Vladimir is bad in this meta

After playing a couple of games in the Japanese servers (where people are try hard as hell starting from "Bronze"), I have decided that it is too difficult to make Vladimir work anymore in this meta.

Vladimir is always safe in laning and can sometimes even get ahead in laning but the game tends to end at less than 3 full items now (seems like 80-90% of games). With so few items, Vladimir's build (no matter how you adjust), always has very glaring weaknesses. Either you don't have enough CDR or you don't have enough burst.

At 2-3 items, and for example have far more reliable 100-0 and immediately have powerful AOE CCs to outplay opponents.

Vladimir can only bring an AOE damage amp/nuke but its not a very good ability in 2 vs 2s and 3 vs 3 random JG fights/botside fiestas that decide games.

Also, at 2-3 items you either have a Vlad that fires like a One Shot Mega Cannon (1 round of Ult + Tides of Blood + Q or some variation but with not enough CDR to fire again)... or you have a Vlad that plays with smooth CDR but not enough bang for the buck. You literally miss kills and lose skirmishes early because you don't yet have the raw AP necessary to close those out.

Meanwhile with other mage mids, you have a lot more hard CC and reliable burst to kill at this stage. Viktor W + Ult zones the hell out of opponents etc

....

To make matters even worse, late game Vladimir no longer feels like a god.

It used to be that you could Ghost in, hit a few people with E, and then kite and blast the whole team with your insane damage and low CDR.

Unfortunately, the ADC is now an over-shielded piece of **** at this point in the game and you just can't always 100-0 them anymore. Killing an enemy ADC that's ahead or mechanically more skilled than your ADC with decent Support (and by decent I mean anyone smart enough to build a ton of shields/healing)... requires either

1. Your team is coordinated and shuts them down (i.e. strong frontline) ... or
2. You somehow "trick"/"outplay" the ADC with hard CC.

Option 1 may work but Vladimir isn't particularly good at this. If you have strong frontline, any other Mid could have won the game.

As for Option 2... you have no hard CC to bring to the table as Vladimir. You can't "trick" the enemy ADC or use some CC trick to split his team apart.

Meanwhile, if you just fight the ADC (even if you don't initiate)... even with your 40 percent CDR and a ton of AP you often lose because of the overpowered shields. Even if you win, you only win slightly and all the CC will be focused on you.