Veigar Build Guide by Rhialto

Hi everyone. I've noticed that unfortunately many players totally fail with Veigar, and that the guides currently available on Mobafire aren't that helpful for them. This guide is not meant to be a 20 pages description of Veigar, but a guide to players, so I'll focus on what makes you fail (or succeed) as a Veigar.

So here is my guaranty: at the end of this guide you'll be as good with Veigar that you're with the other characters. (If not plz post a comment.)

If you are interested by a more in-depth description of Veigar, go read the excellent Psiguard's guide.

Standard AP carry runes. You can make some changes but:

1. You must take magic penetration, or no damage.
   
2. You must take some mana regeneration (flat or per level), or no mana.
   
3. You must take some AP (flat or per level), or impossible to play a correct early game.
   

Based on the runes you possess and your personal tast you can fiddle around (take life for instance), but if you break one of the three requirements you will fail.

Standard Ap carry masteries. Notice that we spent one point to get a longer buff duration, try to get blue as often as possible.

Flash Awesome summoner spell, both defensively and offensively. You must take it.


Ignite My personal choice but highly debatable. I take it to compensate Veigar's extremely weak early game.
Take Ghost or Teleport if you want.

In the current meta, carry ap go mid and anyway Veigar loves going mid. Unfortunately he is very weak early, as I'll explain, so we need some Health Potion to survive. Doran's Ring is an awesome way to begin, but if you lane against a Lux of equal skill for instance you won't be able to farm.

Deathfire Grasp This the perfect item for Veigar. It gives you the ap, the mana and the cd reduction that you need. And its active changes everything for you.

• Firstly you become able to destroy squishy in one combo. Without it, your combo will never do enough damage to kill a full hp enemy. Meaning you are a very easy prey for carry ad, and you will often fail to land a kill, the ennemy leaving with 200 hp and all your cooldowns on timer.
  
• Secondly, you become a threat to tanks and off-tanks. Now it's true you should never focus a tank (never use ulti on tank). Yet if you can burst 60% of his life in 2s and your team is with you, it guarantees an easy kill, instead of seeing Dr. Mundo running 3 min without dying.
  

With Deathfire Grasp everyone will be scared, even tanky characters, so they'll stay very far away for fear of being stunned. Very impactful when all the team is pushing mid, the enemy team will have huge trouble to harass.

Haunting Guise It gives you some life to survive during mid-game and end-game, and magic penetration to keep scaring tanks and off-tanks. Evildice was the one who made me understand the true potential of this object.

Rabadon's Deathcap Mandatory for carry ap. You must take it.

Once you have Rabadon's Deathcap, your core build is complete and all items are situational.
In practice go in the Magic -> Ability power section of the shop, and choose the best suited object. The best one are:

• Void Staff is ideal in most games, allowing you to stay dangerous when they start buying magic resistance.
  
• Zhonya's Hourglass is great in late game, preventing the enemy team from bursting you in 3s.
  
• Morello's Evil Tome is an awesome item. Unfortunately I almost never buy it. I take it when I'm doing great and the enemy has not magic resist, but in those cases the game is often already over.

Baleful Strike gives you AP when you kill minions with it. Do it often.

Event Horizon is very powerful under towers, especially in early game.

Primordial Burst scales with your ap and the ap of the target. Focus enemies with a lot of AP.

Your combo: Event Horizon then Deathfire Grasp then Dark Matter then Baleful Strike then Primordial Burst.

You can make some changes. But :

• You must level baleful strike before dark matter.

It's nearly impossible to land Dark Matter without stunning first, meaning that Dark Matter has a de facto cooldown of 11s in early game, making you useless.Take Baleful Strike, it will be easier to last hit, and to make kills.

You may know that many hate Veigar and that he is nearly never used by pro players. Here's is why.

Veigar has a unique characteristic: he can farm AP with baleful strike. So if he can farm early, he becomes unstoppable. In order to balance the game, Riot gave Veigar the weakest early game of all champs, making it easier to deny his farm. Meaning that against a very skilled opponent Veigar will fail. So in a way he is underpowered. But if Riot buffs him to make his early average, he will farm and become Op. So Veigar is stuck in strange place, being by design either Op or up.

However, it is what makes him so enjoyable to play. If you mid against a player less skilled than you (play in normal for an easy mid), you quickly become a god.

That is a very unusual section, but in my opinion the most valuable of this guide and highly necessary given the high failure rate with Veigar. It may seem obvious to you, but even if it is, ask yourself if you truly respect these rules.

• You don't last hit enough.
  
  New players underestimate the importance of farming. With Veigar you pay an even higher price, because farming also give you AP. Don't auto-attack, only last hit with Baleful Strike.
  
  
• You don't know how to place yourself.
  
  With Veigar placement is even more important than usual. Don't stay in front of your team. Don't stay in lane with low life (buy some health potion). Whenever you die, always try to analyse where you were placed and how much life you had before your death, and try to correct any mistake you see. Don't blame only your partners even if they are noobs.
  
  
• You don't know how to use an active.
  
  Deathfire Grasp has an active effect. Don't click on the object to use it, you must use keybindings. The slot item are numbered from 1 to 6, click on the number to use the object.
  
  
• You don't know how to play defensively.
  
  Many players have a very aggressive playstyle by nature. Veigar is the weakest champ early game, you must defend, or you will fail.
  
  

Once you have stopped to make those 4 mistakes, you'll be as least as good with Veigar that you are with the other champs.

Hope this guide helped you. Don't hesitate to comment and upvote.