Hi Mobafire and welcome to my new build, this time I made 1 for Vladimir.

This is the first time for me with the new system, so I might kinda mess it up. Anyway, i've been playing Vladimir a lot and for a very long time. He's still OP, but okay, that doesn't matter. It's the build which is needed.
Vladimir is a strong DPS AP mage which deals A LOT damage and has a good survivability. All his spells deal damage and 2 of them also heal you. Oh and yeah, he's also very fun to play with.

Pros:
- Easy farmer
- Much health
- Much damage
- Good survivability
- Very annoying slow
- Very good ultimate for your team
- Spellvamp
- Short cooldowns

Cons:
- Ignite will reduce your vamp
- 1 Stun/silence/fear/taunt and you are in troubles
- Not much CC
- After your sanguine pool your chances of suriving are much lower
- Magic resistance is needed or madreds will own you hard
- Slow movementspeed

Marks:
As everyone would do with every mage I pick magic penetration. I don't think it needs anymore explanation. Magic pen marks are just very good and there are no other good marks for mages.

Seals:
I pick AP/lvl, some might prefer flat AP, but I always like AP/lvl more than flat. There are also not very good other good seals for mages like Vladimir. Maybe if you want to want more survivability, I recommend you armor runes.

Glyphs:
I've got different options for this one. I prefer to take CDR/lvl, just because CDR is always good! If you think flat CDR is better, it is for early game. It's both good, but I take CDR/lvl.
My other option is AP/lvl. AP/lvl glyphs give pretty much AP, which means all your spells are stronger, it also gives you more max health which is very good.

Quints:
As you can see I pick health quints, you shouldn't be surprised because health quints are good with every character. Especially Vladimir, because of his passive! It gives you some AP, which is useful. You can also pick flat AP or AP/lvl, more damage and less health. Your choice. I prefer health quints though.

Since Transfusion is your healing spell and dealing a lot damage, you should lvl this first to lvl 5. Lvling transfusion will decrease the cooldown a lot! Very useful.

In lvl 2 I pick Sanguine Pool, so if the enemy wants to kill you, you can easily flee with it. Or in case you want to kill him. It's a good slow. Don't use sanguine pool on creeps. Sanguine pool cuts off much of your HP, be careful with it.

Pick sanguine pool only once, you just need it for fleeing/finishing off/evading skills. It doesn't deal much damage, so at lvl 4 you should pick Tides of Blood, it grows in damage, it will damage you more, but it's not that much.

At lvl 6/11/16 you of course pick Hemoplague. It's an awesome skill which does damage after 3 second and in that time your damage will increase 10/14/18% on the infected people.

9/21/0 is the best choice I think, the 9 points in offense are obviously, you want AP/lvl, CDR and magic penetration. The 21 points in defense gives you more survivability, I don't think there is a better option than this for Vladimir in defense.

I've been thinking and I might be a good idea to boost your summonerspells a bit. So you go 10/19/1. 1 Point in ignite and 1 point in ghost, can be useful, but no 21th point in the defense mastery tree.

As almost every Vladimir would do, pick Ghost and Ignite. is a must with Vladimir because his ulti will improve your ignite. Very useful because ignite is true damage! Same story for Swain, but who the f.. is he? This is epic Vladimir.
is useful for almost every champion IMO, it gives you much ms for a long time, pretty good I think.


Optional summoner spells
- Flash:
I wouldn't pick it, but isn't bad. You can surprise the enemies by flashing in and using your ultimate.

- Teleport:
As almost every Vladimir goes solo, you don't want to waste exp, teleport is an good option.

- Exhaust:
Useful for your team to slow and to reduce dealing damage a lot 1 champ for a short time.

- Cleanse:
Killing you will be hard with cleanse, because you also have a Sanguine Pool. But I don't think he needs it.


Bad summoner spells
- Heal:
You have spellvamp, you won't need this.

- Clarity:
Hmm.. Vladimir has no mana I think.

- Revive:
Just useless on Vladimir.

- Rally:
Right, extra AD on a AP hero?

- Fortify:
Vladimir is no tank, you don't need fortify.

- Clairvoyance:
Also useless for him, supports need CV.

- Smite:
Yay, jungling Vladimir.

Vladimir is easy at farming, he has transfusion to farm with and a good basic attack, especially for a mage.
I recommend you to go mid or solo top. Solo Vladimir is very useful late game and just very strong and annoying.

I also recommend you to try to use your transfusion on the enemy laner so he gets damage and you heal. And use basic attack for farming, if he plays safe so you can't hit him, use it on minions.
Also, don't push the lane too much! Pushers always get ganked (on higher elo), you will regret if you push. So just last hit, with some practice it can't be that hard.
When the creeps come too close to your tower you can use tides of blood to kill them faster.

I've been testing what to buy first with Vladimir, but I think an Amplifying Tome is the best choice. Why? I will explain, it gives you AP, pretty good and also a health bonus because of his passive. 40 bonus health at lvl 1 from an item what normally gives you just 20 AP is pretty good. The only bad thing about buying this item first is that you won't upgrade to an complete item.

If you want to start with another item I would go for a Ruby Crystal. A ruby crystal gives you much health and also 7 AP. Also pretty good, but the bad thing about this is, you can't buy a health potion.

Otherwise I would go for Boots, I like fast ms so fast in the beginning. Harrassing your opponent will be much easier with it and you can buy up to 3 health potions, long laning is certain. The bad thing about this is, you don't have bonus health or AP.

There are 3 core items with Vladimir; Spirit Visage, Rylai's Crystal Scepter and Ionian Boots of Lucidity or Sorcerer's Shoes.

I take because I just love CDR, more skillspam! Magic pen boots are of course also very good.

I pick for more CDR and more % heal. The health gives you a little bit bonus AP. It's also a very cheap item.

is an super item because it gives you health, which includes bonus AP. It gives you AP, which gives you bonus health. And all of your spells will slow them, that's super strong! Sanguine pool does stack with it so it will slow even more, not that much though. Eventually this item will give your 660 health and 100 AP.

My other 3 items are Rabadon's Deathcap, Zhonya's Hourglass and a Force of Nature.

The for monster damage. And it gives you much bonus hp. 155 AP and 30% extra AP is just sick, too sick imo. The 155 AP already gives you 310 bonus health, the 30% not included.

Vladimir is not just damage and health. Without resistance you can't survive long in fights, that's why there are 2 perfect items for this problem.

The gives you 100 AP (+200 bonus health)a and 50 armor. Very nice! You will have more than 100 armor at lvl 18, that's enough. Oh yeah, don't forget the active on this hourglass. You should use this before you use your Sanguine Pool, if you want to use Sanguine Pool.

Then, the . This item is just perfect for Vladimir, I think this also should be an core item. Vladimir's weakness is a Madreds Bloodrazor, because Vladimir has much max health and not much mr without this item. It will block most of the damage from it.
Also it gives you more ms, Vladimir is not a fast moving ******* so this is useful.
Then the passive of this item is also sick for him 0.35% of your max health will be regenerated every second. Vladimir's max health is very high. With this build it's about 4k hp which means you will regenerated 14hp/sec. (4000/100)*0.35=14

Optional items:

Mejai's Soulstealer:
I don't pick this one because it's K/D/A depending and there are better items with Vladimir. At 20 stacks it gives you 180 AP, 15% CDR and 360 health. Very good, but you really need the 20 stacks then.
If you buy a Mejai's Soulstealer, I would recommend you to buy Sorcerer's Shoes because you will have too much CDR else.

Abyssal Mask:
I would buy this because of the MR. The 70 AP also gives you 140 HP. And a nice aura. Just an overall good item. It's also not very expensive.

Warmog's Armor:
A very good item for him because it gives 1370 HP eventually, which means; 54.8 AP. That's very much for an NO AP item. And it gives very much health regeneration. You think, why the heck don't you buy this item? Well it's just health. No resistance at all and that's bad. You really need it.

Sorcerer's Shoes:
If you want more magic penetration you really should buy these boots. It increases your damage done on the enemies pretty much, but it doesn't give CDR. And it's a little bit more expensive.

Will of the Ancients:
80 AP for you, more spellvamp and an spellvamp and AP aura! Very good item for the team. Gives also 160 hp bonus, not much but it's something. Good item overall, also not so expensive.

I said how to play with him, at different chapters though so I will make a short list. I will also explain what to do in a teamfight.

- Try to harrass your opponent with Transfusion
- Don't push the lane
- Use Sanguine Pool only for fleeing/evading/finishing off
- When the enemy creeps push to hard use Tides of Blood

Ok but what when there is a teamfight coming? Vladimir is 1 of the most important champions in a fight. Careful for CC like stuns and such disables.
First always cast your Hemoplague first when a teamfight starts, only if you can't target 3 or more of them you can wait for a better moment. Hemoplague will help your teammates to do more damage on them.
After you did your ulti focus on the squishies and dangerous champions. Like everyone should do. No focus is no win. Just keep spamming your Transfusion and Tides of Blood. You will do a lot damage with these 2 spells, also don't forget to cast Ignite while Hemoplague has been casted on them. Try to focus someone who heals, lesser heals is more chance on killing it.
Cast Sanguine Pool only when:
- They focus you too much
- They are trying to flee
- You want to flee from them
- If your teammates are fleeing, so you can slow them.

February 2, 2011 - Patch Notes v1.0.0.110

* Sanguine Pool

o Slow percentage reduced to 40% from 50%
o Slow duration reduced to 1 second from 1.5 seconds

* Tides of Blood health cost reduced to 30/40/50/60/70 from 30/45/60/75/90
* Fixed a bug where Vladimir would lose health when leveling in some instances

I post here the changes in my build

Post your highest score with Vladimir here! If it's good enough for the top 5 I will paste it in here. Screenshot is required!


1. Hell_Pet

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Thx for reading my guide, plz rate/comment! I appreciate that. And have fun playing Vladimir, I hope it works for you!
Those who gave me good advice get credits in my build.

Cya,
Hell_Pet