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Vladimir Build Guide by

Kneel Before Vlad, A Comprehensive Guide to Vladimir.

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18 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author BladeBattler

Vladimir Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion (18) More Vladimir Guides

Spells:

Flash

Teleport

Items

Mobility/kiting start

Vs Autoattackers

Damage Start

Vs hard ad lane

Early purchase order

Boot Choice

Mid Game Damage choices

CDR/Tank choices

sixth item

Example Build: Full Dmg

Example Build: I lost lane

Example build: Tank melter

Ability Order

Vladimir Passive Ability

Threats & Synergies

Threats

Synergies

Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny

Show All

None Low Ok Strong Ideal

Extreme Threats

Ideal Synergies

Swain

Extreme

This lane is very hard for Vladimir because it removes two things he excels at: range and sustained trades. The fact that both champs have about the same spell range means Vlad is very vulnerable to Swain's E -> Q -> W combo which outdamages Vlad's spells. Combined with Transfusion's long CD early and the fact Vlad has health costs on spells, he can't get in range without getting constantly harassed. This allows Swain to bully Vlad through lane and ignore Vlad's damage entirely with his ult while continuing to zone him from farm and experience. Another big thing is Swain's Q and E both damages Vlad in his pool, which is Vlad's primary get out of trouble spell and a very important part of his kit. As a result, it's even harder for Vlad to do anything because not only can he not risk going in for trades, he has a much harder time getting out in case it goes wrong. All in all, Swain's kit is very strong against Vlad because It takes away his strength as a Sustain mage.

Synergies

Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Introduction

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Hello! Im BladeBattler and welcome to my Vladimir I have played tons of games on vladimir, and I am constantly going to be updating this guide so please leave any constructive criticism or vote for it if you think it deserves it, thanks. Also feel free to add me on the NA server. But enough about me, why pick vladimir??? Vladimir is a great champion because he can dish out tons of AoE damage while still having lots of survivability. Without further ado I present to you my Vladimir guide.

Pros / Cons

P
R
O
S

+ Great Sustain, after buying Hextech Revolver he can stay in lane forever
+ Amazing late game and scaling from Crimson Pact
+ Sanguine Pool makes great escapes, dodges skill shots and makes it so people can't dive you.
+ Great wave clear and Aoe after you get some points into Tides of Blood

C
O
N
S

- Only form of CC is from Sanguine Pool
- Very weak early game.
- Relies on Sanguine Pool for escapes.
- No roam/gank potential

Music :D

Listen to this as you play vlad or read this it really gives you the feeling of him.

Falconshield is awesome. :D

Summoner Spells

FLASH

You are going to want to pick this spell up every game. It's the all purpose spell, secure a kill, get away from a gank, juke. Flash can do everything! (there is an infomercial joke in here somewhere i know it).

IGNITE

This spell provides great extra damage especially when you pair it with Hemoplague because the ignite damage does benefit from the 12% extra damage debuff applied by it.

GHOST

You can use this spell to be able to catch up to people and do your Q + E combo over and over, this and a Rylai's Crystal Scepter means they are never getting away. make sure if you're running ghost and flash that you get distortion early.

TELEPORT

Teleport top lane is the meta currently, so if you are in a ranked game playing vlad top Go ahead and grab this. If you are running teleport you can use then teleport and they can't do anything about it, Maximum disrespect!

Masteries

21 Offence | 9 Defence
We are running a pretty standard mastery page on Vladimir on the offense page we are going after the things that provide Ap, Cdr, magic penetration. Using these we can maximize our damage output. And our defense tree is pretty standard we put 9 points into it to get the Juggernaut mastery. All in all this mastery page helps dish out a lot of damage whilst having defensive boosts and it stacks nicely with your passive, Crimson Pact.

Utility for Spell Vamp?
In short, no, because to get this would require spending 11 points and there aren't much other useful things in those 11 points other than the move speed, and if you were to compare running this setup to standard 21/9/0 you would see the benefits of 21/9/0 outweigh some move speed and 3% spell vamp.

Alternative setups?
You can run 15/15/0 masteries on Vladimir and this can be useful when going for a much tankier build but just a forewarning this seriously cuts down on your damage output which is the main reason i don't usually use it.

Runes

Precision

Fleet Footwork

Phase Rush

M
A
R
K
S

My first choice on Vlad these are pretty standard on an Ap carries 7.83 magic penetration is nice and it benefits all of your spells as they all deal magic damage. And I feel like its the only good choice for marks on Vladimir. You can grab hybrid penetration if your going to be poking with AAs a good amount.

S
E
A
L
S

Scaling HP seals are in my opinion the best choice on Vladimir, they begin to out scale Flat HPs by level 7. But if you want better surviving in lane then you can Grab the flat Hps instead. And lastly armor seals can be grabbed if you're up against someone like a Riven or an Aatrox.
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.

G
L
Y
P
H
S

For Glyphs I like scaling CDR as it gives you 15% cdr at level 18, combined with ionion boots of lucidity WoTa and the 5% CDR mastery you will have 40% by late game, very helpful. Alternatively Scaling ability power is good if you dont prefer CDR.
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Q
U
I
N
T
S

On Vladimir My personal preference is the Ability power Quints for the raw damage, the flat 15 Ap actually makes a big difference in the early game. You can however go for either of the other options, Movespeed quints are pretty standard on Ap carries so if you like running them on someone like Veigar or Twisted Fate then you should certainly try it out on vladimir. My last choice would be the spell vamp quints as they scale the best over all the others. These are a very strong choice on vladimir and can give you a lot of survivability in lanes and team fights.

Skill sequence

Ability Sequence
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

↓

↓

↓

Q is the bread and butter ability we max it first as each level reduces the cooldown and increases the damage and healing, this consequently also increases sustain and poke, To of Vladimir's best attributes in lane. Next we max E to further increase our damage output and to decrease its cooldown. We dont max our W until last as the skill is a 1 point wonder, well you can use your W for damage sometimes the damage increase is not as beneficial as putting points in your Q or E. As for the fact that it reduces its cooldown, well this is a very welcome stat the benefits from your other skills outweigh this. Lastly, and obviously, we put a point in our ultimate whenever we can.

Skill Explanation

TRANSFUSION Q
Immediately deals damage to an enemy and heals you for a portion of it
this is your bread and butter ability your main damage, sustain,
its great for last hitting and can start to deal major damage in the late game.

SANGUINE POOL W
sacrifice 20% of current hp to become untargetable for a few seconds and deal damage and slow enemies above you.
This is a awesome skill for a variety of things you can use it to escape from bad situations. Or to dodge skill shots like or Blitz grab. can also be used when someone turret dives you. Another use for this skill is when turret diving you can use it to make the turret lose aggro on you so you can get out of the turret range. This can also be used to block incoming projectiles like or . The last use for it is best late game when you are trying to blow up an enemy while taking minimal damage where you can do the basic Q + E combo then W to wait out the cooldowns then come back up and do Q + E again.

TIDES OF BLOOD E
Deals damage to all enemies in a range the more you use it consecutively the more damage it deals but costs more Hp
You can use this ability for a variety of things it provides good damage throughout the game and it is nice that it ramps up your healing and regen kinda like a mini spirit visage. It is great for wave clear as it deals damage to all enemies in the area. I wouldn't suggest using it very often until you get your WoTa unless you are doing trades as it will end up just killing you to use it. After you get WoTa however you can use this often and make sure you have 4x stacks when you think a team fight is coming up or else you will miss out on a lot of damage.

HEMOPLAGUE R
marks all enemies in area of where you activate it. Marked enemies take 12% increased damage and take a chunk of damage after 5 seconds
you will want to use this at the start of your combo and when you can hit the maximum amount if enemies. Use ignite immediately after your ult so that all the ignite "ticks" of damage are increased by the ult debuff

Items

Resistances

Health

Damage

Cooldown-reduction

Items Explanations.

Items

Item Sequence

Starting Items

This is our standard start and is extremely helpful to us, the Ap really helps you to heal up and sustain through the lane, it also helps to pick up nice and early on. As a general rule of thumb buy this when going vs someone who has a difficulty rating of 4 or less.

This is our other standard start, it provides good health and health regeneration, plus the passive is very nice, we want to buy this item when in a harder lane or vs someone who relys on auto attacks like or for example.

This is the last viable starting item choice on in my opinion, this is the less common of the other two choices but i feel it can still be a good choice in certain matchups, for example a or a the extra move speed is helpful to dodge their skillshots and kite.

Core damage

This is the absolute best item on Vladimir, if you see a Vladimir not build this you have my permission to report them :), spell vamp is a required stat on him. To cover up for his high health costs and to make his sustain unbeatable. Plus the Ap/cdr gives you a nice power spike in the lane.Always build Will of the Ancients first.

If all is going well I would usually build this after WoTa.It provides a lot of ap as well as an amazing bonus of 30% Ap Also if your gonna build WoTa then rabadons deathcap you don't need to worry about being to squishy because this will give a lot of health, as well as the Ap. But if behind you can get Rylais before this.

fantastic choice for Vladimir the Hp/Ap stacks very nicely with your passive and the items passive is so nice because whenever you do your E+Q combo it slows them enough to be able to catch back up to them and do it again. It is also very great for kiting. I would generally pick this up 3rd if all is going well, if not you can get it 2nd for the extra survivability.

You are a carry, so yeah you will get focused this is a good item on Vladimir it gives you a lot of Ap and survivability which seems to be the theme of this build. I would pick up this item unless they have to much Ap or no hard engage, but you do nearly always wanna pick this up if you do E + Q then Zhonyas active, the abilities will be nearly ready to be casted again. I would generally buy this item 4th, however if they have some very powerful Ad, you can buy this earlier.

Boots

These are in my opinion the best boot choice on the magic penetration is very helpful to you since all your spells deal magic damage this helps your spells to hit harder.

Both boots are viable choices i personally prefer the over this but it can be a good choice, you can pick these up to spam your E + Q more often, i suggest you play different games trying out either one of these boots and see which one you prefer. Dont pair this with or else you will go way over the Cdr cap.

Defensive choices

is very good item on Vladimir the Cdr is very helpful to spam your combos more often and the 20% bonus healing has great synergyy with his entire kit, If your team doesn't need a ton more damage you can pick this up as it makes you very hard to kill.

Banshees veil is a good item to pick up when they have an AP carry that is blowing you up like or this wouldn't be my first choice on because you can use your to do some of the same things people get banshees veil for dodging stuff like or

This is a good choice if they have a very fed Adc and for example a mid a jungle and a top. This item helps you by providing you a good deal of health and armor and they will find you very hard to kill.

Alternate Damage Choices

I would say about 60% of the time i grab this as my last item. It is a very helpful item to pick up on . It provides a chunk of magic penetration and some good ability power. Only buy this item if you have because without these items being paired up they aren't to powerful. But if you prefer them Cdr boots or they simply aren't building any magic resist than check out one of these other choices.

Now, I know what your thinking, "why would you build morellonimicon it gives so much mana regen and you dont even use mana!!1111 total noob guide" Well, first of all this is a extremely gold efficient item even without calculating in the mana regen, now that doesn't mean you should build this every game without fail, we are only going to but this item when they have a team with a lot of heals for example and a life steal heavy ADcarry.

It's great on Vlad because the amazing synergy with his passive and Rylai's, and with his very short cooldowns, he can keep it applied almost constantly on multiple targets. It's not worth rushing at all, but after Deathcap/Rylai's/WotA it's a decent upgrade if you want to grab the haunting guise early on.

Tips/Tricks

Always use E before you use Q because it gives you bonus healing, making the Q healing more potent. It also has a health cost that is immediately re-healed by the Q. And lastly it has larger range so you can use that to Apply a slow from Rylai's Crystal Scepter and catch back up and use your Q again.
When you are chasing somebody you can use your Sanguine Pool to get a decaying 40% speed boost even though this isn't in the tooltip it does happen. Only do this if you are 100% sure you will get the kill otherwise it's extremely risky taking away 20% of current health and leaving your only escape mechanism on cooldown.
Tides of blood can hit invisible targets, such as a Twitch or a Shaco. Another crazy thing Tides of Blood can do is hit Wards or Noxious Trap It will, however not damage them, or reveal them, it will only show you the location of them.
You can use your pool to drop turret ago off of you, or to dodge an incoming turret shot, for example when you turret dive someone do R>Ignite>E>Q>W If they are low enough health to kill them just swim? out of the turret range and wait for the Hemoplague to detonate.

Summary/changelog

Thank you guys so much for reading please leave a comment to tell me how to improve, I would like to thank jholijoi for the guide they made.
how to make a guide I would also like to thank mob afire user crystal fortress they have helped me with formatting problems and made some awesome banners for me to put into the guide :D Thanks bro, you are the best. Miss maw has helped a lot with the coding. Thanks for 100K views!

Changelog.

Spoiler: Click to view