Hello there fellow summoners and welcome to my Vel'Koz guide! My name is Krisuchu and I'm a diamond player from EUNE. This is my first guide here and I wish you find it informative. I would appreciate it a lot if you give me some feedback and/or ask any guestions you may have.

Something about me:

• I started playing LoL during May in S4. Got to Gold 3 on my first season in only a half season. I was really proud of myself (lol).
• S5 I got to Plat 2 twice after revisiting Gold 1.
• S6 I finally got to diamond V. There I lost my motivation to play anymore during that season mainly because I had spammed Vel'Koz over 80 games. I will never become onetrick and it was annoying to play so much same champion.
• S7 Got to diamond again thanks to Kassadin. Check out my awesome Kassadin guide here!

Check out my channel by clicking YouTube logo (or this link here)! I upload montages and funny moments about popular games (LoL, Overwatch, Fortnite (possibly))

Here is my new "Elo Heaven - Diamond edition Ep. 2 video below:

When did Diamond turn into bronze?
Play Video

Check out my current stats from here

Vel'Koz is one of the most underrated champions in league and it has always been. It has received many buffs this season (in S6 when I wrote this guide and they still stand) even though it was already really powerful champion. Regardless of those buffs people still seem to avoid playing Vel and I dont understand why. The purpose of this build is to make Vel'Koz more popular or atleast give some tips for those people who want to gain some free elo.

I will try to keep this guide as simple as possible to new players but also include some in-depth stuff for the more experienced ones. The main point to note will be my build anyway.

__Cons

- No escapes
- Only skillshots --> high skill cap
- Countered hard by mobile champions
- Countered hard by Crowd Control

__Pros:

+ Insane mixed damage (magic + true)
+ Lots of Crowd Control built in kit
+ Ultimate is one of the most powerful damaging abilities in the game
+ Rarely played --> hard to play against

____Passive Organic Deconstruction

___.As Vel'Koz you should always play around your passive. Hitting enemies 3 times with ___.abilities does a lot of damage. If you ever felt you dont do much damage as Vel'Koz ___.you probably didnt use your passive damage. Passive scales with 50% of your ability ____________.power. That's why I always build as much ability power as possible and ignore magic ____________.penetration unless enemies are stacking it a lot.

____Q Plasma Fission

___.Pick this ability at level 1 and use it to last hit minions if you are going to miss them ___.between your auto attacks. You can use this ability to poke on lane. Best way to ___.poke is by pressing Q again to split it into 2 projectiles a bit before it reaches it's ____________.maximum range. Enemies usually dont expect that and get hit by it.

____W Void Rift

___.Your waveclear ability. Max this first. When you have maxed it you can clear waves ___.faster than anyone. Press W,Q and melee minions are dead and then throw your
___.E Tectonic Disruption to caster minions and the wave is gone. You can also
____________.use W,Q two times if you feel unsafe to go to use your E Tectonic Disruption as ____________.you will be pretty close to enemy midlaner.

____________.When fighting always use W first because it has no cast time.
____________.For example W,Q or W,E is a faster combo than Q,W or E,W but works the same way.

____E Tectonic Disruption

___.Use this ability to save yourself from trouble by knocking enemies back. Be careful ___.when using it to farm because you will be very vulnerable to ganks and engages. ___.This is your only ability on lane that can save you but it is really good at it.

____R Life Form Disintegration Ray

___.Use this ability when you need to finish an enemy. Try to apply your passive
___.before using Life Form Disintegration Ray because you will do true damage to ___.researched enemies (enemies that have taken damage from your passive). If you ____________.have applied your passive and enemy has less than 50% health left dont save your ____________.ultimate. You will kill your enemy or atleast burn some summoners.

.

Best overall rune page:

Primary Tree: Sorcery

Arcane comet: Best keystone for most mages and poke champions. Other option would be Electrocute (check out optional rune page below) which is basicaly Thunderlord's Decree from Season 7 (on steroids!). Electrocute gives more burst damage than Arcane Comet but is on cooldown longer. Pick Arcane Comet if you want consistent bonus damage and Electrocute if you want more burst.

_.The Ultimate Hat: _.Your ultimate is really strong ability at all phases of the game and you want to use it as _.often as possible. Other option would be Manaflow Band but it isn't really needed as _. Lost Chapter should give you enough mana until you finish your Morellonomicon.

_.Transcendence: _.Extra CDR is really nice and gives you more options for your build. You can skip _. Ionian Boots of Lucidity and still have 40% CDR. Also you dont need to care about _.reaching CDR cap as extra CDR transfers into bonus AP. This means you can build _. Banshee's Veil if you feel like you need it.

_.Gathering Storm: _.Gives you extra AP over the course of the game and helps you to scale even better. _.Only other option would be Scorch if you want extra poke. In my opinion _. Gathering Storm is a lot better because when fighting you will use more than just one _.ability and adding bonus AP from Gathering Storm to 3 or 4 abilities will give you more _.damage than Scorch gives you in that situation.

__Secondary Tree: Inspiration

_.Perfect Timing: _. Stopwatch is really usefull item to have. Perfect Timing gives it for free. _. Stopwatch can save your life once and later in the game you most likely want to get _. Zhonya's Hourglass and stopwatch is a part of it so you end up saving gold. _.If for some reason you dont want to get Zhonya's Hourglass you can take _. Magical Footwear to get boots for free and save gold.

_.Cosmic Insight: _.There isn't really anything else to get. Extra CDR is always usefull. If you feel like you _.will get poked hard on lane you can take Biscuit Delivery to get extra sustain.

Secondary rune page for snowballing and fun:

Primary Tree: Domination

Electrocute: For some serious burst. Watch the health bar drop insanely fast!

_.Cheap Shot: _.More burst is always better!

_.Eyeball Collection: _.Didn't we want more damage?

_.Relentless Hunter: _.Bring your insane burst to other lanes faster!

__Secondary Tree: Sorcery

_.The Ultimate Hat: _.Maximum damage available more often.

_.Scorch: _.We are going all in with early game damage and burst. Scorch gives more damage _.early than Gathering Storm.

Summoner Spells I always take:

___.Barrier:

___ You need something to protect you and barrier is the best spell you can pick. It ___.gives you stronger protection than Heal. Also heal is countered by Ignite ___.and many midlaners are using it. Not to mention most midlaners build ____________. Morellonomicon as a first item and after that your heal is a lot weaker. You need to ____________.time your barrier to bait enemies to think you will die or to block their burst to get the ____________.full effectiveness from it's protection.

Summoner spells I don't take:

___Teleport:

___Not a bad option but you really need that extra survivability. With Teleport you ___could roam bot or top but you can already roam wherever you want as you can clear ___minion waves in one second at the point you want to start roaming.

___Heal:

___Mentioned earlier in Barrier section.

___Ignite:

___You should never be in range to cast ignite. Just dont take it, you need the extra ___survivability. There is enough damage in your kit already.
___ Life Form Disintegration Ray is way better than Ignite to execute enemies.

This is the most important part of this guide and the main reason I have 74% winrate in ranked.
I always see Vel'Koz players building something like this:




53%? Well thats pretty high winrate actually but not even close to my winrate. And keep in mind these statistics are from platinum and above. Seeing these kind of builds makes me a bit sad but also tells me that people dont know what they should build. That's why I am here.

My core build:

____ ____ ____


These are the items I always buy every game. But why those items in that order?

Youtuber LoLHounds made a great video about best Vel'Koz in the world and his build is suprisingly similiar to my guide. Here is the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WyX4RaT7SE

____Ionian Boots of Lucidity:

___.You dont need Sorcerer's Shoes Because magic pen isn't that valuable in my ___.opinion. I rate lowering the cooldowns of your defensive summoners higher than ___.having extra 15 magic pen.

____Luden's Echo

___.You need mana regen and CDR. This item also gives you some extra damage for your ___.first ability hit, good for poking and all in combo. After patch 8.4 this item has
___.replaced old Morellonomicon as it lost it's mana bonus.

____Archangel's Staff

___.This item is alternative for Luden's Tempest. If you keep having mana issues in your ___.games try building this item and you wont have them anymore. Get
___. Tear of the Goddess ASAP and upgrade it to Archangel's Staff once your tear is
____________.fully stacked.

____Rylai's Crystal Scepter:

___.This is the secret weapon of this build. Usually people think you dont need this ___.because your Q Plasma Fission has a 70% slow and your E Tectonic Disruption ___.is a knockback. So you have enough escaping tools right? No you dont. Those ____________.abilities can save you but they are also unreliable as they are easy to miss and
____________.Q Plasma Fission only hits the first enemy. By giving an area of effect slow to your ____________.W Void Rift you have a reliable escaping tool. Void Rift has no cast time so you ____________.don't need to stop moving when using it. It is also really easy to hit and you can ____________.follow with your Plasma Fission and Tectonic Disruption if needed. Now you ____________.have three basic abilities that all slow down enemies and always one of them is up. ____________.Only assassins can reach you now. In patch 6.24 Rylai's got nerfed and it gives you ____________.only 20% slow, less AP and less HP but is also a lot cheaper. I still prefer this item ____________.over something else. Now you can get the survivability a lot faster. Keep in mind that ____________.you cant rely as much on the slowing ability of this item because it is halved. It will ____________.still save you but not as often

____Rabadon's Deathcap:

___.Every AP carry should get this item at some point of the game. It gives you huge ___.power spike and hundreds of extra AP.

Situational items:

____ ____ ____ ____


I always pick two of these items. But what are the two items I should pick and when?

____Banshee's Veil:

___.If you are against a high burst mage and/or a lot of CC especially stuns
___. Banshee's Veil can now be really good item for you. It's passive blocks the next
___.enemy ability and can save your life. The reason why this item is really good against
____________.stuns specifically is because you can't use anything when you get stunned and
____________.getting stunned is the worst thing that can happen for you as Vel'Koz.
____________. Banshee's Veil is pretty unreliable because you can lose the passive really easily
____________.and it is really situational but never really a bad item. Choise is yours. Just keep in
____________.mind that if enemy uses something to proc the passive and still has the CC ability you
____________.are screwed. Usually against roots I would prefer Zhonya's Hourglass.

____Zhonya's Hourglass:

___.This item is really good if you want something defensive and I prefer it over
___. Banshee's Veil most of the time. You get Zhonya's Hourglass to dodge damage.
___. Zhonya's Hourglass is better against roots than Banshee's Veil because during
____________.roots you can attack and use items' actives. Zhonya's Hourglass is more reliable
____________.against roots than stuns because you can use it during a root but not during a stun.
____________.I still recommend to get Zhonya's Hourglass against some champions such as
____________. Syndra. Yes she can't stun you if you have Banshee's Veil but a big chunk of her
____________.damage comes from her ultimate that would not get blocked and you would most
____________.likely die. You can take the stun and dodge her ult damage instead and survive. Thats
____________.why you get Zhonya's Hourglass most of the time.

____Morellonomicon:

___.Against healing champions such as Vladimir or Soraka to reduce their healing.
___.Also good for extra burst as Morellonomicon adds 15 magic pen.

____Void Staff:

___ Get this item if enemies are stacking a lot magic resist. The more magic resist ___.enemies have the more valuable this item will be. You dont need Void Staff if ___.enemy midlaner has Abyssal Mask, you need it against tanks.

____Liandry's Torment:

___ I rarely build this item but I get it if enemies are stacking a lot of hp but not magic ___.resist. Liandry's Torment passive burns 4% (normally 2% but because all of your ___.abilities apply slow with Rylai's Crystal Scepter it is doubled) of enemy's current ____________.health as magic damage per seconds, last 3 seconds (total of 12% current health. ____________. Liandry's Torment can be effective when enemies are stacking items that give
____________.HP + Armor as there is only hp against you.

Example full build:

Highest damage against any comp:

____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

Against assassin:

____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

Against assassin and tanks:

____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____

Early game:

Early game you want to focus on farming and poking your opponent. At level 6 you can start thinking if you can score a kill with your ultimate. You want to push lane fast and start roaming once you have enough damage to clear a wave instantly.

Against AP matchups you want to follow the core part of the build and add two situational items. You dont need to force plays, only farm in safe and try to make plays when you see an opportunity. Try to keep track on enemy jungler so you know when you can play more aggressively and when to stay safe.

If you are against an AD assassin ( Zed) you start with 2x Doran's Ring to get manaregen that you miss by skipping Lost Chapter and start building
Zhonya's Hourglass as a first item. Now you are using the "Against AD mid" runepage so you get 10% CDR from runes. That's why you build Sorcerer's Shoes now. Your CDR will cap (Runes + Morellonomicon + Zhonya's Hourglass) anyway so you dont want to waste money to extra CDR. After finishing zhonyas you want to get Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Morellonomicon.

If the enemy team has an AP mid but they still have an assassin, you build as normally but get Zhonya's Hourglass at any point of the game you feel like you need it to survive from that assassin. I recommend getting it after Rylai's Crystal Scepter.

Mid game

Mid game you want to keep roaming and start taking objectives. In teamfights you want to hit as many enemies as possible with your w,q and use your ultimate instantly to burst enemies down. Make sure you have enough distance to stay safe while burning them with your laser. Save your
E Tectonic Disruption always to knock back anyone who gets too close to you.

Late game

Late game you want to get enemy inhibitors down. Best way to do this is killing baron nashor and pushing with empowered minions. Always make sure you have baron warded. Losing a baron can lead to losing the game. In teamfights you have to stay alive and keep dealing damage. Try to use your ultimate to enemy backline if they have lost some hp as your ultimate deal so much damage that they have to leave fight instantly or in best case they will die. It is also worth to use your ultimate on one person to secure a kill and fight 5 vs 4 after that.

Thank you for reading my guide on how I play Vel'Koz. I wish you enjoyed and learned something about the champion and how to play him. This was my very first guide so I would appreciate if you leave a vote if you liked it. Also leave a comment if you have any questions and I will try give you a good explanation.