I literally don't play him for this reason. It's torture for me trying to cs with his AA's on early lvls, I just don't want to put myself through that shit. Otherwise, I like the champ, his lore and everything but god damn, that AA animation is just so bad for me. He swings his arm for so long and he has like 40 AD so you have to time it perfectly, it's torture. It tilts me so hard.
Lights And Magic17 votes
Mecha MaIphite26 votesWhat do you mean? His auto may be delayed, but it deals decent damage in an AoE. It just costs a bit of mana to use.
TurquoiseYoshi19 votesAnd then he has that one free ability that does no damage and is slower than his auto. I don't know why Riot put it in the game.
Dark Nephthys15 votesVlad's AA is nothing near as bad as 
. Before you say use her ultimate, her pre-6 is so bad at last hitting and even when she gets her ultimate, the mana cost on it is very high and would easily run your mana down. At least Vlad can just spam his E and clear waves and he doesn't use mana so he can just rely on his skills to cs.
Axis the Dragon2 votesIn Vladimir's defense, though, Riot did, at some point, update Anivia's animations, which made last hitting less of a personal form of torture and more of a major annoyance. It's still a bitch and a half, but it's no longer rage-inducing. xD
Kitten of Evil1 votesOn the plus side you can use Blackfrost Anivia for a slightly better AA animation. On the minus side, Blackfrost Anivia also has a more obvious tell about when you're about to use E. Tradeoffs.
For Carthage2 votesSo? You want the enemy to know just how fucked they're about to be.
See the fear in their eyes as a single ability takes out half their health.
You like that, TF? You pansy little bitch... Try to hit another Gold card I dare you.
Olath Quortek9 votesAs far as I can tell his weak AAs are both intended and healthy for him; between his Q and E being such good farming and sustain tools while also being good poke he needs weak AAs so that he isn't even more oppressive even earlier in lane. But yeah they do kinda suck... XD I would suggest simply farming with your Q as much as possible and occasionally using E on a siege minion or multiple nearly dead minions if your having trouble. I play him on and off. Sometimes I'm really good at last hitting with AAs and feel free to harass with abilities and other times I suck at it and revert to buying cdr early and farming solely with abilities trying to throw AAs at the enemy laner in between casts.
For Carthage9 votesBelieve me. 
is worse.
So. Much. Worse.
Everyone who ever tries to get into Swain:
"Oh, hey. My passive restores mana on minion kill. Should be pretty easy to sustain in lane! Good change from (insert AP champ here)."
Three auto attacks later.
http://img.pandawhale.com/90857-mother-of-meat-god-gif-G6Xx.gif
Joek91001 votesI think swain's AA is awesome. It's just a small fireball shooting forward at a perfect pace, not too fast/slow. I think it goes Anivia>Poppy>Vlad>Alistar. I think it's pretty hard to AA with vlad but nothing you can't get used to.
Boulderox5 votes
says: ahahahhaaa
Rot Panda2 votesthe harrier animation being longer than her AA animation is the bane of my attempts to do well with
SpecterVonBaren5 votes No one in the entire game that isn't a support has a harder time farming than Swain.
SuchSwagSuchweed4 votesHe has good wave clear and an ability which gives him sustain, damage, and has a low cooldown. Karthus has garbage auto attacks but he has an ability which helps him last hit just like Vlad.
Troll for Trump1 votesKarthus is designed as a farmer, Vlad isn't, and Vlad is a good last hitter, but way worse than karthus. Even in lategame, still way worse. Karthus can just E QQQ and blam, wave cleared. It costs nothing if you have blue, and if you get the E right, you get mana back to the point where you can spam. ANd lategame, he definatly can spam. (Dolan's+E passive)
Baron of Bread2 votesLate/Mid game farming for Vlad:
EQE, cleared. Unless you are ahead, then it is EQ.
Slamurai Jack4 votesYes, that's the point. If you want to save your Q for the enemy laner all lane long, you'd better learn how to last hit with autos. Most people don't really consider it but Riot does give champions the auto animations they have for a reason.
EK Kimozzi3 votes 
are my hidden weapons also my hidden cancers...
YumaS2Astral3 votesI don't think that Vladimir's auto-attack animation is necessarily horrible. It is just that his base AD is really low, and this difficults CSing early. If Vladimir had a higher base AD, CSing with him would be easy. But since Vladimir is meant to be weak early game, I think that Riot would keep his base AD low.
Nebuul3 votes"I wish that I had Vladimir's auto attack."
-Karthus
dcman9112 votesit's called balance, late game Vlad can just demolish people. And he is still a tank, so his early game has to be rather weak.
ItsGflow2 votesk
Talandirath2 votesTry playing Swain
option paralysis2 votesYep, played Swain couple of times too, all I remember is that I got salty as fuck missing CS.
Does anyone maybe have the Blood Lord Vladimir ? That skin is pure badass and the voice acting is awesome, does the AA animation feel different on that skin ?
Kitten of Evil1 votesI have it and I love it, and I feel like it has a better AA animation, though it has been awhile since I played him. I know I didn't struggle as hard to CS with him as I did with, say, Anivia or Taric.
It Hertz When IP1 votesIt FEELS different, but as far as I can tell it's the same delay.
Ipols2 votes pls.
I miss 2k Gold every match because I try to use it
magic pole1 voteshaven't played vlad but 
are also up there
I really really like swain but am so reluctant to play him because of that shitty AA. the damage is pitiful in addition to the weirdly timed windup
maybe run AD marks XD
in any case i guess it will help if you don't push the wave, i.e., don't auto attack whatsoever unless it's for a last hit
Squarefighter5 votesVik's aa is so smooth tho.
Swain's feels terrible, I'll agree with you on that.
Baron of Bread2 votesAs someone who likes Swain, Anivia and Vlad I can vouch for Viktor (who I also play some) having amazing AAs.
Squarefighter1 votesAfter 150+ games of vik this season in ranked + norms, it was really difficult for me to get back into other mages with slower aa's like 
JimnorRain1 votes[deleted]
It Hertz When IP1 votesIsn't he dead?
TurquoiseYoshi1 votesThey're pretty bad, but he has good manaless abilities to make up for it.
One the other hand, (<- pre-6) 
And probably others.
Marinaras Trench1 votesanivia isn't that bad after a few games
TurquoiseYoshi1 votesStill far worse than Vlad.
Lady Hammerlock1 votesi think fighting a good vladimir is cancer........
My Waifu Vanilla2 votesI believe the term is leukemia
Solidair31 votesIt is like that by design.
Vladimir is a champion who once he hits level 7-9 has 0 difficulty farming. His AA being slow and cumbersome is a design point and he would likely have to be nerfed if they made it more responsive.
OneSmoothDude1 votesI've never really understood why people think champions have "bad" auto attack animations, gameplay-wise. Every champ is the same: you click a target, they have wind-up, they attack. Sure, Vlad's base AD is weak, but I feel like that's entirely intentional and should be obvious. It's more difficult to last hit minions as Vlad, yeah, but again, that shouldn't make his auto attack "horrible."
Is it the animations? I can tell that Tahm has a "nice" auto attack with how he winds up and the sound it produces makes it feel more powerful (there was a dev blog post about this topic less than a month ago), so is that what everyone means?
It Hertz When IP2 votesIt's the delay between the start of cast animation and when the damage registers. THe longer it is, the harder it is to time last hits.
Vexful1 votesMy first main for years was Rumble. Understanding that Rumble is not having that much fun with the current bullcrap toplane (Darius, Fiora...), I got into Vlad again. (Manaless, huge aoe ap damage, pretty tanky like rumble). Been having a lot more success on him than Rumble since the Darius and Fiora changes. Since Rumble farming blew freaken balls, farming on Vlad for me is rather easy.
Gorgannan1 votesOnce you get CDR, you can use his Q to harass and still last hit with it.
I think he's supposed to be gated from farming early, as he can insta-clear waves after 1 item.
Used To Main Zed1 votesIf you think about the Champion, Vlad'ss AA animation makes no sense. He is a vampire and vampires suck blood, they don't throw it. Why is Vlad throwing blood at his targets?
What if his AA animation was reversed so that every attack was drawn from the target and flies towards Vlad? It would make more sense he is stealing life.
And given his character is that of a blood sucker wouldn't it make sense to give his auto attacks some form of sustain? Say mKe every AA heal 1hp? Or heal 7% of his bonus HP from his passive on hit?
Sire Hippington1 votesI think fopr certain mages, haveing hoorid AAs for lasthitting is a form of balanceing. Vlad is already annoying to deal with as melee top, no manacosts, ranged, infinit sustain, trollpool, absurd scaleing... If he now could easily farm early on or weave in AA-harras more easily, it might get a bit to much.
LostSoul6661 votes basicly never even had auto's until his framerate got sped up. But his Q is still far better.
J Eevo1 votesAs with everything else, you get used to it. It doesn't bother me as much after playing a few games, though I did have experience from playing 
