Vladimir Build Guide by SilverSeer

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Hecarim - Behold the Might of the Shadow Isles

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League of Legends Build Guide Author SilverSeer

Vladimir - That Tickled, Wait Where'd Your Health Go?

Last updated on February 8, 2012

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Build 1 (Cheat Sheet)

Champion Build: Vladimir

Recommended Runes

Purchase Order

Ability Sequence

Mastery Tree Is Outdated

WARNING: These masteries are still using the old tree and have not been updated to the new tree by the guide author. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.

Masteries

Offense: 21

Defense: 9

Utility: 0

Guide Table of Contents

Vladimir Guide

Pros / Cons

Masteries

Runes

Summoner Spells

Ability Explanation

Ability Sequence Order

Items

Early Game (1-5)

Mid Game (6-14)

End Game (15-18)

Matchups

Teamfights

Wards

Summary

Vladimir Guide

Hi everyone, I'm SilverSeer723, and this is my Vladimir Guide! I worked hard to make this guide the best I could, and I would appreciate any and all feedback that you guys may provide.

I think Vladimir is an amazing champion. He is fun to play as with his unmatched sustain with Transfusion in lane, and by the end of the game is killing everyone on the enemy team as well as healing himself back for the little damage he takes!

Without further ado, I present my Guide. I put a fair amount of effort into this guide, so I do suggest you to reconsider any downvotes pending the actual trial, testing, and reading of my guide that I imagine you are planning to do. And above all, thank you for taking the time to read this Guide.

Pros / Cons

Pros

+ Ranged Champion
+ High Sustain
+ High Damage
+ High health
+ High Armor
+ High Magic Resistance

SPAC

Cons

- Slow Moving Before Items
- Easy to Gank (yes, even with pool)
- Hard to Learn
- Hard to Position Correctly

Masteries

With this is the most viable way to go, 21 / 9 / 0, with the new masteries. However, a 9 / 21 / 0 is still semi-viable.9 / 0 / 21 is an excellent choice as well surprisingly enough. Anything else just really won't work too well. The new masteries just allow for casters to have more damage, and the utility tree has to much associated with mana to get full potential out of it, masteries are mostly player preference so I will not go into too much detail unless I get enough 'prompts' from comments.

Runes

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration: These are the only way to go with marks as they give Vladimir an excellent damage boost from the magic penetration.
Greater Seal of Regeneration: These just help you stay in lane longer, while going with Greater Seal of Vitality is also completely viable, I personally prefer the extra health regeneration.
Greater Glyph of Scaling Ability Power: The extra ability power from these is invaluable, and always pick these over Greater Glyph of Ability Power as they scale better for Vladimir.
Greater Quintessence of Spell Vamp: I think these runes are as well invaluable as spell vamp is very expensive and this is a cheap way to get 6% - we all know the more spell vamp Vladimir has the more annoying he is! However, Greater Quintessence of Ability Power is also an amazing choice.

Summoner Spells

Highly Recommended Spells

Who doesn't love a get out of jail free card?

SPAC

In my opinion, this is a must-have. The extra damage on top of Hempoplague has so much synergy.

Another great spell, highly recommend it for tower-diving and such.

SPAC

Amazing on , this spell is really a 'F*** YOU!' to people who are just about to kill you.

Recommended Spells

A nice cc removal, but somewhat unneeded because of .

A good way to get back to your lane faster, split-push, and many other uses.

Nice spell for 1v1ing, but you already excel at it, so it's sort of unnecessary.

Not Recommended Spells

Anything not listed above really doesn't suit 's role, so I will not discuss these unless I get enough 'prompts' in the comments.

Ability Explanation

Crimson Pact(passive): This passive is great, the more health you have the more ability power you get. The more ability power you have, the more health you get. Helps stay alive and deal more damage.
Transfusion(Q): Words cannot describe how amazing this skill is. No spell cost. Deals tons of damage. Heals you back. Low cool down. This is one of our primary skills that we want to spam as much as possible!
Sanguine Pool(W): "I'm Invincible!!!" One note however, skills that are put in place and do not have to 'target' us such as Event Horizon will still affect you.
Tides of Blood(E): This is your silent killer, get this baby up to 4 stacks, go into the middle of the fight, spam, repeat. Try and keep this at 4 stack without killing your health, use your own judgement for this. For example, we want to hit tides of blood a few times before going into an inevitable teamfight, but we don't want to spam it while running to our lane to farm. This is tricky but comes with time.
Hemoplague(R):I know it's tempting to ult that one straggler during a team fight, but don't. this skill is best used when you can hit as many champions as possible. In the laning phase just use it on your lane opponent or on the target during a gank.

Tips/Tricks

A nice way to bursts down your lane opponent is to rush in with Transfusion quickly followed by Tides of Blood, if the target is low enough it should be safe (use your own judgement) to rush in under their tower with Hemoplague, Ignite, and Sanguine Pool. Just remember, keep spamming your Transfusion and Tides of Blood as much as you can!!!
In the event you should get ganked, try and save your sanguine pool for a stun that takes to to reach you such as Cryptic Gaze. However, if someone with a stun like Warwick's Infinite Duress, we want to pool as close to the surpress's range as possible.
Teamfighting is discussed below, please refer to that section.

Ability Sequence Order

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

>>>

We want to max first because of it's heals and damage. Next second because of the massive damage output it has, and transfusion keeps the health cost from it down. We want to finally max last because it is mostly for the utility of being untargetable, you shouldn't be put into near death situations so often you need to upgrade this spell before the end of the game. However I do not believe the first 5 skill orders are set in stone, I believe the rest really are.

Items

I have a build at the top but please please please remember, every game is situational, the build is not set in stone.

: We want this item for the magic penetration it provides, so that we deal extreme damage with our abilities.
: This item was made for Vladimir. More ability power and spell vamp for you and your team!
: Infinity Edge for casters, need I say more?
: This item was also made for Vladimir. With this we get magic resistance, cooldown reduction, health, and we even get a 10% increase to healing!
: Survivability from AD carries.
: More health, abliity power, and now a slow!

Optional Items

: This item is amazing for teams that try and counter you with magic resistances, however if none of them are building any I do not recommend it.
: If you're doing well go ahead and stack a few of these, gives you that extra ability power and your passive also gives you health for this!
: Resistance vs. AD heavy teams.
: Resistance vs. AP heavy teams.
: Resistance vs. True Damage and a ton more health and ability power.
: Great if you need just a little bit more magic penetration.
: Amazing item on Vladimir, magic penetration along with more ability power and magic resistance. Excellent alternative for Spirit Visage.

Early Game (1-5)

Not much to say here, we really just want to survive until mid-late. Try to not push your lane, heal up any damage taken by last hitting with Transfusion and farm up. Try to not use Tides of Blood to push your lane. Ever.

Mid Game (6-14)

This is when you get significantly stronger to face opponents, you want to start pushing your lane some in order to gank other lanes. Harass your lane opponent as much as possible, run around the map scaring the other team. Spam your skills within reason and just keep steamrolling the other team 'till they cry.

End Game (15-18)

"I'm invincible!!!" You really are. The bloody Vladimir has 2k+ health, 400+ AP, heals himself back for all the damage we deal to him and kills us all in 10seconds! Don't even get me started on how his ult just let's his teammates rape our faces in! He can push our towers, dive us under them and even tank them for his team! How do we kill him without being killed!?

Matchups

Vladimir dominates just about every champion that isn't Ahri, Talon, Kennen or has infinite jungle ganks, especially Lee Sin, this guy will kill you so quick you won't have time to press w. I am sure there are other counters as well but for now this is all I have come up with.

Teamfights

In teamfights we want to ensure that you tank for you team while dealing damage. to do this we want to run into the very center of the fighting and spam Tides of Blood and Transfusion. When the fight starts go straight for one of their squishies, burst this target down as much as you can the proceed to tank for you team. Once tanking just spam your abilities as much as possible, if you come near death Sanguine Pool out of the fight.

We want to land on as many enemies as possible and have your team focus them down (the more squishies you can nab the better). Reasoning for this is simply that if you only hit one target the 14% extra damage out of the ult just isn't worth it any more. This skill is more for the benefit of your team than yourself, in my opinion.

In my opinion, only use to catch and slow runners or to leave a fight alive. This is only teamfights, during laning or roaming it's alright to use on a big group of minions, especially if they are on an allied tower.

Wards

This is where you and your team should Sight Ward.

Wards are invaluable to your team and should not be taken lightly. Vision wards should be placed by dragon and baron to destroy other teams wards.

Contrary to popular belief, not only the support and jungler need to buy wards. EVERYONE DOES!! Every time we go back to recall and buy more items, try and buy a ward or two for your team, this vision is so important. We simply cannot rely on hoping you know where the enemy team it. We need to actually know!

Summary

Vladimir is an extremely fun champion to play, even though he is hard to get the hang of. If you have any comments, questions or queries about my guide, please don't hesitate to ask any questions.

Upvote if you liked the guide, and only downvote if you feel it is absolutely necessary. If you do downvote, please inform me of why, and perhaps I can rectify any mistakes I have made.

Happy Blood Hunting with Vladimir!

From feedback in the comments I feel the need to say, I did only give the full build items and not a build order. Why? Because I think it helps just have a few items in mind then build to them. Each game is situational, I feel that if I give everyone a solid build order, they will stick to it too strictly and not build it situationally.

Credits to jhoijhoi for the template, which you can find here.

Guide Discussion (28)

The Crimson Reaper

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