This is a brief introduction in UtopiaSoCiaLiZe's Vladimirs, The Crimson Reapers.
Notice that the green texts are ment for the Tank build and the white texts are ment for the DPS build or, if there are no differences (see masteries).

Vladimir is another draining champion.
Unlike Fiddlesticks that exposes himself to great damage while healing, or unlike warwick that does pretty much the same, Vladimir is a champion that can heal from a pretty big distance and run away, healing -ofcourse- less then fiddle, but his drain move (and also your primary move) has no cost and at 40% cd reduction is available every 1.8 sec. Dealing a massive 400 damage (tankbuild) and healing 100/200 health or dealing around 600 damage (DPS build) and healing about 200/350 health.

The two ways to play vladimir are (according to me) the tank and the DPS, take the correct one relying on your team and they will always have an awesome teamfight helper, and if needed a good midplayer.

For the rest of my guide:
Green texts are ment for the tank build.
White texts are ment for the DPS build.

I got the same masteries & Summoner Spells on for both the DPS and the tank build.

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Masteries.
I got the 9-0-21 setup for my masteries.
Going for magic penetration in offence,
Decreased summoner spelltime in utility, cd reduction, more experience and a higher base movement speed.

Pretty much all Vladimir's have this setup, I must admit that I had this mastery tree from Phreak, I tried it out, thought it made pretty much sence and used it all the time.
Do the same and listen to our payed nerd; Phreak (I'm so jealous.)

Summoner Spells.
Ghost, increasing your escape possibilities with at least 200%, and increasing your chances on the firstblood.
Ignite, again increasing your chance on the firstblood, also verry effective on pregame healers/drainers, a fiddlesticks suddenly is much less creepy if their drains dont heal! Even if you dont get the midlane, you can setup the firstblood-gank on a midplayer easily with your ignite ready!

My way.
Transfusion is Vladimir's main move, you should give this all priority after your ultimate, the Transfusion upgrades give it a much lower cd, wich is THE thing you need in pregame and midgame.

After Transfusion, having 1 point in Sanguine Pool is needed, this ability slows down your enemies, giving both saving and chasing capabilities. (Keep it at lvl 1 untill the end.)

Tides of Blood is the skill u need after Transfusion and your 1 point in Sanguine Pool, after casting Tides of Blood, you get a buff (max stack 4) when this buff is in effect, your Transfusion drains more health from your enemies. Also Tides of Blood sends some sort of bloodknifes in the area around you, being a nice minionfarm move.

Hemoplague is your ult, making hit enemies more vulnerable to your spells, and giving them a little time bomb with. This can be used as a big delay damage spell, letting them run away with this bomb on them, ensures a kill. (Really helpfull in teamfights!)

Your passive is giving you bonus health for every AP given to you by your items, and giving you bonus AP for all Health given to you by your items.

Suggestions.
1. I've heard of people saying that you only need your ultimate at lvl 1, making the posibility to get Sanguine Pool much higher at level 11-16, this will indeed help you in your teamfights, because the extra damage people take from Hemoplague, wont increase by level, the spell is only needed at level one. I do believe that you need it at a proper level to use it as a second ignite. But that's all to you.

2. Some people again only use Tides of Blood to get those buffs (so keep it at level 1), saving some skillpoints that you can again also spend in Senguine Pool, well, I've actually found myself killing people I couldnt see because of a lucky moment with Tides of Blood, just cast it when your next to a wall of (for example) the lizardbuff, if an enemy is slaying the lizard, you might hit him with the Tides of Blood, since those work as some heatseaking missiles. Apart from these lucky moments, Tides of Blood is an awesome farming move, killing multiple minions at once. (Especially effective on the DPS build)

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The point is that there are no real alternatives for the DPS build, we all agree that Transfusion is gonna be the damage dealing move, Tides of Blood is your secondary move, Senguine Pool is for escapes and saves (fine at level 1) and your ult is for the finish of when you lack movement speed. Have a look at other guides, and you will see them having nearly all the same setup (if theyre DPS builds!)

1. Boots of Speed These are to get you some starting speed, making you more capable of manually dodging enemy skillshots. Also, if your friend has them too, they give you the possibility to get in position much quicker then your enemies can (if they don't have the same boots). Especially with a nice pre-game aly, this can result in a firstblood.

2. 3Health Potions The meaning of these potions on a vladimir are to enable you of healing a lot of hp, even in pre-game, while your "Tides of Blood" and "Sanguine Pool" cost health, and your "Transfusion" cannot heal al that health back, you can regain your life with a health potion on, this compensates the health lost due to your abilities, allowing "Transfusion" to heal back health that your enemies took away from you.

3. Mejai's Soulstealer This is gonna be a huge source for AP, because of your awesome draining in mid and lategame, you won't die that easy, therefor is it smart to get yourself a Meja's before your sparkle-time starts. In the case of some noob enemies, you can get yourself a big advantage. NOTE! Your passive gives you bonus health for AP earned with items, a stacking soulstealer therefor not only gives amasing AP for its price, but also awesome bonus health and at lvl 20 great cooldown reduction.

4. Ionian Boots of Lucidity These boots decrease your cooldowns, wich is really helpfull for a vladimir, because it enables him to drain more health. BUT if you have some tanky enemies (or any smart player at all) you can better take the Sorcerer's Boots, they give you some magic penetration, I mean, what is the use of low cooldowns, if they don't hit that hard?

5. Spirit Visage Great item for my vladimir, it gives health, magic resistance and cooldown reduction, all three really important things for my vladimir, just a lovely item and not even so expensive.

6. Rylai's Crystal Scepter Another nice item, gives you a great 500 HP and 80 AP, nice! And the passive is also verry helpfull. NOTE! Again your passive is gonna boost this item even more, its great health supply will be coppied and used for bonus AP, and the nice AP that Rylai's gives, is converted to bonus health.

/ 7&8. Force of Nature and Thornmail These two items are my personal favorites, they're ment to give my vladimir some nice resisting capabilities, I normally start off with Force of Nature, because of the heal per second that it gives me. But ofcourse if you have more normal attack enemies, better neglect Force of Nature and take yourself a Thornmail and for example a Ranguines Omen. And Vice Versa, if they have more magic orientated enemies, nevermind the Thornmail and get yourself a Force of Nature and for example a Banshee's veil.

NOTE: The stats displayed above do not match the actual stats, because of vladimir's passive, wich gives him bonus health for your AP and then again gives you bonus AP for the bonus health. (Sorry guys, it's not an infinite circle xD)

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1. Boots of Speed These are to get you some starting speed, making you more capable of manually dodging enemy skillshots. Also, if your friend has them too, they give you the possibility to get in position much quicker then your enemies can (if they don't have the same boots). Especially with a nice pre-game aly, this can result in a firstblood.

2. 3Health Potions The meaning of these potions on a vladimir are to enable you of healing a lot of hp, even in pre-game, while your "Tides of Blood" and "Sanguine Pool" cost health, and your "Transfusion" cannot heal al that health back, you can regain your life with a health potion on, this compensates the health lost due to your abilities, allowing "Transfusion" to heal back health that your enemies took away from you.

3. Meja's Soulstealer This is gonna be a huge source for AP, because of your awesome draining in mid and lategame, you won't die that easy, therefor is it smart to get yourself a Meja's before your sparkle-time starts. In the case of some noob enemies, you can get yourself a big advantage. NOTE! Your passive gives you bonus health for AP earned with items, a stacking soulstealer therefor not only gives amasing AP for its price, but also awesome bonus health and at lvl 20 great cooldown reduction.

4. Sorcerer's Shoes These great boots supply you with some more magic penetration, enabling your Transfusion to deal some more damage and therefor drain more.

5. Spirit Visage Great item for my vladimir, it gives health, magic resistance and cooldown reduction, all three really important things for my vladimir, just a lovely item and not even so expensive.

6. Rylai's Crystal Scepter Another nice item, gives you a great 500 HP and 80 AP, nice! And the passive is also verry helpfull. NOTE! Again your passive is gonna boost this item even more, its great health supply will be coppied and used for bonus AP, and the nice AP that Rylai's gives, is converted to bonus health.

7. Rabadon's Deathcap This fashionable hat provides you with 150 AP, thanks to this and the 30% bonus AP that it gives, will your passive again be beasting your stats, where the tank-build will advice you to get some resistance and armor, this build is gonna give you the same loads of health (even more) thanks to vladimir's passive. And remember that health for vladimir is not only making you harder to kill, it also gives you more space to drain health in;
You are in a 1v1 against a nuker (My example is the Cruel Veigar)
He hits you with all he has, your health drops to 25%, in the time he has to wait for his cooldowns, you have time to drain back to at least 90%, if you had less hp, you can only revive to the health capable of blocking less hits, now you can get in a fight again and again and again, as long as they dont burst all the time (so no leblancs for you.)

8. Zhonya's Hourglass Again the AP provided by this item is converted into health, helping you even more, also the 100 AP is nice :P Granting you again even more draining capabilities. And ofcourse the active of this item is really helpfull against for example Karthus' ult.

My vladimir is something between a offtank and a tank, and then again ranged and life-draining.

This allows him (if played correctly) to take a lot of hits for the team. And because of his Sanguine Pool, he can escape a lot of nasty situations.

Your task:

[Option 1] Go mid:
Get yourself a nice level, maybe kill the enemy (you're an awesome 1v1), get yourself a midgame equipment before the laners have, and start helping them out (your laning friends).
[Option 2] Go lane:
Use your Sanguine Pool to get (preference) your item-relying-carries some kills. Also hold your turrets thanks to Transfusion and Tides of Blood. At midgame, you're a great minion farmer thanks to Sanguine Pool and Tides of Blood, but in the beginning, use your Transfusion to get even more lasthits.
[TeamBattles]:
Your ultimate makes all enemies inflicted more vulnerable to damage, using your ultimate in the beginning of a teamfight is much better for your team (and therefor for you) then using it at the end to get some final kills. Your team is more important and therefor use it in the beginning, using Transfusion and Tides of Blood to heal some health back, keeping all minions dead and dealing some crazy damage to the enemies. Sanguine Pool has 2 purposes in teamfights:
1. Slow down enemy champs so that they wont escape your carries.
2. Slow down enemy champs so that they wont kill your allies.

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This vladimir is a unique DPS, not only capable of doing some crazy damage (on range) but also a great turret diver AND a drainer. This actually combines the killing speed of a master yi with the playstyle of a leblanc and the livesteal of a warwick. That all at range and only without speaking of your ult, even while playing as a DPS, still an AWESOME teamfight-ult.

Ofcourse the movementspeed of this DPS is pretty poor and when silenced... Well, those horrorfying events may not be mentioned by a vladimir-fan like me.

Your task:
[Option 1] Go mid:
Get yourself again a nice level advantage on the laners, just scare your enemy of with your drains, they will have to teleport back a lot. When they're gone and your done with infinite minion slaying, go help your friends, with this -ofcourse- I mean GET THOSE KILLS! Your Meja's is game changing for you, giving you a lot of your AP and also about 100/150 health at stack level 20. Therefor, it's even nice for your team to get yourself feeded, you can tank some turrets at level 10, so get your *** to the lanes and kill them!
[Option 2] Lane:
This is less attractive to do with this build, but sometimes, when a nasty fiddle/veigar/ashe or whatever mid champion comes around, you have to take a lane. In these cases, play passive untill your Transfusion's cooldown is at like 4.5 seconds, then you probably have your Meja's at lvl 2/8 and that is your moment to kick some ***es, dealing crazy damage for your level and being capable of slowing them pretty good. It is true that a nice aly such as teemo or someone else with AoE slows is really helpfull at this point. This, because you will push a lot thanks to your drain (scaring them off like chicken) and because of those pushes, you will only have a short amount of time before they're in turret's range.
[TeamBattles]:
As usual, your ult will be a beast at the teamfights, especially in combination with for example a ryze. Further on, this DPS can initiate as long as the team follows quickly, this means that opening the fight is one of the things you can really consider, instead of waiting for a tank to jump in, you can take some hits with your sanguine pool and beasty health draining. I'm not saying that you rush in like a brainless moron, just know that you can also be the guy starting the action!
Another thing that helps is to save your alies, when they focus on for example a support or the other carry, slow them with Sanguine pool, allowing the alies to regroup/get their ***es outta there or even heal and get back in. And since you again are the one slowing them all, you control their possibilities, allowing you to get some kill really easily with a quick tides of blood -> transfusion -> ghost away (if needed against slowed enemies :P)

Bad enemies
For all champs, there're just some others who are (forgive me for the pokemon vocabulary) supereffective. For example, a kassadin kassadin hates playing against for example a ashe. (Well that's when you play kassadin on my way). If you play Vladimir in my way, then there are some champions that will be kicking your ***.

1. Veigar (The nukey bastard can do so much damage that even your drains and your tanky caps. won't stop him from nuking you, and since you are going to be the one that initiates, YOU WILL DIE. I reccomend building vladimir in a DPS way when facing veigar.)
2. Tristana (I actually don't know why, all the people I know playing vladimir say she's your death, I myself find her rather annoying, but not something to give up on.)
3. Sneaky finishers (Playing vladimir, your some abilities have costs in percentages of your total remaining health, meaning that when your health is low, you're not in trublez emediately, you can still hold on for long, champs such as twitch, lux or a skilled ezreal/ashe player, will own that last tittle bit of health on wich u can rely against most champions.)

Nice teammates
Actually these are gonna be people that speed you up (think of kayle, karma)
And also people that can haras a lot, just people that can get someone low on hp quickly and then has to back off a little, this gives you the chance to use Hemoplague and/or ignite, maybe with a little more ensurance after using transfusion on them.

Free Kills
Where Pantheon loves playing against people like ashe or other normal attack relying people, vladimir loves playing against people that don't have the capacity of draining/stealing/healing health (cause this gives him a huge health advantage) and then champions that aren't that quick, because vladimir is pretty slow himself, and because transfusion is gonna be your main damage dealer, you want someone to be in range all the time to get your 1.8 sec cd transfusion to hit.

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Nice teammates
DPSes want 2 things with them:
People that snare/stun/silence/slow/disable others (call it croudcontrol xD)
and people that heal/shield/speed up (call it support) them.

This build is no difference, in the pre-game laning phase you just want teammates that can control the masses of enemies, a blitzcrank - vladimir is a combination me and my clan used once, we had a nice start, eventho our enemies were quite bad players, we would have dealed of with them even if they were as good as we were, blitzcrank pulling enemies into the tower, slamming them into the air so they get hurt even more and that all while I'm slowing them while they want to get away from blitz' grap move and killing them if they manage to survive this bad-*** attack.

For short:
You want people such as Blitzcrank, Alistar, Sona, Soraka, Sion, and Pantheon (Teemo does a good job too)

Bad enemies
1. Midplaying fiddlesticks.
2. Tristana.
3. Veigar.

Pros.
1. Good damage take capacity.
2. Awesome draining.
3. Slow possibilities!
4. Big teamfight helper (hemoplague!)
5. Ranged.
6. Savior.

Cons.
1. A little slow.
2. Assists will be much more common then kills. (May be a con for some.)
3. Really vulnerable for silencers.

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Pros.
1. Great damage output.
2. Verry big health.
3. Awesome draining.
4. Good killer.
5. Ranged.
6. Savior.
7. Easy Meja's stacks.

Cons.
1. Slow as hell. (For a DPS)
2. Really vulnerable for silencers.
3. You're not supposed to tank the hits, u must not be focused on to much.