Often when I play Vlad with the more traditional build(s) I feel like a brick wall of pain. If the enemy wants to fight me, I will wreck them, but often they simply come at me only when they have the advantage in numbers and simply run away when they don't. Almost every character in this game has a movement ability or a CC ability that allow them to simply disengage if the fight looks unwinnable or run you down if you are near dead and as Vlad you are often left at the whim of your teammates to support or abandon you.

The worst case scenario happens when a team fight breaks out and all of a sudden all your teammates hop,skip, and jump away, and there you are, left holding the bill, slow and easily run down by 5 angry opponents.

By playing Vlad with this build, we sacrifice some damage in exchange for the ability to outrun our enemies and really juke in and out of combat effectively and safely.

Spell Vamp quints allow you to really pump up Vlad's biggest strength to its max. Your sustain becomes ridiculous which allows you to sit in lane constantly at 100% hp and farm away. Also, almost every other useful stat is available in multiple purchasable items except for spell vamp which is really only viably available in WoTA. We take flat HP yellows mainly for surviving the early 1-6 levels, and cdr/lvl becuase max CDR Vlad is really strong. Vlad's ult and pool are game changers and you want them off cooldown as much as possible late game.

Again we give up 3% damage (and some all-in survival) for 3% spell vamp and 1.5% movespeed. The goal here is to really get Vlads lane dominance started early with his stupidly strong sustain by equipping him with 9% SV right from the start.