Hey guys, me again, with a guide on my favorite vampire: Vladimir!
I will be talking about two different builds, an all-out offensive build, and a defensive build.
I will be talking about the items, runes, masteries, skill-destributions on how to become the best vampire.

Welcome, to Vampire 101!

Pros

• Non-mana
• Innate Sustain
• Nice Harrass
• Amazing lategame
• Amazing kit

Cons

• Health costing abilities, so spamming gets you low
• Low basic stats
• Weak early game
• Can be shutdown

HEALTH 400 (+85) ATTACK DAMAGE 45 (+3)
HEALTH REGEN. 6.0 (+0.6) ATTACK SPEED 0.658 (+2%)
USES HEALTH ARMOR 12 (+3.5)
MAGIC RES. 30 (+0)
RANGE 450 MOV. SPEED 335

Not the best stats around, but the HP increases with the AP you have, so it shouldn't be a problem. Movespeed is average. Range is short-medium and Attack Speed is low.

Vladimir isn't your daily AP Carry who oneshots the AD carry like Lux or Syndra. Vladimir is an AP offtank/carry who is there to deal sustained AoE and single target damage in through his abilities having low cooldowns in the lategame. Vladimir has a lot of sustain through Transfusion, and doesn't use mana and has an escape tool, makinng him one of the best and safest laners in League of Legends.

Don't let this confuse you, Vladimir has a huge skillcap. Knowing what to build, when to build it and how to play your opponent decides your skill with Vladimir.

The sumemoner spells I recommend are Ignite, Flash, and Ghost.

: Allows you to just finish that low enemy off that tried to escape with 100 hp.
: For the less experienced Vladimir players, flash is the safest summoner spell in the game. Gets you out of bad situations or allows you to get the finishing blow on a target.
: For the more experienced vladimir players, allows you to stick to a target, dealing constant AP DPS.

These runes give amazing harass because of the Magic Penentration marks we have, Vladimir's base damages are amazing, so it will help a lot.
The armor gained from the seals will help versus the bruisers you will most likely face (Since we are going top lane)
The AP/lvl are better than Flat AP since AP/lvl starts outscaling Flat AP at about lvl 6 or 7. If you need magic resist, change them for either Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, or Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist.
AP Quints give you 15 AP right from the start, just like a Doran's Ring. This will give you a bigger heal for Transfusion, and more damage overall.

For this build the purchase order doesn't change much. Most of the time you will want to rush Spirit of the Spectral Wraith for sustain and damage. The spell vamp will also make your Tides of Blood a free cast, allowing you to spam it.
Then, you get to choose between either Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Zhonya's Hourglass first, depending on your lane matchup, followed by a Liandry's Torment. After that, finish either Rabadon's Deathcap or the one you didnt choose from Rylai's Crystal Scepter or Zhonya's Hourglass. If you don't like one of the items, feel free to replace them with one of the "Other Viable Items". Purchase order may vary every game. First of all it depends on your lane matchup. Versus an AP, get the Abyssal Mask and Spirit Visage first, for sustain and high resistances, and also a nice bit of damage to make the lane easier, while versus an AD you might want to get the Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Sunfire Aegis first, for a mix of durability, damage and overall tankiness.

Other viable boots are Mercury's Treads, Boots of Swiftness and Ninja Tabi.

If you don't like these items, feel free to replace them with one of the other items "I want more tankiness", "I want more damage" or "Other Viable Items"

Provides nice harrass and sustain at the same time.

ACTIVE: Vladimir drains the lifeforce of his target, dealing magic damage and healing himself.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 90 / 125 / 160 / 195 / 230 (+ 60% AP)
HEALTH REGAINED: 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 (+ 25% AP)

A nice escape tool and healing ability, however, has a very long cooldown and costs a lot of health.

ACTIVE: Vladimir sinks into a radius-150 pool of blood, gaining 37.5% bonus movement speed for 1 second and becoming untargetable for 2 seconds. Enemies who stand upon the pool are slowed by 40% for 1 second (this does not refresh), and are dealt magic damage every half second while Vladimir heals himself for 12.5% of the damage done.
MAGIC DAMAGE PER HALF-SECOND: 20 / 33.75 / 47.5 / 61.25 / 75 (+3.75% of bonus health)
MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 135 / 190 / 245 / 300 (+15% of bonus health)

Amazing farming ability, use this before using Transfusion for a bigger heal.

ACTIVE: Vladimir unleashes a torrent of blood, damaging all enemies within range.
Each cast of Tides of Blood gives him an Empowered stack that lasts 10 seconds and stacks up to 4 times. Each Empowered stack increases Vladimir's healing and regeneration by a percentage, and also increases both the base damage[2] and cost of his next Tides of Blood by 25% per stack.
MAXIMUM COST: 60 / 80 / 100 / 120 / 140 health
MAGIC DAMAGE: 60 / 85 / 110 / 135 / 160 (+ 45% AP)
MAXIMUM MAGIC DAMAGE: 120 / 170 / 220 / 270 / 320 (+ 45% AP)
HEALING AND REGENERATION INCREASE PER STACK: 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8%

Your initation tool, helps your whole team and deals some unexpected damage.

ACTIVE: Vladimir infects all enemies in target 175-radius area with a virulent plague which increases the damage they take from all sources by 12% for 5 seconds. After these 5 seconds, infected enemies take magic damage.
MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 250 / 350 (+ 70% AP)

Maxing Transfusion first provides amazing sustain and harrass, while Tides of Blood is more for farming and costs too much hp to max first. Sanguine Pool does a lot of damage, but the health cost is too high to max it as first ability or second ability.

Vladimir is a very good champion in ranked play since his bullying capabilities, non-mana being and sustain help him a lot in lane. His lategame is also one of the best AP lategames in the game, being almost better than Ryze. I advise to play him top lane and not mid lane, since his range advantage is kinda lost there, and most champions will harrass you through your sustain.

Even though vladimir has a bad autoattack animation, his capabilities to farm with Transfusion and Tides of Blood make up for that. Lategame you can kill one wave with either two nonstacked Tides of Blood or with one fully stacked Tides of Blood. Make sure to keep the stacks up to farm better!

: Very easy lane as long as you keep your distance. Be careful after lvl 6, her burst is very high! 7/10
: Annoying/Easy. He sustains most of your damage, but you can dodge his Q with your pool and you can kite him heavily. 5/10
: As long as you keep your distance, you win, otherwise, he wins. 8/10
: Easy pre-6, then after 6, it starts becoming harder since she can gapclose two times. 6/10
: As long as you dont get hit by cleavers, there is no reason for you to let him get in melee range, easy lane. 3/10.
: Probably a skill matchup, I don't get to play versus Elise a lot myself.
: Easy for the first few levels, then becomes harder as she gets more AD and points in Burst of Speed since you can't really trade with her then. 8/10
: Hard lane. He sustains as well, but his trading capabilities and harrass are a little higher than yours. 8/10
: Probably one of the easier lanes. You will not get many kills since he is very tanky, but you can farm almost all the laning phase and zone him. Try to freeze your lane to stop him from farming. 2/10
: Vladimir isn't strong versus champions with gapclosers and burst. Irelia is one of them. She sustains through your damage, then outtrades you with her Hiten Style. 7/10
: Same as with Irelia Jarvan IV has a gapcloser, cc, and burst. This will be a hard lane unless you can dodge his flagtoss. Always take flash versus Jarvan IV
: This lane is medium. If he wants to constantly jump on you, he will go OOM in minutes, while you will be sustaining through all of it and never go OOM. 5/10

6-6-13: Published Vladimir: Vampire 101.
6-6-13: Busy with laning counters and gameplay

I hope you enjoyed my build. Post and comment on things I can improve :).

NK