Annie, Leona, and Thresh are all top-tier aggressive supports in League of Legends, but Vel’Koz seems like the answer to those picks. The Spellthief’s Edge support item line, combined with his extensive range puts him on par with Annie support.
What Is Your Goal As Vel’Koz?
Vel’Koz isn’t recommended for solo ques, he needs a lot of communication with the team to make the plays. You have the option to play aggressive or counter-aggressive in the support role with Vel’Koz. I’ll start with your aggressive options.
Aggression:
When you’re pushing the lane hard you want to get in those auto-attacks. Put pressure on their support to prevent them from making plays for their ADC. Combine that with the tier-one Spellthief’s Edge, you’re getting 8 gold per auto-attack.
As far as skill order, your Plasma Fission (Q) is the opportune skill to start out with. You’re looking for the slow here more than the damage. If you’re worried about a dodge, aim for a minion and use the split to hit the enemies. These slows make it easier for your jungle to come gank bottom lane. Pick up your Tectonic Disruption (E) after, combo this in with the slow to give even more free damage to your team.
Your Void Rift (W) and Life Form Disintegration Ray (R) help burst down the enemies faster. In best case scenario aggressive Vel’Koz causes your bottom lane to pick up early kills. worst case scenario it gives your ADC free farm by pushing the other team’s bottom lane back to base to recover.
Post level six, your Life Form Disintegration Ray is mostly just a scare tactic. You can sit at the enemy turret if you have map control with just the threat of using that ult. With help from your jungle, it’s a deep gank opportunity as well.
Couter-Aggression:
This version is specifically for your enemy Annie or Leona engages. You’ll start with your Tectonic Disruption for the early peels. As soon as you see the initiate, drop your Tectonic Disruption on the biggest threat, and follow-up with your Plasma Fission. if it’s a level three engage drop your Void Rift on them as well. Instead of dealing damage, the enemy now has to worry about getting out of your damage, effectively pushing them back.
Late Game goals:
Late game, you’ll want to burst enemy Banshee Veils for your AP Carry. If you’re not dealing with any Banshee Veils, you can just help siege and deal damage, similar to what you’d do if you were a Vel’Koz mid lane.
Biggest Threats to Vel’Koz Support:
The biggest counter is another long ranged support, such as Nidalee with her spears. If it turns into a poke war, then bottom lane is going to have to depend on ganks from the jungles.
Another big threat is Sivir’s spell shield. Sivir is very popular in ranked now, so picking a Vel’Koz support up against a Sivir is a very risky move. With her Spell Shield, she can effectively stay in lane longer by absorbing attacks from Vel’Koz to replenish her mana.
The final big threat is ganks. This isn’t as dangerous for a counter-aggression Vel’Koz, so much as just the full aggression style. Vel’Koz is not very mobile, if you’re caught in the middle of a hard push you have no escapes and you’ve likely just burned your whole rotation pushing. Keep constant map awareness and vision, and always be ready to back out of a push if you see the enemy jungler headed your way.
I hope you’ve found this guide useful in opening up new possibilities for the support role. I plan on writing an article on how the changes to Spellthief’s Edge affect the bottom lane as well. For more of my League content, check out my League of Legends content directory.
Published: Mar 3, 2014 09:54 am