Talk:Vel'Koz/@comment-7785527-20140225210811

To anyone who says that Vel'Koz's burst has a low AP scaling:

His total ratio has a 2.95 Scaling. Let's compare this to five burst mages: Annie, Brand, Lux, Ahri, and Xerath:

Annie has a total AP scaling, counting all her abilties, of only 2.15 vs. Vel'Koz's 2.95. That's a fairly large difference. One Needlessly Large Rod will buy Annie 64 less damage on her full burst than Vel'Koz, which will add up to quite high numbers late game. The tradeoff is that Annie's full burst is quite easy to land all of the damage on, where for Vel'Koz you need to land your tectonic disruption or your team needs to give cc such as Hecarim's Onslaught of Shadows of Jarvan IV's Cataclysm. Additionally, Vel'Koz has very long range on all his abilities.

Brand has an AP Scaling of 2.3, another .15 if his Pillar of Flame is empowered, and another .5 for every time Pyroclasm hits. So even if Pyroclasm hits twice and Pillar of Flame is empowered, his burst's AP ratio does not exceed Vel'Koz's. The trade-off here is in the passives and the base scalings.

Lux has an AP scaling of 2.15, similar to Annie, the difference here being that both of these casters have long-range skillshots. Also, Lux's burst is faster, whereas Vel'Koz's is damage over time.

Ahri has a total AP scaling of 2.54, .41 lower than Vel'Koz. So assuming that both of these heavily skill-shot reliant champions land their bursts in full, Vel'Koz does an additional 32.8 damage from a Needlessly Large Rod, which is only a fraction of a lategame mage's AP.

Finally, we move on to Xerath. These two have a very similar style in that they are immobile cannons of arcane laser beams and destruction. Both of their ultimates root them into the ground, and both of their skillsets are long-range skillshots. In this case, Xerath beats Vel'Koz's 2.95 AP with into a pulp with 3.40 AP, as he is one of the truly high AP AoE damagers  (Malzahar and Veigar are also up there). The tradeoff here is Vel'Koz's true damage passive.

So, for any of you who say his AP scalings are low, consider almost every AoE burst mage in the game. They will have less burst damage from AoE than Vel'Koz from AP. And while Vel'Koz has skillshots that can be dodged, that does not mean his AP scalings are lower, only his difficulty and the necessity of landing CC. Any mages with higher AP scalings than Vel'Koz are either single target (Leblanc) or have another great weakness (Malzahar's ult also suppresses him, Malzahar and Xerath both have no form of escape, Veigar requires you to land the stun to be effective, Malzahar's W will msot likely not apply for 5 seconds, etc.) While it is true that his AP scalings are not the highest, they are by no means low.