Vladimir has a bug that prevents him from using his abilities as he comes out of his w. This leaves him targetable but unable to retaliate for a period of roughly 1 second. You'll see it in action if you use w and then try to use q or e afterwards.
You can get this issue to occur anytime you use w, and may or may not be as a result of the new patch.
No, I think this is before the patch. I've actually been having probs with my main as well (Vladimir.) I actually just got out of a match with a similar problem. I zhonia'd, & although I may not have made it, it bothered me further (since it wasn't like the 7th time something hadn't gone off with Vlad) since after Zhonias, I used "W," and . . . . . . . . . . . Nothing! Then I get stunned, & die. There was also a similar instance, where I Zhonia'd, & it didn't activate, so I quickly used "W," & then I heard Zhonia, as I had done Sanquine pool, & like always, you are immobile while in zhonias, so my pool was stuck, & Blitz, & Diana were able to kill me with like no health, because after pool ended, I didn't rise out of the ground, because of a delay, & when I did, I couldn't move. I typed in all chat "wtf? Diana, did you see that? that was bull, but okay." and she replied: "Yeah what happened?" I told her I was going to kill them both with "E" when I came up, but it bugged out. also instances were I almost died because of something not going off, usually q, or e, & I've had to spam "E" just to kill the enemy, or "Q" just to get the health from a minion, or enemy to survive a dive. Will these bugs get noticed? I honestly don't know. To them it may just depend on how often it happens, or how game breaking it is. Otherwise, suffer pretty much.
I logged in to comment on this. As a Vladimir main, I have to say, this has always been a problem, just never addressed. It's quite annoying, and it's just one of the many things that come with playing Vladimir.
One thing that has always bothered me is a full rotation of spells early game will not kill anyone. R-E(4 stacks)-Q-W- and MAYBE another EQ off and the ult goes boom, nothing. I have always been an advocate of having his ult do SOME sort of initial damage before going boom, kind of like Morgana I believe. Small buff, but I'm sure it can have a meaningful impact.
And to all that say Vladimir is an OP champ, just remember, W costs 20% of his health and is on 20+ second cooldown and is countered by pretty much anything with a gap closer and anything that deals HP% damage, which in this case, is almost any champion, and now the new grievous wounds. Oh, and he lacks damage really early on and gets chunked by anyone. If I see a Vladimir on the enemy team, sorry, it's a free lane for me, I know his ins and outs.
