Use Tides of Blood to farm, pretty obvious.
Use Transfusion to get the last hit on minions you can't get with your auto attacks and for harass.

never use W to farm minions, you'll need that for escapes and slowing down/nuking escaping victims

Getting hextech revolver as your first item means it will be nearly impossible to push you out of lane.

Hextech revolver is described above, it's simply the best early game item for vlad.

go kindlegem next, it builds into spirits visage, and on its own it gives you health and CDR. Easy enough

Spirit's visage makes your healing abilities 15% more effective as well as being a good counter to the magic damage you'll be taking. Most of the damage you take in general will be magic damage since more often than not, I can avoid focus with vlad through positioning, pooling, etc.

CDR boots are the best for vlad, It used to be much much worse but Vlad still relies on cooldown times not mana.

Deathcap - best AP item, nuff said

Rylais - Gives you health, ability power, and slows the enemies you hit with abilities... yes please


Zhonya's Hourglass - it's great if you DO get jumped in teamfights or ganked etc. Also it givves you a good amount of ability power and armor making it a great defensive item.

Voidstaff - AP, Magic pen. Nothing confusing about this pick.

WORTH NOTING
sometimes i pick up gaurdian angel if a team has a particular appreciation for me

IF YOU ARE FACING ENEMIES THAT CAN SILENCE YOU

Grab quicksilver sash. drop zhyonas for it; build it after Will Of the Ancients. If you are silenced you lose your damage and your survivability.

My runes focus on giving vlad Early game potency.

The health helps quite a bit and scales to some helpful AP.

The CDR helps a LOT early game before you have your build rolling.

R - Use this right away on as many enemies as possible. it buff's everyone's damage on the enemy and the beginning of the fight is when your team will be blowing their big guns.

E - keep moving using this ability, and learn the range, try to hit as many people as possible with it (common sense) spam it as often as possible, it buffs your Q

Q - use this on the focused target or whoever is overextended etc, sometimes I pop this on the tank if he's the only one in range and i need some health ( your cooldowns should be pretty managable at this point so it's not really a waste)

W - Use this as an escape from focus, To dodge ultimates, you can pool while snared! I love this ability.
Also what separates the good vlads from the bad is that bad vlads will never use this offensively. I'm not saying pool into dumb situations, but when it's smart it's a great slow/ damaging / healing spell AS WELL as a beastly escape.