Talk:Vel'Koz/@comment-1330314-20140312164400

Jokes aside, I think Vel'Koz actually does really well with a maximum penetration build: with magic pen runes, 21/0/9 masteries and +  +  +  +  +  he maxes out on cooldown reduction and gets to deal true damage to anyone with under 85 magic resistance. This is mostly good against heavy AP comps due to the lack of armor and heavy focus on MR, but if you have strong peel on your team this can work in any situations due to Vel'Koz's range and crowd control.

The idea behind this is that Vel's AP scalings are mediocre, but his passive's true damage is amazing, so building penetration works as a better damage amplifier to his skills than AP stacking, while maxing out on his CDR allows him to proc his passive far more often. Very few champions can afford to go over 85 magic resistance, and even if they have a full MR build you'll be ignoring most of their defenses. Since the only other alternative is to stack health against you, Liandry's works as a counter to that, particularly as its double damage synergizes with the CC on three of your four spells.