Veigar's problem isn't that he's weak when he's not countered, the problem is that he has way too many counters.

Not having mana reduces his ult to a mere shadow of what it really is.

Simply not getting mana impairs his ult

Merc Treads counters his Event Horizon + Dark Matter

Boots counter Dark Matter

Baleful doesn't really do anything late-game (Though it is beastly in the late parts of the earlygame)

Flash counters his ulti. I've lost count how many times people flash out of my ult.

Flash also counters Event Horizon if you don't hit them with it from the beginning, which is the hardest thing with Veigar. Especially considering that the edge of that cage is a very fussy limit and sometimes you can swear that someone's touching it while the game says nay.

The only thing he has going for him is that most people don't know how to counter him, seeing Janna's get Archangel's when facing you warms the heart, especially when they have no survivabilityitems at all. You just walk up, ult, and watch them die horrible horrible deaths as your Primordial Burst hits them for 2-3k damage.

I suggested this a while ago but I feel it's time to re state it, the fix for veigar is simple, it isn't an issue for him to be a slighlty niche charater, a mage hunting mage is cool. The issue really is two fold, Firstly, almost all of his abilities have a commonly produced counter, secondly he is prettymuch the only hero to have an ult that is inheirently worse against a % of heroes. This is annoying as an ultimate is supposed to be your big game breaker, and when it's extremely common for non mana heroes to be at least 1/5 of the other team, your gamebreaker becomes marginalized very quickly.


My proposed fix would to be to turn his ultimate into his Q skill, reduce the damage, but keep the scales with mana property and gives AP with kills. This new ability would be your bread and butter skill, it keeps your magehunter properties intact and keeps that core premise of the slowly growing mage intact while giving you a strong ability that isn't the cornerstone of your hero.

My idea for the replacement ult would be an all or nothing nuke that used 100% of your current remaining mana for a huge nuke that would be proportionate to the ammount spent. This would add much needed finishing power and be a fun mechanic to seperate the good from the bad, it's going to hurt, but once it's used you're prettymuch food.

Also his mage hunting mage isn't very niche. Look at AP Kassidan. He is a pretty good definition of anti-mage mage. He can single out any mage silence and the rip them apart. I am not saying that Veigar is not good against Mage's that is obviously not the case (his ultimate, passive, etc.). I'm simply stating that it's been done and would be cooler if it was reworked so he was more of a niche character.

Yeah, Veigar probably needs some fixing seeing as how many champions there are with little to no mana and could rip him apart easily.
I don't know how they're gonna change his ulti though, maybe just making it to a full on epic nuke? It's too dependent on his enemy, so already he becomes normally disgarded, but he is great late game, but that's only if you have a good laning buddy again making him too dependent.
I normally fine with him now thanks to a great guide I found but even so, unless the other team has some type of mage you may be rolled early game.
Even with Kassadin you'd falter, if he's smart enough. He can silence and port out of Veigar's event horizon so instant counter.

I still enjoy playing him and all, but the risks of potential failure are getting higher and higher with the new non-mana characters....