Except anyone who isn't a vegetable can dodge Q because it's freaking predictable and if they are half a decent player and notice you maxing Q they can just push you to the tower and you can't farm donkey balls.

Err... Akali is a rather mobile champion post 6 with Shadow Dance and even pre 6 she has her Twilight Shroud. And Katarina is somewhat mobile due to her Shunpo.

You should add Jayce mid, even though nobody plays him. He counters Vel'Koz so hard you have no idea. He has way better poke, a strong gap closer, HP based damage, a knockback and pretty high speed boost. + his insane burst with his Q-E-Q-E combo makes vel'koz cry like a baby. Even if he rushes Zhonya's you can buy BC and he won't be able to do anything to you. He (Vel) has no way of winning this lane.

It's also very predictable because of the purple range indicator that appears on the ground, the ennemy can see it and apprehend the spell. You can trick them by shooting in a wall or a bush, it will hide the range indicator, and the distance traveled by the void ball can tell you if you hit something in the fog of war.
But yeah, it's a really good advice to give, players barely pay attention to spells shoot far away (at least for now).

A good aimer can shoot a Q 45 degrees away from the creeps, followed by a second activation to poke your enemy. ;)

Also, take note that shooting in this way also increases the range you can poke by about 25%.

I agree with you, Q isn't making full use of the passive, but it's not as if we're talking about Lucian here :p Vel'Koz's passive should never be the main priority when considering skill sequence. As I stated in the guide, W is very dependent on either Q or E landing first. With such a dependency it's hard to justify maxing it despite the potential to deal more damage. Well in my opinion of course XD

I mostly agree with you (i'm maxing Q aswell)... But the damage dealt is not that easy to caclculate with this champ, because of his passive. Maxing W (that gives 2 stacks for the passive) will increase the damage, ofc, but will reduce the cooldown. That means that, in addition to increasing the damage dealt by the spell, you'll proc your passive more often (true damage never fails :p ).
So you have to take this in consideration, q isn't meant to proc the passive really fast

Q actually isn't too hard to hit in my experience. Well, aside from just poking, it's your best kiting/chasing tool. It has the best combination of damage, CD, and utility. Maxing anything else would be a waste I think :D

Better ^^ Now i wonder about the "you'll always want to max Q first"... Melee laners will stay between their own minions, making it really hard to hit Q. W can be an option imo :)

Thank you! I will update my guide now :)

Great first view of the champ overall... Little oversight : his ultimate slows the ennemy, so that's 3 CC spells in total (and not 2, as written at the beginning).