When I first got Vladimir, I was pumped to try him out. I looked at some champion spotlights and he looked pretty awesome. I started to play him (mind he was hard to play) and I hated all my builds that I tried out. So I played him for about a week with all the AP and health regen builds.

Then one day I went on a bot match and I decided to make my own build. So I looked at some things and I decided to try out life steal. And I tried it out and bought the best sounding things in the shop.
So I was on a match with no bots, and the life steal worked out pretty good. So later in the game I got more Ability Power items and attack power, because life steal is %, so more attack damage more health gained from every attack then every second. Plus a vampire stealing life sounds real. Plus with a sunfire cape because real vampires sparkle.

The Runes, Masteries and Skills are basic Vlad things, but heal is pretty basic for Vlad because he uses health for mana, and flash so you can make a clean escape or flash in hemoplague and sanguine pool out for a good kill.

On the other hand I like using attack power and life steal because its good for heath and late game its 200 attack damage and you get like 80-100 health back, PLUS the spell vamp, which you get MORE health from your spells. (It is also optional to change Zhonya's Hourglass to Rylai's Crystal Scepter, that is if you get that far !) PLUS VLAD IS NOT A MAGE, A MAGE USES MANA, VLAD USES HEALTH, AND REAL VAMPIRES SPARKLE. PIKACHUUUUUUUU!