Howdy children. Gather round to grandpas campfire to hear the story of what playing Vel’Koz was like long ago. Vel’koz was released in February of 2014. Wow! Almost 10 years ago. At that time it was clearly known that distance mages were countered by high mobility champions. Let me list the ones you had to watch out for.
Kassadin, Nocturne, Riven, Fizz, Ahri, Zed, Zac, Vi, Lee Sin.
That’s it. Those were your high mobility champions.
- Kassadin could be countered early with good lane play.
- Nocturne had to ult you directly.
- Riven was almost never mid.
- Fizz was a nightmare as well as Ahri and Zed
- Zac, vi, and lee you just ward against.
Welcome back to 2023. Riot has decided that super high mobility assassin brusiers are pretty cool. Isn’t it super fun that you can come through jungle terrain and off-paths. Kayn sure is exciting. The counter play for Vel includes… uhhh… gotta sit further back. They reworked Sion and added Kled so that you could get insta run down. Added Ornn and changed Mao ult so that it could knife you from long range with hard CC. Sylas came around and does whatever he does to you. Aurelion Sol can dive you from across your screen. Ekko? Best of luck, sir. Lillia now has 550 ms while dodging your slow skill shots. Akshan dives at you. Vex hits you with a nearly global ult. Naafiri? Ha. Good luck, man.
The problem fundamentally is not Vel’Koz. It’s riot’s obsession with absurd mobility and spell kits that can hit you across your screen. Big CC wave coming right at you? Didn’t exist back then. Assassin divebombing you from across the screen? That was Zed or Kassadin only. Jungler crossing your screen in a second? Didn’t exist. If it did, it was Lee Sin and you had to hit multiple difficult skill shots to do it.
You guys just don’t remember that immobile mages used to have a place. They do not have a place in modern League. It’s frustrating and it’s bad balancing.
>Isn’t it super fun that you can come through jungle terrain and off-paths
Yes it is super fun. Stop projecting your boring ass old champions as the epitome of champion design.
Kassadin, Nocturne, Riven, Fizz, Ahri, Zed, Zac, Vi, Lee Sin.
That’s it. Those were your high mobility champions.
- Jax
- Master Yi
- Tristana
- Kassadin
- Katarina
- Shaco
- Nidalee
- Ezreal
- Akali
- LeBlanc
- Irelia
- Renekton
- Nocturne
- Lee Sin
- Vayne
- Wukong
- Talon
- Riven
- Fizz
- Ahri
- Hecarim
- Diana
- Rengar
- Kha’Zix
- Zed
- Vi
- Zac
- Lucian
- Yasuo
You could argue for a few, but come on…
Yeah, there’s truth to the fact that modern league is not really built for low mobility champs. There’s a reason that every single new champion has a speed burst, dash, or something that helps them change positions very quickly (in the most immobile case, there’s Vex R).
Someone like Vel, Brand, Lux, will always struggle on their own because they require teammates to be proactive in protecting them. Then, those three examples do not do a whole lot of damage on their own either. At least hyper carries likes adcs or Cassio have high, constant damage and healing they can rely on for sustain against mobile champions. Still, most adcs and Cassio have built in mobility to help. Jinx, an older champion, gets speed buffs, similar to Cassio who gets a speed buff on a successful Q.
Immobile champions can work, they just take minimal effort that most teammates in solo q will not expend. In higher levels of play, why not just play Azir, Sylas, or Neeko? There’s too many champions, with so many strengths, for something like a Vel’koz to suddenly be more appealing than someone who doesn’t have to rely so heavily on teammates.
immobile mages are still played, like xerath and lux, even seraphine unless you really wanna claim her W makes much of a difference.
xerath, annie and lux even had pro play presence.
edit: even forgot ori and syndra xd
uh we have strong mages. the problem is velkoz is not a strong mage.
after she gets like 7 buffs in a row I fucking hope she becomes good
but the problem is that they had to overbuff them so much in order to become viable again
look at most mages either getting turbo buffed or midscopes (aka an excuse to load their kits with new stuff),between their bad and stale itemization and the insane mobility most mages are getting a lot worse to play and it’s only compensated by riot constantly inflating their numbers,but that’s just a bandaid fix
Dude really said “immobile mages are unplayable” in an Orianna and Syndra meta
OK. Let’s talk Orianna because this was a classic champ at the time.
Orianna has more health, health regen, armor, and magic resist. She has a harder hitting auto attack both for farming and for poke. She has an easier wave clear with multiple abilities to help. She has a shield which also adds resistances and a movement enhancer to speed you up and slow others down. Her ultimate is a large CC that also does high damage.
Let’s back up and talk realistically. She is faster and more durable. She has just as good wave clear and a better lvl 1-3. In team fights she has virtually identical damage with more CC and versatility.
Orianna has pretty much always been a preferred mid laner over the field because of the versatility in the tool kit and mobility.
I’ve been saying it since I came back at the beginning of the year.
Riot has had an obsession with creating and remaking champions into champs that do not have drawbacks unlike what they did back in the old days. Champions were meant to be skilled at a few things but then have major drawbacks else where.
Example would be like Yone, dude has great mobility, safe poke, multiple AoE knock ups. A shield, and a double damage ability. This champ would not have been created 5 years ago because it’s overloaded.
Another example is Ksante. Again, multiple knock ups in a skirmish, works as an AoE knock up in short burst. True damage (why) on passive, two abilities that function as dashes, an ult that displaces him and the enemy to create a 1v1 situation and converts his tanks stats to offensive stats.
Again another overloaded kit.
Briar, stun + auto reset, built in Tiamat plus execute damage modifier, AOE displacement with 40% damage reduction and a heal per .25 seconds. Near global ultimate that fears enemies and dishing a lot of damage on landing while gaining additional tank stats. Her W also works as a dash over obstacles so insane mobility and clear speed in the jungle.
Champions from 5-10 years ago, did not get this benefit. Today’s champions are designed to pull more users into the game. Champions designed before were designed for the health of the game. Champs like velkoz would not be complained about much if riot continued to give a damn about the health of the game.
Tl;DR Game is far long gone and it’s not salvagaeable anymore
Honestly, i think league just has too much cc in champs having slows or roots and the few characters who don’t have that baked into their kit are just super disadvantaged.
Like it sucks that some champs that used to be fun to play can just be completely obliterated because they have no real cc.
Fuck you. Orianna and Syndra are meta and you say that the problem is with the concept of immobile mages and not velkoz. Fuck you.
It’s not like immobile mages are nonexistent though. Orianna, Syndra, Ziggs, Xerath, etc. are all having success in this meta. This is clearly a velkoz issue and not an “immobile caster mage” issue
Wait, did Vel’Koz ever have a stretch at consistently over 50% WR mid? I thought we all played him because we were masochists who refused to play Lux?
What do u expect, they purposelly made easy to play champions with 0 skill threshhold so even the degenerated inbreds can feel powerful and thus expand their playerbase to the very rednecks of Texas.
Game is an absolute shitshow. Getting permabanned is the best thing you can do for your sanity.
I’ve seen memes and copypastas with more factually correct information than this post.
By making these ultra high mobility champs compared to older champs, you literally make your own game outdated with your OWN decisions. Like it is a bit insane how that works.
It’s like specifically pouring water into iron in order to rust it. Like why ? So that the iron might look a bit shinier after the wash ? Yeah good luck dealing with the rust now.