The Lich Bane Veigar build has never been a popular one. We’ve seen so many changes to this item over the years that not too many Veigar mains are considering good anymore.
But the truth is – playing Veigar with Lich Bane gives you unique strengths that the other builds don’t!
So, why should you play Veigar with Lich Bane?
Lich Bane empowers Veigar’s basic attacks to deal significantly more damage. Lich Bane scales with 40% of Veigar’s Ability Power.
And Veigar is the only champion in League of Legends that can go over 1000 AP. With Lich Bane, Veigar’s auto-attacks can deal 400+ AP damage on average.
In other words, Veigar does the most amount of damage with Lich Bane. It empowers his burst potential because he can always add one basic attack to his combo.
Additionally, the Lich Bane damage is great for quickly pushing turrets and securing objectives around the map.
Lich Bane often helps mages like Veigar deal more consistent damage because they are useless when their abilities are on cooldown.
Their basic attacks don’t deal nearly enough damage to hurt anyone, so they can only wait after they perform their combo.
However, the Lich Bane build changes that. It’s especially powerful against melee champions that you can constantly auto-attack. But it also works against ranged champions too.
Now let’s take a look at the runes and items you should run, and later I’ll tell you how to take advantage of this build.
Read Also: Dark Harvest Veigar Guide
Lich Bane Veigar – Runes
Here are my recommended runes for playing the Lich Bane Veigar build:
- Electrocute – helps you burst down a target when you perform your E > W > Q > R combo, but it can also be activated through your basic attacks empowered by Lich Bane.
- Cheap Shot – makes it so you deal bonus true damage to enemies that are in crowd control, which also includes Veigar’s E – Event Horizon.
- Eyeball Collection – is just another way to increase your Ability Power passively without having to do anything.
- Ultimate Hunter – shortens the cooldown of your ultimate significantly, which is your best ability by far.
- Transcendence – gives you a bit of Ability Haste and allows you to cast more spells during a team fight.
- Gathering Storm – is a reliable rune because it increases your AP every 10 minutes indefinitely. And it’s always helpful on Veigar, especially in the early game.
In short, we choose Electrocute instead of any other keystone because it can be activated with basic attacks too.
And since here we’re playing the Lich Bane build, we will be using our auto-attacks more often.
This means that we’re constantly going to trigger Electrocute and deal more damage overall.
Other than that, you can swap the secondary runes from Sorcery to Precision if you like. Triumph and Coup de Grace are great runes for Veigar, so you can always pick them up.
Optional Runes
Here are all the optional runes that are useful for the Lich Bane Veigar build:
- Dark Harvest – a scaling rune that can help you one shot enemies with your basic attacks.
- Celerity – increases your movement speed so you can always stay in the range of your auto-attacks.
- Demolish – can be extremely useful for taking down turrets quickly, especially when you have Lich Bane in your inventory.
- Approach Velocity – gives your more movement speed towards the enemies you catch in your E.
Read Also: Veigar One Shot Build
Lich Bane Veigar – Items
Here are my recommended items for playing Veigar with Lich Bane:
- Luden’s Tempest – boosts the power of your burst and gives you four crucial stats – Ability Power, Ability Haste, Mana, and Mana Regeneration.
- Lich Bane – buffs your auto-attacks to deal bonus magic damage and is the center of this playstyle.
- Morellonomicon – is a very effective item because it lowers the effectiveness of your enemies’ healing by 60%.
- Rabadon’s Deathcap – increases your Ability Power by 35%, which is quite a big deal for Veigar.
- Void Staff – is often a must-have item against tanks and tanky champions because it gives you 40% Magic Penetration.
- Ionian Boots of Lucidity – give you more than enough Ability Haste in the early game to spam your abilities.
On the surface, the recommended item build for Veigar stays nearly the same. The only obvious change is Lich Bane in the place of Cosmic Drive and Horizon Focus.
Keep in mind that we always want to build Lich Bane as a second item and Luden’s Tempest as first.
Luden’s Tempest is a mythic item that gives better stats than Lich Bane. And since Lich Bane scales with Ability Power, it’s best to increase your AP first and then purchase Lich Bane.
Optional Items
There are many items that could be included in this build. Don’t be afraid to experiment and always look for the best item in your own games.
For example, here are my recommended situational items for the Lich Bane Veigar build:
- Liandry’s Anguish – is an excellent mythic item against tanks because of the HP percentage burn.
- Cosmic Drive – overloads you with Ability Haste and is probably the most broken item in League of Legends.
- Horizon Focus – helps you deal more burst damage.
- Banshee’s Veil – protects you from important crowd control and damaging abilities.
- Zhonya’s Hourglass – is literally a life-saver in LoL if you could time it right.
Read Also: How to Counter Veigar in League of Legends – Full Guide
Lich Bane Veigar – Guide
Alright, we covered the runes and the items you need to run with the Lich Bane Veigar build. But what are the basics that you need to know before you jump into an actual game?
For starters, you have to adjust to the idea of always striking your target with a basic attack on top of your regular combo.
I know it won’t be easy initially, especially if you only play mages in League of Legends.
But since we’re amplifying the damage of our auto-attacks here, you have to make sure you’re always in range to cast one.
The second thing to understand is how Lich Bane actually works. The item will empower your basic attack only after you use an ability.
It doesn’t matter which one you use, as long as it is Q, W, E, or R, and not an active item.
Now, Lich Bane takes 50% of your Ability Power, which isn’t much for many champions, but it is for Veigar.
Remember that Veigar can increase his AP indefinitely thanks to his stacks. So the more stacks of AP you have, the harder the Lich Bane effect will hit.
For example, let’s say that you have 1000 AP as Veigar. Well, in that case, your Lich Bane auto-attacks will deal 500+ bonus damage combined.
That’s nearly the same damage as your Q – Baleful Strike.
And the best part about Lich Bane is that it only has 2.5 seconds cooldown. This means that you can add extra damage after every combo. And that’s really useful!
Read Also: Lich Bane Ahri Guide
Conclusion
Playing Veigar with Lich Bane has been a lot of fun for me. I love experimenting with different builds for this champion and finding new ways to carry.
You can check my jungle guide for Veigar and my Veigar tank build if you want an entirely new playstyle.
But I’d definitely recommend you try the Lich Bane build because it’s very effective, especially against melee champions.
And as long as you kite your enemies, you’ll be dealing a lot more damage overall. You can also destroy turrets quickly and gain gold advantages that way.
But whatever you choose – good luck and have fun!
