General Info x Introduction x Thanks x Maths Champion x Pros & Cons x Abilities x Combos x Secret ****

Pre-Game x Runes x Draft In-Game x Items x Playstyle & Fundamentals x Gameplan x Warding

Hello fellow Blood Lords, I see you have chosen the crimson repear today and boy have you come to the right place. My name is Kibby, let me tell you a bit about me. I am a league addict from the UK who mains vlad with over 2 Million mastery points I'm pretty much the most addicted vlad player you're ever going to see.



Of course, I need not say why you are here as Vlad once called to me too. Who doesn't want to be an absolute destroyer of teamfights, the 1v9 monster himself; the late game menace - the cancer of the rift:

Positives → Insane late game → Teamfighting Focus → 1v9 Carry Champ → Good midgame sustain with Transfusion → Going even in lane is winning → Blood God

Vladimir's strengths are pretty cut and dry. He's a late game sustain heavy teamfighting god of the game that gets counterd currently by Force of Nature and Maw of Malmortius as void doesn't help against them However I will note that vladimir can lean into his pro's at the cost of making his con's worse by taking scaling and going ghost/flash while taking ignite and aery for instance would sacrifice his late game to make his laning more palatable

Similar to his strengths, his weaknesses are also simple. I would like to go into more detail but you pretty much can't. You have long cooldowns with abilities that take your hp. Using Sanguine Pool or Tides of Blood early can net you a death in a trade pretty easy. I guess both a con and pro would be that he is unique meaning his playstyle is very hard to get used to even if he is mechanically simple but its a style of play only he has, so maybe it will speak to you. It's literally just a dude who has a hard time getting to the enemy and sticking to them but when he is able to just one shots squishies without MR.

Cons → Bad laning → Long cooldowns early → Hard playstyle to adapt to → Tides of Blood & Sanguine Pool take hp → 0 Mobility and CC → Low range & movementspeed → Can't Push so back timings are cancer bad

In champion select theres a few things to look for when looking to dodge or just not pick Vladimir at all. I will say remember to always swap runes / summs to change playstyle into certain matchups. Ask yourself this. Is the enemy laner a difficulty 5 matchup? I suggest a dodge if new to vlad. Is the enemy a difficulty 4 and the enemy comp is bad for you? I also suggest a dodge. But what exactly is a bad comp for Vladimir? Let's look at his biggest weaknesses - no mobility (I dont count pool), low movementspeed, low range, and high cooldowns early (bad laning). This means if the enemy has a lot of CC, high range and tanky champs it's doomed. Certain champions or syngergies like samira / renata are cancer too since you are a burst champ who would just die to samira after pooling and she can use Blade Whirl to block your Tides of Blood with renata saving her if she w's. Now while enchanters are pretty aids hook champs and CC lockers are worse like Leona as they can force pool (though Leona is kind of weird as you can bait her in with pool after she e's you). Enchanters can **** you over but they are squishy and can be murdered fast with champs like Lulu usually running it down to poly you when you can Pool it anyway. Your own team can have a terrible comp with you too, you want teamfighting champs with your jungler hopefully not being someone like an invading Nidalee who runs it level 2 as you don't have hard prio to help her inavde or she ganks mid and runs your land down though you also dont want that on the enemy team as helping your jungler being invaded is basically impossible too so you want a middleground of a good early but good scaling like a Lee Sin who doesn't invade or run it down or something.

Vladimir has a unique playstyle. Forget how you normally play League. This isn't a kayle scaling looking for her opportunity to go in. This is the playstyle of a predator lying in wait. You need a PHD in punishment to master Vladimir. I need to drill this in your head. DO NOT HELP YOUR TEAM. YOU ARE THE CARRY. Now, obviously you will want to help your team sometimes but most of the times you will not and as with most things when you first do them; trying the playstyle of never helping you will lose a lot as you learn the times of when you should actually help but i'd rather you excessively not help than the other way around. Do not be discouraged, Vladimir is unique and difficult and losing is a part of the process. An example of this mindset shift needed is supports roaming mid. Normally, as expected, you'd imagine that the enemy support roaming mid through top bush or something is annoying while your pyke coming mid is nice. Destroy this thought. You want all xp for yourself and helping the team including the pyke that is ganking for you is semi-rare as I doubt that pyke and you can even 1v2 the enemy mid early. It all depends of course just tend to be selfish for me ok? Thanks. I will go out of my way to say, in terms of wave management Vladimir can both Dive and stay safe and hold the wave near his tower as long as he can. Playing aggressive is risky but can reward you a lot with free empowered Transfusion's and poke under tower while dissalowing the enemy to roam being the biggest thing generally as roaming ****ing blows for you as you can't help your team most of the time unless you have ghost and really want to.

Firstly understand that whether or not Vladimir pushes or not depends on the matchup with matchups like Zed being possible to play aggressive into if you can dodge his W. Not pool his W, dodge, as this is a thing you need to know. If you pool and the wave is pushing to them. You. Are. ****ed. Do not be in the situation where the wave is not under their tower yet but simply pushing and they can engage on you as you have no W. Of course if you pool a zed's W and then shove it in before it's back up then its generally fine barring no jungler killing you. Because of the difficulty of Vladimir pushing and utilizing his insane diving potiential; (refer to this (not done yet lul) section again for help on it) I highly suggest you simply focus on surviving and freezing the wave.

Internalise the concept that you want to freeze the wave close your tower but not too close as to make it push to the enemy side as your minions arrive first before theirs. I'm not going to teach you exactly how freezing works but look at this picture and understand that you want to freeze at the orange line while staying at the yellow line, the enemy being at the red line probably and just sit there and try to even out the wave.




There is a sort of odd thing to understand that I also want to mention under the "wave management" section here that is rarely talked about in mid lane, about roaming and slow pushing. Obviously you know that Vladimir can barely push and so cannot roam but this also makes his back timings absolutely horrendous to the point where killing your enemy can literally win them the game sometimes as you take so long to push, they get movementspeed running back to base, push quicker, then get a massive amount of tempo/time to roam. Killing the enemy gives them tempo as you push so slowly, realise this and ping it.

Back to the topic of wave management we need to talk about Sanguine Pool as this is one of the key tools that bad vlad's fail with and why they can die so much in lane. If the wave is pushing and you waste pool then repeat again with me. You. Are. ****ed. Instead you should use pool to dodge key abilities and shove it in or use it on the wave to bait. Obviously you cannot always do this and its rough, usually forcing you to eat some chicken. An example of doing this against a syndra is as follows:


A correct example of standing in the minion wave and then pooling her e+q combo, allowing the wave to push back to me:


An example of doing the same but outside the minion wave, meaning i have no pool for her ult and burst while it pushes to her. Obviously in this example it's a custom game so she's dealing no damage and has no ult but imagine a game 10 minutes in where she has enough damage to punish you not having pool up.

Before I begin, an important thing to know especially for Vladimir is warding and here I'll go over the common good wards you can do:


Firstly, understand that Vladimir only really takes sweeper into invis or trap champions like Teemo or Shaco but only if he really wants to. Most of the time you will be going Farsight Alteration as soon as you hit 9 to dot vision around the map unless you are taking Ghost Poro or Zombie Ward then spam lane wards until its finished then swap for Ghost Poro or just spam trinket till Zombie Ward is stacked then swap. But since predator is trash and people rarely go Electrocute vlad the odds of you having Ghost Poro and warding only for lane and stacks is low, so here are commonly good warding spots for Vladimir


As for actual warding advice theres nothing special about it specifically ascertaining tp Vladimir so I suggest seeing a an actual guide on wards.
Warding the enemy raptors at 1 min 35. Top and bottom river ward though careful not to **** it up
In lane poro ward, bot side lane roam ward / above the river ward botside for jgl, scryers boom lvl 9 and drake rift ward and the god wards past the bushes unless rengar, tailor ward to enemy jg eg nunu from behind or kindred they do that a lot
do pooling projectiles (kindred e lulu w lilia r audio que (human reaction time quicker to audio)) track enemy jg before wasting ward.

Generally everyone knows about the whole shtick about not putting the ward straight in one of the two midlane bushes but more outwards to cover more area like at the front of the rock walls either side connecting to chickens to see the jungle moving way more However what people don't know is how to river ward; check this out:


As you can see you need to place the ward pixel perfect to the righthandside in order to spot the jungler moving around it like that which makes river wards worse than the ones just put directly on the wall where they hug. However you can make it easier by clicking your ward if its on quickcast to normalcast it and watching when the blue icon turns green like this:

This shows when the ward will hit the bush, use it to get it as far out as possible





I will reiterate this point as it's the single biggest thing to learn on Vladimir, in terms of wave managment you will either let the wave push or permenantly push into the enemy depening on the mu, enemy jungler; and most importantly how comfortable you are putting on pressure and using your stupid ability to dive. 90% of the time, use your Sanguine Pool to sit on the wave and let the enemy poke you and the wave itself while pooling to let them push to you. If you Sanguine Pool while the wave is pushing to them and is still pushing to them after the pool. You. Are. ****ed.

Vladimir brings his general ethos to a forefront in the early game; the idea to not die and only play for yourself that is. Your job early is to simply survive however that does not mean you are the weakest champ early as there's always timings to abuse. While only boasting a 450aa range you are still a ranged champ and so can "bully" (poke for like 10 damage) enemy melee's 1-3. Qiyana, Katarina, Zed, Akali are generally champs you can get a bit of poke early on. Its all about timers, sometimes you are stronger like ranged vs melee pre 3 or if you have an empowered Transfusion, Hemoplague, and Ignite. You'll get better at knowing Vladimir's timers as you play but he is unique in the sense he only plays around certain timers and by that I mean because of Sanguine Pool and burst - as long as you have enough damage to kill them you can Sanguine Pool and let your Hemoplague + Ignite finish them after comboing regardless of how strong they are. He is polarising because of this as the enemies strength does not matter if they are able to be bursted they will be. Anyway, as much as you can optimise his laning; don't worry about pushing your leads early and simply focus on the game plan, to scale and survive with staying cautious early learning to go aggressive only when you are sure you can. Cautious aggression, with the aggression part being learned over time as its honestly more limit testing and pushing the limits of what Vladimir can do by pressuring early; it's not needed.

The tail end of early game is the tail end of laning, once it ends, early game does too. What I mean is I count midgame as post-lane phase so I'll go over post-mythic laning as the final part of early game here.

Your matchup and mythic will decide the strategy you will employ for your post-mythic lane. It's not really too hard, your mythic just generally allows you to put down pressure against the enemy. If you have Night Harvester it is piss easy - simply poke with it when its up and kill the enemy when you can; and if you have Hextech Rocketbelt simply use it to poke with empowered Q or then to engage. This works really well if you have the Ghost + Flash full scale build if the matchup isn't too hard as you can use Hextech Rocketbelt and Empowered Transfusion to poke them into kill range, get empowered Transfusion again and use Ghost + Flash + Phase Rush + Hemoplague to run them down. Can only work if the enemy can and has been poked down, like in the seraphine matchup.

After your mythic you can generally start to put down the pressure, even vs high range targets like Seraphine if you took the Ghost + Flash + Hextech Rocketbelt build and it becomes viable to force skirmishes with r up. This slowly translates into mid-game with 2nd item.





When mid game hits you can really lay down pressure but anything post-lane is obviously much harder to play. The simple way to go about it is simply side lane for farm when you can but be aware if you lose 1v1 to the enemy side laner. While it's good to side for farm on Vladimir it can be difficult to due to no mobility so you can be caught easily and combined with the fact that you are amazing on teamfights its no wonder some Vlad's simply aram and perma group past lane phase as it can work out if the team is constantly fighting, however you do need farm and siding is more consistent, make the choice on a game-by-game basis depending on if you do win teamfights and if your team is constantly fighting. Obiviously this is time to abouse Ghost and Flash to engage and look for fights but let it be cautious aggression.

☕☕☕ just wait for the late game power...








Your core is completed. Vladimir's late game has been reached. You are teamfighting. Time to ****ing destroy them. At this point you should have your core completed with probably an extra item like Shadowflame giving you enough ap and pen to destroy enemies. So, whats the name of the game here? Teamfighting? Target Selection? Combos? It's summs. Especially with the Ghost Flash setup. Vladimir will be pretty much useless without a form of movement speed and while Phase Rush and Hextech Rocketbelt may be enough waiting for at least Ghost is easily the best as it is absolutely bonkers in teamfights with it resetting and allowing you to kite, engage, flank; it allows you to play as if you didn't have cripping mobility and range issues essentially and it combined with Night Harvester is insane too though without summs having Night Harvester instead of Hextech Rocketbelt is rough as you have no engage. If you don't have Ghost late game then well welcome to why the Electrocute build is trash.

NIGHT HARVESTER

VS

ROCKETBELT

Night Harvester is also another great item on Vladimir but with 3 main problems. It is suboptimal against those who you need Hextech Rocketbelt against, dissalows Ionian Boots of Lucidity with it because going full cdr generally means too little damage, and has an inferor mythic passive meaning late game it's worse (but at that point you can swap so it doesn't really matter). Otherwise it is an amazing option as it is always useful and allows for kiting better as the movementspeed is not for only when you move towards enemy champions. It also requires no thought and isn't an active item whose usage can be failed, it's an amazing turn your brain off item and the build of Night Harvester into Rabadon's Deathcap is goated for being always great.

Amazing item on Vladimir. You cannot go wrong taking this though keep, while not difficult to use, is much harder to use than Night Harvester as that item essentially acts as a passive buff. One of main weaknesses you have is your lack of ability to engage due to lack of movement speed mobility and range requiring something like Ghost Flash and Phase Rush to compensate. However Hextech Rocketbelt is also an amazing item to help with that especially in lane where you are now able to poke without wasting a summoner spell. It also Gives Magic Penetration through its mythic passive and the item itself which is amazing on Vladimir. Always amazing. Allows you to go Ionian Boots of Lucidity boots and still do damage too.

IONIAN BOOTS OF LUCIDITY

VS

SORCERER'S SHOES

Ionian Boots of Lucidity is simply used for laning phase sustain and mid-game farming and not much else though do not discount its summoner spell cd reduction as with Ghost Ignite Summon Aery you find yourself spamming summoners as soon as they're up. The big downside is that it cannot be paired with Night Harvester as the lack of damage when you take both is astounding and of course you want as much pen as you can by the time

This is the boot of choice for true Vladimir players. It makes you deal more damage. Enough said. Though to expand further it also allows the op Night Harvester into Rabadon's Deathcap build while still doing damage unlike Ionian Boots of Lucidity. Infact Sorcerer's Shoes and Shadowflame is alongside Void Staff late game is more than enough pen to **** people up, Hextech Rocketbelt isn't even needed. Always go this if you can though it doesn't provide much if anything at all in lane as you probably can't get close enough to use the damage buff most of the time.

Hextech Rocketbelt Rabadon's Deathcap

Night Harvester Void Staff

Shadowflame is arguably core imo due to it scaling with Void Staff, check Maths section to learn more) but thats for later. Hextech Rocketbelt/ Night Harvester, Rabadon's Deathcap, Void Staff are the standard core items which you probably will be needing every game. Please do not think Cosmic Drive is core and I will explain why in the next section as it's a noob trap. Void Staff is insane in this heavy mr abusing and high base mr meta due to the durability patch. However even it sucks against Maw of Malmortius and Force of Nature. It usually goes Hextech Rocketbelt or Night Harvester > Sorcerer's Shoes > "2nd item" or Rabadon's Deathcap > prior options again that you didnt choose > Void Staff > Demonic Embrace . Void Staff is rarely able to be skipped - only if no core enemy squishies bought a single point of MR but considering the durability patch even no mr bought Void Staff good later if not broken when mr is bought so it solidifies itself as a core item. Rabadon's Deathcap is obviously a core item due to Vladimir being a simple ap hog who just wants the maximum amount of damage possible, it being needed by 3rd item max and a lot of times 2nd item for flexibility. This is something to think about, if you do the thing where you rush Hextech Rocketbelt but buy a Fiendish Codex for Cosmic Drive is second you will not be able to do the mythic > Rabadon's Deathcap > Void Staff build to counter mr or even Void Staff 2nd to counter mr and will be stuck with mythic > Cosmic Drive > Void Staff > suicide because no Rabadon's Deathcap and thus no damage. So predict if the enemy is going MR or not by seeing if you have another strong AP with you (zac karth xerath supp etc etc) and do not early itemize out of Void Staff

Cosmic Drive Rabadon's Deathcap Banshee's Veil

Shadowflame Void Staff

I'll keep it simple. After your mythic and assuming you haven't the holy book ( Mejai's Soulstealer) your 2nd item will be one of these 99.9% of your games. Cosmic Drive and Shadowflame will probably be something you'd think to go standard but I employ you try Rabadon's Deathcap to see how that feels as its important for build flexibility and is always amazing, do this 2nd if you are not completely confident on odd vlad builds. Cosmic Drive for kiting and cdr good vs tanks, with Shadowflame good vs squishies or for high burst, or insane vs everything if you manage to get it and void together because of how Pen Works In other words, Hextech Rocketbelt or Night Harvester into Rabadon's Deathcap into Void Staff into "PICK 2" (next section) is the play 90% of games.

Cosmic Drive Demonic Embrace Banshee's Veil

Shadowflame Zhonya's Hourglass

If MYTHIC > Rabadon's Deathcap > Void Staff are core with boots, you have two items slots left over, while you have many options, these are the only good ones. Just because they are core does not mean the order is static, the order in which you buy items is important and comes only with experience and guidance that I shall hopefully provide to an apt degree here, check "2nd item" notes for help. So it's MYTHIC > Rabadon's Deathcap > Void Staff > "PICK 2" for full build with you being able to swap the order of this.

More Things

Shadowflame is Odd Shadowflame is an insane item on vlad because Maths. It simultaneously sucks *** when against mr because it does flat pen but also scales insanely well into mr because of Void Staff. Due to this the key is timing, if you do the standard build of Hextech Rocketbelt> Shadowflame> Rabadon's Deathcap> Void Staffit will be insane once Void Staff is bought however the problem is until then if the enemy has mr it is simply worse than going Rabadon's Deathcap 2nd. So if flame is bought 2nd there is an argument to Void Staff 3rd though i dont like it. It still is the best option 2nd if the enemy will not buy mr at all but its also the best if they do but dont buy so until late game.

Thoughts on zhonyas and why you shouldn't buy it Zhonya's Hourglass is an inherently unbalanced item on Vladimir because he pools in teamfights then can Zhonya's Hourglass and delay his death causing enough chaos to **** everything. However if you Zhonya's Hourglass poorly it is not only useless it is game losing. Buying it early means you are useless because no ap. Buying it when enemy has no hard cc or **** tons of ad is unoptimal because you could have more ap. Bad players misuse it and good players don't need it barring certain comps. Also if your team is behind you can't carry with Zhonya's Hourglass, its a teamfighting teamplaying god item that is used at the tail end of midgame and start of lategame. Note: Now that it was changed to cost 400 more gold (3000 total) with 15 more AP and 5 Ability Haste I consider this a much better option. Understand this when considering what to build.

Where are these? Spirit Visage is just a dog**** Force of Nature and you don't need the healing. Morellonomicon is just straight garbage because you are putting 2500 gold towards something that doesn't have a valuable passive.

SUMMON AERY ✦ Summon Aery Good if you need damage, into champions like Sylas and Fizz. Usually taken with Ghost Ignite

ARCANE COMET ✦ Arcane Comet Troll rune used as an alternate to Summon Aery, try it for fun in a normal game I guess.

PHASE RUSH ✦ Phase Rush Amazing rune that eliminiates one of Vlad's weaknesses when proc'd - his nonexistent mobility.

NULLIFYING ORB ✦ Nullifying Orb Can be built into various matchups such as sylas, fizz, zoe, leblanc, etc. Used into enemies who will murder you but is not as good as Nimbus.

MANAFLOW BAND ✦ Manaflow Band Useless

NIMBUS CLOAK ✦ Nimbus Cloak Best rune in this row and imo best minor rune in the sorcerery tree in general, i always take Nimbus Cloak if sorcery is secondary. Helps with getaways a lot allowing even ignite to increase movementspeed.

TRANSCENDENCE ✦ Transcendence Very good rune on Vladimir. Good for scaling and gives good cdr when fully proc'd.

CELERITY ✦ Celerity Also a great rune for vlad though is more an alternate to Transcendence than the standard itself.

ABSOLUTE FOCUS ✦ Absolute Focus Trash because Vlad's combo reduces his health to the point where this rune is no longer active.

SCORCH ✦ Scorch Used in some situations where damage is really, really needed like vs a lot of enemies top or something like Fizz Akali Qiyana assuming you are going Summon Aery and not scaling Phase Rush.

WATERWALKING ✦ Waterwalking Trash on Vladimir - who is roaming on him?

GATHERING STORM ✦ Gathering Storm Generally used every game, scaling ap rune is ****ing great on Vladimir and is generally taken over Scorch.

Glacial Augment ✦ Glacial Augment Can be used alongside Everfrost for nothing more than a meme build.

UNSEALED SPELLBOOK ✦ Unsealed Spellbook Semi-viable rune that allows for some flexibility, I would say into matchups like LeBlanc where taking Teleport is needed, spellbook allows you to retain the late game Ghost Flash combo however still only "semi"-viable

FIRST STRIKE ✦ First Strike Great alternative to Summon Aery when you think its more of a bully lane sided towards you as you can then farm gold from the poking itself, I myself like to take this against melee matchups that don't fight back too hard early like Kassadin.

HEXTECH FLASHTRAPTION ✦ Hextech Flashtraption What even is this

Magical Footwear ✦ Magical Footwear Great scaling rune, free gold and extra movementspeed hitting at a weakness of Vladimir.

PERFECT TIMING ✦ Perfect Timing Decent but not better than Magical Footwear unless Predator is taken and it is so bad right now that you aren't taking that or this rune ever.

FUTURE'S MARKET ✦ Future's Market This is only good on select strategy's where you rush certain items on early-mid game champions for pressure and tempo as this rune generally puts you more into debt by the end because of its lending fee than it gives you and you won't be abusing its purcashing power early as Vladimir who scales.

MINION DEMATERIALIZER ✦ Minion Dematerializer Vladimir struggles with waveclear so this is a decent option to use on melee's and ranged. Even on cannons which is usually a no-no with this rune but as Vladimir is terrible with recall timings and pushing its actually good to do so.

BISCUIT DELIVERY ✦ Biscuit Delivery Trash, you have sustain and no mana.

COSMIC INSIGHT ✦ Cosmic Insight Good rune that I always take on Vladimir, summs are your life and blood.

APPROACH VELOCITY ✦ Approach Velocity If you hit an enemy with Tides of Blood to proc this you are already combo'ing them and are in range so you don't need this

TIME WARP TONIC ✦ Time Warp Tonic Same as Biscuit Delivery, not needed though I can see a semi-situational use through the use of its movementspeed and Refillable Potion

ELECTROCUTE ✦ Electrocute Very good but unloved keystone on Vladimir due to it not feeling nice having to e>q>auto like Phase Rush to proc it. Can be used as an alternate to Summon Aery or First Strike but usually needs a different playstyle as not having access to both Nimbus Cloak and Magical Footwear at the same time limits mobility and are forced into Ignite Flash as to use the flash burst combo on Electrocute as well as Hextech Rocketbelt so you can actually play the game.

PREDATOR ✦ Predator Was amazing when it was good but feels bad now due to nerfs but can still be used. Can either start with boots or take Teleport and start Dark Seal Refillable Potion and tp back early for predator boots. It's viable due to allowing roaming, removing the movementspeed weakness every now and again; and most importantly allowing empowered q trades to happen in lane.

DARK HARVEST ✦ Dark Harvest A meme rune used in aram or something. But seriously is as useful as Arcane Comet which is to say not at all.

Hail of blades ✦ Hail of Blades No.

CHEAP SHOT ✦ Cheap Shot Viable in matchups where you dive them constantly, sometimes I take it into Sylas Zed or Kayle alongside Electrocute for oneshot dive potential but not generally.

TASTE OF BLOOD ✦ Taste of Blood Generally this is what I take, a safe rune that helps your early game sustain until you can be put on your own 2 feet and sustain easily.

SUDDEN IMPACT ✦ Sudden Impact Can only be proc'd with Hextech Rocketbelt, not worth it.

ZOMBIE WARD ✦ Zombie Ward If you like to take Oracle Lens early then take this.

GHOST PORO ✦ Ghost Poro Good when combined with Predator and Ingenious Hunter as that makes warding and predator quicker probably alongside Hextech Rocketbelt. In any case this rune is the fastest stacking 30 ap stacking rune on Vladimir easily so I take this most of the time but be aware you will mostly be doing lane wards as that is guaranteed for the enemy to run over and give you a free extra stack unless they avoid it and then rush sweeper then consider ff15.

EYEBALL COLLECTION ✦ Eyeball Collection Slower stacking unless you are in some low elo clown fiesta, good for if you want to use your wards in places that aren't in the middle of your lane everytime.

TREASURE HUNTER ✦ Treasure Hunter Vlad loves gold, this gives gold; this is a good rune.

INGENIOUS HUNTER ✦ Ingenious Hunter Good if combined with Predator, Hextech Rocketbelt; and Ghost Poro

RELENTLESS HUNTER ✦ Relentless Hunter Always good on Vladimir as movementspeed generally always is if it isn't Waterwalking, especially good when you are even more movementspeed starved like when you go domination primary.

ULTIMATE HUNTER ✦ Ultimate Hunter Imo this isn't as good as the other hunter runes as simply put you don't rely on your ult and when you do (mid-late game) it's up every fight so personally I never take this.

GRASP OF THE UNDYING ✦ Grasp of the Undying Pretty damn bad but at least a little useful, dont take resolve primary

AFTERSHOCK ✦ Aftershock More than trash - it's literally useless.

GUARDIAN ✦ Guardian Useless

DEMOLISH ✦ Demolish More of a top lane rune, in mid you won't be proccing it well enough and often enough to be worth it though you do gain a decent amount of hp so it can be useful alongside your high hp later to push I suppose.

FONT OF LIFE ✦ Font of Life Trash, I guess if you max Tides of Blood playing Vladimir support then this rune is maybe useful if you haven't already lost on champ select.

SHIELD BASH ✦ Shield Bash Useless

CONDITIONING ✦ Conditioning Alright but not needed as you already gain a **** ton of HP from your passive.

SECOND WIND ✦ Second Wind Good vs poke

BONE PLATING ✦ Bone Plating Good vs hard traders or all-in or combo champs like Zed and Fizz for instance, useless against those who can poke it off.

OVERGROWTH ✦ Overgrowth Not needed as you already gain a lot of health and the ap you would get from this basically may as well not exist, I would not suggest this rune.

REVITALIZE ✦ Revitalize You heal a lot and this makes you heal more, nothing insane but it is a good rune especially combined with Second Wind for stupid good lane sustain.

UNFLINCHING ✦ Unflinching Good rune, CC is everyones enemy.

PRESS THE ATTACK ✦ Press the Attack Don't go precision primary

LETHAL TEMPO ✦ Lethal Tempo Don't go precision primary

FLEET FOOTWORK ✦ Fleet Footwork Don't go precision primary

Conqueror ✦ Conqueror Okay maybe precision primary is semi-viable. This can be used against tanks where you will have long drawn out battles against in lane and in teamfights, can take this against Galio mid but this is usually a top lane thing and so I will not suggest it here.

OVERHEAL ✦ Overheal Not the best minor rune for precision secondary shenanigans but decent as Vladimir can overheal pretty hard. I guess this rune can make Absolute Focus actually viable too as your e>w combo won't pretty much instantly null the ap bonus.

TRIUMPH ✦ Triumph Pretty much the same as above, decent but not the best minor rune for precision secondary.

PRESENCE OF MIND ✦ Presence of Mind Useless.

LEGEND: ALACRITY ✦ Legend: Alacrity Bad on Vladimir.

LEGEND: TENACITY ✦ Legend: Tenacity Amazing secondary rune if the enemy has cc as it is a massive weakness for Vladimir as you only have Sanguine Pool to avoid cc.

LEGEND: BLOODLINE ✦ Legend: Bloodline Bad on Vladimir.

COUP DE GRACE ✦ Coup de Grace Not bad on Vladimir as you will be bursting people low but generally not as good as Last Stand as a rune in general due to Last Stand applying to every enemy simultaneously when active and can super charge a post-mortem Hemoplague

CUT DOWN ✦ Cut Down Trash, your passive makes this useless.

LAST STAND ✦ Last Stand The best minor rune in the whole tree, syngergises with Hemoplague damage boost aswell as Horizon Focus if you take the damage boosting that far, good on Vladimir.

CDR and Adaptive Damage are taken pretty much every game without much deviation maybe attack speed or double adaptive if going some scorch aery ******** but it's rare. In terms of vs obviously take the shard if you are unsure as to who you are fighting but otherwise take the corresponding shard to the enemies damage and while armor is easier to come by MR certainly is not so there is no argument for not taking shard against MR as not only is it a hard to come by stat as a ranged but it also gives more than the shard.

PASSIVE ABILITY

Crimson Pact ✦ Your passive gives you a good amount of health for the ap you get, but a pretty **** amount of ap for building health. In otherwords just build full ap and become tankier overtime coming to a head in the late game where you actually feel sorta tanky because of this passive, otherwise dont think of this, ✦ Don't be baited into buying terrible items like spirit visage on vlad because of this passive

Q

Transfusion ✦ Your bread & butter ability, simply spam this in lane for poke and cs but careful as the cooldown is tracked above your head so the enemy can trade when its down with his cooldown being a stupid 9 seconds at level 1. ✦ Every 3rd Q becomes empowered, healing a **** ton off of champions and dealing equal damage too, make sure to hit this on the enemy champ or use it on raptors if you are doing that tech

W

sanguine pool ✦ Makes you invulnerable and move through units, dodges mosts things but costs a ****ton (20%) of current hp so use wisely ✦ Do not use this if the enemy doesn't use something important on the wave while its pushing to them. For instance, baiting syndra q + e on the wave and pooling it to push to you is good but walking outside the wave then pooling the stun is suicide as now you don't have safety for half a minute against the enemy jungler

E

Tides of Blood ✦ Costs 8% of max hp, is slow to come out and does no damage but scales well and has good waveclear later while being able to be with pool making able to be used better ✦ Can extend empowered Q timer allowing for baiting the enemy into thinking it will be down then Q'ing them

R

Hemoplague ✦ Useful ult because of waveclear and aoe damage, good for teamfighting and decent for 1v1 while being more useful than you think because of Maths ✦ Do not max this first, put one point in then max E as maxing R simply just isn't as good as E, doesn't give CDR

Vlad combos are rather simple, you have a E that extends the Q's empowered duration and allows for you to run at them and combo the two abilities together. That's your "combo" pre 6, e q. Make sure to let go of E then Q; try to Q in the middle of your E and you'll realise what I mean, the fact that its slower than the other way around.


Poking:


>>>


Charge E > Extends Empowered Q > Release E > Empowered Q

All In: (Slow)

HOLD >>> LET GO OF >>>

HOLD E > R > Release E > Empowered Q >> Pool if needed (Can q and pool at the same time)

All In: (Fast)

HOLD >>> LET GO OF >>> >>>

Hole E > Release E > R before E hits > Q (or QW). Can also decide to QRW after release E.



Example of Elite500 doing fast combo WITH FLASH AND EXTENDING Q DURATION WITH E:
Play Video
This seems impressive but is actually very standard especially when taking Electrocute. Use the practice tool until you can do it like Elite its the only hard combo on Vladimir.

This is a very important thing to learn on Vladimir and will help you understand why stacking pen like Sorcerer's Shoes, Shadowflame Void Staff Hextech Rocketbelt are broken together.

Penetration Goes:
Magic resistance reduction, flat. (Abyssal mask, cant think of any else)
Magic resistance reduction, percentage. (Karthus W, Eve W etc, helps whole team)
Magic penetration, percentage. <<<
Magic penetration, flat. <<<

The last two are the important ones. Use your head here, if % Pen goes first then flat pen that means if the enemy is stacking MR then buying flat pen and % pen together actually ***** on it like if an enemy has 100 MR and you have the classic 44flat/45%percent pen late game 100 mr turns into (100x0.65)-44= 21 MR when usually Shadowflame is trash against high MR it is good when stacked with Void.

Understand that stacking % pen is also bad though this happens rarely while stacking pen INCREASES the value of subsequent pen as you are penning into a lower amount of MR. For instance, if I have 50 pen for instance and the enemy has 51 MR, the next point of pen will pen "1" MR which will probably be like 6% magic damage reduction and so that last point of pen is a like a 6% damage increase meaning if you are committing to stacking pen it can work better than mixing and matching CDR and PEN.
Speaking of such, PEN is a % damage multiplier. Thats all it is and without damage which Vladimir takes a while to build up the multiplying from pen takes a while to be useful. Ability haste also is a 1% dps increase per point if every damage ability is used off of cooldown. Now while you may think this is bogus as ability haste is a diminishing stat, it itself provides you with an exponential stat - CDR. Think about going from 98 --> 99 --> 100, from 98 to 99 is 2x (100% increase) spell casting rate as you half your spell cdr ( a 50s spell would go from 1 sec on 98% to 0.5 sec on 99 cdr) which would mean if you cast it off of cdr immediately you are casting twice as many of that ability. From 99 to 100 it obviously then becomes infinitely fast, thus it is exponential. This becomes 1% dps per point if you cast it abilities immedately off CD similar to how MR and ARMOR provide 1% extra effective hp if perfect hp : mr/armor ratio is achieved even though the stat is diminishing.


Lastly, understand why last stand, horizon focus, and vlad r stack well together. Pen is a magic resist reduction so 45% pen is caclulated as the enemy having 0.65% mr so it stacks poorly. Lets say you were able to buy 2x Void Staff for 90% pen right? Well it would be 0.65 x 0.65 = 0.4225 leaving 0.5775 as the pen (or 58% pen instead of 90%). Since it stacks multiplicatively and its below 0 its bad here however damage increases are the opposite - they stack well!
Last stand - 1.11x damage increase
Horizon Focus - 1.1x damage increase
Vlad R - 1.1x increase
= 1.11 x 1.1 x 1.1 = 1.3431 or a 134% damage VS 1.31 or 131% damage increase. Not a lot but something to keep in mind, adding first strike to this can help.

This also works with stacking armor / mr in general as its also a % increase like jaksho, conditioning, gargoyles, ornn passive all together are really broken as you are multiplying the result. You might realise all percentages in league multiplicative now which is good, and stacking pen is bad since its multiplying below 1 while stacking anything else that is % like damage increases or armor/mr

https://www.reddit.com/r/summonerschool/comments/x03pnz/can_someone_explain_to_me_why_flat_magic/

or you can just read this thread because i frequently get cancer thinking about this so I decided to make a post about it to ask for help 💀💀💀

You can rocketbelt while in pool
You can pool and then use a hextech gate to escape and if no over time damage is on you it wont cancel



Using empowered Transfusion on chickens is an op laning phase tool to survive as you heal so much. Just use a ward. You can go to the sides too if you are struggling to hit the q in practicle tool, simply walk near a wall and q the closest chicken.
Here is an example:






Vladimir's Sanguine Pool makes him untargetable. This dodges projectiles and Karthus' Ult. So it allows you to dodge Lulu's W and Lillia's Ult aswell.
Here is an example:


Dodging Lulu W




Useful application of dodging it





Dodging Lillia R nearly too late (using visual stimuli)



Doing it early (reacting auditorily is easier)




Use this to dodge many things like Zed R, Karthus R, Fizz R etc. For Zed R you have to pool before his ult spawns him and his mark in if you want to dodge the mark itself like using zhonyas early against it but I like to hold Pool to dodge his combo.




You can cancel the q animation with pool:




You can also mix R in here, note that the q damage will not be empowered from ult