Hello everyone and welcome to my first guide here in mobafire :) I hope you will enjoy it. Keep in mind that this is a guide which i think is the best for ranked games and it is more focused on the late game without forgeting about the early game.

So without waiting, lets begin this guide !!!!! :)

You must know something before reading more about this guid : what kind of champion is vladimir ?

We can say that Vladimir is a carry AP champion who has the ability to regain health with his spells and do mass aoe damage. Also, This is a great champion for the team because of his ultimate which boost the damage of your team by 14% for 5 seconds which is really really HEAVY :D :D

Most of Vlad's spells requires a % of health in order to use them because Vladimir has no mana. So, at the beginning of the game, don't use your spells to much because you don't have much HP but at the end you won't care anymore.

At last we can say that Vladimir is a very tanky AP carry regarding the others (maybe not as much as swain but anyway... :P) and with this build we reinforce this capacity of off-tanking with the masteries and the items :)

Crimson Pact is the passive ability of Vladimir. That passive is really strong in the way that it allows you to be an off tank with a large amount of life which deals high damages. For each slice of 40 HP, you get 1 ability power. So when you will have 3000 heath, you will gain 75 ability power (so nearly another ability power item !!)

Transfusion (Q) : this is your main damage dealer on single targets and this ability makes Vladimir a perfect mid champ or top lane solo. While dealing a significant amount of damage to your opponent, you will steal life from him and heal yourself ! Coupling with a Hextech Revolver and a Spirit Visage, you will make your opponent want to literally kill you in real life :D

Sanguine Pool (W) : this is your primary way of escaping a gank or a bad team fight, or catching up with opponents who want to run away. While you're in the Sanguine Pool, you cannot be targeted for 2 seconds and you can move back to your tower : that is the defensive approach of this ability. The offensive one is that it gives you a little boost of speed which allow you to catch up with the running away opponents and you can slow him down for 40% of his speed.

Tides of Blood (E) : your main aoe damage : this skill will make you a really easy farmer and you will be able to hurt ennemies so badly. This ability can stack for 4 times. Each time it makes more damage to every ennemi it encounters. When you feel that a team fight will occurs any seconds, you will need to charge up this skill in order to make the most damages you can (some people will say that doing it will makes you lose life before the team fight but it worth it because the health you're gonna lose will be nothing whereas the damage you gonna gain will be enormous !!).

Hemoplague (R) : finally Vladimir's ultimate. This ultimate is what makes Vladimir such a great AP carry in team fights. This ultimate makes EACH CHAMP of your team deal 14% more damage on affected targets and at the end it will explodes on ennemies for a significant amount of damage. Nothing more to say : this ultimate is a blessing !

Some of you may find these masteries very unusual for a carry AP. The main spe of carry AP is usually 9/0/21. This is a very good spe but Vlad cannot go this way and need a strong 9/21/0 to be really optimal, and we will now see why :


- First, lets remind us that Vladimir is kind of an off-tank for your team so you will need to be resistant.


- Then, the more life you have, the more ability power you will get. With this build you will have around 3000 HP, which will make you +75 ability power (and it is an AWSOME boost \o/)


- Vladimir is not a "nuker" like Veigar or LeBLanc, he makes many damages with the time (when you need to charge up your Tides of Blood, and when you need to make damage with your abilities during your ultimate) so the more resistant you are, the more time you will stay in the team fight, and the more damages you will deal.

So lets see first about the runes.

+0,95 magic penetration. This is THE best rune for Vlad regarding the Marks and there isn't any other options for me :)

Greater Seal of Vitality +1.08 health per level (+19.44 at champion level 18). According to my opinion, this is the optimal seal for vladimir. With his passive (converting health point into ability power and ability power into health), this kind of rune will give him health AND ability power at the same time ! Vlad need both of them in order to off tank and to do maximum damage to opponents who want to mess with him ! :D

-0.65% cooldowns. For the glyphs, you have the choice between 3 kinds : Flat ability power +0,99 ability power) which will give you a significant advantage on your opponent early game because your abilities will do good damages very soon in the game ; magic resist per lvl +0.15 magic resist per level (+2.7 at champion level 18)) if you're going more tanky because you have many squishies champs in your team, and finally the CD reduction. With the nerf of Transfusion i talked about sooner in the build, you will need to reduce your CD because vladimir is counting on his low CD to make more damages. So with these runes, the boots and the masteries, you will be able to have a significant amount of CD reduction.

For the Quintessences, you have 2 choices :

+1.89 magic penetration

or

+26 health

These two Quint are for me really opti for Vlad. You will have to choose between them if you prefere more pv and ability power or more magic penetration. It's up to you guys :)

Regarding the Summoner Spells, there is not much to talk about. According to my opinion, you have only 2 spells which are viable :

Flash and Ignite

Flash is for me the best way to escape (and when you are an AP carry you will eventually need to escape many times :D even with the resistance of a Vladimir) and the best way to enter/get out a team fight.

Let me explain. When you play Vlad, you can't be like Caitlyn or Malzahar far from the team fight and snipe opponents. If you want to hit all the enemy team with your Hemoplague, your Tides of Blood, and your Sanguine Pool, you need to be right in the middle of the fight ! So if you're a bit late on the team fight, don't hesitate to flash in and do what you got to do, because you will be able to escape with your pool anyway.

Then the Ignite is a really really nice summoner spell for vlad because of his ultimate Hemoplague : it will makes your ignite 14% stronger and let's not forget that a carry AP needs to deal the most greater damage he can !

Ok now one of the most important part of a build : the items and the combination you can create to optimize your champ.

Lets just remind us that no games is alike and you may need to change some items regarding what kind of champ you have against you, which enemy champ has been fed, and how good you're doing in the game.

- The starter items : Boots of Speed and 3 Health Potion. When playing Vlad, you will more than often get a solo lane (mid or top lane) and with this stater items, you won't have to come back to your base very quickly. You will be able to farm a long time and with the boots you will be able to harass and be less vulnerable to the enemy gankers.

- The first come back to your base : buy a Hextech Revolver. Try not to come back before but when you get the 1200 gold you need to buy it, don't stay, tp back and come back with it. This is the item which will makes you farm like hell and harass without having any fears.

- The second come back : after farming like hell with your Hextech Revolver, you will need 1550 gold to come back and directly buy Spirit Visage. These two items combine makes you really really good in early and mid game because of the resistance, the AP you will get, the CD reduction, and of course the life steal !

- Then let me explain to you why i decided to take the other items most of the time in my games :

Ionian Boots of Lucidity : Why these boots and not Sorcerer's Shoes ? Well when your CD of Transfusion was at 3 sec it was nearly more profitable at the time, but now with the nerf ( Transfusion has today 4 sec of CD instead of 3 sec), this is not an option : you will absolutely need the CD reduction.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter : This is one of my favorite item for Vladimir and the most optimal regarding my opinion. It gives you 80 ability power, 500 HP (so a bonus of 12,5 ability power), and the power to slow enemies with your abilities which combines very well with your Sanguine Pool.

Rabadon's Deathcap : The main source of ability power for AP carry champs. Each AP carry needs it and Vladimir is not an exception : you need to deal more and more and more and more damages :D

Will of the Ancients : This item is the transformation of your Hextech Revolver. If you can, play with another heavy carry AP in your team and make your ally take a Will of the Ancients too so the passive can be combined and both of you will have an incredible life stealing. A "must have" for Vladimir !

Void Staff : Finally, my last item ! Why is it necessary ? It is quite simple. Without the Sorcerer's Shoes, you will have a lack of magic penetration, even with the +0,95 magic penetration and the +1.89 magic penetration. So if opponents buy some magic resistance to counter you, you're screewed without the Void Staff.


But as i said earlier, you will certainly have to change some items in most of your games because you always need to adapt to the team against you !!! Don't stick on a build in each games you play or you won't be a good player :)

Ok guys it is time to see how you must behave in your lane.

As i said earlier, you will need to take the mid or top solo lane and Vlad is one of the best character for this job so if your team tells you to go bot this is kind of weird :)

You will have 2 attitudes in your lane and it will depend on the enemy aptitude to harass or not.

The first one : Just farm and don't care about the opponent

Vladimir is a great farmer at the early mid and late game. At the beginning, don't hesitate to spam your Transfusion on minions and not on the enemy champ ! It will be sooo easy for you to get last it with this spell so abuse of it ! In general the farm is way more important than getting a kill or 2 because after in team fights you will have a good dps with your high quality items. Don't try anything stupid and just focus on the farm and last hit : its really simple for vlad.

When you get back with your , you will be able to spam Tides of Blood too to farm more minions at a time because it will not cost you as many HP as before.

The second attitude : prevent the champ against you to farm

The ability of Vladimir to regain HP with his transfusion makes him really strong at harassing early game and annoy people in your lane.

You will want to wait until lvl 3 though to have your Transfusion at level 2 because the first rank makes no really good damages. Keep pressuring your opponent, don't let him farm : you can regain health but he can't !! (but careful of the enemy jungler : don't go too far in his side or you will get ganked !)

For this technique, you may look at your opponent's items because many of them will pick a Doran's Ring or a Doran's Blade and that's your sign of harassing : they won't be able to regain life so make them weep and push them to back early. You will then have the entire advantage on your lane psychologically and this is FREEEE FAAAARMM :D

The team fights are really important for you and your team is really counting on you because you're a heavy aoe damage dealer. IF you screew this up you have many chances to lose the fight :D

First the engagement. You CAN engage a fight but you DON'T WANT TO. Let me explain. With your Hemoplague and then directly using your Sanguine Pool you will engage quite well because most of the time you'll scare the hell out of people and they will want to back a bit. But this is not the way to play a Vlad. You must do that exclusively if you don't have ANY engage or if the context is in favor. You're objective is to make heavy damage and survive. With engaging that way, you don't optimize your dps with the 14% bonus damage of your ultimate and you use your Sanguine Pool directly, so if you are focused you're just dead :D (even with flash up).

What do you need to do when a team fight breaks ?

- Always (and when i say always, i mean ALL THE TIME :D) use your ultimate Hemoplague first. A team fight is over in about 5 seconds so you will need to make the most benefits you can from the 14% bonus damage.

- Then use your Transfusion on the focus you decided before the fight with your teammates. With the 14% bonus damage this will really hurts ! :D

- Use your ignite on champs who can heal themselves like Warwick, Udyr or another Vladimir, or on the focus because you really want to make sure that he is DEAD AND HIS CORPS IS LAYING ON THE GROUND ! :P

- After this you will want to do massive aoe damage so you will have to use Tides of Blood. Like i said earlier in my build you need to charge this ability up to 4 charges before the team fight.

- Finally use your Sanguine Pool so if you are the enemy focus, they won't get to target you and you will be safe and will deal significant aoe damage for 2 seconds.


I will not tell you how to engage a 1 to 1 fight or a 2v1 because it really depend on the context : where the fight occurres, what kind of champ is challenging you to a fight to the death (:P), what kind of items you have and he has so this is really impossible to tell what kind of ability to use first but most of the time you will do the same as the team fights ;)

Ok that's it for my guide. I hope you enjoyed it !

Please leave some constructive comments below and test it before voting :)

Ask as many questions as you want, i will gladly answer them and if we can make this build even more constructive this would be nice !


So GL & HF to all :)

And lets not forget :