Hello, my name is Azzapp and I have been playing Vel’Koz since release. I am a Challenger Vel’Koz player on 4 different servers(EUW, EUNE, NA and KR).

I am the one who started the Vel’Koz boycott 16 days ago and we have certainly got some attention and a response. First off I want to say I am very happy that we actually managed to get attention, a new skin and a buff. From now on we are calling off the boycott. The entire community has been in overdrive writing meaningful feedback and ideas on how to and how NOT to buff Vel’Koz. We did not expect much because the buffs were done in such a short notice and we got a somewhat mediocre buff which is completely fine but very boring and uninspired.

The issue comes from balance team condescendingly repeating in a review video that there was no meaningful feedback other than “Vel’koz sucks”. We have tried all avenues of providing feedback, including reddit posts, twitter posts, youtube posts, youtube videos and apparently none were even looked at. Not only that, but they claimed all Vel’Koz mains were wrong about his E and it works perfectly fine, even though there are many videos showcasing the Vel’Koz E bugs.

I have been in contact with dozens of Vel’Koz mains and we are in pretty much 99% agreement on changes. None of them were also taken into consideration or their feedback honored during the change. In the same video, riot balance team implores us to provide “meaningful” feedback and here I am doing just that for one final time.

*note* We do NOT encourage harassment of balance team members and communicators, we just want to be heard.

DO NOT BUFF VEL’KOZ FLAT DMG OR AP%

People constantly ask me if I’m trying to get Riot to lower skill ceiling on Vel’Koz or skill expression.

We want the COMPLETE OPPOSITE.

The flat damage on spells buff is the laziest imaginable way do it with AP ratios being a close second. It buffs mid, support, high elo, low elo pretty much all the same and that is what we want to avoid.

Core Vel’Koz issue is the lack of impact to sway the games according to his performance. If he does poorly he gets carried easily. Conversely, if he does well he can not carry if his team mates are slightly worse.

We want a change that creates even more skill expression which will convert into champions impact to both lose and win games, which is why a trade off is necessary.

I will try to approach this as a video game dev instead of a Vel’Koz main, so here are just a few ideas off the top of my head.

The proper formula is:

“Something has to be taken from the champion, for a buff to be added that will be used by better players disproportionately more”.

Examples:

- Lower base damage on low ranks, higher damage on higher ranks. (Vel’Koz weaker early, harder early, support nerfed, mid lane buffed)

-Lower base damage, increase the AP ratios

- Lower damage on Q but add execution based on split, distance travelled, enemy missing HP, etc.

(Easier Qs get less valuable while longer range, more intense ones get rewarded. Also the ability to get enemy low to execute with a weaker champ is a skill in itself.)

- Landing double Q should be rewarded, easiest option is the add more stacks, could be longer slow.

- Landing back to back Q on the same target withing 7 seconds should apply an extra stack

- Hitting passive on a target amplifies your damage by 1% towards that target, or converts a % of your damage to true versus that enemy for the rest of the game(Another thing which adds more skill expression in choosing where to focus early game so you can punish late game, get rewarded for aggressive play and landing stuff)

- Making E and W not projectiles while increasing E animation speed/flight speed by ~10%

- Enhance the ability which activates your passive on the target(Ryze), or enhance one ability after triggering your passive(Rengar). Unique ability effect would further divide better and worse players creating enormous skill expression.

All of these are viable change ideas depending on how much time and/or passion developers have on their hands and we would be happy with pretty much any of them. Furthermore if necessary I would love to talk to any of the members of the design team and bring these ideas closer to them in order of preserving the Vel’Koz identity and avoiding flat boring buffs.