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Choose Champion Build:
- APC Bot Vel'koz
- Support Vel'koz
Recommended Items
Runes:
Sorcery
Precision
+8 Ability Haste
+2% Movement Speed
+10-180 Bonus Health
Spells:
Flash
Ghost
Items
Ability Order
Organic Deconstruction (PASSIVE)
Vel'Koz Passive Ability
Champion Build Guide
The Author
Aquaired Skillset
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Hi! I’m Aqua Dragon. I've been in Diamond for multiple seasons and I play APC-Bot / Support Vel'koz I also play:
Want to to discuss or watch this build? |
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Powerful, constant lane poke
- Incredible mana sustain while laning
- Extreme kiting power and self-peel
- Always relevant damage
Cons
- Difficulties against gap-closing supports
- Immensely fragile
- Few power spikes
- Lesser peeling power for an ADC
What is Bot-APC / Support Vel'koz?
Do not Stare Into Beam
APC Bot Vel'koz is a ranged artillery carry, able to farm safely in the early levels and then easily siege down turrets with massive poke damage.
Support Vel'koz is a ranged artillery support, easily the best in class due to their massive true damage that allows them to deal unfair damage on a budget.
Figuring out which items to place in that budget to maximize damage is the tricky part, mainly because Vel'koz is not an amazing mid-range burst champions, or at least shouldn't be played as one. There are a wealth of better mid-range burst champions if that's the intended pathway (Brand, Zyra, etc.). Vel'koz excels best when poking at a massive distance, with only a secondary consideration on the burst.
This means that Vel'koz is especially interested in stacking ability haste to maximize raw poke damage. This philosophy is reflected heavily in the items. But this must be balanced by having enough mana to spam Plasma Fission, yet not too much as to be spending gold on needless mana.
Summoner Spells
Geome-choose
Ghost seems like an odd choice to have on bot-lane Vel'koz, but makes more sense when you consider the previous analysis.
Vel'koz is generally very far from fights. This makes close-range spells like ignite and exhaust fairly ineffective. As the game goes on, Vel'koz begins having trouble being close enough to use the summoner spells optimally.
Heal would seem like the next best choice, but it suffers in utility from Vel'koz' fragility. Because Vel'koz dies in a very all-or-nothing way, Heal becomes useless for surviving against bursty gap-closers. This means Heal would be mostly for teammates, but that forces Vel'koz into suboptimal positioning to stay in range to actually use Heal at all. Vel'koz is an extremely selfish champion.
On the other hand, Ghost amplifies Vel'koz' kiting power to absurd levels and provides indirect utility by being able to reach teamfights or teammates more quickly. Ghost doesn't have as much utility during the laning phase, but this is made up by Vel'koz' safety-by-distance approach to harass, which requires no trading. It does make the laning phase more unforgiving, but Vel'koz is an unforgiving champion in the first place.
Runes
Runedimentary Analysis
Before delving into the runes, it's notable that with just Liandry's Torment and Manaflow Band, Vel'koz doesn't really have any mana issues. This significantly decreases the value of other mana minor runes.
Sorcery easily finds among the best rune trees for Vel'koz with its focus on amplifying poke damage through AH and AP.
In Domination, Cheap Shot is difficult to activate when sieging and only goes off once or twice during a burst combo (which isn't Vel's goal). Eyeball Collection eventually gives 30 AP, but that 600g of value is given by Inspiration too. Thus, the only worthwhile rune is Ultimate Hunter, but with the ample AH in the build, ulting off cooldown is rare since it's already up so often.
Precision offers Presence of Mind... and that's about it. And even that is excessive mana since Liandry's is sufficient. Coup de Grace is pretty meh too.
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Arcane Comet
Plasma Fission is a near-guaranteed comet hit, adding ample harass that outpaces Aery's damage. |
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Manaflow Band
Manaflow is necessary to have just enough mana in later teamfights. |
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Transcendence
Transcendence's ability haste is too important for poking to pass up. Absolute Focus is alright too, but for the purpose of sieging, AH beats out raw AP. |
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Gathering Storm
Gathering Storm for better mid/late game poke. Scorch's damage gets split between both opponents, which creates underwhelming poke. |
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Legend:Haste |
Legend:Haste
Legend:Haste gives 15 ability haste for Vel'koz' poke tools, which is the highest amount possible from the runes, doubly so due to not needing more mana. |
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Cut Down
Cut Down directly enhances poke even further, more than the enhancement indirectly given by Triumph's gold bonus. |
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Ability Haste, Movement Speed, and Scaling Health
Haste for more poking and some later-game shards since Vel'koz can stall. Flat choices still good options. |
Build Order
The Scientific Process
Create Item Sets
APC Bot
Doran's Ring is excessive; Vel isn't interested in early trading.
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→
Lucidity gives much more uptime when sieging with Plasma Fission.
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Offensive
Defensive
Deadmans provides a permanent MS bonus as long as you don't auto in fights
Support
Stage of the Game
Stages of Destruction
Early
In the early game, your goals are to
- Ping enemies away from minions with Plasma Fission
- Avoid the other spells unless something can be secured
- Keep the area thoroughly warded
Watch Comet's Cooldown: If it's only 2 seconds away from recharging, you may want to hold the Fission trigger finger for a smidge longer.
You Shouldn't Be Taking Damage: Vel'koz easily has the most range out of any standard bottom laners, meaning damage is completely avoidable. Be aggressive with poking, but never take a hit to get off a hit. Make the lane as one-sided as possible.
Split the Fissions: Remember that if you press Q again while Plasma Fission is in mid-air, it will split early.
Avoid using Void Rift: Your mana regeneration can only barely regenerate the mana drain of Plasma Fission, so adding Void Rift on top of that will get you oom quickly. You should largely use it only when helping clear waves or when the enemies have committed to a fight.
Weak Pre-6 Kill Potential: Try to avoid being overtly aggressive until the ult. That means saving tectonic disruption instead of trying to hit the enemies with it.
Combo with Ult: This is the time when you can be very forward about landing Tectonic Disruption and combo'ing your other spells for an easy kill. If you notice incoming help, use Ghost to aggressively position for Tectonic Disruption, though be mindful of incoming CC.
Mid
As the laning phase ends, you will start roaming more and helping around
- Continue maintaining strong vision control of the map
- Try to be near areas of potential conflict to ult enemies down
- Use Ghost to kite and chase better during teamfights
- Chase down lonely opponents and kill them
Keep Distance: When enemies get closer, get yourself farther. Try to stay close to the tip of your spell's range and make sure the areas around you are warded well.
Peel with Tectonic Disruption: Keep an eye on your ADC and see if you can help them out against melee enemies by using Tectonic Disruption.
Use Ghost Often: Don't be afraid to use Ghost to arrive to fights several seconds earlier. It's on an impressively short cooldown, so be liberal with its various uses.
Use Ult Often Your ult is on a relatively short cooldown. Don't feel afraid to use it to gain even small advantages.
Late
The role remains largely similar
- Less vision at this stage makes warding tough. Be cautious.
- With its low cooldown, you should have Ghost ready for every teamfight.
- Prioritize protecting the ADC over throwing out damage
Be Patient with Ult: Try to save your ult until the enemies have gotten busy with the rest of your team. Using it much earlier will almost certainly ensure its interruption.
Ult Objectives: In some niche scenarios, when time is absolutely critical, consider using your ult on barons/dragons as you're taking them so you can get out as quickly as possible.
Thanks!
This guide was a lot of fun to write, and I hope you all have learned everything you would have liked.
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