Vladimir Build Guide by Dagnirraugon

Introduction

First off, I'm a newb to making Moba builds, so if someone could tell me how to make the item build highlight the things I want it to that'd be great. Now, on to the build:

I know most of you are probably thinking "Wtf 5 Deathcaps?" please read the full guide before hating, I do explain why it works, on Vlad only.

Note: As Vlad, your team should give you mid. If you're with Kass, Urgot, etc, do not play Vlad. He's useless on a side lane due to no power till level 7/9.

Pros / Cons

Pro's:
-Fun Champ
-Never dies if played right
-Still does lots of damage
-Team-helping kill-stealing ult
-One of the most exploitable passives in the game

Con's:
-Due for another nerf?
-No CC
-Weak till level 9, Long CDs early game

Spells

Transfusion
This is your bread and butter spell. It has low CD, no cost, good damage, healing, and no cast time. This makes it good for last-hitting minions and harassing champs, plus you can farm yourself back to full health with it late game.

Sanguine Pool
This spell has high cost and fairly low damage, but slows and makes you untargetable and impossible to hit with projectiles like Giant Crystalline Arrow. It can be used:
1. To escape
2. While waiting for CDs to finish in a fight
3. To chase
4. To avoid just about anything bad (i.e. CCs, Nunu's ult...)
5. To tower dive
Save it for a time when you need it, it has a long CD but it will save your but in ganks, and it's not worth using for damage most of the time anyway.

Tides of Blood
This AoE is useful for a number of reasons:
1. Low CD
2. Good damage once you get buff stacks on it
3. Great for farming
4. increases healing on Transfusion
5. Also hits stealthed enemies, and because of the animation, that lets you know where they are.

Hemoplague
Another good AoE, but this one helps your whole team! The debuff allows you to kill just about anything, and it works for your whole team! Kinky! That pesky Teemo flash away with 40 health again? No problem! Just watch and wait.*

*Watching and waiting will only work if said Teemo still had your ult debuff and has health under what it'll deal when it goes away.

Summoner Spells

Cleanse Necessary to free up the spot that would be Banshee's Veil or Quicksilver Sash on most champs,

Exhaust Good...cause it just is. I shouldn't need to tell you why it's good. Really guys...

Teleport Not usually too usefull on Vlad, you should be playing safe and pretty much only last hitting until you have an obvious oppritunity for a kill or gank, so you shouldn't need to hearth for health often.

Ignite A decent choice on Vlad, but not as useful as Exhaust or Cleanse.

Ghost Good on Vlad, could use for this build instead of Exhaust.

Flash See above. And Ghost is better than Flash most of the time.

The rest: No. Just no.

Runes

For runes I have 9 Greater Seal of Health and 3 Greater Quintessence of Health to help boost AP to 30 and health to 700 at level one, due to his passive, 9 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist for extra magic "effective health" through the whole game, and 9 Greater Mark of Magic Penetration cause 1)MPen is always good, and 2) there are no better primary Marks on Vlad.

Masteries

This is pretty obvious.
1, More health.
2, More AP%, which is essential.
3, Better CD on Cleanse, kinda handy.
4, MPen%, always good on AP. And some all-around better survivability.
9/0/21 would also work due to a lack of boots and CDR in this build, but this is what I'd go with.

Items

Start with an Amplifying Tome and a Health Potion to boost health to 700 and AP to 30 right off the bat, then get Boots of Speed.

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Core Build

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Mejai's Soulstealer If your team is utterly failing it may be a good idea to postpone this or switch to build 2.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity Any boots will do but these work well now that the CD on Transfusion is bigger.

Rabadon's Deathcap Highest AP in the game + nice passive

Hextech Revolver Temporary item for Spell Vamp. A Spirit Visage wold work as a good alternative if you're against a magic-heavy team.

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Optional Items

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Replace revolver and boots with these if necessary.

My personal choice for normal solo-queue is to stack Deathcaps on every slot except your Soul Stealer. The passive doesn't stack but they're the highest AP item in the game except Soul Stealer by 40 and Soul Stealer's passive also doesn't stack.

Rylai's Crystal Scepter is just plain good.
Anything in build 2 is good on Vlad if you're looking for a more normal build.
You can also try putting in Warmog's but the HP/AP scaling in his innate isn't very good.

Other options:

1.
Better survivability.
Mejai's Souolstealer
Rabadon's Deathcapx3
Abyssal Mask
Zhonya's Hourglass

2.
Even better survivability.
Mejai's Soulstealer
Rabadon's Deathcap
Will of the Ancients
Spirit Visage
Abyssal Mask
Zhonya's Hourglass

3.
Cause why not pretend you're Fiddlesticks?
Mejai's Soulstealer
Rabadon's Deathcap
Will of the Ancients
Abyssal Mask
Sorcerer's Shoes
Haunting Guise

Laning

As said in the intro, if someone else takes mid, choose another champ. You may have problems against Kassadin, Urgot, Fiddlesticks, and Anivia, but not really anyone else. Just try to stay away and farm if you're against one of them, and if your team is too derpy to help you gank their lanes it might be good to switch to build #2 or at least postpone the Soulstealer. Assuming you're not against one of them, here's what you do:
Be passive aggressive. If they come in range, drain 'em and get back. Otherwise just stick to farming minions. Do not push, just let the minions do the work and then last hit everything that you can. Also, Transfusion works great for last hitting. Once you get to around level 7 (and have your SS) it's about time to start poking at them a lot more often. Remember, you can probably heal more than them at this point, and you don't have to worry about pesky mana starvation. At level 9 you get rank 5 Transfusion, so now you can start raking in the kills. For the first couple kills after you get SS, it's worth dieing if you can kill them too, cause you get stacks for that. Free AP ! =)
At level 10+, spamming Tides of Blood is a great way to harass and farm, but it does deplete your health if you're not careful.
This is about where team fights should start breaking out. What's your role? Drop your ult and start spamming Q and E. Do not use Sanguine Pool until necessary, it will save your life at least a couple times throughout the game.

Build #2

Same strategy, just less risky, lower damage, more conventional.

Summary

Overall, you should end up with 4000 health and over 1000 AP, which means your Transfusion deals almost 1000 damage on a 3.3 second cooldown. Don't believe me? The build entered in Leaguecraft Champ Builder