Vladimir Guide

[GFreak45]

Vladimir is a unique champion, rather than mana his abilities use his health. His primary ability, transfusion, has no cost, life steal, and a low cooldown once leveled, making cool down reduction a must have for this sanguine champion. Generally with the right runes Vladimir can attain 40% cooldown reduction 15 minutes into the game, making him deadly and almost invincible.

For an exact copy of my build including runes, items, masteries, and ability leveling click here

The following are Vladimir's abilities:

• Crimson Pact [Passive (Utility)] - For every 40 health, Vladimir gains 1 ability power, and for every 1 ability power, Vladimir gains 1.4 max health. This passive is most useful using items like Rylais, that provide health and ability power at the same time.
• Transfusion [Offensive (Targeted)] - Vladimir drains the targets blood, dealing 90/125/160/195/230 (+0.6) damage and healing himself for 15/25/35/45/55 (+0.25). This ability has a cooldown of 12/10/8/6/4 seconds. The best part about this ability (aside from no cost) is the fact that the projectile starts at the target, dealing damage instantly. This means that last hitting minions and champions is extremely easy with this ability.
• Sanguine Pool [Offensive/Defensive (Instant Cast Radius)] - This ability provides for great escapes and early tower dives. Vladimir hides himself in a pool of blood for 2 seconds, making him untargetable, during this time he deals damage in a small aoe and slows anyone trapped in the pool. If that wasn't enough, it also provides the ghost-like ability to walk through minions and champions. This ability deals 80/135/190/245/300 (+[15% of bonus health]) damage over the duration, lifestealing 12.5% of the damage dealt, however this ability costs 20% of Vladimir's current health, so it is better to be used at low health.
• Tides of Blood [Offensive (Instant Cast Radius)] - This ability is the only one with pure cost and no life steal other than Vladimir's ultimate. It deals 60/90/120/150/180 (+0.45) damage in a radius slightly larger than Sanguine Pool, and applies a buff on Vladimir, increasing the damage and health cost of Tides of Blood by 25%/stack, and increasing Vladimir's life steal and regeneration by 8% per stack, with a maximum of 4 stacks. This ability is best used late game, when the increased life steal and regeneration can maintain the cost of Tides of Blood
• Hemoplague [Ultimate Offensive/Utility (Targeted AOE)] - Hemoplague applies a debuf to those hit by the cast, increasing damage taken by 12% for 5 seconds. Upon expiring hemoplague deals 150/250/350 (+0.7) damage. This ability costs 25% of vladimir's current health unfortunately.

These abilities, in my opinion should be leveled in the following order:

• Transfusion - (1/3/5/7/9)
• Sanguine Pool - (2/4/8/10/12)
• Tides of Blood - (13/14/15/17/18)
• Hemoplague - (6/11/16)

Tides of Blood is leveled last because of it's primarily negative nature. The others have some sort of positive effect for Vladimir.
Item Purchase Order:

• Boots - start with boots and some health potions because with boots you can land a transfusion on your opponent every cool down, making for easy early game.
• Boots -> CDR Boots - 15% cooldown reduction is huge early game, paired with runes and masteries this puts you near 30%
• (Optional) Mejais Soulstealer - Generally this is good for Vladimir because his early-mid game is very very strong, allowing him to snowball rather easily.
• Spirit Vissage - This item provides health, magic resistance, cool down reduction, and increased healing/regeneration. This is a perfect item for vladimir and should be purchased as soon as possible.
• (Optional) Hextech Revolver - This will be needed eventually but it can be purchased later, this is wonderful for adding extra sustain to Tides of Blood, allowing you to get it a little earlier.
• Rylais Crystal Scepter - This is a must have as well for vladimir, the slow is great for landing his ultimate after a Tides of Blood, as long as the enemy is grouped up. The bonus health and ability power also works in perfect unity with his passive.
• Will of the Ancients - This is actually a very cheap item (only Revolver + 900) and the utility of 30% life steal aura is great.
• (Optional) Rabadon's Deathcap - this item, while it must be purchased at some point, is not required early on.
• (Optional, 1 of the following, later mejais can be dropped for one):
  • Abyssal Scepter - Magic resist and penetration is great for vladimir to become a little tanky and still do more damage.
  • Lichbane - Transfusion should have a 2.4 second cooldown, allowing you to nearly maximize Lichbane damage.
  • Any Tank item (Thornmail, Guardian Angel, Force of Nature, etc)
  • Rod of Ages - this item actually provides more health than Rylais Crystal Scepter, but no slowing effect, this is a good late game item to add more health to Vladimir's already enormous pool.

My build:​

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Its actually rather cheap, totaling: 13,040 gold​

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Summoner Spells:

• Ghost [Preferred] - Helps for getting past a turret without being hit once via Sanguine Pool and for great escapes.
• Flash [Preferred] - For the same reasons as Ghost
• Ignite [Optional] - Some Vladimir's choose ignite because they feel they are stunted in damage, which is somewhat true, but a good Vladimir will make up for the slight disadvantage by being unavoidable.
• Heal [Optional] - This is a great early game spell, but just that, mid-late game this almost heals nothing compared to Vladimir's normal sustain. Get this more for support than the bait option.
• Exhaust [Optional] - This is probably the last option for Vladimir, as it is not a great one, but it is ok for leveling with vlad if purchased early.

 

[GFreak45]

Reserved for videos I make on vladimir

 

[s3rius]

In case anyone's still interested in those:

Hemoplague ..
This ability costs 25% of vladimir's current health unfortunately.

This isn't true. I don't think it costs any life.

I usually start boots+pots on vlad and almost always build a Will of the Ancients first, followed by magic pen boots.
The WotA gives you incredible staying power, if you're doing well you can farm an entire deathcap without ever going back.
Once you get (at least) the hextech you can start using your E spell to farm. Before that it's too much of a hp waste.

I am absolutely not a fan of Mejai's. Vlad is powerful enough to not have to rely on cheap snowball items. If you play him well you'll kill almost anyone, if you don't play him well Mejai's will only hurt you more.

If you lane against melee enemies like Galio you can excellently harass them with Q and last-hit with your normal attacks.
Last-hitting with auto attacks is pretty damn hard at first, though. So you'll need some practice, but it's worth it.

In late laning phase you have enough hp / hp regeneration to constantly keep the stacks on your E. Just use E everytime the buff is 3/4ths gone. Fully stacked it packs a nice punch and you can really punish your opponent for sticking his head out of tower range.

Don't hesitate to use your pool when you have to. If you're overextended and get caught by a jungler like Panth/Alistar/Nautilus you can try to pool the moment they use their stun/charge attack.
But against junglers like Nocturne or Riven you have to be extra careful and maybe pool earlier. Notcurne's fear doesn't get canceled by pooling, so if you pool that late he can still fear your into your death. Same goes for Riven. She's fast enough to stay with you until you get out of pool, then she'll just stun you.

 

[2-P]

Dunno where you copied the ability tooltips from but they are outdated.

And that skill order is a complete no-go. R > Q > E > W with one level in W at level 2.

 

[X-maul]

I would have to agree - And also Vlad scales very good with spell vamp?
I always start with a Hextech revolver.

 

[GFreak45]

I got most of this from the league sight, i checked everything with the abilities, i guess they must not have updated it. >: (

And as far as the leveling goes, w is much better for early ganks than e, e is a plain cost ability, and if you rush cdr and rylais, you dont really have the sustain for it, but you get the q spam, whereas if you rush wota you dont get q spam but you can use your e, and like you said Q > E... most people only use their w as a defensive ability, when its not, the damage it deals actually scales pretty well when you have rylais and spirit visage, making it deal more damage than ~2 Es, and it actually lifesteals without rushing wota Great for dives and getting some extra health when you are low (costs nothing then and the vamp is pretty good)

E is ok to get, but that is your choice and depends on your build, this tutorial explained my build and a way that i know works when playing vlad. Iv played vlad in about 200 games and a good portion of those i carried with this build. (I saved for him when leveling and went from 14-30 playing him)