Acronyms:
CDR: Cooldown Reduction
AP: Ability Power
HP: Hit Points
AD: Atack Damage
CC: Crowd Control
IP: Influence Points
ToB: Tides of Blood
MPEN: Magic Penetration
pots: Health Potion

Masteries

I am still getting to know the mastries, but I will update this section in a month or so!

Runes

For marks obviously magic penetration runes to increase early-mid game damage. They are the basic marks for casters.

There are no really useful seals so its kinda up to your choice. You can chose vitality for some extra survivability, force for more damage output or resilience for armor its really up to you... really any runes you already have already bought may work, so you don't waste extra IP on that.

With glyphs I use force for that extra AP to increase my early-mid game damage output. You could also use focus but with the boots of lucidity and the blue buff (yes its very useful if no other mage needs it, as I will speak of it later) you will reach the CDR cap (40%) so not my choice!

For quintessences you can go for early game AP or HP or MPEN. I use fortitude because I had them already bought, they are very useful for a lot of champs. Use MPEN if you are going for Sorcerer's Shoes!

Vladimir's Abilities

CRIMSON PACT:

(Innate): Every 40 points of bonus health gives Vladimir 1 ability power and every 1 point of ability power gives Vladimir 1.4 bonus health.

This ability is so awesome! It lets Vladimir be an AP/NUKER while having 3000-4000HP!!! It's kinda like jax's , letting him have a lot of damage and AP while having +3000HP. This ability is what makes people think Warmog's Armor is good for Vladimir, but I've already explained that it ain't good.

TRANSFUSION:

(Active): Vladimir drains his target, dealing magic damage and healing himself for 25% (+0.25 per ability power) of the damage dealt.
It has no cost what so ever.
Range: 600
Cooldown: 10 / 8.5 / 7 / 5.5 / 4 seconds
Magic Damage: 90 / 125 / 160 / 195 / 230 (+0.6 per ability power)

This spell is what Vladimir is about. It harasses hard and it heals Vladimir. This spell is what makes Vladimir such a pain in the *** vampire. You should reduce your CD as much as you can in order to spam this spell as you can. Blue buff gives an awesome 25% CD reduction and in combo with your CDR boots (Ionian Boots of Lucidity) you reach that 40% CDR cap! You should also buy when you can (sometimes I get it after if someone in my team needs the blue more than I ( for example).
With hextech revolver you heal enormous amounts of life.

TIDES OF BLOOD:

(Active): Vladimir unleashes a torrent of blood dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.
Each cast gives him an Empowered stack (max 4), increasing his healing and regeneration by 8% each for 10 seconds. Additionally, his next tides of Blood deals 25% more damage and costs 25% more health per stack.
Cooldown: 4.5 seconds
Cost: 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 / 70 Health
Magic Damage: 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+0.45 per ability power)

This is a spam-able skill and it's you best farming skill because it hits everyone around you. This ability is very good because it makes your transfusion heal more HP. The combo tides of blood-hextech revolver will heal even more large amounts of HP!

SANGUINE POOL:

(Active): Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood for 2 seconds, becoming untargetable and slowing enemies above him by 40%, and deals magic damage over the duration plus heals himself for 12.5% of that amount.
Cost: 20% current health
Cooldown: 26 / 23 / 20 / 17 / 13 seconds
Magic Damage: 80 / 135 / 190 / 245 / 300 (+15% of bonus Health)

This spell is awesome!!! It's kinda like Zhonya's Hourglass active but you can move, you slow 50% AND you deal damage!! How awesome is it to have a spell that makes you untargetable?? It's also good because it can be used offensively and defensively. It can also dogde a large number of spells for example: Ashe's Enchanted Crystal Arrow, Catilyn's Ace in the Hole, Ezreal's Trueshot Barrage, etc... Using this spell too early might mean your death. If this spell is on CD play defensively.

HEMOPLAGUE:

(Active): Vladimir infects the target area with a virulent plague which increases the damage nearby enemies take for 5 seconds. After these 5 seconds, infected enemies take magic damage.
Cooldown: 120 seconds
Cost: Not anymore
Range: 700
Extra Damage Taken: 14%
Magic Damage: 150 / 250 / 350 (+0.70 per ability power)

This spell is devastating and can turn a team fight around. although it deals some heavy damage, its best purpose is the increased 18% damage from ALL sources of damage. This spell is kinda awesome but requires a lot of skill and practice to use at the right time. Just aim for 3-5 heroes in the team fight and then keep using your abilities to finish them off!

Items

The item sequence I do is very good all around. I'll see it through here.

To start, grab an Amplifying Tome and a Health Potion. I do this because it gives you some AP to start with and the pot is useful if you loose too much HP and can't recall without your tower being hit. I don't get Boots of Speed and 3x Health Potion because I really don't need extra movement neither the extra 2 pots when going mid.

Let's see what boots you should buy:

You can buy with either Ionian Boots of Lucidity, Sorcerer's Shoes, or Mercury's Treads. Don't buy any other boots. I usually go for .

Ionian Boots of Lucidity give 15% CDR, combined with the blue buff, (if no-one needs it more) you reach the 40% CDR cap which is really awesome! If you get this item then end game you will probably need Void Staff for magic penetration!


Sorcerer's Shoes give +20 Magic penetration. This combined with Greater Mark of Insight and Greater Quintessence of Insight and an Abyssal Scepter will give you a lot of magic penetration, making you deal close to true damage to non-tanks! You should get these boots and the rest of the combination when there is only one tank/off tank.


Mercury's Treads give you tenacity (reduction of CC). I don't usually use these boots although they are awesome (I normally use them when I'm carry), I still prefer one of the other boots. If you like it, they are very good boots.

Lets carry on:

NOTE:When I say Rabadoned I mean with the extra 30% AP of the Unique Passive in Rabadon's Deathcap and 4% of the mastery ardor.

OPTIONAL ITEMS

If you want, feel free to buy a Mejai's Soulstealer.

A fully stacked Mejai's gives 241 AP (Rabadoned) and 433 HP, so yes, it's awesome but I feel I get to much focused when I get this item and it is hard to get it full. If you do, it is a very good item giving lots of HP, AP and CDR!

Haunting Guise is a very good early game item giving 200 HP, 25 AP, and 20 MPEN. Feel free to take this if you bought Sorcerer's Shoes, because early-mid game you will be doing true damage. Later sell this for Abyssal Scepter. Haunting Guise is not a late item game obviously.

CORE ITEMS

Hextech Revolver is an awesome item for Vladimir giving him increased healing from his spell Transfusion and even 40 AP. It's a very cheap item giving so much to Vladimir! You should get this as fast as you can. I normally get this before of "level 2" boots. This is so good for laning, hell sometimes I get it before basic boots!

Next, you buy the best item for Vladimir:
Rylai's Crystal Scepter giving about 120 AP and 693 HP (Rabadoned and passived) and a nice slowing effect, meaning if you Hemoplague a whole team in a team fight, they will have 15% reduced movement speed for the rest of the team fight! (not sure if the maths are right!)

Rabadon's Deathcap (recently nerfed) gives 140 AP and about 252 HP and a freaking good passive increasing AP by 30%!!! This item is still totally awesome! You should not to skip this item, especially if you bought Mejai's Soulstealer.

Will of the Ancients is Hextech Revolver's upgrade. It gives an awesome spell vamp and AP aura for other casters. Get this earlier if you have 2-4 casters that will benefit of this aura.

For the 5th item buy:

Void Staff gives you 70 AP and a passive giving 40% MPEN. Get this if you went for Ionian Boots of Lucidity or Mercury's Treads.

OR

Abyssal Scepter gives you 57 MR and 70 AP and an awesome aura -20MR for enemy champs. Get this if you bought Sorcerer's Shoes. If you do, don't get void staff!

You don't normally get to the 6th item but if you do, you can buy:

Zhonya's Hourglass: My usual choice for the 6th item, this gives a nice 50 armor and 100 AP and a life saving active. I buy this 75% of games.

Force of Nature: Gives an awesome amount of MR, very nice extra movement speed and some health regen that is always helpful. Get this if the other team has 3-5 nuke mages.

Lich Bane: Gives some movement speed, MR, 80 AP, (350 mana Oo) and an excellent ability to auto-attack for 600-800 damage. I think that you all ready have to spam transfuse and tides of blood, it would be better a more defensive item. It is a viable choice though if you like it.

Quicksilver Sash: Is a very good item having an excellent active (works like cleanse) and giving some MR. I get this if 4-5 champs of the enemy team have anoying CC (a team like malzahar, amumu, sion, ashe, and mordekaiser). I don't get why this item is so under used!!!

Guardian Angel: If the other team has overall damage and they are focusing on you while your team kills them get this. Not an item i personally use.

Thornmail: An item I get only when the enemy team has some 3-5 hard hitting dps carrys who are killing me often. I rarely use this. Zhonya's Hourglass is so much better.

All these items are possible, although I like to stick to Zhonya's Hourglass because it gives you armor and an all-around saving active. It also increases your AP (which most items stated above don't give).

Why I don't buy Warmog's Armor and Spirit Visage

Most Vladimirs like to get Warmog's Armor and Spirit Visage, I don't get why. Wanna know why I don't buy it?:

NOTICE:

When I say Rabadoned I mean with the extra 30% AP of the Unique Passive in Rabadon's Deathcap and 4% of the mastery ardor.

Let's start with Warmog's Armor:

Warmog's Armor fully stacked gives about 34 AP
Rabadon's Deathcap (recently nerfed) gives about 252 HP on its own.
Zhonya's Hourglass gives 241 HP (Rabadoned)

As you can see. Warmog's Armor is not really that worth it for the AP it gives, so why be more tank if with a AP build you get about 3000-4000HP. Even a 2nd Rabadon's Deathcap would be better.

Now let's see Spirit Visage:

So with Transfusion, imagining you have about 450 AP, you can heal:

(I'll go for 20% spell vamp because it's between 15% of Hextech Revolver and 25% Will of the Ancients)


1 - Basic Heal
2 - Basic Heal + Spell Vamp (20%)
3 - Basic + Spell Vamp (20%) + Spirit Visage (15% Increased Healing)
4 - Basic + Vamp (20%) + Visage (15%) + 4 ToB Stacks (32% Increased Healing)
5 - Basic + Vamp (20%) + 4 ToB Stacks

1 - 175
2 - 279
3 - 321
4 - 410
5 - 368

Overall of HP given:
1 - Transfusion - 175
2 - Hextech Revolver / Will of the Ancients (20% spell vamp) - 104
3 - Tides of Blood improves heal by - 89
4 - Spirit Visage Improves heal by - 42


As you can see Hextech Revolver / Will of the Ancients (20% spell vamp) heals up a lot more, add ToB Stacks and you are healing 368 HP with each Transfusion!!! If you also add Spirit Visage you'll heal 410 HP.

So you have 1 item slot occupied with an item giving you 250 HP, 30 MR, 10% CDR and 40HP each Transfusion??? No thanks!!!

You should always avoid taking Spirit Visage because this item is just not worthy on Vladimir!

Playing style

I always pick mid with Vladimir. You need fast leveling up. You can lane with him, but Vladimir gets stronger when you level up, and hes not that good before about level 7/9! Before you level up your transfusion, you will be weaker than most champs. That means Vladimir < Most champs before about level 7/9.

That means you WILL have to struggle early game before being level 7/9 and getting your Hextech Revolver! After that you just need level 2 boots (ie: Sorcerer's Shoes) and you're stronger than most heroes. So if your low on hp, just keep using transfusion on minions.When I'm full HP I start harassing my enemy, then burst him with all my spells and get a kill.

Let's say you're facing an Annie: you transfuse her and she will certainly answer with a only for harassment. You will then transfuse 1-3 minions and you have close to full life again! Then repeat this until she has about half life and use the combo I've written below! You have just slain Annie!

One reason I pick ghost, is for level 6 gank. If I'm full HP at level 6, I use ghost and rush up or down (for you to do this, you have your minions close to the enemy's tower). I use the combo below, trying to strike on both or at least on the less healthier char. Do this and you've made yourself 1/2 kills/assists! Rush mid again to protect your tower or recall if not needed. Then go mid again and keep leveling.

REMEMBER: Transfusion should ALWAYS be on cooldown!!! Spam it as you can! Heal up as you can! This awesome spell should never be underused!

A good skill order usage for a gank would be:

A good skill order usage for a 1v1 fight would be: