Arcane Comet allows Vel'Koz to have stronger laning presence, and is a reliable source of extra poke with all your abilities. It's easy to proc, reducing it's remaining cooldown - meaning extra poke, and use it with Plasma Fission as it adds to your overall harass damage.

Vel'Koz may be able to sustain mana quite well, but the costs can ramp up quickly if you're casting your combos a lot in lane. Manaflow Band helps negate running out of mana in laning phase as fast, and grants passive mana regen when you reach the 250 threshold.

Transcendence is a strong rune for Vel'Koz, granting you ability haste and reducing basic cooldowns on champion takedown at level 11, which is very strong to minimize the downtime on our abilities. Absolute Focus is also a good choice for Vel'Koz, he has very long range using his abilities to poke the enemies - staying safe from damage, and this rune increases his damage output as long as he stays above 70% HP. You generally want to take Absolute Focus if you can guarantee you'll manage to stay above the threshold more often than not, otherwise the rune is useless.

As we know, the main reason for choosing Vel'Koz is his high damage output in lane, and Scorch is used for early game, laning harass. It adds extra damage on your first ability used, and then again after the 10s cooldown. Gathering Storm is an option, but as games don't tend to go above 30 minutes in this meta, it loses a lot of it's usefulness.

Perfect Timing provides you with a free stopwatch after 10 minutes, which can be used to build a Zhonya's Hourglass, saving you 600g and enabling you to complete one of Vel'Koz's core items quicker - as well as giving you the extra stasis effect one time before you complete your Zhonya's Hourglass.

Cosmic Insight has good synergy with Transcendence, offering you extra Summoner Spell ability haste - great for decreasing the cooldown on Barrier - and Item CDR. Generally the optimal rune to take. Biscuit Delivery is a great rune for sustain. It restores 15% of your missing health and mana, and increases your maximum mana by 40 anytime you consume or sell a biscuit. This is a great rune if you are facing a poke heavy opposition, and it also synergizes well with Manaflow Band.

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Sorcerer's Shoes > DAMAGE Vel'Koz focuses on damage, and the +18 magic penetration is going to increase his damage output and burst exponentially, especially with Organic Deconstruction. These are the best boots to take on Vel'Koz. Ionian Boots of Lucidity > CDR A good choice if you want extra CDR, synergizing well with Transcendence and Cosmic Insight, but it's generally overkill at this point. You're better off buying Mobi boots, increasing your roaming potential. Boots of Mobility > MOVEMENT SPEED These are the cheapest boots in the game, but can be the most useful - especially if you do plan on roaming the map. They're the best pick up if you're behind, or you're going to be concentrating on roaming, or peeling.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter > DAMAGE/UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY Rylai's Crystal Scepter slows enemies by 20% for 1 second, giving them less chance to escape from your burst. Your Plasma Fission and Life Form Disintegration Ray already apply slows, with Rylai's Crystal Scepter, you'll get another one on your knock-up, adding even more CC to your kit. This item increases your burst damage, along with increasing your survivability, due to the +350 HP it provides.

Morellonomicon > DAMAGE/UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY While increasing your overall damage output and magic penetration, and increasing your survivability with an extra 300 HP, Morellonomicon is a brilliant pick up if the enemy team has healers such as Sona, Soraka or enemies like Vladimir, or a Draven with Bloodthirster. Morellonomicon inflicts grievous wounds, reducing their healing on themselves and others by 40% for 3s. You can pick up the Oblivion Orb for the grievous wounds first.

Zhonya's Hourglass > UTILITY/SURVIVABILITY/DAMAGE If the enemy team has a lot of burst damage threats, you can take Zhonya's Hourglass to keep yourself alive longer, or negate damage spells such as Zed's Death Mark or Ignite. Zhonya's Hourglass is generally a core item on Vel'Koz as he is squishy and immobile, and he takes Perfect Timing already. It can spell the difference between living or dying, you also gain a nice chunk of AP for your burst damage, 45 armor and CDR.

Luden's Tempest > DAMAGE/SUSTAIN/CDR Vel'Koz focuses on doing damage as a mage support, making Luden's Tempest a core item for extra burst AoE damage. It also increases your movement speed by 30% for 2 seconds, giving us a little more mobility as Vel'Koz is an immobile mage. It also provides us with magic penetration, and gives all of our legendary items an extra 5 magic penetration, which is great against enemies who are taking magic resist.

Horizon Focus > UTILITY/DAMAGE When hitting an enemy with a none-targeted ability (Q/W/E/R) at more than 750 units away, or immobilizing one (E), reveals them and increases your damage dealt to them by 10% for 6 seconds. This synergizes very well with Vel'Koz's kit as none of his abilities are targeted, and he is a long range mage; this item increases our damage substantially.

Banshee's Veil > UTILITY/DMAGAGE/SUSTAIN Banshee's Veil offers protection from long range engage, such as Malphite or Blitzcrank, that Zhonya's Hourglass cannot - if you're cc chained, you can't activate it! You gain 60 magic resist, so a good pick up vs heavy AP teams such as Fizz and LeBlanc.

Void Staff > DAMAGE If your team is AP heavy, the enemy team is most likely going to start stacking MR - Void Staff negate's 40% of their magic resist, which then applies magic penetration, making this a very strong item vs MR.

Rabadon's Deathcap > DAMAGE Rabadon's Deathcap increases the damage of all of your abilities, and increases the true damage of your passive. Unfortunately, as a support, Rabadon's Deathcap takes a substantial amount of time to build, and mostly replies on you to be very ahead of the enemy team, as it has a very high cost, and it doesn't offer any defensive stats. It's not a good pick up vs any assassins like Zed, LeBlanc, Rengar etc. You're better off building other items first, and only consider this when you're ahead.

You'll most likely want to start with Plasma Fission, it's his main harass ability. If you're being invaded, you can take Tectonic Disruption for the knock-up to disengage, but Plasma Fission includes a slow, so is worthwhile taking if you are going to invade, and your team has other hard CC.

You'll want to utilize your Plasma Fission in lane as often as possible, preferably when Manaflow Band and Arcane Comet are off CD, but if you see a kill possibility, do not hold back. Try not to spam your other abilities unless you see a good opportunity for a kill, or to disengage, otherwise you'll find yourself running out of mana very quickly. You can use the slow off your Plasma Fission to help land your Tectonic Disruption easier.

Plasma Fission can hit minions, so be careful of where you're aiming it, and be aware of the trajectory of when it splits. Vel'Koz is a lot about angles!

You have a very high burst combo at level 6, especially if you land a Tectonic Disruption. You want to be going all-in pretty much as soon as you level up, ping your ADC so they know your intention. You're most likely guaranteed to burn at least one Flash with your ultimate, or at best, securing a kill.

Make sure to ward the brushes nearby your lane, and you can roam to midlane to set up an easy gank with the slow from your Plasma Fission, low cooldown on your Life Form Disintegration Ray, and if your midlaner can land a guaranteed hard CC, follow it up with a knock-up.


During the mid - late game teamfights and skirmishes, you will be trying to lock down multiple enemies with your Tectonic Disruption, with deadly high amounts of damage with your Life Form Disintegration Ray, along with the burst from Luden's Tempest. You have very long range, use this to your advantage in teamfights, spamming your Plasma Fission into the middle of the enemies.

When you've exhausted your damage combo with your ultimate, you can focus on peeling your ADC with Tectonic Disruption, or slowing the enemy down from engaging - or escaping - with your Plasma Fission and Void Rift, along with Rylai's Crystal Scepter slow.

When you're roaming, you can throw Tectonic Disruption's out for brief sight, instead of face checking brushes or fog of war.

You can proc an enemies Banshee's Veil with one Plasma Fission, or the first proc of Void Rift, use this to your advantage, making them easier to CC and be bursted down.

The main thing to be aware of, is making sure your teams threats stay alive, while removing, or zoning, the enemy teams threats. Remember, you're also a very high damage threat, and very squishy, along with being very immobile if you get caught out! Utilize your Zhonya's Hourglass at critical times to survive burst damage, especially if they have a blue Kayn or a Zed.

You'll want to be sticking close to your ADC, while roaming efficiently and safely as possible to place deep wards.

Control Ward's are a staple part of any support, both to deny your enemies vision, and to provide your team extra vision.

I hope you enjoyed, and learned enough from my Vel'Koz guide, to deconstruct your enemies as well as the pro's!

If you enjoyed my guide, you can check out my other guides here, in which I've covered more styles of supports, incase you want to branch out on supports such as engagers ( Nautilus, Pyke etc!).

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