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[Flying Dice]

That's the thing, though. Veigar doesn't need shorter CDs or lower mana costs. All he does is Q stack in lane and occasionally burst someone with a full combo.

Besides, his E was already massively fucking telegraphed. Literally everything a Veigar does in terms of positioning tells you whether his E is up and whether he's trying to land it. If he's hovering around at its max range, he's trying to stun you, period. The only people who don't notice that are the sort so braindead that the delay and extra particles won't help either.

[UXLZ]

God, I am so pissed off about this. Veigar was my favorite mid laner and I was thinking "Oh yay, they removed DFG so he'll get buffed a bit in compensation like with Ahri and I won't be forced to rush it constantly any more, allowing a more flexible build. Besides, deleting people 100-0, while fun for the Veigar was probably quite obnoxious for the one being deleted so this will be a bit more fun overall.") but nooooo, Veigar loses the item he was 100% dependent on and then receives... Mixed nerfs/buffs and a HUGE nerf on his best ability (the ability that allowed him to still be relevant when most other mages champions get dodges and mobility spells, #leagueofdashes).

These 'buffs' are absolutely nothing. It would be one thing if they nerfed his E to 'redistribute' his power, but they've nerfed everything but the W (which is nerfed by the stun changes because you NEED the stun to hit that unless you've got really good coordination with your allies or your opponents are really stupid.)

Also, another hilarious thing is that the mana cost reductions are actually in effect a nerf on his passive too. Now, it's overall a 'buff' (the mana changes), but you'll get less use out of his passive overall since it's based on % missing mana.

Didn't Ahri receive nothing but buffs in compensation for the DFG removal, by the way?

Besides, his E was already massively fucking telegraphed. Literally everything a Veigar does in terms of positioning tells you whether his E is up and whether he's trying to land it. If he's hovering around at its max range, he's trying to stun you, period. The only people who don't notice that are the sort so braindead that the delay and extra particles won't help either.

Eh, it was massively telegraphed but also effectively impossible to dodge if the Veigar was good. Still though, I don't see why nerfing his (admittedly in some ways stupid E, but it had a massive cooldown and mana cost) wasn't enough and they had to proceed to nerf everything else in his kit as well. Even the things that technically weren't changed were, as I said above, nerfed by the changes to his other abilities.

This reminds me of those episodes of Top Gear with Morris Mariners in them... Everything's all well and good, they walk away and them BLAM! piano.

[Flying Dice]

That's the thing, there are ways to deal with his E as an enemy laner. If you've got a speed boost or something like Playful/Trickster you can fairly easily bait it out, which leads into the second point: Veigar's E being instant and difficult to avoid are fair because of the costs of it, which you already touched upon. Even with 40% CDR (which no Veigar will have) it's on a long cooldown, and while it's down he has nothing to stop people from jumping on his face. If a Veigar uses E and doesn't 100-0 (or misses), he has to back off and hide under turret while it's on CD, except maybe against other immobile mages like Brand.

[baruk]

 So, about that event horizon counter-play:
 Faker's Veigar

[Flying Dice]

Gee, I didn't know that every Veigar player was as good as one of the top mid-laners in the world. Thanks for letting me know.

[IronyOwl]

It's also worth noting that, other than the adc near the end of the game, after instastunning his lone target he took a while, and usually some help, to actually finish him. One time the Jayce even turned on him alarmingly before dying.

And these were, of course, the highlights. You're not gonna see him miss a lot in a montage of awesome unless he turns it around beautifully later in the same engagement.

[UXLZ]

I could probably make Pre-Rework Evelynn (after she was gutted) look crazy overpowered if I made a highlight reel containing nothing but her looking crazy overpowered.

Hell, I could probably do that with AP Zed if I looked long enough. It's not really a very good argument.

[Flying Dice]

I will say, though, that those flash-Es are really fucking impressive to anyone who plays Veigar. It takes a good, instinctive understanding of the ranges involved to consistently land on-point stuns normally, never mind doing so the moment after you flash in. What happens a lot in lower level play is that the Veigar player will misjudge; half the time, they overshoot, leaving the target stuck inside. Sometimes the person isn't paying attention and walks into it (cue OP stun so OP whining), panics and walks into it (see previous), doesn't know how it works and tries to dash through (ditto), or something similar.

The proper response, of course, is to walk to the side farthest from where the W indicator is and prepare to murder the little shit as soon as the wall vanishes. Unless you've got a massive stack of AP and no resistances his Q+R isn't going to kill you, especially not without DFG, and after he blows his load he has absolutely nothing left to defend himself or hurt you.

[UXLZ]

That sounds more like the player being insanely good, rather than Veigar being insanely overpowered.

But yeah, Veigar was GUTTED by the DFG removal. I'm not sure people who don't play him realize just how integral it actually is to his combo, but... Bleeech. I was expecting Riot to actually compensate him like they did with Ahri, not continue the nerf train and make his most important ability significantly worse.

[Flying Dice]

The sole saving grace I can see is that at lategame (I'm talking 6 items, 150+ AP stacked on his Q) those 850-range Q pokes are going to hurt a LOT, especially if you use the new free slot to build Morello's or something for CDR. You're looking at 1k+ damage to 1-2 champions every three or four seconds without having to risk going in close like you used to.

[baruk]

  Long range instant stuns meet the criteria for anti-fun - the counter-play is literally "don't stand near Veigar" - so Riot's balance team is just being consistent with their values. The 200 extra range/2-targets on the Q is excellent compensation - better waveclear and safety for laning.

[UXLZ]

But also weaker laning because you no longer have a guaranteed source of damage. (Except for his ult, I guess?)
Besides, his Q being a skillshot just isn't "Veigar". I love skillshots, but Veigar's Q shouldn't be one.It just doesn't feel right.

Still, I believe that Veigar's E being toned down is probably a fair thing (after all, it's on of the most bullshit abilities in the game), HOWEVER, they didn't have to nerf the REST of his kit as well.

I mean, originally DFG was the only thing that made Veigar actually work. So what they did was remove DFG and then... made... him... worse...?

[Flying Dice]

Uh, lol. It's not better waveclear. Early his waveclear is shit regardless unless he's Bronze-pushing without last-hitting, and lategame it was and will continue to be "W wave, walk away."

You're also missing the point. His E is a skillshot. Full stop. That makes it less anti-fun than a whole lot of champions. What's next, are we going to add a klaxon to WW's ult and if you get out of range in that interval it goes on CD without actually going off? League's full of mechanics where the counterplay is literally "Don't be stupid." I've played a decent amount of Veigar and played against a decent amount of Veigar, and the honest truth is that it's predominantly a skill thing. If the Veigar player sucks, they're going to get rolled because they can't land stuns. If their opponent sucks, they're going to cry about OP stuns because they walk up without thinking about it.

If you walk up to a Darius, you deserve to get hooked. If you walk up to a Blitz or Thresh, you really deserve to get hooked. If you walk up to any champion with any sort of hard CC, you deserve to eat it. Veigar's actually on the mild end of the spectrum because a) it isn't a cone or straight line, making it more difficult to land and b) it's literally all he has. His combo doesn't work without the stun because ain't nobody dumb enough to stand on his W without being CC'd.

There's things out there far worse that can still be dealt with. If you build Talon properly, by the time he has tier 2 boots and his Youmuu's, he can activate it and pop his ult outside of vision range and have run up and E'd to you before his ult ends. That's literally zero counterplay beyond "I know this is possible. Don't get into situations where it would kill me."

tl;dr: There are things in League that are boring and need to be fixed. Having to think about what you're doing isn't one of them. Nor is bothering to understand how champions you don't play work, especially in the context of counter-picking and laning against them.

Amusingly, there's actually a very good new way to counter Veigar. Fizz was already pretty good against him because of Playful/Trickster, but now that AD Fizz is the more viable option you can completely shut him down by both denying his stun/ult and giving him no additional scaling on the latter. A nerf to Veigar's E might have been viable pre-DFG removal if they buffed other elements of his kit. He already lost viability when the DFG was axed, now he'll basically be unplayable as anything except a troll or very niche pick.

[Neonivek]

That makes it less anti-fun than a whole lot of champions.

Oooh please tell me that is an official term now. "Anti-fun"

[UXLZ]

It has been for a while now, hasn't it?

Or was that 'toxic'...

Oh, and nowadays it's 'counterplay this, counterplay that'.

Back in Ye Olde Dayes, if you got ulted by a Malzahar, you died. There wasn't anything like QSS to save you (and if there was, I'm forgetting it. It at least didn't build into anything). The key was not being a dumbass and trying to 1v1 a post-6 Malzahar as someone who couldn't take the heat.