Cool tips. I agree with you on most of it, which is great. I really think people underestimate tanky Veigar. I don't think too many people realize that, if you spec for Ardor in defense tree, the .6AP per level in offense tree, grab a rabal's cap, and Q farm/get 10+ champ kills you can reach 500AP. That is ONE item....500AP if properly farmed. It leaves so much room for building tanky rather than just grabbing a few more points of AP. Half the AP items help you build tanky as it is, so it just leaves you with the best of both worlds. Best stats I ever had in any game was when I built a Banshee instead of the hourglass (no phys on enemy team). Final stats were:

4k health
120 armor
180 magic resist
800 ap
Max cooldown reduction +
Deathfire nuke

Thats just hard to beat.

sorry its taken me a while to respond, but ive been testing this build. first of all i have to say thank you for answering my question on the boots, i have also done some testing myself and found that you were right, the increased damage is much faster for farming than waiting another 8 or so seconds for another dark matter or a couple more baleful strikes.

also, i hadnt considered the fact that with sorc boots and the scepter you would be doing true damage to squishy targets (the ones you should be targeting anyways). i was at first skeptical becuase you get DFG so late, but i found after playing a couple games that the true damage you do really makes up for not having it (its too bad you cant go negative damage with this build early game, but true damage is better than nothing), and you stard combo is enough to finish most champions. its not until late game where people realize your a threat and get MR, which is when you get DFG so your combo is still effective.

i also was going to comment that i had some mana issues in your veigar build compared to when i used a tear/archangel build, however i noticed that you had clerity as one of your summoner spells and so i swiched out my exhaust with it and find that it really solves the problem. you dont need exhaust when your this tanky anyway. anytime your low on mana and need that extra nuke combo you can activate clerity and suddenly youve got another burst. its perfect for deciving opponents into thinking you wont be able to kill them while they slowly push your lane into a gank. another option is to get teleport, so you can b back to base and teleport wherever the action is.

also, with cdr i found the best time to get a blue potion in this build is after rabadons.

im sorry for the long post, but i have been testing this build and am just sharing with other people the problems i had and other people may have and the solutions that you provided. its a good build, works to my satisfaction +1

Excellent question, and one that I debated a lot with myself. The answer is it mostly came with testing results. When farming, I found that the main delay from farming faster was not from cooldowns, but from runspeed to and fro the jungle back to your lane. That difference isn't affected by the difference of cdr and sorc boots. Additionally, you may know that minions have magic resist now, and it increases over time. The sorc boots counter that problem, ensuring your dark matter kills them in one shot instead of requiring some auto attacks. That is a bigger difference in faster farming than cooldown reduction too.

Also, getting sorc boots that early makes your spells hit HARD on champs and after getting two stones and your rk2 boots....you may encounter fights/ganks where you want to do big damage before you have successfully built your abyssal scepter. -10 magic pen from runes and -20 from boots puts you at true damage early game. The abyssal scepter's extra 20 magic pen can be a little bit overkill *if* your enemy doesn't buy a single magic resist item and doesn't have runes for it, but I find that to be rather infrequent so the additional amount is just gravy. I mean, a lot of people get merc boots. This puts you at true damage after their merc boots again.

The ways I accomplish getting cooldown reduction, post farming, are with dfg and blue potion, blue buff, or killing someone who has blue buff. That obviously is enough for late game.

Hope that explains it, and curious for your response.

one question though. i want to know why you changed your boots from the cdr to the magic pen. i persoanally use the magic pen boots however i noticed at first you used the cdr boots, and was just wondering why the change. i was thinking you could get cdr boots first for faster farming and last hits with baleful, the abysal scepter you get pretty much acts like sorc boots anyway. at late game when you have more cdr with deathfire you could go ahead and sell your cdr boots for the magic pen boots since youll have plenty of excess money by that point in the game.

before i read this build i thought i had a pretty set veigar build. however i tried this and at first i tweaked the build abit, but after you updated it with taking out RoA and FoN and replacing them with warmogs and abysal scpeter i really find myself liking this build.im still testing this build out and tweaking it with many others, but for the most part i find it quite solid. although im never quite as tanky as you describe i would be (might be cause im a noob or something) i find myself alot more resilaint tan any other veigar builds, and in fact have managed to survive situations i otherwise wouldve died in and come back to score a kill on the enemy team.

Also, other slight modifications that I dance around are to have armor/lvl yellows, magic resist/lvl blues, and to start with a regrowth pendant instead of two charms. Monkey around with it, see what fits you best.

Thanks for the compliments. Recently, I have been playing around with a slightly different (but mostly the same) build and it also works really well. The variation is to grab sorc boots and abyssal scepter as first two items (after the two stones, of course). The scepter replaces the void staff and potentially the force of nature as well (which means you have a free slot now). What this accomplishes is that virtually all your damage for the first 30 minutes of team fights will be true damage and you will be hitting the enemy and thinking somehow you have 400ap when in reality you still have only about 100 to 150. You just hit so much harder so much earlier. The downside is....pathetic cooldowns and late game tanks can be an issue if they have super high magic resist. But it makes the early game a real "blast" haw haw.

Hi there, I tried those stones of yours... It's really awesome xD, helps Veigar with early game so much I can't believe it. Thanks to you sir! I also tried the cdr boots... with those, 9/0/21 in masteries, cdr runes and eventually an Elixir of brilliance I get at a whooping 39,89 cdr :). The stones really make up for every problem I have with Veigar, thanks. I also tried leveling dark matter before Horizont and that really makes a difference when you're the one with the superior laning capability. Will make some edits to my own build soon to include the stones. Gl hf!

Thank you for the constructive feedback. I share your thoughts as well. I had tried to incorporate lichbane into the build to increase movement speed more than just from my quints. I mean, it makes a good viable item for the build in that it gives magic resist and AP too. And heck, what Veigar doesn't want to auto attack for another 700 damage after all his nukes? The problem is the lack of item space. The hp items have to stay because taking them out removes a *LOT* of his tankiness (experimented with it). The only viable option was possibly taking the void staff out. This you could only do if the enemy team didn't build any magic resist gear. So there is potential, and I wish I could fit it all in. But to be honest, as much as I would want more movement speed...his current tankiness can get him from the enemy base all the way back to your own base before dying so I considered his movement speed sufficient. Between defensive ring stuns, and your hp regen, you would be suprised how long and far you can get hehe.

Giving you a thumbs up because you made a tanky veiger build that can still dish out some heavy damage. their are some things I don't agree with though, like your movement speed. you won't be able to get to your teammates and you'll get left behind.

I think if you balanced out the tankyness a bit and gave him some movement speed you would have a viable tough veigar.

Well, I *finally* had a mirror match mid with another Veigar who does the usual "tear/rabals early" type build. He was pretty good in skill. Could have outfarmed me and out ganked me if it weren't for my build. I could tell it was probably his main, and it wasn't a free Veigar week. Absolutely SCHOOLED him. For the first 10 minutes he had about 20ap more than I did. After 20 minutes he had about 50ap more than me. After 25 minutes....I had 100ap more than him. I had 500 more hp, more magic resist, and my regen was blowing his outta the water. The game ended at 35 minutes and I had just reached 500ap when he was still at about 350ap due to me outfarming him and forcing him to go back to town too often (killed him twice before laning broke off). My team....had no tanks. I was the main tank. Their entire team focused me every team fight. I tanked the turrets. Hardly ever died. Final score was like 10-6-20 being the one charging in the front of our pack.

This build is devastating.

Is 700AP not extreme dmg output? I seem to have no problems *near one shotting* any carry. To give up 1k hp and 75 additional magic resist just to do a couple hundred extra damage (COMBINED of all abilities)....is rediculous. Plus, by 25 minutes into the game, you have lost no AP compared to the typical builds. The only place you lose AP due to build is in the late late game, and its not significant compared to survivability vs 1+ minute death times.

My games typically go about 15-5-20 (mainly because I don't mind getting kills in the team fights and my damage burst comes out first when the tank engages). My best so far was 18-1-10 in 35 minutes.