Followup on vlad post rework thoughts and proposed changes to vlad to help realize the character mor

Hey guys back again with my followup thoughts on how to better address vlad seeing as how the last small buffs have once again put him over the top for competitive and high elo play, this is in followup to this post here I did yesterday https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/tng9iUr7-will-vladimir-need-another-rework-down-the-line Going to be proposing some number updates and a moderate sized rework (about same size as the one a year ago in the MYMU) hope to hear your thoughts on them.

Points of the changes: 1.Offer a unique aspect that only vladimir has access into his kit, vlad overall doesnt have many unique aspects when brought into a team comp other than his damage amp on his ult which is something only vlad has, however its not all that noticable in power and honestly doesnt have a meaningful outcome, if the damage amp was the breaking point of killing someone or not in his kit, the goal wouldnt change all that much since if they lived they would be around well 10% or less effectively removing them from the fight to begin with only difference is their backing and healing up as opposed to dead but the outcome is the same. Theyre not contributing anymore to the teamfight or the map since they have been removed.

2. Spread out vlad damage pattern to make him more healthy and have more opportunity to be played around. This part is EXTREMELY IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND WHY VLAD DOMINATES PRO PLAY

Pro play values a lot of what vlads kit is able to accomplish overall and thats able to be articulated in 2 forms 1.Reliability and 2. Burst damage

Lets start with Reliability. Pro players love reliability in a kit because the factors to make the character much more consistent and easier to pull off, since they have to be very adept at several champion in their role having their ability to perform the function of a champions kit becomes much more easily accomplished when getting the power out of their kit is very streamlined and simple to accomplish.

Now lets move onto Burst Damage: Simply put its always been very highly sought after in a lot of professional players and this is is true across several games where youll typically find a pattern of frontloaded damage having more impact than sustained damage to be able to perform very well when it comes to burst damage simply due to the fact that more coordinated players are able to stack burst damage and take our targets in teamfights or in ganks/roams.

As a result vladimir having access to both these aspects into his kit makes him very problematic in the differing outcomes in solo que at the average player level and in professional play where by statistics we can see a sharp contrast in how vladimir is addressed in power.

Now lets look at how this would happen in game to put both these 2 points together by looking at a vladimir damage combo in a teamfight. Vladimir will combo in this way to get the maximum power of his kit unlocked Q-E-R-W-E-Q-Zhonyas-E-Q-E-Q-W-E-Q this is typically with max out cdr how vladimir would combo with his kit having as little downtime in damage output possible, but notice whats actually happening when you break it down to what hes pulling off in his kit.

Vladimir is throwing out 4 qs 2 of which are empowered getting off his ult which 2 e-q rotations are benefiting from the 10% damage amp all while being INVULNERABLE for 6.5 seconds while throwing out his damage combo. This is where his damage pattern has a massive gameplay problem of having frontloaded damage which is unique to his kit overall for a battle mage as most of them have a toggleable ability and none having access to straight up untergetability (excluding karthus but only when hes dead so its very situational) that gives vlad all the benefits of the battle mage class of having much more damage reliability in his kit as is comes at the cost of range being lowered to pull it off, however the game has long moved past this as a more exploitable weakness due to the need of a frontline in most comps which obviously make team comps range much shorter. But the dowsides of having being vulnerable while his damage is on cooldown isnt a actual weakness with 3 times to go invulnerable or 2 if its a much shorter teamfight which makes being to play against vlad significantly more difficult since you straight up cant actually exploit him as they are required to cc and keep him a arms length both of which cant happen if you cant impare movement.

Alright now that im done getting my point across of what makes vlad so popular in higher levels of player and addressing both his lack of unique strengths as a kit other than just tanky,damage,high kit based survivability all of which battle mages have which isnt that special to be honest which just makes vlad being pick not based on strategy but "if his numbers are there we pick him, if not hes not worth it" which isnt healthy for a champ overall.

Lets go into the proposed rework I thought up and reiterating what the goals will be and how at the end of the changes they will directly reflect these goals 1. Spread out damage pattern 2. Make it more unreliable than it is currently 3. Adding higher overall payoff to reward to executing the kit well and adding more skill expression. 4. Make vlad have a unique function in his kit to reflect his blood based theme and expand on what it means to have a mastery of blood magic. 5. Make vlad have to interact more with his opponent in lane and make him less pve by avoiding the enemy champ and just sustaining off creeps and afk farming. 6. Make vlad damage output based on more factors to make playing agianst vlad much less avoiding 1 aspect to beat him. 7. Fix vlad having the issues of ekko last season of doing way to much damage for building heavily tanky, you want to do damage? Ok but you gotta build it.

OF NOTE: These will not have numbers listed in his kit these are gameplay concepts however some aspects I list might change damage or healing output but will not list the exact number as im uncertain of what would be balanceable. Annyways lets get started

Passive: Hp to Ap and Ap to Hp conversion untouched, Its not that exciting part of his passive but functions well in keeping vlad focused on building ap to survive instead of mixed ap and defense like most battle mages, vlad survivability will scale off ap more than almost all other battle mages in the class. New: Crimson rush: Crimson rush is now a 0-100 % meter that vlad gains by draining the healthy of his opponents based on how much the meter is filled vladimir will get a %based amount of increased healing. However this comes at the cost of his hp spent on abilites to be increased by the same amount. When the meter is filled out vladimir will have the crimson rush rapidly decay while giving him a moderate movement speed that decays rapidly over the duration while giving him a PERSONAL damage amp (damage amp gets removed off ult) which allows him to interact with his abilities of which will all interact with this passive, when the crimson rush is maxed out vladimir can extend the duration by using his spells to sustain himself and crimson rush but will decay faster after the normal length given.

Q Transfusion: Unchanged in that its still a point ad click damage and heal spell, however fills up a % of the crimson rush when used on a enemy champion or large/epic monster and a much smaller amount of not only the crimson rush but also the healing when used on a minion or small monster. If under the effects of crimson rush vladimir can hold down the q button (similar to warwick q) and end the crimson rush buff in exchange for bonus healing based on how much % was left in crimson rush (gives vlad players more options to how long they want to trade and have to make smart decision making of their new resource). Would also id imagine reduce healing off minions and increase on champions to force vlad to take risks if he wants to keep up his sustain over not being able to be punished for taking a bad trade and making him interact with the opponent.

W Sanguine Pool: Staying the same in how it functions works well with his kit and is iconic to vlad. However vladimir will have more healing if used offensively under his opponent and will generate crimson rush Removed: Bonus hp ratio Added: Ap ratio Goal here is to take unecessary power out of vlad building bonus hp and him getting damage off ap which will have better synergy since vlad will be rewarded more so for using it offensively which once again adds more risk but higher payoff

E Tides Of Blood: Ability stays the same since its fair and fits well with the changes I feel will help balance vlad out, however were adding something new. New passive: All abilities that are used on enemy champions are marked with vladimirs blood. Being marked on its own has no affect whatsoever but will interact with vladimirs new ability "Bloodlines Harvest" New Ability: Bloodlines Harvest. When vladimir Tides of blood is on cooldown he can activate Bloodlines Harvest on cast (same range as tides of blood) will draw their blood to vladimirs ball as he channels over a 2 second duration the blood tethering will increase as the duration goes on to show whos affected (and will have a tether range for both vlad and his opponent like leblanc). Vladimir can cancel this spell at any time ending the channel and damaging all the opponents in its radius and healing vladimir based on how many champions or large/epic monsters were affected and how long they were tethered to vladimir (crimson rush % increase would be based on this amount id imagine there would be a cap specifically due to how many targets can be affected). Heres the exciting part, if vladimir channels Bloodlines Harvest successfully for the full duration after the damage dealt and healing to vladimir occurs ALL TARGETS affected will be unable to heal by ANY MEANS POSSIBLE for X duration (not sure if level based or ability level based) this would include lulu,nasus,renekton ult Etc as they too function as heals in the same vein. If vladimir opponents walk out of the tether at any time or vladimir gets cced to where he would be unable to continue channeling (stun,taunt,silenced etc..) vladimir will not deal any damage whatsoever to the targets and not heal at all.

Ult Hemoplague: Staying the same in how it works as it helps vlads kit out and allows for burst healing and makes his damage output delayed which is much more healthier, also vlads ult has been one of the least problematic aspects of him and never heard anyone say it functions poorly, also hemoplague is a great name. Why change a name that cool sounding? Added: Each enemy champion damaged by hemoplague when it 'pops' will restore 20% of vladimirs crimson rush, this number im almost certain of since landing a best case scenario of a 5 man ult allows you to have crimson rush ready to go when you enter the fight giving you as vladimir a strong reward for a multiman ult, also vladimir will apply his mark passive on his E when initally affected by the ult, they are not required to take damage for the mark to appear. Helps solidify as making this vladimirs initiation spell for trading/all ins. Removed: Damage amplification, solely just to remove vladimirs power of the amp to himself as vlad is a more selfish based champ and still keep it intact to keep core aspects intact to vlad. Also was moved to passive incase you forgot. Change to the ult here was mainly to bring it in line with how other hyper scaling mages work in that their ult only enhances their base kit where most of the power lies, since his ult by design doesnt keep a low cooldown having the power shifted into his passive and Bloodlines Harvest keeps his ability to have more uptime on power accessability in his kit especially more notable as the game carries on and less so in the early game helps streamline vladimirs scaling identity this rework would be trying to accomplish. Alright now that my changes are out there for you to get an idea lets see how I think my changes would address in my eyes what vladimirs issues are and how specifically they help address them.

1. Spread out damage pattern I think this was pretty addressed by making his damage combo outside of his ult spread into 3 abilities and adding more emphasis onto his pool both of which his pool and the new ability fully channeled over 2 seconds which is definitely makes his combo spread out much more than it is on live

2. Make it more unreliable than it is currently: This was done by his new ability being able to be stopped by walking out of it or ccing him ending the spell which thus makes being able to outplay vlad much more possible than it would be on live also having vlad damage pattern be more spaced out by design makes it more unreliable as more factors can come into play for the enemy to deny vlads damage or not take the full wrath of what this kit has to offer.

3. Adding higher overall payoff to reward to executing the kit well and adding more skill expression This was done by having this new kit being able to have vlad players more focused around managing his new crimson rush as well as a new ability which makes vlad players have to get accustomed to make makes vlad having to choose being in range for such a long time worth the damge/healing output.

4. Make vlad have a unique function in his kit to reflect his blood based theme and expand on what it means to have a mastery of blood magic. Bloodlines Harvest reflects having a good hold of this, as well as crimson rush vladimir being able to deny healing to his enemy really reflects his theme of blood as it relates directly to life and health of which a master of it seemingly would be able to deny, as well as making crimson rush more dynamic makes vlad able to get much stronger of "overloading" himself with his opponents blood.

5. Make vlad have to interact more with his opponent in lane and make him less pve by avoiding the enemy champ and just sustaining off creeps and afk farming. Having vlad healing come more from using abilities on his opponents makes his super safe laning much more unreliable or matchup dependent which would help vladimir to have strong laning impact be reliant on putting himself in trading distance of most of his opponents due to his short range on account of being a battle mage.

6. Make vlad damage output based on more factors to make playing agianst vlad much less avoiding 1 aspect to beat him. This point was to fix vladimir current issues of his opponent having to basically dodge crimson rush bonus damage and healing to win lane vs vlad, having a lot of his power more spread out in his new ability and making crimson rush more dynamic of a buff and aspect to his kit makes playing against vlad and beating much less binary than "dodge q when lower bar is red:

7. Fix vlad having the issues of ekko last season of doing way to much damage for building heavily tanky, you want to do damage? Ok but you gotta build it. Having vlad damage go by a % increase makes vlads damage output much more noticable when building more ap as opposed to tankyer builds, also swapping the bonus hp hp ratio to ap on vlads pool and making it more offensive based makes tanky vlad much weaker in terms of damage output, as well as making maybe base healing value lowered and healing off of ap higher.

Well glad you made, any feedback and your thoughts are greatly apprecaited as well as looking for blood based themes for the new E passive and ability added on, if you got one ill change it to your suggestion if I like it. Anyways thanks for reading this far and have a good day!

EDIT: Curse you riot for having my title be 1 character to long so I guess its mor and not more like it should be XD!