I hate this cycle, rework a champ - make him broken - gut him and move on. I knew this was coming from the moment I saw his reworked kit. No mention of changes on PBE, riot doesn't want to answer on threads about him at all, nice. Also, his blood lord skin was waaay more badass before, had bigger animations and better sound on E. Now, the skin is worse and the champ has a 42% win rate. Just amazing.
RiotMeddler31 votesThe Live Gameplay team's working on Vlad buffs at present. They'll push those to PBE whenever we get sufficient confidence they're worth testing wider. Current direction involves a higher Q AP ratio and higher E ratio. To improve balanceability/counterplay we're also looking at wider E missiles (counterplay of stand behind stuff isn't working as well as it should) and having interrupts cancel the channel rather than causing it to cast at its current point. Overall goal is to buff, but while also improving enemy counterplay.
Spaceman5pff1 votesTY for stopping by :)
Niyumi27 votesPssst, if you change his E missile width, make sure to preserve his waveclear that the rework brought. Hitting an entire wave of minions with E is kind of a staple for pushing on Vlad now (and always has been). If you only hit 3-4 minions because of wider projectiles, consider something to keep his farming / pushing intact.
Zyphex4 votesThe Live Gameplay team's working on Vlad buffs at present. They'll push those to PBE whenever we get sufficient confidence they're worth testing wider. Current direction involves a higher Q AP ratio and higher E ratio. To improve balanceability/counterplay we're also looking at wider E missiles (counterplay of stand behind stuff isn't working as well as it should) and having interrupts cancel the channel rather than causing it to cast at its current point. Overall goal is to buff, but while also improving enemy counterplay.
cough buff azir please while you are buffing vlad, azir was in the dumpster before vlad was. where is the love riot? cough
Iivaitte8 votesI feel like Azir really just needs his soldiers to be permanent. and maybe make his soldiers come to him rather him come to his soldiers, that way he still has poke and that guard but losses some mobility. Which iirc is the reason hes been nerfed.
Magearna1 votesI actually think thats how he worked way way waaaaaaaaay before he was released. His soldiers came to him, not the other way around. I remember reading that somewhere so it's not like Riot would be foreign to the idea. Would be a good change.
THE RlVER KlNG1 votesBy buffing his numbers but increasing his windows of counterplay (which are already some of the largest and most easily recognizable in the entire game), you're just going to exacerbate his problems of being someone totally oppressive when his shit lines up but being a dead useless ult bot when they don't. Vlad is my second love after Tahm and I have Mastery 7 on both and I'd really appreciate to be able to make meaningful impact as Vlad now that he's been repeatedly and mercilessly nerfed. I appreciate any buff, but I would like it best if they correctly addressed the problem and sought to make Vlad more healthy, which admittedly is difficult due to both his fantasy and core gameplay elements, as well as his current kit, which I adore. I'm hopefully optimistic but I find myself growing increasingly troubled as to Vlad's journey post the MYMU, and am inclined to agree with the OP that the cycle of OP reworks and subsequent guttings are getting old.
Canastus9 votesWhat about Shen who received this brutal gutting last patch? Worlds isn't going to take place on 6.19, so why is he still allowed to exist in this pitiful state with his 45% winrate?
LatetotheRace2 votes"Pros are actually assholes" Yeah... They're inadvertently assholes, they ruin all of the fun things in life.
MrWasjig2 votesso why is he still allowed to exist in this pitiful state with his 45% winrate?
Cuz mu-muh Worlds! Muh E-Sports!
I think it's because Shen has the power to deny the LC$ Big Play$ by way of Stand United, so they had to make sure that didn't happen and ruin the spectator's experience.
http://cdn.ebaumsworld.com/picture/realadam/tin13.jpg Engage tin foil hats!
(Holy shit the downvotes, clearly the tin foil hat didn't tip people off that this is a fucking joke xD)
Masala Chai1 votesThe same reason you guys decided that Kalista and Azir should be nerfed further to sit at a 28% winrate.
HazyCloud715 votesHis kit is inherently unhealthy for the game. A champion that builds spirit visage first in a predominantly AP centric lane and has his combination of sustain + survivability + damage will never be balanced.
Old Vlad had less counterplay because of the nature of his E (and no weakened/strengthened windows of power like the new Q), but at least he wasn't unkillable.
Im not sure what changes you guys are working on, but I hope that they are geared towards forcing him to build more AP to do damage. No mage in the game should have the luxury of rushing spirit visage without severely gimping their damage imo.
Theorchero5 votesHis kit is inherently unhealthy for the game. A champion that builds spirit visage first in a predominantly AP centric lane and has his combination of sustain + survivability + damage will never be balanced.
Old Vlad had less counterplay because of the nature of his E (and no weakened/strengthened windows of power like the new Q), but at least he wasn't unkillable.
Im not sure what changes you guys are working on, but I hope that they are geared towards forcing him to build more AP to do damage. No mage in the game should have the luxury of rushing spirit visage without severely gimping their damage imo.
Old vlad was extremely unkillable, he just didn't nuke you nearly as hard.
LatetotheRace4 votesHe took his sweet sweet time killing you, and there was nothing you could do about it. Not sure which I dislike more though...
Theorchero1 votesHe took his sweet sweet time killing you, and there was nothing you could do about it. Not sure which I dislike more though...
..True.
Back when AD nid top was a thing, I used to rush Executioner's calling because it gave AD, crit, and the healing reduction passive.
If I had current EC back then vlad would never have been a problem. Perma Grevious wounds yee
Fanny Forecast2 votesWe have it... Mortal Reminder...
It Hertz When IP1 votesHe meant if he had current EC "back then", i.e. before Vlad's rework.
It Hertz When IP2 votesI feel like the removal of spell vamp and return of Executioner's Calling could have been enough of a general nerf to Vlad without a crappy rework on top of it.
BeatzBoyFTW1 votesCurrent direction involves a higher Q AP ratio
Isn't this just slowly going back to old Vladimir....?
Warlord Zudane1 votesIt might be, but if they stop halfway there then it's still changed and hopefully for the better.
Over Innsmouth2 votesThanks for popping in to reassure us! It's greatly appreciated from me and a few others I know.
option paralysis2 votesOverall goal is to buff, but while also improving enemy counterplay.
Thanks for the reply, I like seeing he's being worked on but don't make him even more clunky in the name of counterplay. I know I can't get the old Vlad back, but this one for me feels really clunky to play. First 2 Q's are trash but then the 3rd one is broken, feels bad for both sides of players. Same with his E, the cd on it is far too long for the low dmg it does in low lvls and later on if you need to clear a bigger wave of minions, you lose a lot more hp then you can heal back up. I know all that is "counterplay", but for me it's just being clunky.
XIII Vanitas1 votes
has also plummeted to 45% win rate in the jungle (4th worst in the game) after the overwhelming series of nerfs she received in the last two patches.
Any plans for her?
LoopKat1 votesBuffs...? Buffs to the champion that builds a shit ton of defenses, that deals shit tons of damage with no offensive items or nukes people with a Void Staff, and that becomes practically unkillable even against Grievous Wounds??
Being at 1,200 health (50% hp with 2,400 total health) and with only 100 AP at level 18: Vlad will heal for 453.75 health with Spirit Visage. This gets brought down to a "mere" 272.25 health if he's affected by Grievous Wounds. For an ADC to match that amount of healing, they'd need to have 400 AD + crits, which requires them to be full glass cannons that will die to one combo from Vlad. Meanwhile, he's a tank with low cooldowns and high base damage. Guess who wins the trade 99.9% of the time.
There is literally no amount of counterplay that you can add to Vlad's current kit that will make him fair to play against, let alone how absurd he'll be if you make him even stronger at the same time. You're not doing anything to disprove my assumption that the entire balance team A) doesn't actually play the game and B) regularly indulges in heavy drug use.
If you want a champion that heals for days, he can't do damage.
If you want a champion to do tons of damage, he can't be a raid boss.
If you want a champion to somehow walk a line between those two roles, then he needs very distinct periods of weakness and a gameplay pattern that actually allows opponents to make use of it.
La Barbotte1 votescan you also fix the blob of blood in his hands with he bloodlord skin ? right now its a white ball of light with a little touch of red in it, while it should be a big dark clotted blood ball
Ultîma1 votesWould it make sense to make the missile speed of E a bit slower, or simply lower the range marginally (by something like 50 units) to compensate for this buff? Vlad already has an insane up-time on his E, and getting away from him is almost impossible once he gets Rylais. It seems like Vlad should feel like an AP Juggernaut (which is awesome) but that there's very little you can do other than staying out of his range once he crosses that point in the game. Would it be beneficial to align his strengths and weaknesses along the lines of that class of characters by giving him less area of influence on his spells?
ripGarenGod1 votesAny thoughts on Garen?
Vekkna23 votesI like how they deleted WoTA to balance Vlad and then put him in the exact same situation with Spirit Visage.
Malicious Metal9 votes
(
) 
"Tell us 'bout it.."
Though they're not as badly off like vlad but still
Arakadia2 votes
?
LatetotheRace1 votesYou know, it feels to me that Shen (until just recently) was in a decent enough spot. He had the kit to protect himself from fighters 
and the ability to kill full on tanks 
Which is much better than the old -throws sword then runs away- design. Sure you can't build nuke AP so you can't chunk things, but was that ever a good design? His identity of the long range shield gank is still intact so I don't know if he's really in a bad spot at all. (again, these new nerfs are retarded and ONLY need to exist in the LCS tournament clients.)
Arakadia1 votesYup. While his kit might not be the most thematic for shen its still a much better hit then before.
AP Shen was the wierd type of fun.
invisiblecat14 votesYet he is still one of the most banned champions Seriously though he is only annoying to play against, and is not actually too strong
YumaS2Astral3 votesYet he is still one of the most banned champions Seriously though he is only annoying to play against, and is not actually too strong
Annoying or not, I wouldn't ban him at the moment. He is too weak and rarely I will face a good Vlad player in a game.
GayFluffyUnicorn1 votesWell here in diamond people rather ban Zed and other useless shit and leave cassio, nid or malzahar open which are pick/ban currently in low diamond it seems... So i know your pain. If you just go ham on Vlad with basically any toplaner (only played top against him) there is nothing he can do and he will most likely not reach that 40 min line where he gets unkillable.
FreshAsFebreze3 votesHe's a mage that showed strength against ADCs, and Riot doesn't allow that.
GayFluffyUnicorn7 votesYeah i'm actually about to make a thread about it. No matter what shitty boards say, current meta is an adc meta. They are so strong. Just yesterday i played kassadin. Lich bane, void staff, roa. 400 AP and 30 flat magic pen. Lucian just walk straight up to me and bursts me equally fast, we both flashed out to survive. I could kill him thanks to surprise R but still i can't remember any season since s2 an adc would dare to walk up to an assassin and just 1v1 and burst me even faster and harder than i did. Currentlyyou have no answers to adcs tbh. Tanks are reduced to CC bots with no dmg threats. Juggernaughts are unkillable high dmg nightmares but easily kited. Mages are strong but it is hard to deal with invisible adcs (twitch), high mobility like lucian or mf and long range, hard cc like cait or ashe. So what can u do? Assassins are in the worst spot ever and somewhere i read a comment that riot wants to rework leblanc into "less dmg, more utility". So you are kinda right, riots goal seems to be that adcs are the only high dmg champs in the game. Don't know why an assassin should have even LESS dmg and more "utility" when you have already enough utility mages.
It Hertz When IP1 votesLeona.
I land my E on an ADC, I get a free full rotation on them, meaning I pretty much have a guaranteed 3-4 seconds to beat the tar out of them, along with any ally within range. If their team doesn't immediately leap to their defense, they have to burn Flash or die, and even then if my Flash is up they still die.
FreshAsFebreze1 votesYeah i'm actually about to make a thread about it. No matter what shitty boards say, current meta is an adc meta. They are so strong. Just yesterday i played kassadin. Lich bane, void staff, roa. 400 AP and 30 flat magic pen. Lucian just walk straight up to me and bursts me equally fast, we both flashed out to survive. I could kill him thanks to surprise R but still i can't remember any season since s2 an adc would dare to walk up to an assassin and just 1v1 and burst me even faster and harder than i did. Currentlyyou have no answers to adcs tbh. Tanks are reduced to CC bots with no dmg threats. Juggernaughts are unkillable high dmg nightmares but easily kited. Mages are strong but it is hard to deal with invisible adcs (twitch), high mobility like lucian or mf and long range, hard cc like cait or ashe. So what can u do? Assassins are in the worst spot ever and somewhere i read a comment that riot wants to rework leblanc into "less dmg, more utility". So you are kinda right, riots goal seems to be that adcs are the only high dmg champs in the game. Don't know why an assassin should have even LESS dmg and more "utility" when you have already enough utility mages.
I mean last year, I mained Malz for one main reason. To lock down the ADC and allow my team to kill them. This year, nerf to his ult so since QSS is a guarantee buy against him, his damage is easier to escape since it isn't in the tether anymore. Yesterday, full build Malz vs almost full build Trist. Only thing she didn't max was QSS into merc. I landed a Q, flashed in to put E and W down, then ulted. She just QSSed out of it, jumped out, and auto attacked me to lifesteal any damage away. I did about 40%-50% damage before she QSSed out. You would think a full built mage who could land an entire combo on an ADC would be able to kill that ADC. Nope, not this year. Its an easy comparison full build to full build. Auto attacks with crit probably average 800-1000 dmg per sec. Mages cant match that since nothing is guaranteed especially since Maw is everywhere now.
General Esdeath 3 votesI say undo the rework on Vlad. Here's what Vlad SHOULD be. A life draining mage who wins lane by out-sustaining his enemy. He's hard to poke out of lane and safe from all-ins. Lower his damage a little and increase his heal with each Q rank or his own level. Think about Mundo. He's not a super damage dealer, but when you finish the trade he heals up way faster than the other person. He's also like Gangplank in a way. He just farms and farms and his ult is his team fighting power.
It Hertz When IP1 votesPlus Mundo just heals, period. Vlad needs targets to heal off of.
ViolentBoo2 votesWhen I have him in games, he has SO MUCH early game, and ABSOLUTLY NO late game, at least in my games.
JafarThePanda1 votesMake his W cooldown higher then. every vlad gets 40% cdr and pool has an almost permanent up time just an fyi
maikokk2 voteseven if that statement was half true, vlad would still be damaging himself more than you could by pooling all the time
GULAG 4 U1 votesWin rated don't mean everything. Your only argument in this thread is winrate, and you didn't even give any real argument.
option paralysis1 votesWin rated don't mean everything. Your only argument in this thread is winrate, and you didn't even give any real argument.
Yeah, because dropping from 50% to 42% doesn't mean anything. Also, I didn't write anything else because there's been like 10 threads already what needs to be changed thus my "riot doesn't want to answer on threads about vlad" and everybody knows what's toxic about vlad. Btw, I did write an answer to meddler if you bothered to read something else rather than talk shit on a thread with 3 pages.
