Heya, I get what you mean. The durability patch hasn't done favours for Vlad. Grevious wounds got nerfed, but everyone is tankier and it doesn't do Vlad well.

When I first played him, i like being able to have long fights and out heal the opponent. But now it feels like if you don't kill them in one combo, you are screwed.

Vlad is in a weak spot rn but if he does well early he should dismantle anyone. I feel like Mid-lane is the best way to play him atm, Top lane i'd give a pass. The meta is shocking

Hi, excellent question.

Since it's still early preseason the comment i'm about to make will likely change, but for now here's my thouhgts.

Both Hextech Rocketbelt and Night Harvester share the EXACT same stats in health, ability power and ability haste. Their mythic passives differ with Rocketbelt providing magic pen and harvester providing ability haste. Both are beneficial for Vlad. Rocketbelt provides 4 seconds of movement speed and an active that's a quick dash and deals damage to champions AND MINION WAVES FOR PUSHING.

Harvester provides additional damage with the cooldown being per champion. This is designed for bursting champions.

Riftmaker I wouldn't go over these options, however as Vlad is good at sustaining long fights with his kit, it could be a good option to go.

Phase Rush is still the best for Vladimir, movement speed is essential for catching opponents and escaping too. With Hextech Rocketbelt and Cosmic Drive being added, Phase rush might not be as useful with the nerfs too as mobility is more accessible through these items. Electrocute therefore is more beenficial as extra damage is always helpful for early game particularily.

To summarise, I think phase rush is better in both mid and top. If you were to go Electrocute, it should be only taken with Vlad MID-LANE, whilst phase rush should be top lane, the reason being is that mid lane champions are typically more squishy and easier to kill. Where as top lane is longer and phase rush is beneficial to close down champions or escape. Furthermore, champions in top lane are typically more tanky so killing isn't an option and Electrocute it useless.

Whilst I can't conclusively say at this time which is better. I hope what i've described for you helps with making your own decisions with choices. Have fun with preseason!

Hi!
Ignite should be your most common spell mid lane. You can take ghost if you feel you don't need to dominate mid game, or you need to roam frequently (with better success). Ghost is safer as you can escape potential ganks with Sanguine Pool as well. There are benefits to both but ultimately, if you want to get fed, ignite will help.

I usually go between dorans ring or shield. Cull is excellent if you feel you aren't going to kill your opponent. I would take Cull in TOP LANE matchups rather than mid. Dark Seal is excellent if you potentially want to build into Mejai's. Or if you need healing on pots. Ultimately Dorans ring give yous AP, HEALTH, MINION DMG and 2 pots, which is amazing.

Hope this helps!

Hi Nick,

Sorry I didn't see your reply till this late. Vladimir I've played less recently over Darius, Sett, Sylas etc. However he is still really good in the meta and likely won't get any nerfs ever, which is fantastic for Vlad mains at least!

I don't know if a tanky Vladimir build would be useful. I will say though, his passive which gives him hp if you build ap, and visa versa ap when you build hp, could make a tanky sustain vladimir build good. Ap builds give so much health, items like Rabadon's Deathcap increase your Health significantly so I feel ap is obviously the best build. HOWEVER...

There is a really good TANK-build I found for Sylas who is now a sustain mage since the rework. You take Conquerer, Presence of Mind, Tenacity and Last Stand. in Second tree you go Transcendence and Gathering Storm. Make sure to take the CDR quint as well.
For Items you go Sheen into Spirit Visage or finish Sheen into Iceborn Gauntlet, from here Spirit or Gauntlet then followed Frozen Heart for tankiness and to burst the CDR cap. Followed by more Cooldown Reduction such as Abyssal Mask etc.

What makes THIS BUILD so good is you are getting tanky af, you have heaps of sustain through W Kingslayer and Spirit Visage, you have insane cooldown reduction and you get insane damage top lane or mid lane through Sheen, Transcendence gives you AP the more cdr over the cap (40%) you have and Conqueror gives you damage and sustain. GIVE IT A GO IT IS FUN AND RIDICULOUS.

With this in mind I can see a similar idea for Vladimir where you take Transcendence, Gathering Storm and try to gain as much AP as you can whilst being tanky, you would go items like Zhonya's Hourglass as it is still a tanky item that provides a great active, definitely Spirit Visage, Abyssal Mask perhaps, I'm unsure about the rest though. I think you and I should experiment this in normal games! I can't wait to try it out!

Look forward to hear how it goes for you!

Hi!

Cheers for the comment. I agree heavily, Vladimir's early game is quite risky. He isn't what you would call a heavy impact character early game. Biggest reason is because he has no way to slow or stun the opponent. He also struggles to escape, you have your W Sanguine Pool, but you are quite slow and it uses a lot of your health pool to use. You have to play smart, CS IS SOOOO VITAL EARLY GAME.

Diana is a difficult matchup these days since her rework. You have to experience the matchups as Vlad and recognise that Assasins want to shut you down really early because your damage and sustain is very threatening later on if they don't do anything. Vladimir is a safe pick, but he isn't guarenteed to win every game if your team is behind. Good luck and keep practicing as he is fun and rewarding!

- Egg

Hi Katasandra, you are quite remarkable to say the least. Thank you for taking the time to improve the community by offering and putting in commitment to helping someone other than yourself at improving their guide! I have just taken a look at your presentation in your guide and it is absolutely astonishing is the only way to put it. I love the border lines and it is something I've always tried to implement (as you noted how terrible my rune section is! ahaha) and It something I've tried to learn in my free time from jhoijhoi's guide when I started this for fun back in 2017.

In regards to your amazing guide (well written and well presented), I've taken onboard all the critism and have made the relevant changes, disregarding worthless information which does nothing but waste peoples time. The guide should be about finding what you need and understanding what that is, everyone can put two and two together on why not to pick something and that makes sense to me now.

I do need to implement this new Mobafire template. When I first started back in 2017 I disliked the template and learnt how to send users to different parts of the WAY TOO BIG guide and I thought it was really cool. The background with the template is quite pleasing to my eye at least and I will look into transfering all the code into this template (now that I'm on Uni break!).

Now looking at my skins section, when I first made it I super duper loved it. But now that I've been looking at other guides I realised it isn't honestly worth my opinion on skins as opinions are unique to the individual plus it is taking up a lot of space in the guide. Coming back to your skills in bbcodin,g I would love to hear your perspective on understanding what the code means in the sample you've provided me (which btw am a huge fan of already and was wondering if I could use this possibly?).

I've still got a lot to learn in this niche environment but thanks to you, I've been able to correct many typos! Take on a good source of inspiration and finally rework the design of this outdated and unpleasing guide from a Vladimir main. I've never taken an interest in Lissandra but i definitely will be looking forward to more installments from you and if you can find it in your precious time, I would love to work with you (hopefully it isn't a one sided carry from you and I could potentially teach you somethings ahah).

Cheers heaps again!

G'day!

Cheers for the in-depth analysis to my guide, the plan originally was to have as much detail as possible even for defensive builds you would never do, however you are probably right that Vladimir is in a spot right now where you wouldn't take anything but mage items. I still believe Spirit Visage has it's moments, but all the rest you are definitely right on that one.

Shurelya's is in the guide because some pro's still prefer the Predator Vladimir build which is what I ran for a long time now. Going into detail in my runes section, I have like the defensive items, list all the options you could take. What works, what doesn't. I have also listed them from most preferable to least preferable and backing it up with evidence on why this is the case.

Yasuo is a difficult matchup, i'll give you that. However I still believe Vladimir has the upper hand, with his much simpler kit. It all depends on how well you play the early game, it is very hard to out CS a Yasuo and for this I will increase the difficulty rating since I agree with this point. But being able to sustain and poke the early game will assist in beating this match-up 75% of the time.

In summary I will update the guide's defensive items since I have had a few people including yourself confused with why you would ever take it? My idea was to pack this guide with all the inf you need pros and cons, however you've brought to my attention that simpler guides are easily readable and maybe that's the best plan forward.

I will look into updating the guide to suit, cheers heaps <3