League of Legends (LoL) Question: Some questions on Vladimir

I wanted to tell you to check out Throatslasher's guide, but apparently he archived it. As far as I can remember, he used hybrid pen marks, armor seals, mr glyphs and movement speed quints. His masteries were 21/9/0.

EDIT: I am blind, here it is: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/vladimir-top-still-good-326744

9/0/21 - runes are as I mentioned.

In terms of runes and masteries you should refer to the ones that Vynertje has mentioned.

In terms of laning as Vladimir, you hit your peak at lvl 9 when you have Transfusion at lvl 5 because once you hit that point, you can practically stay in lane forever in most match-ups.

Vladimir's harder match-ups are typically champions that either have gap closers, and champions that have strong ranged poke early on in the game. Two of the hardest match-ups for Vladimir that I've experienced are Xin Zhao and Cassiopeia.

Xin Zhao gives Vladimir a lot of trouble because he has a hard gap closer and some follow up crowd control. Vladimir does not excel at fending off bruisers that get in melee range of him early on in the game. The key thing to do when a bruiser like Xin Zhao jumps you is retaliate when they don't have cooldowns. Try to get a skill rotation and one to two autos off while a bruiser cannot close the distance between you. You need to retaliate to at least make an attempt to balance the damage that he deals to you with him. Otherwise, if Xin Zhao or any bruiser keeps successfully trading with you he will begin to deny you from cs for you to go back and other things.

Cassiopeia gives Vladimir a lot of trouble because she can effectively kite Vladimir and trade damage quite well if you do happen to get in range of Transfusion. There aren't many things you can do about her unfortunately. The key to this match-up is not to get caught up in trying to trade with Cassiopeia unless for some reason she is out of mana. It will be very hard to trade with her without taking far too much damage in return. I would try to avoid as many Noxious Blasts as possible because she can usually follow up on a successful Noxious Blast with a couple Twin Fangs due to the move speed bonus. I would farm this lane out as best as possible, and alert your teammates if Cassiopeia makes an attempt to roam. Against match-ups that can trade with you or just straight up out damage you in Transfusion range there's not all that much you can do other than out-sustain them in the long run due to Vladimir's kits. Chances are in a match-up like this you won't be able to straight up 1 v 1 a champion like this until much later on in the game or assistance from a teammate.

There are also some champions that have skills that just have weird interactions with Vladimir's Sanguine Pool. For example, Fiddlesticks' Bountiful Harvest still deals damage to Vladimir when he uses Sanguine Pool, and Maokai's Twisted Advance can snare Vladimir if he doesn't use Sanguine Pool before the cast animation.

Hope this helps.