Veigar can support, stop laughing!: a discussion for Veigar in bot lane

We watched Annie throughout the past season of Chinese LPL, and when Tabe brought her to the Season Three World Championships, and bans continued to be flung his way, it wasn't a surprise that she started popping up all over the world.  Solo queue has seen a rash of Annie supports, but Annie wasn't the only off-meta support China tried out.

OMG's bigpomelo played Veigar support in a somewhat troll match against Lemondogs.  They didn't run an AD carry.  But with Curse Academy and Taipei Assassins consistently running Marksman-less compositions, you have to wonder just how "troll" other aspects of OMG's composition are.  In particular, I look at Veigar support and advocate his use in bottom lane.

Assumptions
Annie is viable in the support role.	This discussion relies upon a comparison between Veigar and Annie; ie, Veigar is useful because Annie is useful.
Annie is useful because of her lane zone control, high early burst damage, and AoE stun initiation.	If you think she should be used for any other reason, this probably won't convince you of anything.

The purpose there is, obviously, to make sure you aren't wasting your time!

The AoE Initiation Argument

Accurate representation.

The biggest reason to choose Annie is her AoE stun initiation with Tibbers.  The argument for Veigar is that he can accomplish the same thing—AoE stun initiation—at a lower cooldown.  Consider max level Event Horizon has a 16 second cooldown vs a Tibbers at 120.  The duration of max level Event Horizon stun is a full 2.5 seconds (and the obstruction remains on the rift for three full seconds), while Annie's passive only grants her 1.75.  In addition, because Tibbers' range is 600, many support Annies must burn flash to get a good initiation, while Veigar's event horizon has 650 range from the center with a 375 radius.  Even if it lands around the target and not on the target, it provides important disengage for a full three seconds, similar to a Zyra ult (except its area is active for only two seconds).  This means he doesn't really have to flash to use it, and the zone it creates is larger.

So consider Annie cooldown for her safe AoE initiation is going to be two to five minutes.  As opposed to Veigar's 16 seconds.  Every 16 seconds, you can also pretty much do free damage to a turret by trapping an enemy with Event Horizon.  It's much easier to siege that way.  Tibbers won't do this.

Now the obvious argument is that Annie's ult also does damage when it lands, while Event Horizon doesn't.  This is important.  But the tradeoff is, again, the longer duration and the large area that provides disengage in addition to engage.  Considering the fact that Annie won't have much damage built on her in the support role, generally your sustained damage carries, who actually build damage,  will be able to more than compensate for the damage she does with the extra duration.

Some examples from Diamond support Veigar games:

Laning Damage

But damage is a factor, though I have slightly brushed it aside.  Annie brings damage to lane and the ability to zone with her stun and auto attack range.  Obviously, Veigar won't have the auto attack range Annie does.  His auto range is actually lower than most other popular supports in high level play.

Auto Attack Range
625	550	475	525	575

But when you consider the range on his spells and Annie's spells, his big AoE damage and wave clear will be his dark matter, which has a smaller radius, but it will still provide a lot of push potential and pressure or damage to champions caught in event horizon.  It also can provide vision and bring threat, but the base damage at level 1 will be 1.5*Annie's Incinerate.  It also has the same per level scaling on base damage.  So though support Veigars often level Event Horizon first, Annie won't be able to match its level 1 damage until she's level 4 (assuming she takes points in Molten Shield and Q to help charge her stun; as a disclaimer, I acknowledge that many support Annies don't do this).  And it only has two seconds longer on CD, so the dps from this ability will still be greater.

Spell	Damage	Scaling	CD	AoE
	80/130/180/230/280	75%	8	170,355.9
	120/170/220/270/320	100%	10	39,740.6

So let's talk q.  Since he won't be leveling it first, Baleful Strike has an 8 second cd for most of laning phase, and Annie will have a 4 second cd on Disintegrate.  These two spells are almost identical otherwise, except for things that pertain more to AP Annie and Veigar (getting AP on last hits, AP scaling differences, etc.,).  There are slight differences to range (Veigar favored, 25) and level one base (Annie favored, 5), but it does the same thing on 4 vs 8 cd in terms of damage.  Their uses, however, differ.  Annie will use it to initiate or disengage a jungler in lane more than she will use it specifically to do damage.  In this case, she will be dependent on full rotation cooldowns for the stun component.  Similarly, Veigar's slight spell range advantage allows him to use this more to harass.  Or he saves it for the initiate.  In which case, the use of both of these spells optimally is dependent on other cds, so their own cd differences are less relevant.

Spell	Damage	Scaling	CD	Range
	85/125/165/205/245	70%	4	625
	80/125/170/215/260	60%	8/7/6/5/4	650

Stun Cooldowns and Mana Costs

Specifically in Lane

The more important nuance, though, is the availability of stun during laning phase.  Stuns provide disengage upon the appearance of the enemy jungler, engage in 2v2s to derive an advantage, and zoning potential.  

Annie's stun will be up more frequently than the max level Event Horizon.  She has to cast 4 spells to get a stun.  Assuming all spells are available (level 3) and off cd, this means Annie casts all of them, then waits 4 seconds for disintegrate, then waits an additional 8 seconds for incinerate/another disintegrate.  So she must wait 8 seconds to initiate.  After she does this, she has to wait for cds again.  If she used Molten Shield recently, she could have to wait as long as 14 seconds to get a new stun.  8-14 seconds vs 16-20 is definitely an issue, but Veigar's Event Horizon, again, creates a larger zone as it has a longer cast range and area of effect, has a longer duration with 3 points (same duration with 2), and a bigger area of disruption.  This means his presence and threat when he hasn't cast it recently is larger, especially since Annie has an indicator for when she has stun up, and he doesn't (though there are ways to sneak this for Annie; this, in itself, can create an issue that will be covered and damages Annie's potential dps output).

In addition, 4 ability casts means that Annie's stun will cost ~280 mana (level 1 spells), while Veigar's Event Horizon is 80-120 (1-5).  So the cost of a stun is something to consider as well.  You can't stun a target every 8-14 seconds if you don't have 280 mana for it (370 at level 9 with maxed W!).

Stun mana cost
Level	1	3	6	9	18
	300	280	320-330*	360-370*	390-400*
	80	80-90**	100	120	120

*Skill level ordering and usage of Tibbers

**Depending on E,W,Q or E,W,E leveling

Also, in terms of damage on initiations, many Annies will Q, then W covertly while Q travels, to get a surprise initiation (if Molten Shield is on cooldown).  But if they're maxing W, this also means they blew their big damage on nothing and won't be able to use it on a stunned target.  Veigar will not have this problem.

Last, some might argue that, if Veigar doesn't catch someone on the border of his Event Horizon, it's a waste.  This isn't true.  If you create the zone and trap the enemy, your AD carry can still get free damage off if they're longer range or bait the enemy into walking into it in certain situations.  Missing Event Horizon, for this reason, is more of an issue on midlane Veigars who rely on hitting Dark Matter for damage.

Ults

I already mentioned the fact that having a larger area of disruption on a lower cd is big, but then we have to account for the damage Annie's ult does.  250/375/500 (1.2%) on single target with additional 80% enemy AP.  Annie's ult is AoE 200/325/450 (70%), with a 35 (20%) dot.  Dealing all that damage to a team is important, but at later levels, it matters a lot less, whereas Veigar's single target will continue to scale if the enemy team has an AP assassin.  

It means that, if your assassin or burst damage dealer is behind, you can likely still 100 to 0 someone on the enemy team with the burst damage dealer's combo and Veigar's ult, which is pretty powerful.  And he has 650 range on it.  Obviously, these ults are not the same, but to have a support that does damage that scales into late game is pretty nice and carves out a niche for Veigar that Annie doesn't necessarily have.

Safety

Briefly mentioned, Veigar's spell range keeps him safe while he does damage, which means he can do more damage, ultimately, and clear waves.  Every time Annie uses incinerate to clear waves, she has to be right in front of it, which makes her susceptible to damage. 900 range on Dark Matter means this isn't the case for Veigar.

Annie has 30 more base health at level 1, but Veigar's health will scale better into mid and late game, where burst damage from assassins and mids is a bigger problem.  He also has 4.25 more armor at level 1, which is actually kind of big.  Now, her molten shield is really nice, so I'll definitely give that to Annie.  But it won't give 60 free resistances until level 18 because she'll max it last.  Most the game, she only gets 20.  And this is easy to break through at her close range, while the distance Veigar keeps protects him.

Safety Factor
	20 (+10/level) resistances
	900 cast range 650 cast range on R 650 range on Q

When to use Veigar over Annie

Obviously, both supports are very similar in functionality, and I'm not saying Veigar is out-and-out better than Annie or vice versa.  Obviously, in a situation where there is no AP on the enemy team, Veigar loses a lot of usefulness.  Against our friend, Zed, the AD assassin terror, Annie might still be a better choice, especially since trapping him can be trickier.

But when should you use Veigar?  If you have a siege-focused composition, Veigar will be very strong.  His ability to catch people out at a distance to give Nidalee a free max range spear is invaluable.  In addition, if your AD will have a longer range than the enemy, trapping the opponent in a cage during laning allows Caitlyn and her ilk to get free pot shots for a three second time period, so Veigar is a great choice.

Veigar also works better than Annie if your team is in grave need of disengage.  If your mid laner is Gragas, this is less necessary, but if Veigar can accomplish what he can without forcing him to use his ult, that's extremely powerful.

And, as mentioned, Veigar will be very strong against mid lane AP assassins.  He almost provides something akin to a free DFG.  He's also very good paired with sustained damage, as three seconds creates a lot of time for that damage to be used.  He works with burst comps as well, but he has an edge over Annie in the damage over time game where long team fights are king.

TL;DR

Annie is useful for the burst of AoE damage she brings early and mid game alongside an AoE initiation.  It allows her to create zone threat and shove lanes.  Veigar has a larger zoning threat, comparable damage per second, and significantly lower initiation mana costs at slightly inflated cooldowns.

Annie provides longer autoattack ranges, but Veigar brings longer spell ranges.

Veigar's AoE initiation is on a lower cooldown, a wider radius, and also provides disengage and siege potential.  Though it doesn't bring damage, its longer duration provides more opportunity for allies who actually build damage to do damage and compensate.

Veigar's ult does single target damage that scales into late game with enemy assassin AP.

Annie's safety comes from Molten Shield's resistances, while Veigar keeps himself safe with long range spells and positioning.

Images and Numbers from League of Legends Wiki.
Credit to Froskurinn, who provided Veigar support in Diamond ELO vods.