Vel'Koz/Strategy

Champion Spotlight

By sixtwo

Vel'Koz's arrival is imminent. A Void beast who kills to learn and learns to kill, the Eye of the Void lets nothing come between him and his ultimate prize: knowledge. Learn more in the Vel'Koz Champion Spotlight.

Vel'Koz excels at ranged warfare, blasting out Plasma Fission and Void Rift to chunk down distant targets while repelling approaching enemies with Tectonic Disruption. Repeated attacks build up Deconstruction stacks as Vel'Koz analyzes and learns about his enemies, resulting in significant true damage during sustained fights. Once his subjects are primed, the Eye of the Void unleashes his ultimate, Lifeform Disintegration Ray, to vaporize all before him.

Recommended Items

Tips

Playing As Vel'Koz

• When laning, use void Void Rift to kill minions while building stacks of Organic Deconstruction on your opponent. You can then follow up with your other abilities.
• Shooting Plasma Fission diagonally and splitting at maximum range allows you to hit opponents that are out of the range of the initial missile, but is more challenging to pull off.
• Be very careful about .when to use Life Form Disintegration Ray. Many champions have abilities that can interrupt the spell

Playing Against Vel'Koz

• Vel'Koz is very dangerous if left alone in a fight. Try to focus him down early.
• Vel'Koz has fairly low mobility and is vulnerable to ganks.
• Life Form Disintegration Ray can be interrupted by stuns, silences, and knockups.

Tricks

Ability Usage

• Vel'Koz's strength as a mage comes from the CC potential and spammable nature of his skills to build up his Organic Deconstruction stacks, along with his relatively long ranges to keep his enemies at bay. He is, however, vulnerable in close range and lacks mobility along with relatively low scaling ratios.
• Utilizing Organic Deconstruction is the key to maximizing Vel'Koz's damage. The true damage proc on it is what makes up for the lower scaling ratios, you can burst down tanks easier than other mages as well as drop squishier targets fast, making it imperative to combo your skills quickly. Here are a few ways to do so:
  • Organic Deconstruction stacks can be maintained with auto-attacks. This is especially useful in the early game when your spells still have a long cooldown.
  • Engaging with Tectonic Disruption or Plasma Fission can often prevent enemies from escaping from a well placed Void Rift, the Tectonic Disruption is usually easier to combo with Void Rift than the Plasma Fission.
  • Using Void Rift & Tectonic Disruption, Velkoz can often force most opponents to drink their first potions from as early as level 2
  • When you have your Lifeform Disintegration Ray, if you've successfully procced Organic Deconstruction already, you often can follow up with the Lifeform Disintegration Ray proccing your Organic Deconstruction a second time which will guarantee you either a kill or a very low hp enemy being forced to withdraw from a lane, you can often use this to force a laning opponent to withdraw just as soon as they returned to their lane.
• Plasma Fission has decent base damage, a low mana cost, and short cooldown, making it his main poke/harass tool.
  • With some practice, you can catch people off guard by angling Plasma Fission when activating it again early. This is essential for a good Vel'Koz player.
  • The slow from Plasma Fission is very high initially, use it to line up the rest of your skills and land an easy Tectonic Disruption.
  • This spell is very effective for maintaining safer distances between you and an enemy, you may often find it wise to save it to prevent enemies getting close to you, especially in late game when you may need to prevent enemy teams chasing you down.
• Void Rift is helpful for landing stacks of Organic Deconstruction and will become core to most of your combo strategies.
  • Using Void Rift can allow you to push lanes aggressively, especially against enemies that don't wish to waste important cooldowns or spells wave clearing under tower.
  • Try not to cast Void Rift as an engaging tool, but rather a follow up, start with Tectonic Disruption or Plasma Fission as the slow or CC will help you aim while also preventing the enemy escaping.
  • In fleeing situations, casting Void Rift can still be useful, chasers will have to choose whether to take 2 stacks of Organic Deconstruction or step aside of it, keeping you at a safe distance.
• Tectonic Disruption is your only form of hard CC and disengage and has a high cooldown at early levels. Be careful when it is on cooldown.
  • Juggling your Tectonic Disruption and Plasma Fission cooldowns is often a helpful laning strategy, using one to engage, while using the other to keep your distance between you and opponents.
• Lifeform Disintegration Ray is a channeled ability and can be interrupted by CC. Make sure that most of your enemies' crowd control is gone before using your ultimate to ensure maximum damage.
  • Lifeform Disintegration Ray can pass through people, thereby dealing full damage to all targets, while also applying multiple stacks of your passive in a short amount of time. However, be sure to aim it properly as it adjusts slowly.
  • An opportune moment to cast Lifeform Disintegration Ray is usually when your tanks or fighters are initiating the enemies tanks and fighters, your allies will funnel the enemies formation & take enough focus away from you to cast Lifeform Disintegration Ray and melt multiple health bars.
  • Lifeform Disintegration Ray can often be used as a tool to buy time when objectives have higher priority than your kill ratio, you can use it to force enemy teams to back off from the lasers range, one example is to force an enemy team away from defending a tower, giving your own team just the time it needs to break it and withdraw, or defending your own turret from a large advancing wave.
• Be aware of champions who have dashes or can get behind you instantly (i.e. Katarina, Leona, Zed) as you will not be able to turn fast enough to maximize Lifeform Disintegration Ray.

Mastery Usage

Item Usage

• Vel'Koz's kit encourages a lot of ability combo usage coupled with high base damage. High penetration, utility and cooldown reduction are the more useful stats to look for.
• Offensive stats are usually the most desirable as Vel'koz is played with the intention of dealing lot's of damage, magic penetration is good along with items that can proc extra damage one way or another.
  • Luden's Echo gives you extra mobility plus extra damage on its proc.
  • The newest mastery  Thunderlord's Decree is easy to proc given the combo nature of your kit.
  • If you feel capable of keeping safe distances from the enemy team, the Mejai's Soulstealer (a notoriously go big or go home item) is fun to gamble with, your spells can often keep enemies teams out of range allowing you to build stacks even from assists and keep them, with the extra move speed to help you maintain advantageous positions even more.
• For defensive purposes
  • a Archangel's Staff works with the shield after its transformation.
  • Zhonya's Hourglass can help you survive assassins bursts and retaliate.
  • A Banshee's Veil is a good choice for protecting you from long range CC, especially when casting Lifeform Disintegration Ray as enemies will have to burn through another ability in order to disrupt it.
• Utility often helps Velkoz overcome his shortcomings, his lack of mobility and all spells being skillshots, to overcome these, purchasing items with utility can help:
  • A Rylai's Crystal Scepter allows you to proc slows on all your abilities which can hit multiple targets, very useful for late game team fights where positioning is crucial. Bear in mind, it will apply a shorter slow.
  • Since half of his abilities have some form of CC, Liandry's Torment can make you an effective tank shredder.
  • Vel'Koz's is often played at such a range that Ignite might feel unviable, instead opting for summoners like Barrier or even Ghost
• Spamming your skills is required to activate Organic Deconstruction, but can make you feel mana hungry in the early game. A second Doran's Ring, Forbidden Idol, Chalice of Harmony or Catalyst the Protector will help. The following items will also address mana regen and cooldown reduction issues:
  • If playing supportively, a Spellthief's Edge into a Frost Queen's Claim will be useful, it provides 10% cooldown and mana regen, plus the active alone is useful for slowing + finding enemies potentially hiding from a distance.
  • Morellonomicon often provides you with the core cooldown reduction and mana regen you'll need plus an exceptionally helpful passive to cripple enemies that rely on their sustain.
  • While Athene's Unholy Grail also provides 20% cooldown and a lot more mana regen especially for late game, its often overkill when combined with Morellonomicon, don't feel like you need to buy both.
  • Purchasing Ionian Boots of Lucidity can help you stack cooldown reductions not just for your spells but for summoner spells.

Countering

• Vel'Koz's range is his best defense, but his abilities are primarily skillshots and he lacks mobility and disengage. Therefore, high mobility assassins such as Fizz, Talon, and Kassadin can make it difficult for him.
• Vel'Koz is a high burst damage champion due to the true damage procs from his passive. Silences and hard CC can interrupt his combo and give you time to retaliate or escape.
• His Organic Deconstruction makes magic resist not as effective against him. Purchasing health items or getting Boots of Speed early can help you avoid his damage.
• Lifeform Disintegration Ray is very powerful, but he turns slowly and cannot move while it is active. It can be best avoided by walking around or getting behind him.
  • Be aware of Vel'Koz's position in teamfights as a fully channeled Lifeform Disintegration Ray can decimate your entire team.
• Remember that Vel'Koz can keep up his passive stacks with his auto attacks. Try to avoid getting hit by him until the stacks disappear.
• Watch to see if Vel'Koz's Tectonic Disruption misses and Vel'Koz is out of position. As this is his only hard CC, it is an opportune time to engage on him and possibly kill him.
• Try to keep track of the number of times Void Rift is used at once. The recharge rate is long early on and can leave Vel'Koz with only two basic abilities to retaliate against you.