but the shocking part is recommending Ingenious Hunter instead of Relentless Hunter, especially on a build that doesn't really benefit from Ingenious.

The build is also extremely bad. For reasons I give in this guide, Luden's shouldn't be your go-to item on Veigar, but the simple fact that he picks Void Staff over Cryptbloom on Veigar should be a sufficient red flag.

Cryptbloom is cheaper than Void Staff and grants 15 ability haste (a scarcity in season 14), but the main reason is of course that Cryptbloom has a 50% AP ratio, on his passive, turning Veigar into a Redemption caster on the first takedown of a teamfight.

Except if you're facing 5 heavy mr stackers, there is no world where you would want Void Staff over Cryptbloom on Veigar. Also, considering that the %magic pen item should be your 6th item is insane, games rarely go to 6 items and you should build %mpen preemptively and not reactively. If your opponents aren't too bad, they're going to build some resistances after getting their core build, which is around 3 items for most champions: this is why you want it at that moment! You already one shot squishy champions, so you don't need more generic fire power, you need to prevent people from countering you at this point (even an adc can get a Maw of Malmortius, which is one of the best anti-burst item in the game).

I won't talk about
Zhonya or Shadowflame. I do not understand why Spirit Visage is an item you should consider on Veigar either, especially when you don't build Seraph's.


This guide won't have the usual "spells presentation", "why you should play Veigar" or "combos explanation" sections as I honestly think they do not bring much to the reader. Veigar is a pretty straightforward champion, and if you're here in the first place it's probably because you found your own personal reason to play the champion.


The data this guide uses is mostly from Veigar's LoL wiki page; his LoLalytics page and his league of items page (which is based on u.gg data).

Even if data is precious we shouldn't only base our reasoning on it, but rather keep it in the back of our mind and contextualize it. For instance, according to League of Items, Luden's companion has a 49.76% winrate when Archangel's Staff has a 51.55% winrate. But the first item has a 45.84% pickrate and the second one 16.34%.

Some may then argue that they're equally good, it's just a general statistical law that makes Luden's appear worse than Archangel's Staff, or that the overall winrate of Archangel's Staff is 2 points higher than Luden's winrate because Archangel's users are stronger than Luden's user in general. Understanding items and runes isn't only about checking which item has a higher winrate.

This guide took me quite some time to make, as I had to cross-reference many sources, whether data, other guides or gameplay. Even if I'm quite satisfied with the result, what is written in this guide isn't the one and only truth. If you have good arguments to make against some of the ideas expressed, let me know and we can evolve this guide towards more truth.

VEIGAR'S IDENTITY



Veigar's identity will help us understand what items and runes suit him the best, so let's get straight to the point: Veigar is a scaling mage.

His passive, Phenomenal Evil Power allows him to stack ability power infinitely, and that's what makes him so unique: Veigar doesn't rely on items (or runes) to gain AP!

Of course, his passive isn't enough (because you do not start the game at 30 minutes with hundreds of stacks), so he also needs the adequate AP items.

Rabadon's Deathcap and Cryptbloom are the only pure damage items Veigar needs because of how damage is calculated. Other AP items, except if they have a high AP ratio are absolutely unnecessary on Veigar.

For instance, Stormsurge would be very good on Veigar (especially now that it grants 8% movement speed) if instead of high base damage and low AP ratio he had low base damage and high AP ratio. On the other hand, Lich Bane with a 45% AP ratio deals a lot of damage on Veigar (but it's rarely a good item to build on Veigar as it is often overkill or you build it too late when you cannot really get into basic attack range). The most overkill item i've seen built on Veigar is Shadowflame. This item is pure bait. It's expensive (a lot of the power budget of the item goes into its 120 AP, and Veigar doesn't need it as much as other champions), and it mostly amps your R damage that is already an overkill ability whenever the target is this low. Also, this item doesn't provide any mobility or ability haste. On the other hand, Horizon Focus is a pretty cheap and good item on Veigar (since it gives %damage) that is very underplayed.

Items that give a lot of AP besides Rabadon's Deathcap are overkill on Veigar.
When designing an item, you have to find a balance between utility and damage.
For instance, one of the things that people were complaining about in season 13 was that mage items all had some bonus health and that they didn't deal as much damage.

To answer that problem, Riot removed bonus health (and a lot of ability haste) and converted it into raw AP. As a result, Veigar lost some really good mythic items (Everfrost or Crown of the Shattered Queen), HP on his items and some items like the cheap Banshee Veil that was easy to build lost its ability haste and went up by 500 gold to become a 120 AP item.

Compared to other mages, Veigar has many fundamental issues.

Not mentioning his early game: he has weak base stats, his self-peel is unreliable, his W is almost impossible to hit on a target that is not CCed, his R is short-ranged, minions block his Q, his range is good but most mages have more range, his wave clear is a bit lackluster in the early game, etc., etc.

To compensate for his (fundamentally overpowered) passive and keep him in check, they had to give him structural weaknesses.

This is why items are important on Veigar: they are meant to make up for the many holes in the ship. Vars made a video about mages named Mages: the most item dependent class in the game. But due to his passive, Veigar is items dependent but not so much for dealing damage (except for Rabadon's/Cryptbloom) but rather to simply be able to play the game, especially in stages of the game where people have a lot of items.

Let's now take a brief look at his strengths and weaknesses.

VEIGAR'S STRENGHTS

Following what has been said, we can identify 4 main strengths:

- Veigar has a broken passive with infinite AP scaling.

- Veigar is a ranged champion (patch 13.4: 950>1050 Q range, 900>950 W range) with a rather easy to hit key ability.

- Veigar has a lot of burst damage.

- Veigar has one of the best terrain control with his E.

From this we can see that Veigar is a mid-to-late game burst-control mage. But we cannot only take his strengths into consideration: if we want to find what items and runes he needs, we need to take a look at what he's lacking.

Another proof of Veigar not being a "fake late" game champion is this winrate curve (keep in mind that these numbers are inflated by 2.66 points):

VEIGAR'S WEAKNESSES

We already listed some of his weaknesses previously, but his four main weaknesses are:

- Veigar has a rather weak early game (also, his base stats are pretty low, especially his base armor (18)).

- Veigar relies on Rabadon's Deathcap. Some may argue, and they would be right in a sense, that this is one of his strengths. But you have to remember that Veigar is also balanced around this interaction. If they removed Rabadon's Deathcap, they would have to buff Veigar. In the end, what it means is that Veigar has to build a 3600 golds item second, while other mages often delay it to a 3rd or 4th item.

- Veigar has no mobility in his kit (no dash, no movement speed).

- W (Dark Matter) and E (Event Horizon) aren't the most reliable abilities to hit, and Event Horizon is Veigar's only form of self-peel.

Due to being a mage, it's also a mana champion which means you have to build mana to be able to make him work, meaning we cannot really rush Rabadon's Deathcap and we need a mana item first.

Once we have identified his strengths and weaknesses, we need to find what builds fit him the most, i.e. what builds optimize his strengths and compensate his weaknesses.
If you want a build that optimizes his strengths but doesn't take into consideration his weaknesses, then you can simply opt for a glass cannon build (Electrocute; Luden's Companion, Stormsurge, Rabadon's Deathcap, Cryptbloom, etc.). Statistically, it works pretty well on average as it is never incorrect to play on your strengths.

So, why aren't Luden's builds good on Veigar?

So why not just stick to that? Because it is better to be able to adapt to your games than just autopilote the same build every game.
Why do good Veigar players in high elo and pro never build Luden's and rarely Electrocute?
Because this build is a pure coinflip that is very unpractical.
If it is able to grant you early kills because of the (low) damage Luden's brings comapared to the other options, then good for you, you did the right choice, there's no denying that.

But what if it doesn't pay off?
Then you're left with near useless runes and item after the early game.
Luden's damage isn't worth sacrificing a 600+ hp shield from Seraph's Embrace.
If Luden's had a huge AP ratio, it would be different, but 4% is just not worth it. It is the same for runes, Electrocute used to scale with AP/AD, but it is nowadays a gutted rune, that isn't very easy to proc on Veigar as well, especially after laning phase.

Since Veigar is an AP stacker and that he relies on Deathcap, he is a two items spiker. Veigar generates value by being consistent with his passive, he doesn't need to kill his lane opponent 4 times to be relevant in the game.

As the game currently works, with shutdowns and mid waves crashing fast, you're way more rewarded for being able to follow a steady gameplan than being able to smurf on your lane opponent. The most recent changes are also heading towards that direction as Riot nerfed 1000 golds components.

If you feel compelled to destroy your lane opponent, it's probably because your mid/late game is lacking. Sometimes, games are lost before you can come online, that's the downside of playing a scaling champion and you have to be mentally prepared. Most of the time, these games would've been lost even if you went 3/0 in lane instead of 0/0, granting that Electrocute+Luden's actually was the reason you were able to get these kills.

One additional downside of this build is that if you build Luden's > Stormsurge, you still have to build Deathcap and Cryptbloom, meaning you only have 1 place in your build for a useful item, and mandatorily as a last item.

If you play other champions, you'll understand quite easily that a 4 items+boots Veigar with absolutely nothing but AP is basically a walking purse of gold that is dead as soon as you flash his cage.

Even if we talk tempo, are you really stronger at Luden's+Stormsurge (2900x2=5800) than you are at Shurelya+Deathcap (2200+3600=5800)? And you'll still have to get Rabadon and you cannot really adapt at that point, while the other build can get Cryptbloom and deal damage to champions with MR (it's not enough to stack AP, due to how resistances work in League, a simple Negatron Cloak (50MR, 900g) can gut your damage).

When considering items and runes we have to think dynamically: our opponents aren't target dummies (even if it sometimes feels like it), and games do not always go the way we want. If you check the matchup section (Fizz for instance that many Veigars struggle with), you'll see that I recommend runes and buildpaths I wouldn't recommend in general.

When playing Veigar, we sign a contract with the game that says: we'll be weaker (and have less freedom) than the other mid for some time, but if we fulfil our part of the contract, then we'll be able to acquire enough power to make up for it, and even more.

Three First Items That Are More Efficient Than Luden's And Why

Once Veigar's strengths and weaknessses have been identified, we need to identify what threatens him.
There are two main threats that we can most certainly all agree on:

1. Getting oneshot (BURST)
2. Getting outranged (RANGE)

If you get oneshot, you are useless; if you cannot get close enough to cast your spells, you are useless.

In order to not get burst down, you need durability: Seraph's Embrace and RoA are the two items that allow you not to get oneshot. If you need survivability early (against a high threat champion for instance), ROA is better. But if you can wait until Tear is stacked, Seraph's is better (Seraph's ability haste is very comfortable, especially for stacking).
In order to get in and out of range, you need movement speed (as you cannot extend your abilities' range). Shurelya is the answer to that problem. High range champions also often rely on skillshots, and movemement speed helps you dodge skillshots as well.

If you do not want to rush Rabadon/Cryptbloom, you can always build Seraph's Embrace (if you got an early Tear of the Goddess) of Shurelya's Battlesong as a second item:
Shurelya's>Seraph's, Seraph's>Shurelya's, ROA>Seraph's (best anti-burst option), ROA>Shurelya. I didn't include these options explicitely in my builds but keep in mind that you can add them to the builds.

Veigar's Runes

Ever since Riot gutted AP ratios on runes like Electrocute and Arcane Comet, they've become laning tools and pretty much nothing more on Veigar. There are situations where you can take take Aery, Comet or Electrocute on Veigar because you feel like you can abuse your opponent, or because you feel you'll be playing a fast-paced game.

But in general, and it is also statistically true, Veigar's best (and most popular rune) is First Strike.

If you look at First Strike, this rune is ideal on Veigar for two main reasons:

a) Veigar needs items to compensate for a lackluster kit

b) First Strike's damage amp is based on the damage you deal and not a 5% AP ratio, which is the case for Electrocute, Comet or Aery.

That being said, First Strike has a serious contender that is sadly not very popular: Unsealed Spellbook.

Veigar is a champion that makes good use of summoner spells but cannot really play anything else than Flash/TP. Ghost especially is an extremely powerful summoner on Veigar, but pretty much every summoner has its own utility.

In case you don't know what rune to pick, here is a general idea you can follow:

If your First Strike is easy to disable, Unsealed Spellbook will probably be a better option. But if you're playing against short ranged champions and can farm gold on them, then First strike is the obvious choice.

For instance, if you're laning Hwei, First strike will be a dead rune. You're not going to play Electrocute, Aery or Comet either, as you won't kill him if he's not too bad.

As Veigar doesn't want to perma fight (quite the contrary) you won't probably get the most out of FS in the mid game in this scenario.

On the other hand, Unsealed Spellbook provides unconditional benefits. It is therefore a very reliable rune and learning to use it will give you more tools for a better gameplay. Another advantage of Unsealed Spellbook is that it has a rather good synergy with Nimbus Cloak, that is a very good rune but not optimal on TP users (even if being faster after a TP can be good).

A quick note about the rune shards:

In my opinion, the ability haste shard is pretty much mandatory. Of course, it is easier to play the early lane with the attack speed or ap shard but they removed so much ability haste from the game that it has become a scarce resource. More uptime on Q is also always good to stack your passive, and less cooldown on E is also pretty nice to be safer.

The other shards are more up to debate.
The 2% movement speed shard is probably too good on Veigar not to be taken: Veigar has 340 base movement speed, which is already quite a lot for a mage. This rune shard provides 7 extra ms at level 1, making Veigar a 347 movement speed champion at level 1 (350 with celerity).

In some matchups, the HP scaling rune is a good option as well. If you take the scaling hp rune as 2nd shard, then I think you'll want the 65 hp rune. Otherwise, taking scaling hp is probably more reliable.

If you're facing a lot of cc, then you could consider the tenacity shard, but its value is lower on a champion like Veigar that is probably dead if it gets hit by a CC.

How do the best players currently build Veigar?

I try not to use "argument from authority", but it is always interesting to take a look at what pro and high elo players are building on a champion. What's interesting with pro builds is that pro teams have data analysts and are more likely to find the right builds.


In 2024, Veigar has been played 12 times in pro games.
Pros have built Archangel's Staff 9 games, Shurelya's Battlesong 8 times (but never as a standalone) and Rod of Ages 4 times.
As far as runes are concerned, they've picked Unsealed Spellbook 70% of the games, with some Aery and First Strike.

Bdd's build is interesting as it is extremely lane centric, but I wouldn't recommend it for the average player, especially in soloQ. In some rare matchups I would recommend going Aery if you feel confident, but minion demat, triple tonic and attack speed shard are a bit overkill if you're not laning ShaowMaker on Azir.
Using LoLalytics for the last 30 days, Luden's Companion's pickrate as a first item has been:

All Rank: 59.13%

Emerald+: 48%

Master+: 29%

If we browse high elo Veigar mains profiles on EUW or KR, they mostly build Seraph's Embrace and Shurelya's, then they either build Rabadon's Deathcap or Cryptbloom. Which is a huge difference with the rest of the player base.

One argument some may use is that high elo players need more utility because they are facing better player. For instance, if you're a Garen player in low elo, then you're probably just fine going Conqueror every game. It's probably even the best thing to do. Nonetheless, some of Garen's matchups in high elo are almost impossible without Phase rush.

This argument is valid, but only up to a certain point, and doesn't account for the fact that games in lower elos also are harder in some aspects. Instead of making you autonomous, the standard full burst build actually makes you very reliant on other people peeling for you, a little bit like an ad carry.

That being said, there is one item that performs better in high elo than in low elo for obvious reasons: Shurelya's Battlesong.

Don't get me wrong. Shurelya's Battlesong is a very good item by itself. It's very cheap and it's gold efficient even without the active.
But his active is a good part of his power and it's harder to make a good use of it in low elo simply because it's a group buff: to retraat defensively it'll do fine, but offensively people won't take advantage of it as much as they should. Also, if you have a hard time managing active items, I wouldn't recommend building Shurelya in your ranked games, the "Seraph's Rabadon Cryptbloom core" will do just fine.
That being said, if your team has champions that make a good use of movement speed, it's still worth considering, but probably not as a rush item. If you're the only one in your who needs movement speed, then Cosmic Drive, Force of nature or Deadman's Plate are good options.

A NEW TAKE ON VEIGAR: ROA WARMOG

[*] IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: the author of this humble guide does not pretend that this build is overpowered or ground breaking.
[*] This build is an attempt based on what we've previously established. As it is pure theorycraft, I do not have data to back it up, and people will have to figure out for themselves whether the build is actually viable or not.

Ok, I know what you're thinking: "Warmog on Veigar? Is this clickbait? Am I getting trolled?"

But hear me out: Warmog got changed with the new season (v14.1), and, believe it or not, it has become an interesting item for Veigar.

In case you do not have its new stats, that's what the item does now:

STATS: 750 health, 200% base health regeneration, 5% movement speed.
UNIQUE PASSIVE - WARMOG'S HEART: This passive activates if you have at least 1300 bonus health. Regenerate「 2.5% maximum health every 0.5 seconds 」and gain 10% bonus movement speed if damage has not been taken in the last 6 seconds (3 seconds for damage from non-champions).

Basically, this item grants a total of 15% movement speed as long as you haven't taken damage. 15% movement speed is a lot. Against short ranged champions, this item allows you to kite them; against long range champions, it allows you to absorb poke, retreat and come back at full health. It is not the easiest item to optimize, but if you are able to, then it is both an anti-burst and anti-range item, i.e. exactly what you're looking for on Veigar after getting your core damage items.

A standard full build looks like this:
Boots > RoA > Rabadon's Deathcap > Cryptbloom > Warmog's Armor > Force of Nature

Some people may call it a tank build: don't get baited, it's not a tank build!
It's a survival build, which ia also the reason why you play with Phase rush. If they want to kill you, then they'll have to commit a lot of resources in order to do so.

You're not tanky but you're not frail either, and if you kite well, which is easier to do with the new Warmog, killing you may cost them a lot. We all had this game where your team is behind 20 kills, they have a fed carry in the enemy team the game seems unwinnable but suddenly someone finds a flash combo on the carry and you ace them.
Or this game with Luden's Stormsurge Rabadon Shadowflame Cryptbloom Veigar 2k AP losing a game with 100k damage and 50 kills because you died on the wrong timing: your flash was down, one of the 5 enemy flashes was up, you got one shot but, heh, that's because of your bad team, obviously.

If you expect your team to peel for you, then there are two possibilities:
a) you're playing in challenger
or
b) you're being delusional

Most people play for themselves and have a main character syndrom.
Especially in lower elo brackets, you end up with team comps consisting in five 1V9 carries with zero utility and no coherence, and you therefore have to have certain level of autonomy, and that's really not easy on Veigar because you're not a super proactive hypermobile champion.

To sum up, what are this buildpath's strengths and weaknesses?

STRENGTHS
[*] Strong against burst
[*] Very good against poke
[*] Safe buildpath
[*] Can go in and out of fights and come back at full HP

WEAKNESSES
[*] Low ability haste
[*] Low effective HP (eHP) so you're not really tanky
[*] Warmog's passive can get deactivated easily by some abilities
[*] Makes you weaker to items like Blade of the Ruined King or Lord Dominik's Regard (while Seraph's doesn't)

I think the best rune for this setup is Phase rush as an emergency mobility tool as the real danger with this build is getting jumped on. If you can escape for a little bit, Warmog's passive will come back (6 seconds without taking damage) and you'll get your 10% movement speed and high health regen back.

EDIT 14.10

With Warmog's buff, you don't need to go ROA anymore, you simply need to get a Liandry's Torment, which is a good item on Veigar already. The build is even better than before!