Let me explain to you guys, who view (maybe read) my guide.

You Must Read My Guide Thoroughly

This is the condition I set. If my build and guide is still questionable, I'd like to personally reply and explain or even apologize. However, there have been votes and comments that give off the fact that he/she so obviously did NOT read my guide or understand its logic. So, here's my second statement.

You Must Read This Guide Thoroughly for It To Work

There, I've said it. I explained everything in this GUIDE. It is not a build, or else I would'nt explain everything in detail instead of just putting up the item development. It is a guide to play AD Vladimir and the final results in items may even vary. All I do it put up what I believe are the core items.

And now I say,

Stop Complaining About Madred's Bloodrazor

I'm saying, read my section on "Madred's Bloodrazor" before you can say anything about it..

Intro

Hello and welcome to the Attack damage, Tanky, Ability power Vladimir Build.

You may be thinking this is a joke build.
You may be thinking about down voting.
You may be SLIGHTLY intrigued.

Well, read and think about this build and then decide:
Do I want to use this build?
Will this build work on this situation?
Would I do well with this kind of play style?
DO I PLAY LOL WELL ENOUGH TO MAKE THIS GUIDE WORK?

Yes, you must be a very good player to be able to go through the early game phase, mid game phase smoothly (and its not TERRIBLY hard). Realize the theory behind this. It has worked before and it can be changed up a bit for more "hybrid" type of build (incorporating rabadon). This play style is in purpose of being able to deal just as much, if not more, damage than an AP oriented Vladimir and not have to retreat for CD to come off. You should be able to auto attack while your ultimate is still on, using the 12% additional damage to your advantage. This technically is really like saying "is AD kennen viable?" And we all know, it kind of is.
(btw, this is similar to how you would build ad NID.. She has one spell that scales on AD and a slight atk speed buff.. She does very low damage until her items are all made up)

This build works off the fact that W, Sanguine Pool, has insane health scaling which will do over 1k damage while making you invulnerable (Fiora can't say much even with her ult now)

So, I'm not all talk. It's actually possible to deal a lot of damage. In fact, about 2.5k burst damage WITH JUST SPELLS ALONE. Next, you will be able to do around 200+ damage with basic attacks until your spells are back up. It's no longer "all my skills are now on cd (after bursting) so I'm useless and all I can do is run until I get my skills back and I can combo again" (combo, which vlad doesn't really need but you know where I'm getting at).

Enough of me talking and here's the calculations:
Ad vlad (gunblade pending)

Boots-Berserkers
Warmog's Armor
Warmog's Armor
Warmog's Armor
Atma's Impaler
-Situational Atk speed or Hextech Gunblade

5.4 health at lvl 18 with 3 warmogs
3.9k health from warmogs (bonus health)
Gains 1 AP per 40 bonus health
= 3900/40 = 97.5 AP (Gunblade AP NOT included)


1110 damage from Sanguine Pool
108 ad from atmas
96 ad at max level
108(atma) + 96(base) = 204 AD
204(total) + 40(Gunblade) = 244

244 ad at lvl 18
assume 200 damage to carries after armor reduction
12% damage increase from ult
24
224 damage from auto attack
(With Gunblade)
224 Attack Damage
lifesteal = 15%
224x.15 = 33.6 health healed
Tides of Blood at 4 stacks gives 2x healing effect
33.6x2 = 67.2 health healed per attack



224 sustain damage
1110 burst damage with sanguine pool (1243.2 with ult) when low health


**Below ap damage does NOT include ap from Gunblade**
Sanguine Pool does 12% increased damage with 12.5% healing from damage.
Before ult = 1110 damage, heals 138.75
after ult = 1243.2 damage, heals 115.4 per target

Hemoplague
Ult detonation = 350(.70AP)
350+(.70x97.5) = 418.25 damage

Transfusion
Q, Transfusion, instantly does 230+(.60AP) damage.
230+(.60x97.5) = 288.5
Q heals 55(.25AP)
55.+(.25x97.5) = 79.375
With Ult = 288.5x1.12 = 324.5625 every 4 sec

Tides of Blood
Tides of blood at 4 times stack does double damage
(health cost is miniscule compared to total health)
180(.45AP)
180+(.45x97.5) = 223.875
4 Stacks = 223.875x2 = 447.75
With ult = 501.48 every 4.5 sec

Total Burst Damage without Sanguine Pool (with ult)
324 + 501 + 418.25 = 1243.56
total burst damage with sanguine pool (with ult)
324 + 501 + 418 + 1243.2 = 2486.76
(Above Damage not counting auto attacks dealt before or after)

Total heal (without gunblade with double healing effect from tides of blood)
2 x (Q + (W x number of targets (max 5)))
2 x (79.4 + 115.4) = 1 target = 390 health
With Gunblade = 2486.76x.2 + 390 = 887.35

2 x (79.4 + 557.0) = 5 target = 1312.8 health
With Gunblade = 7459(total damage)x.2 + 1312.8 = 2804.6

Gunblade adds nice regeneration/health vamp
but decreases sustain damage compared to getting attack speed

For all calculation, adding hextech Gunblade will only
increase the total damage, but reduce the attack damage
sustain. Mind that the ult and sanguine pool is AOE
In theory, another Warmogs (instead of atmas) will
only increase the sanguine pool damage slightyly while
reducing the sustain basic attack damage severely

Explanation (Way 1)

The calculations are pretty straight forward, you get extremely tanky (not much armor or magic resist so your not a REAL tank and Madred's Bloodrazor can hurt you) but flat damage skills should deal quite a lot less damage compared to how much damage a regular Vladimir would take and you still deal plenty damage. Not to mention that you can heal a whooping 2.8k health with pure burst. (out of 5.4k health[with Hextech Gunblade]). I mean, who doesn't want to be literally unstoppable? Damage, health, why not?

Figure it out yourself. If you feel like you need to atk speed or move speed, get it. If you're way fed then get another giants belt. You should know when to get these boots (and which boots) to make this build work. I did promise that you be skilled to make this guide work well...


I will suggest you guys some boots though:
Berserker's Greaves or Mercury's Treads or Ninja Tabi or Ionian Boots of Lucidity.

I don't think there's a need to explain the boots choices. (In any case, those are almost all the boots choices we have anyway)

Cost Calculation

Warmog's Armor cost - 3000
Phantom Dancer - 2845
Atma's Impaler - 2355
(not counting boots)
total = 3000x3 + 2845 + 2355 = 14,200

Boots - assume 0
Will of the Ancients - 2100
Rabadon's Deathcap - 3600
Rylai's Crystal Scepter - 3105
Zhonya's Hourglass - 3100
Void Staff - 2295
total = 2100 + 3600 + 3105 + 3100 + 2295 = 14,200

Damage Calculation - Tanky AD
Burst - 2486
Sustain (4 attacks) - 1440

Damage Calculation - Full AP
Total AP from Items
Will of the Ancients - 80 AP
Rabadon's Deathcap - 140 AP (with 30% ap addition)
Rylai's Crystal Scepter - 80 AP
Zhonya's Hourglass - 100 AP
Void Staff - 70 AP
Total AP = 470
Bonus health = 500
ap from health = 500/40 = 12.5
2nd Total AP = 482.5
With Rabadon's Deathcap passive = 482.5*1.3 = 626.6 AP
Bonus Health from AP = [(First total AP)x1.3]x1.4 = 855.4
AP Vlad total health at lvl 18 = 855.4 + 1500 = 2355.4 HP
Assume AP Vladimir should NOT stay to auto attack, since he would lose too much health resulting in a possible death, which would (obviously) block him from dealing damage agin in 4 seconds.


Hemoplague
ult detonation = 350(.70AP)
350+(.7x626.6) = 788.62

Transfusion
230+ .6AP
230+(.6x626.6) = 605.96

Tides of Blood
4th stack = 2x Damage
180(.45AP)
180+(.45x626.6) = 461.97
damage x 2 = 923.94

Sanguine Pool
300(.15HP)
300+ (.15x855.4) = 428.31

Total Burst Damage without Sanguine Pool
(Ult Detonation dmg + Transfusionx1.12 + Tides-of-Bloodx1.12) = 2502.108
Total Burst Damage with Sanguine Pool
2502.108 + 428.31x1.12 = 2981.8152


Burst Damage Comparison (Full Build)
AP Vlad Burst = 2981.8
AD Vlad Burst = 2486.8

Do not be decieved by the damage calculation!!

For 1, AP Vlad's damage will be a lot higher than the 500 difference. This is because the damage calculation only deals with true damage, and does not account for the Magic Resist that the enemy champions have that AP Vladimir build can penetrate using void staff that AD Vladimir can't. But also think that the Tanky DPS's role is to soak up damage while wiping out the AD carry, so AD Vlad doesn't have as much Magic resist to worry about. Also, keep in mind that AD Vlad does around 1440 damage with 4 auto attacks with Phantom Dancer... PD gives Vlad not only the critical chance he needs but also the attack speed...

As I have calculated above, AP Vlad obviously beats AD Vlad in terms of pure burst damage. But lacks sustain which AD Vlad would be able to cover. AD Vlad will do more damage in that terms.

Theory - Proved

Okay, so this build works differently. Its actually closer to the AP Vladimir we all know. It keeps all the Warmog's Armor for the Sanguine Pool damage (1.1k) and gives us about 2.8/3.1k damage burst (without Ult/With Ult effect). It gets us tanky but not a full tank. Again, this would be bad if there was something like Madred's Bloodrazor on the opponent's tanky DPS. However, this gives you pretty much the same burst as any AP Vladimir (glass cannon) and gets you some tankiness.

In this order:
or -> -> -> -> ->

Damage is as Follows [Damage without Ult/With Ult]
Transfusion = 477.65/534.96
Sanguine Pool = 1100/12xx
Tides of Blood = 980/1062
Hemoplague = 639/639
[Grand Total] = 2828/3131.5

Okay, I would be pretty lenient with the runes. Magic pen would really help the burst damage while armor pen would help the sustain. Plus that once in a while auto attack (which kinda hurts with armor pen runes) really chip into the harassing. I would say the game could go pretty well but I'm still skeptical about those. (so meh, but technically they're half the arpen marks plus half mpen marks)

Get Q, E to 3 and Start maxing out W while alternating Q and E if need be. Take ult when possible.

This is done because at first Q, and E damage is pretty high and you need the reduced CD for the time being. You start getting W about mid game when you really start to stack health and Sanguine Pool starts to actually do damage.

Well here comes the most important part. What completes this build?
With the core items, we have basically everything we really want, health, ad, ap, movespeed. and STILL we have 1 more slot left.
What can we get to complete this build?

1. Hextech Gunblade
-This will get you the necessary survivability and decent damage with both ap and ad. It'll also get you another 300 damage and a slow.

2. Phantom Dancer
-This seems to work well since the base damage is still only 200ish so the attack speed increase seems to work well. Plus the movespeed multiplier seems to help you catch up, and chase. And who (out of those who auto attacks) doesn't like crit? This raises the crit to 48%. Hey, that 48% is almost half the time your auto attack does double damage (with increased atk speed). Think 4 auto attacks -240, 480, 240, 480.. Equals? 1440 damage... wow who knew 240 damage would result to 1440 damage?

3. Madred's Bloodrazor
-This gives a lot of attack speed. And not only that, it basically says, "yo, you don't need any damage item to do damage cuz its percent damage for the win."
The only problem I would have with this item is that Force of Nature can easily counter it.
If you do decide to go down to this path, I suggest getting 1 Frozen mallet instead of 1 Warmog's Armor for the synergy. (And I don't think I mentioned but its possible to substitute 1 Frozen Mallet instead of 1 Warmog's Armor and/or 1 Rylai's Crystal Scepter for 1 Warmog's Armor. It gives variety for a slight loss in health and gives you a lot of extra effects)

4. Ionic Spark
-Some people don't like this item but since the buff, its been a viable item. First it gives more health, which we all know by now that we LOVE, and it gives you 50% atk speed with the same recurve bow that gives other items 40% attack speed. What good investment? Plus, this item is quite useful in teamfights, dealing 440 overall damage every 4 attacks.

5. Another Warmog's Armor or Frozen Mallet
-Eh, why not? Another health item FTW. This leaves you with 6.7k health, probably more health than anyone would buy. But we all know that more health=better damage for US

6. Wit's End
-Honestly, I hadn't thought about this until 'tehAsian' mentioned it. It makes a nice addition to our build with the attack speed with magic resist bonuses.. And the shredding effect will just have to replace the crit chance. Its more consistant anyway so its pretty good I'd say.

Defensive Items

--I would only suggest these if you really require them. If you're getting plummeted even with all that health and damage, you really can't help it.

1. Force of Nature or Banshee's Veil
-The only reason I would suggest these are for defensive purposes. This is the only thing that can come close to countering Madred's Bloodrazor and any shredding items like wit's end. also if they're ap heavy, these reduce a lot of damage. Banshee for a lot of combo shooters and the extra health is always, always good.

2. Frozen Heart or Thornmail
-If the team is heavy attack speed and they're not getting Madred's Bloodrazor, then these are your best buddies. Reduces their attack speed, gains armor and CDR. Less CD, more spam. Why not?

Yea, I know there are 6 slots in League of Legends. I didn't start playing yesterday. By now you should have one of these boots:
Berserker's Greaves, Mercury's Treads, Ionian Boots of Lucidity, or Ninja Tabi.
Your other items may be like this:
Warmog's Armor, Warmog's Armor, Warmog's Armor, Atma's Impaler, Phantom Dancer.

What I'm saying is, feel free to sell your boots for an item with a movement speed multiplier. You can benefit from the Force of Nature, Phantom Dancer, Trinity Force.
You know why I'm suggesting it. I won't explain the theory 5 or 6 times. These would work well depending on the situation and if you judge the situation correctly. I'd say that Phantom Dancer is really tempting for another 30% critical chance and 55% attack speed.. And with its highest speed multiplier in the game. If you think you want to get this far into the build, try getting Ghost instead of Flash.

So yea, it's still questionable:
How do you play this vladimir?
Let me tell you how-


Try to get a solo lane. Early game will be quite the trouble if you can't zone well and last hit efficiently. Vlad can still do well with ganks (dealing with ganking and getting ganked) so use that to your advantage. Don't flip out because you got an assist instead of a kill. One other thing I can say is to transition well from Early, Mid to Late game. The theory all works the most well when you have all your items.

Last hit with auto attacks. Only last hit with Q Transfusion if you have low health. Well they don't cost mana so I really can't say much about wasting mana. Just remember that Q Transfusion has pretty high CD at first and if it's on CD when u need it.. yea..

Keep Tides of Blood at 4 stacks at all times. When you have 3 warmogs, the health cost will literally be minuscule. Keeping this at 4 stacks will grant you incredible base damage and double healing effect. Why not?

Damage is well based on Sanguine Pool but keep in mind it costs 20% of your health.. Burst with everything BUT your W ( Sanguine Pool) until you feel like you're loosing out or want to burst damage to kill.

Your ultimate comes first!!!
Your ultimate Hemoplague will grant every skill to deal increased damage... this guide and other vlad guides are pretty reliant on this ult. Remember, ignite is also one of your spells

Okay, this item gets a section for itself. Reasons to get it, and how to counter.
First of all, everyone is too obsessed with how this can counter this ad vlad build, and I can understand that. However, this item needs 25 hits by itself (not counting mres) to work properly. It is an extreme sustain item that gives good damage per hit.
Here are ways to counter it:
1. Ult + Nuke them down.
- If its anything, the AD carry like Ashe or their offtank like Udyr will have this item. Luckily, you don't have to rush to getting your defenses all the time. You'r nuke is 2486 hp and any ad carry will have around that much health. Its one round of nukes that Madred's Bloodrazor will not be able to stand. Did I mention Madred's Bloodrazor can't hit you while you're in Sanguine Pool? In this scenario, Bloodrazor looses all efficiency and the AD carry would've lost 4k gold on buying this item. If you didn't kill the ad carry, you pop up, auto attack twice, then the CD on Q and E are off again, giving you 730 damage. along with 600 from 2 basic attacks (assuming 1 crits). Phew, no more worrying. (Btw, thats an additional 1330 damage practically right after your nuke of 2500.)
2. Force of Nature
-I explained this already in the itemizing section but some people just don't seem to read.. I don't know why I'm writing this since they probably won't read this either. Anyhow, this gives you enough magic resist to counter that Madred's Bloodrazor almost completely and giving you the luxury of slowly nuking them down..
I can think of one situation that their tanky DPS will have this item to try and out-do you. If you can't kill him in timely fashion, then just get this item so that it won't matter. And this item has great synergy with the 5.4k health you have.. Just too much health regen...

This style of Vladimir is the more tanky type. You can absorb a lot of damage while keeping the same amount of burst damage. Plus, you basically act as the team's tank while providing the 12% increased damage buff for a short duration.
This build does not build on any auto attacking, although you may do it a couple of times when spells are on CD. Of course though, this build focuses a lot more on CDR in the mastery tree. Also, Sanguine Pool does more damage since there is a 3% increase based on the max health.
Get boots based on the solo top champion. If the champion does a lot of AD damage, get Ninja Tabi and get Negatron Cloak as your first defensive item after the two Warmog's Armors. If its more AP damage, get mercury treads then get a Chain Vest after the two Warmog's Armors.
With Thornmail and Force of Nature, AD carries will be sorry if they attack you, with all that damage back and AD carries will be sorry if they don't attack you, with all that sustain damage flying at them.

I don't play AD Vladimir every game but I'll keep adding when I play, whether I do well or not. It'll be at a healthy pace, not too much though. I still play other champions.

(8/3/13) This is the score as many of you requested as proof. This isn't my best game, just the most recent one I had. I haven't played AD Vlad much recently so this is all I can provide you. The game was about 30mins long, I went solo top against a yorick who did get first blood by killing me.. I made it up with farms and harasses.


(7/4/6) This game I solo topped against a Master Yi who had just enough mana to heal himself up every time. He played very passively and hugged his turret a lot while he healed. I had no choice but to dive him at his turret quite often while he was healing, as that was the only chance I could put aggression on him. I activated Ult, Q, and E while Igniteing and dodged turret hits with my W Sanguine Pool.

(6/4/3) NOT ALL GAMES GO WELL. I still think I did decent though. I was up against what many like to call "SUPA OP FREAKING TRYNDAMERE." While I did get done in once by his ult, I countered his ult about 3 other times. I believe this game ended before I could really leave lane.

(15/7/29) So this was quite the game. And also an example of a longer, drawn out game where we had two or three fights at Baron Nashor. This particular game I had to solo top against two champions (I think Akali and Leona which was a strange yet somewhat viable combo). Harassing was somewhat decent and what really helped was the ganks. Anyway, that global 1.2k AOE damage to their whole team really got me a lot of assists and we won almost all teamfights (at least we won all the ones I was at).

(9/5/15) Here it is, a score of Tanky Vladimir with full build. After about 2 warmogs you just stop dying. This one however, is a perfect example of countering a Madred's Bloodrazor. Their Caitlyn had one and all I did was buy a Force of Nature. I DIDN'T EVEN DIE BY HER ONCE.

(16/2/9) For this game I used the deviation build. I deviate from pure tanky DPS to go more bursty type. Here I did so because I was the middle lane. Early game is just like a normal Vladimir game until you start stacking Warmog's Armor. You may not see but I was 6/2/x BEFORE I GOT ANY Warmog's Armor. That means after I started getting them, I haven't died since and earned 10 kills.

This is the way an ideal Hybrid Tanky Vladimir's graph should look. It means, fill in the role as tank or tanky DPS. If you decide your team needs a tank, make sure you grab Force of Nature for magic resist and Thornmail for armor. Also this is from the game above where I was 7/4/6. (Not a good game but look at how good the results are).

Above is the damage dealt. Tanky DPS should do a lot of damage by staying alive.

Above is the damage taken. Obviously as the tanky DPS/Tank, you should be at the front, soaking up all skill shots that may fly at your AD carry. As you see, this type of Vladimir should take a lot of damage since there are not too much armor and magic resist to reduce that. But we all know we have enough health to cover that.

Above gold earned is pretty decent. Should be close to the ones carrying. Its good if everyone but the support has somewhat similar amount of gold.
(Think about it, if the carry had 50 kills out of 55 kills by the whole team, do you think your team would win?)

Above is healing done, as you see and as I promised, that W Sanguine Pool heals a LOT from its high damage.

Above is the minions slain (CS). You should strive to have the most, as I have. But its not the fact that you have the most out of your team but that you have a decent amount. Try to reach about 300 every time, give or take 50.

Above is the largest critical strike. Obviously it can't be the most out of your team but its actually pretty decent from where I see it.

Lastly, I want to thank everyone for reading up to this far, and supporting me. I don't think I had any down-votes from anyone that actually ready my guide with an open mind. I believe in this build but I never knew how open the public was going to be. I'm gonna say though, I feel like I can spread this new way of playing Vladimir just as some people decided to play AD Kennen or AD Nidalee. If AD Nidalee can get fed 12/0/6 then we AD Vlads can too.