VLADIMIR - HIGH HP/AP Build

Runes:

- Marks = Mark of Insight - Magic Penetration +8.55
- Seals = Seal of Fortitude - Health +48.15
- Glyphs = Glyph of Focus - Cooldowns -5.85%
- Quitessences = Quintessence of Insight - Magic Penetration +5.67

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Masteries:

Offense:

Deadliness
Archmage's Savvy
Sorcery
Arachic Knowledge

Utility:

Spatial Accuracy
Good Hands
Perserverance
Haste
Awareness
Greed
Utility Mastery
Quickness
Intelligence
Presence of the Master


Granted most of you will notice that the majority of the masteries in the Utilities List are all Mana regen, or +Total Mana, this is useless for Vladimir as he doesnt use or have Mana. This is why i've used as little Masteries relating to Mana as possible.

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Skill Build:

Transfusion

- is obviously the first skill you need to learn, this is your bread and butter for laning or going solo in mid. Without this your screwed, it will keep you in mid for a long time or laning for a long time which gives you the advantage.

Sanguine Pool

- now at first i use to learn this and Transfusion till they were maxed then learn Tides of Blood, however after a few more matches i've come to realize that it was a waste till midgame.

Tides of Blood

- ive recently come to learn using this and Transfusion till level 10 it a good way of farming, this skill will help you clear those minion lines fast, as well as give you the last hit on multiple minions in mid or your lanes, which means faster gold gain and item builds. Dont spam this, save it only for when there is 2+ minions low enough to kill with it. Not only that, when enemy champions try to push you and get within range quickly use Tides of Blood followed by Transfusion and watch them retreat. It hits them so fast it looks like your Tranfusion has hit them for WTF amounts so they back off. The advantage of this is that it also hits your minions too so you gain gold whilst protecting your lane. When combined with a Tranfusion you gain back some of the lost HP you spent using Tides of Blood which is what makes this combo so effective.

Hemoplague

- as with most Ultimates this one needs learning as soon as you get the clicker to + it, its what turns battles before your enemy team even know it, chances are they are too busy fighting and spamming right click to see it cast and then all of a sudden they lost 1/2 their HP you follow this up with Sanguine to slow them finish Sanguine in the middle of them and use Tides of Blood = WIN! - finish the rest off with Transfusion.

1 thing i'll add on Hemoplague, LEAD WITH IT. The start of a group fight is your best chance to catch all their Champions in the AOE of the skill which means they will all take huge DMG this then splits their team because some of them will think '**** RETREAT' and others will think 'SCREW IT DEATH OR GLORY'.. meaning you turn the tide of battle in your favour, its pointless saving this for the end of a group fight because chances are by then its too late for it to make a difference. With Sprint you can always chase them if they try retreating, but you cant use a skill to get all their champions back into a group.

NOTE: DONT BE AFRAID TO USE THIS, ITS GOOD FOR MAKING CHAMPIONS RETREAT OR RETURN TO BASE TO RECOVER THE LOST HP, BY THE TIME THEY GET BACK ITS ALMOST BACK UP AGAIN.

Advice on most optimal use of these skills?

- Tides of Blood
- Transfusion
- Tides of Blood
- Transfusion
- Sanguine Pool
- Hemoplague
- Transfusion/Ignite - or both if needed.

Reason for this

- Spam your Transfusion or Tides of Blood to keep enemy champions at bay and also to lower their HP leading you up for the gank, i'd advise using Tides of Blood first as this drains hp and doesnt give you any back, follow it up with Transfusion and regain some lost HP.

When enemy champions are around 40-50% HP you can attempt to go in for the kill, remember, always save Sanguine Pool for Escapes if your going Tower Diving, and especially if your up against Ashe or a Stunning Champion.

Pool will dodge pretty much every Stun/Slow you can think of Sion/Taric/Xin Zhao/Ashe etc So be prepared to hit that button to avoid the attack.

Or you'll be lying in a POOL of your own BLOOD.

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Item Build:

This is a tricky one, because depending on how your doing depends on the items you purchase.

Purchase the following, in the following order.

Ruby Crystal
Spirit Visage - as this decreases cooldowns and increases healing % it helps your Tranfusion drain more HP, Endgame your Transfusion will drain and heal you for 250+ HP per Drain with this build on Minions, it has similar Drain on Champions depending on their Mag.Pen.

Boots of Speed
Sorcerers Boots - this gives you your much needed speed but more importantly it gives you Magic Penetration, and this is the key stat on your items in this build, it means that your spells actually deal the DMG they state, if your enemies MR is higher than your Mag.Pen then your skills do reduced DMG and thats not good.

DECISION!
- If at this point of the game your doing well and arent dying often or at all then its time to get a Mejai's Soulstealer, dont get this if your prone to dying even if your getting lots of kills, its not the kills that count its your Death Ratio, at 20 stacks 1 death = -6 Stacks, which is 3 kills or 6 assists to regain.

I find if your not dying often and even if your not getting kills [which is unlikely] you will gain +5 - +8 Stacks per group encounter, so 2-3 group fights and its full.

Mejai's Soulstealer - with Vlads AOE's its easy to rack up kills on this.
Void Staff - +70 AP and +40% Mag.Pen.
x2 Rylai's Crystal Scepter - High AP, HP and Slow on your Magic Skills.

OR

Replace a Rylai's with a Zhonya's Ring for the Invincibility.

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Summoner Spells:

- Ghost: This is a must have, this is what allows you to tower dive, kill the enemy Champion and get away without dying. So get it and make use of it. Activate this before you rush in, then rush in Hemoplague them, Tides of Blood, Transfusion, Ignite then Sanguine Pool your way out of there. If you get slowed you should retreat imediately.

- Teleport: I originally use to use Ignite however it wasnt very practical after Mid-Game, so instead use Teleport, this can be the difference between your enemy gaining an extra level on you OR the prevention of an enemy Champion killing one of your Allies at their Tower or the Tower itself.

Saved a Tristana about 30mins ago from writing this when she was pinned at her Tower alone against another Vlad and Shen and she was only on 1/2 HP, i teleported up there, Hemoplagued them Transfusion/ToB/Sanguine/Transfusion and both of them fell and Tristana just survived with 50hp. Thats how useful this skill is.

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EARLY GAME:

You wanna take Mid, Vlad isnt good in lanes due to his lack of CC skills and spammable skills its not until level 9 when you've maxed Transfusion that you can actually push a lane be it Top/Bottom or Mid, you just dont have the DMG or the Slows to do it. Cooldowns are your biggest issue at low levels, so dont even think of rushing to gank someone, chances are you'll only end up dying and feeding. You need to be aware of your surroundings and the capabilities of the Champion.

Anyway, take mid and just run around last hitting minions for the Gold, you can also use your Transfusion if the enemy Champion isnt pressuring you, if he/she is then save it till they attack you at which point USE IT, make sure your skill goes off AFTER theirs, this ensures the DMG they deal is somewhat recovered by Transfusions Drain, dont be eager to use this skill before they hit you.

Continue to level and level up your Tides of Blood to help you last hit multiple minions for easy gold. Transfusion > Tides of Blood > Transfusion > Tides of Blood.. till level 5, then at level 6 you want to pick Hemoplague and start using it on the enemy champion just to give him food for thought, and to make him resist pushing you.

REMEMBER - Do not over-extend for a kill. People dont realize that First Blood only gives you 400g, but if you die and you or your partner dies then you gave their team 300g/600g. Meaning you've gained little to no advantage.

Ideal Situation: You kill both their Champions and dont die in the process. This means your team is now 400/700g up.

Unless you can kill someone and escape safely and know you can get away then my advice is dont even try it. You might kill their Champion but as i said if you Die then you've given them the gold you just got and they didnt work for it. Also your team is now -1 Champion and at no advantage.

DO NOT PUSH when your level 1-5, chances are they will escape to their tower and you'll have wasted alot of mana/hp trying to kill them.

You wanna be waiting till your at least level 8-9 before trying to push someone, when you hit them with your Transfusion and it takes off like 1/8 of their HP they will think twice about messing with you, and this also allows you to dictate the state of play too.

EXTRA NOTE: ALWAYS, keep an eye on your Mana/HP and the cost of your Skills before you engage, trust me ive charged at enemies and almost killed them hit my Ultimate Key and NO MANA or NO HP to cast it or just enough HP to cast it but it leaves me as Tower Fodder.

YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE IN THAT POSITION.

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MID GAME:

This is where Vlad Shines, once level 9 with maxed Transfusion you dont need to leave lanes unless your buying an item. He can stay in a lane for so long without even needing to upgrade items due to Magic Penetration Runes/Flat HP Runes and your Transfusions Drain, 2.63sec cooldown at level 9 when maxed.

Make sure your team-mates know what your planning, give them time to prepare and use MARKERS to indicate 1 target to attack. 3v2 or 2v1 should result in at least 1 person dying. If it doesnt then you sir are a noob of Mc.Noobington-Town.com

At this stage you should have Mejai's or Warmogs at least. Now you will be working on your Zhonya's Ring.

Keep arranging Ganks with your team-mates and place a Ward near the Dragon at the Bottom of the Map so you can see anyone trying to kill it and you can usually get a free kill from there.

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END GAME

At this stage you should have at least all 3 of their nearest towers down as well as some 2nd tier towers if your doing well. You should also have Zhonya's Ring and 1 Ryali's Scepter, or at least working on it.

If not then you need to do some serious farming of jungle mobs or large groups of minions in the lanes.

If their team is grouping up then you really need to stick to your own group and stay together killing that Dragon at the Bottom of the Map + Baron if you can.


IF: Your totally having a bad game and they outlevel/item you then you need to stay solid in your base and fight off the waves of minions till your equal level/items. Its alot easier to defend with towers around than in the middle of the map where Ganks can happen very easily. Know your surroundings, in your Base no one is coming from behind its all from 3 possible directions, push out the Minion waves and they are then your eyes and ears for possible attacks.

When you kill some of them/all of them you now need to firstly push all lanes, have 2 champions pushing Top/Bottom, and 3 in Mid pushing their towers, once they are due to respawn you need to get your ***es back to Base and wait for them to come and they will. Then you rinse and repeat the above, i've just finished a game as i write this where by we'd lost all 3 outer towers and were outleveled/geared, but using this method we leveled up and steam rolled them time and time again, i had 20 stack Mejai's and was engaging the fights first with Pool which dealt a whopping 1000 dmg in 4 secs to all their Team, then i finished the pool back into my group used Tides of Blood for 800-1000 DMG and then Hemoplague for 1000-1200.

Never died once when i had the 20 Mejai's and my Item Build. Unless the enemy champions use Mandreds your home dry.

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EXTRA NOTE:

1. MAP AWARENESS, no matter what people say YOU are responsible for watching the map and the enemy Champions locations, DO NOT RELY on others to do this for you.. because chances are you will be disappointed because some Champions you play dont allow you time to PING the map or type Miss.

2. DO NOT BE GREEDY, if you have no need for a Buff Scroll then dont take it, unless its on the Enemies side, then take it to stop them getting it. ALWAYS Help your Team-Mates kill the Scroll Monsters, but never deal finishing blow. 15-25% you should be walking away from that monster to prevent the so called 'accidental auto-attack' which is an excuse i dont buy.

3. WORK AS A TEAM, dont go off soloing because chances are the reason you went soloing is also the reason the enemy team will gank you and make your team -1 Champion.

4. HELP YOUR TEAM, the best thing about Vlad is that he can slow all their team without taking DMG and save potentially your entire Team from death, dont be afraid to sacrifice yourself to save your entire Team, just make sure they know to run and not turn around and fight, because if they are running away in the first place then the enemy team has the advantage and with you dead they will easily pick off your team.

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I'll add more if i think of it and make changes as and when i see fit. Feel free to comment, but if your just gonna hate then go die in a fire.