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That time of the month - Freelo time. Top lane Vladimir guid
Build Guide By yuuum
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Vladimir Build Guide By yuuum
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Choose Champion Build:
-
Burst-Vlad
![LoL Champion: Vladimir]()
-
Sustain-DPS Vlad
![LoL Champion: Vladimir]()
Spells:
Ghost
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Crimson Pact (PASSIVE)
Vladimir Passive Ability
Threats & Synergies
Threats
Synergies
Extreme
Major
Even
Minor
Tiny
Show All
None
Low
Ok
Strong
Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Jayce
Very dangerous but will get easier as you build more CDR and tank stats. Be prepare to give up alot of farm and lane control if you are in this matchup.
Synergies
Ideal
Strong
Ok
Low
None
Introduction
wellcome to my wonderful guide on Vladimir
. He has been a bit of a controversial champion since his relese, and has seen alot of nerfs and changes but few real buffs. Right now, he is a very strong late game carry, perhaps the best that you can have from the top lane, with a very safe early game, altough not the strongest one.But, why should you even listen to me?
Hopefully, that is enough.
Now, what will you be learning from my guide?
-
1. How to build Vladimir
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2. Some of Vladimirs harder matchups
-
3. How to play him in general
Disclaimer!
I am not a guide making veteran, and neither is english my mother tongue. If you're a grammar nazi who expects the highest quality guides, then I'm sorry, but you wont find it here.
However, if you're just looking to learn Vladimir, then you're at the right place.
Pros / Cons
So why would you even want to play
?
PROS
High damage. The damage
Vladimir pumps out in the late game is disgusting. It's high, it's spamable and its AOE.Easy to learn. While there are a few things to learn with
Vladimir like dodging skillshots with his Sanguine Pool, playing around crimson rush he is still a very easy and forgiving champion.Snowballs hard. This goes with his high damage. A fed vladimi will kill everything around him while never dying himself. And he doesn't fall off either, so you're strong all through the game.
Pretty easy to rebound with.
Vladimiris a safe pick. It's hard to snowball on him since he has so much sustain, and since he scales so hard, all you have to do is sit back and farm up to your items.Easy to carry with. Vladimir has easy mechanics, is straigh forwards, scales well and deals alot of dmg. In other words, he is amazing for carrying games.
CONS
Very selfish. Aside from a 10% dmg increase on his ulti, he does nothing for his team. All he has is heals for himself, dmg for hiself and utility for himself.
Not very high skill ceiling. If you're looking for a challanging champion with a lot of things to learn about it,
Vladimir is not for you.Low mobility. Not only is Vladimir slow, he also has no real mobility spell, outside of a small movespeed bonus on his sanguine blood
His staightforward nature can hurt you. Just as
Vladimir is strong, he is also predictable. Burst Vlad will try his hardest to run past your frontline and kill your squishies and nothing else, while DPS Vlad will try to kite you out and survive. If the enemy team can work around either of these playstyles, he will have a hard time.
BURST VS DPS VLADIMIR
Vladimir is about building a bit more tanky and dealing sustined dmg while not dying with all your heals and tank stas.This build works well aganst heavy frontline teams. Like
Darius, Gragas and Taric teams. This build in general works best against melee, since its designed to kite out as well s survive relly well.Burst
Vladimir is more balls to the walls. You build full damage and use the combo of Ghost and Flash to go hard for the enemy backline. As burst Vladimir your burst is ovbiusly very strong, but your sustained damage against tankier champions is not as strong, neither are you as tanky. This one works against very squishy teamcomps, which is popular right now, like Jhin, Lux and Zyra, but it's also harder to use, and riskier. Since you go so deep and build not that much tank stats you die easily if you get locked down and your lack of mobility can force you to flank or wait for just the right time to go in.
Spells
I have been mentioning abillities a lot, but what do they actaully do?
We will get into the use of his abillities more later on in the guide.
This gives you bonus hp for the ap you build, and bonus ap for the hp you build. Unfortuntly, this doesn't scale with itself, so the ap you get from this doesn't give you extra hp, and vice versa.
This is a pretty unnoticable passive, but it is not bad. It just takes a while to scale up. At six items, depending on how you exactly build, it will give you
50-70 bonus ap and 200-300 bonus hp. This is worth around 1500 gold of free stats
Straight forwards and effective. You deal a bit of dmg to a target enemy, and it then heals you. Nothing special. What you have to look out for is his crimson rush. When you have used two q's, you get crimson rush for 2.5 seconds, which turns your
Transfusionfrom a bit of an annoynce, to ******** terrifying. It increased the damage by 85%, and heals you for 30-200 more hp depending on your level, as well as 5% of your missing hp. This percentage increases with your ap. NOTE: THIS BONUS HEAL IS ONLY 1/3 TIMES AS EFFECTIVE AGAINST MINIONS
This is a very interesting abillity, and the most interesting one
Vladimir has. You become a pool of blood for 2.5 seconds, at the price of 20% of your current hp. Now, that is disgusting and probably unhygienic, but lets not focus on that. When you pool you get a short surge of movement speed, you are untargetable, and deal dmg to enemies who stand above you, as well as slowing them and healing you for a bit of the damage you deal.The damage part is barely worth noting, and the healing part even less so. You max this last so the dmg is already low, and you rarely find yourself in a position to actually get under someone to use it. That being said, you can use it to get of some clutch
Thunderlord's Decree
, since it deals damage several times.A FEW THINGS TO NOTE: WHILE YOU ARE UNTARGETABLE, DOTS LIKE
Ignite STILL DOES DAMAGE.IT TAKES AROUND 0.5 SECONDS BEFORE YOU ACTULLY BECOME UNTARGETABLE, IN OTHER WORDS IT ISN'T INSTANT, SO YOU HAVE TO BE REDY TO USE IT.
YOUR CRIMSON RUSH IS ON PAUSE WHILE YOU POOL. SO IF YOU POOL WITH 1 SECOND LEFT ON CRIMSON RUSH YOU WILL STILL HAVE 1 SECOND LEFT ON IT AFTER YOU COME OUT OF YOUR
Sanguine Pool
Early game this is not that strong. The damage is decent, but it takes up alot of hp, takes 1.5 seconds to charge up which gives your opponent time to react and has a long cooldown. This also slows you down when you channel it. When you channel it you increase the damage and if let it channel to full it also slows everyone it hits.
TWO THINGS TO NOTE: IF YOU USE
Sanguine Pool WHILE CHARGING Tides of Blood THE CHANNEL WILL CONTINUE AND YOU CAN REALESE IT WITHOUT LEAVING YOUR POOL.SECONDLY IS THAT IT WORKS A BIT ODD FOR AN AOE. RATHER THAN DEALING DMG TO EVERYONE IN THE AREA, IT SENDS OUT A BUNCH OF PROJECTILES IN ALL DIRECTIONS. ENEMIES CAN BLOCK THESE BY TAKING THE DAMAGE. IN OTHER WORDS, IF A CHAMPION IS STANDING BEHIND A MINION, THE MINION WILL TAKE THE DAMAGE FROM YOUR
Tides of Blood BUT ALSO BLOCK IT, SAVING THE CHAMPION FROM TAKING THE DAMAGE
This is the ultimate ability of
Vladimir but oddly enough it's not nearly as strong as taht would imply. You instntly mark everyone in a fairly large area. Enemies marked take 10% increased damage for 4 seconds, after which the marks pop. They deal dmg to everyone marked but also heal Vladimir for every champion marked. However, this heal per champion is 50% weaker for following champions. In other words, if it would heal you by 200 dmg for the first champion, it will only heal you by 100 for the second, third, fourth and fifth enemy hit.NOTE: NOTHING TO NOTE
Runes
Focus on scaling
Vladimir early game is by no means weak, but neither is it the strongest. You should focus on scaling runes to favour your early game.Glyphs
Not many other viable options.
Scaling ap
Simply work best with Vladimir.Marks
MR penetrtion
can be switched out forScaling ap runes
I like mr penetration marks for a slightly stronger early game. Your other scaling runes are enough that you can spend a bit on the early game.Seals
Scaling health runes
again work best with Vladimir. You can switch them out for flatflat Armor runes
orflat mr
if you feel you are at risk early game.Quintestenses
Here you have a few options, actually.
Scaling ap
for max dmgMovement speed
for kiting and backline divingScaling health
for more tank stats.If you are going Burst
Vladimir then I recomend ap quintestenses for more burst or movement speed for easier diving.For sustined dmg
Vladimir I recomend scaling hp so you can stay alive longer and deal out more dmg over time, or movement speed for easier kiting
Masteries
Note
No matter if you are going burst or DPS
Vladimir you should always put 12 points into the Resolve tree, since
Runic Armor
and
Insight
does so much for you compared to just putting 12 points into either ferocity or cunning.Keystones
Fairly ovbius.
Thunderlord's Decree
is for more bust and should be taken on burst Vladimir while
Deathfire Touch
gives more sustained dmg and should therefor be taken on dps Vladimir. Like I said, fairly ovbius.Cunning
Intelligence
vs PrecisionFlat penetration falls off pretty hard after just one mr item. And since every champion has a mr item they can build (
Maw of Malmortius),
Intelligence
simply scales better. It puts your Transfusion and Tides of Blood at a 2.75 second cd, which is a sweet spot where you can pretty much always be using an ability: As soon as you've used your Transfusion your Tides of Blood is up, and when you're finished casting Tides of Blood your Transfusion is again of cd. Dangerous Game
is the strongest late game mastery.
Bandit
doesn't do much for you, and
Greenfather's Gift
is unreliable and doesn't scale as well since you can't guarentee you'll be able to use it. Merciless
since you have no use for
Meditation
Assassin
since you have no use for
Secret Stash
and
Runic Affinity
does litle for you outside of prolonging potential baron and dragon. Savagery only does something for you if you suck at farming and need the extra help. If you're not,
Wanderer
is simply better.Ferocity
Piercing Thoughts
since you do magic dmg. Battle Trance
is my prefered mastery on pretty much everyone.
Bounty Hunter
is unreliable and
Double Edged Sword
is risky. Vampirism
cause you already heal so much, why not heal for even more?Neither
Expose Weakness
,
Fresh Blood
or Feast work super well with Vladimir, but i like
Fresh Blood
for a bit stronger harass early and Feast only in super hard matchups for a bit more sustain. Sorcery ovbiusly, since you use spells and almost never auto attacks.Resovle
Unyielding
gives a bit of a boost to the defences you build, not that you build alot, but its something.
Recovery
gives you a bit more sustain, which you dont really need, but I geuss you can take it in super hard matchups if you're afraid of getting bullied early game. Explorer
is pretty situantionall but is great for baron fights in the river or fights in the jungle.
Tough Skin
is good to help a bit against early game trading, while
Siegemaster
helps alot if you're expecting that you'll be defending under your tower alot. Runic Armor
8% heal increase simply does more for you than veteran's scar 50 hp. It scales better and even gives you theoretical hp in the early game by healing back more dmg. Insight
goes super well with Vladimir since he becomes so much more scary with Ghost or Flash. Perseverance gives you sustain you don't really need, and you dont build enough defences for
Fearless
to pay off.
Items
Vladimir and dps Vladimir is fairly diffrent.DPS Vladimir focuses mostly on just staying alive with all your heals and dealing dmg over time
Burst Vladimir focuses mostly on pure dmg to burst down squishies wiht your massive AOE
These are the items YOU ALWAYS BUILD
Even after the pretty recent
Vladimir to pass up on. Giving both hp and ap is great, and since you have so low cooldowns you can pretty much always keep the slow on.Also, since
Vladimir is a very immobile champion without summoners rylai's crystal sceptor helps keep ppl in range of his Tides of Blood while he channels it. I don't recomend building it first item though after the ap nerfs, since you lose alot of dmg unless you want it to kite someone like Tryndamere. Alos, the components aren't the best.
This also gives amazing stats for
Vladimir, has a low price and the active synergies well, letting you wait for your Hemoplague to pop for the heal (it heals you through zhonyas active) or to wait for the cd on your Transfusion or Sanguine Pool to make it out of a tight spot.FOR DPS
Vladimir
This goes well with tanky
Vladimir, since all your healing, tank stats and low cooldowns gives you ALOT of time to apply the DOT, and the stats are also very nice. Ofc, this also works very well with Rylai's Crystal Scepter.
I don't recomend building this on burst
Vladimir since you lose alot of dmg, especielly after they nerfed all of his hp scaling. However, when you're building for dps the added tank stats and sustain works great to keep you alive and let you keep pumping out damage. The stats works great for Vladimir, so does the passive and all the parts that build up to it( Kindlegem and Spectre's Cowl) work well with his early game.
ONLY if you need 10% more cdr and you need defences against melee. You lose alot of damage and the hp regen passive isn't the best on vldimir since you already heal for alot. This is a super niché item as it is, and it is even more niché on
Vladimir
Against like three mr stacking tanks void staff does great since dps
Vladimir is already meant to dent them the hardest. However, against squishies that build only one mr item, like Guardian Angel or Maw of Malmortius I personally find that Rabadon's Deathcap does better. But, for those you generally go burst Vladimir anyways.BURST
Vladimir
Gives amazing stats for
Vladimir and the active is also really good. It gives you extra mobility on a low cd, that you can use while in Sanguine Pool, to get into the backline. But, there are also some special tricks that make it even better. The explosions apply the Rylai's Crystal Scepter, making it even better for cathing up to people. In lane, you can combo it with a crimson rush Transfusion, which not only lets you get in range of them, but also applies
Thunderlord's Decree
for a very strong and quick damage combo in lane.
You get this simply to max out your burst. Not much else to it. You build it mainly on burst
Vladimir and as a last game where your high ap makes it more effective.
I prefer this on
Vladimir over Spirit Visage due to the increased damage. Since you like to get up in peoples faces the passive is easy to use and the stats are a great mix of pretty good amount of damage mixed with a bit of defense and utility.And lastly
Why always
?
It's for the simple reason that you NEED 40% cdr at least for
Vladimir to get to a sweetspot for your rotations. If you choose to get Boots of Swiftness or Mercury's Treads you need to get that last 10% cdr from another item. Like building Spirit Visage instead of Rabadon's Deathcap. In almost all situtions Ionian Boots of Lucidity is simply best, but if you already have a plan of exactly how you're going to build before and you get 40% without boots, then sure. But you're giving up alot for it.Also, note that the summoner spell cd reduction is very good on
Vladimir, especielly if you're building burst Vladimir
How to actually play him
Early game
Early game your
Transfusion is your best friend. It's your main source of dmg and your main form of sustain. Use it pretty much whenever it is of cd to heal as much as possible, and keep getting crimson rush to try for a stronger trade against your opponent. Note that the purpose of vladimir is not to dominitate laning phase. Rather, it is to scale and hard carry late game teamfights. So focus on farming and healing over killing. But, you do snowball very hard, so against certain macthups (mostly gankplank you can definetly look for some kills. Your Sanguine Pool makes towerdiving very safe since you can reset the tower aggro, and heal a lot of the dmg you take.HOWEVER, early game, your cooldowns are horrible. At rank one, your
Transfusion has an 8 second cooldown, which is not too bad but since it main power comes from crimson rush, it's closer to something like 16 seconds. Your Sanguine Pool has a 24 second cd and your Tides of Blood has a 13 second cooldown. But, these cooldowns get alot better with each rank.Because your ultimate is not as strong as it is on alot of other champions, level 6 and 11 is not your big powerspikes. Rather, your powerspikes is at level 9, where you have max ranked
Transfusion and one point in Hemoplague, and level 13 where you have max ranked your Tides of Blood and two points on Hemoplague.Mid game
Your mid game is where
Vladimir starts to get strong, but you still have some ways to go. Mainly, you should focus on dealing with the enemy frontline with your Transfusion but save your Tides of Blood and Hemoplague. At this point in the game you already do enormous amounts of dmg to squishies when you get off all your spells on them, especielly if you're building burst Vladimir. But, you are not super tanky. If you go in to deep and get focused you will die as you are very vurnable without your Sanguine PoolIn general, you should be grouping. But, if you are super fed splitpushing is also an option. Once
Vladimir is fed, it's hard dealing with him for a lone enemy laner, since he can harras well, has strong all in potential, sustain and is good at towerdiving. BUT, only when you are snowballing and your team is doing so poorly you can not with teamfights even with you there.Late game
How you play out late game teamfights depends on how you built. For burst
Vladimir, your main mission is to look for flanks and instakills on enemy squishies. Your tankiness is that good, altough you heal for alot, and you dont penetrate tanks that well. As burst Vladimir, summoners are your best freind. Burst Vladimir without summoners is scary, but can have hard time getting into the fights due to his low mobility. But with Ghost, Flash - or worst of all, both - he is ******** terrifying. A Vladimir using Ghost is so hard to peel off, and even harder to run away from unless you have a blink or jump. And it's even worse if he flashed into your face, or flashes to catch up to you.For dps
Vladimir your job a bit diffrent, however. You focus on tanking damage, healing up while still dealing a large amount of damage. But rather than focusing only on killing squishy backlines, you focus on dealing damage to whoever is available. Using Ghost to hard dive and insta kill the backline is not importnt, rather you can afford to hang back a bit more and deal dmg to the tanks. Since you also have such low cd's late game, you dont really lose any important spells focusing the tanks.
yuuum
Vladimir Guide
That time of the month - Freelo time. Top lane Vladimir guid
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