User blog comment:Shigfugjum/Another Vel'koz Blog/@comment-8506165-20140311153442/@comment-8506165-20140311202422

"Full tank Garen isn't comparable. His primary goal is soaking damage, not killing enemies, and his Ult can only affect 1 enemy. Vel'Koz's ult has direct damage impact on the entire enemy team."

There's no reason to pay attention to full tank Garen if you're not threatened by his ult or you know it's down. He hits like a ballerina. Similarly if you've just built around Vel'Koz's ult (with no CDR) then people know you're not very well able to kite or put out DPS between ults and can either capitalise on your vulnerability, or deal with your team while you put out sub-par damage.

"The cd complaint was to enforce the notion that your spells are very important to hold onto for key moments. At 40% cdr and max rank, your E still has a 7 second cd. If i'm playing Syndra and I see you miss your knock-up trying to engage, i know you have 7 seconds minimum where you all you can do is Q (pray you aren't waiting 6 seconds for that cd as well), meaning I get a full rotation almost for free. If it's the start of laning phase and your E has a cd closer to 15, that's a full rotation plus 3 additional Q's. If i'm playing Zed, then it means that you die."

Again - it's really really bad if you whiff all your spells with short cooldowns; why is it thus desirable for them to have longer cooldowns and for you to give yourself a higher window of vulnerability?

"The impact from Lux's ult is directly tied into the absurd frequency with which she can use it, so of course going for cdr excacerbates that. With Vel, it's not about how often, it's about the timing of the ult and how many people you can get a full channel on that makes him scary. Cdr doesn't help you be patient or position well, and it doesn't increase the damage-per-cast your ult does.

Basically, you want quality over quantity with Vel'koz. 1 ult that aces the team is better than 3 ults only picking of one or two people at a time."

And why does being able to ult more often preclude you performing a good ult? If anything, more opportunities = more chances for good ults, no?

"And Athene's could totally give you great lane dominance. But that is not what you should be focusing on with Vel'Koz. As I had hoped my prelude story would illustrate, Vel'Koz is all about struggling through the first 15 minutes of game, then winning a fight at dragon and carrying that momentum with the rest of your team. "

So you should... intentionally try to give yourself a horrendous laning phase because "that's what Vel'Koz is all about" and depend on landing that perfect ult at Drake or in a midgame teamfight so you can come back from your self-imposed setback in strength? That seems counterintuitive.

It's not like Athene's is even a bad item in terms of stats if you just ignore the mana regen and CDR. It's 40MR and 60AP, only 5 and 20 below Abyssal Scepter (12 less ult damage? Oh noes!), and has far more synergy with the role you say he should be taking beyond laning - skulking at the backlines, poking with his spells, before landing the ult on as many of the enemy team as possible hopefully acing them. No?

Don't get me wrong, I approve tremendously of someone finally realising MPen > AP on Vel'Koz, but this bizarre aversion to any CDR at all just puzzles me.