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Vladimir Mage Rework ideas

Charmed by Ahri··1 votes·4,360 views

http://d111vui60acwyt.cloudfront.net/product_photos/2774557/THUMBNAILvlad_large.jpg

Figured some early Vlad discussion would be in order, since the most recent news about him being added to the mage mobility rework.

Meddler explained: "Our main problem with Vlad is his Q. It's a low CD, targeted, resourceless spell that restores health. It doesn't have much interesting decision making for Vlad, if it's ever strong early he just shuts a lot of people out of lane and the main ways to deal with it are to either sustain even more or to punish Vlad really hard when he trades. Vlad's also got a bit of a 'stat check' issue, where he'll just reliably outclick a lot of opponents 1v1 without sufficient avenues for being outplayed. That's not ideal, it's a lesser issue though since it doesn't kick in until later in the game when 1 v 1 counterplay is less important than team v team counterplay."

http://56.media.tumblr.com/46042e5a72d0e6c5a6d461668e1b6487/tumblr_ntt6iwWRnJ1rh9lsbo1_1280.png

As an ex Vlad main, I mainly left him behind because of his "Toxic" Gameplay. I've yearned to discuss his changes for years. He's fun to play honestly, loads of sustain and a mobile invuln not including AOE, Health to AP/AP to health passive and his ult increased all of his teammates damage including his own. Original Vlad was broken. Even to this day he has been a champion unable to be discussed because even the slightest buff would spiral him out of control. But since he's under the spotlight now I feel like he could use a few tweaks. But still keeping his identity of being Leagues hemomancer.

  1. Keep his sustain somehow
  2. Allow him to be mage/support champion, since his ult has always been a support team fight factor. Why not make his E something that transfers health from enemies to allies? Seems broken but something different that i've personally felt Vlad should be able to do. With the old wota its what his ability kinda did anyways. When allies were near him AP abilites would heal allies when near him. Now his E would be allies heal if he manages to get it off.

I've always felt Vlad has been lackluster in team fights since the nerf to wota. simply because he brings nothing to the table but a front line meat bag that does loads of damage, in which any damage he takes from enemies he just sustains back through time. When focused goes invuln, then when the enemy team gives up hope of trying to widdle vlad down he decides to ult either all inning by himself for a penta kill whether his team was ready for it or not. Even if the enemy team manages to finally kill him, his team cleans up all of what he just did.

Since His Q is a point click ability, why not make it a medium range skillshot? Like the orb he's running around with be his skillshot? so enemies no longer have to deal with his constant unavoidable Q poke. But allow it to sustain him somehow. His identity to me is a champion that sustains. Taking this away from him would break this.

Hope he is able to keep his invuln either keeping it on W or make it his ult? I feel that's what has kept him skillful being able to dodge certain champions abilities in 1v1 scenarios or team fights. Increase the speed at which he travels and increase the slow duration to enemies standing above him while invuln.

If riot has some other idea for mobility for Vlad other than his invuln and changes to his Q. I'll be still excited either way to see what the team pulls out their hat for Vlad. Just some ideas I've had to help Vlad from being so nasty to deal with. Changing his identity to a skillshot based champion and a champion who is capable of aoe heals. Rather than him being the only one with infinite sustain.

https://pp.vk.me/c622330/v622330936/cc49/DcCLCz5WKd0.jpg

12 Comments

Ship 0F Ducks4 votes

i personally want him to stay as a late game, high damage or sustain, short ranged mage. I don't mind skill shots, but I wouldn't want them to add things like tons of range and compensate on his life-steal damage or cooldowns.

Charmed by Ahri1 votes

{quoted}

i personally want him to stay as a late game, high damage or sustain, short ranged mage. I don't mind skill shots, but I wouldn't want them to add things like tons of range and compensate on his life-steal damage or cooldowns.

I want him to be a short ranged mage as well. He doesn't need long range at all. But I prefer him to be able to do exciting things early game if they made him skillshot based. Opposed to him being a late game monster. I feel like he should be more rewarding to play and have significant counterplay to his pokey sustain without removing it entirely. Also increasing his cooldowns should revolve around vlad player builds. How much CDR they tend to build on him and work around that without hurting Vlad players who don't build CDR at all.

Little Stick Man2 votes

itd be cool to see him in more of a supportive role. something with blood pacts maybe giving % of your max health to an ally as bonus health

Erockandroll1 votes

My only concern with is Q is that Vlad was balanced around the best last hitting tool in the game. If they don't adjust his AD, AS, or something in the event his Q get's changed, he's going to end up being really bad a getting any minion farm.

Allow him to be mage/support champion, since his ult has always been a support team fight factor. Why not make his E something that transfers health from enemies to allies? Seems broken but something different that i've personally felt Vlad should be able to do. With the old wota its what his ability kinda did anyways. When allies were near him AP abilites would heal allies when near him. Now his E would be allies heal if he manages to get it off.

Here's how you might balance something like this

Q: Blood line Vlad casts a targeted tether.

on enemy: Drains the enemies health and healing vlad for a portion of the health lost.

on Ally: Heal ally at the cost of your own health.

The simple use of a dual cast, balances both aspects around the exact same cooldown. Which means in a heated situation, he would have to make a choice on how to use his abilities. Thought the targeted tether may be a poor example for creating counterplay, unless it was a skill shot. (similar to leblanc's tether.)

WoonStruck1 votes

{quoted}

My only concern with is Q is that Vlad was balanced around the best last hitting tool in the game. If they don't adjust his AD, AS, or something in the event his Q get's changed, he's going to end up being really bad a getting any minion farm.

Here's how you might balance something like this

Q: Blood line Vlad casts a targeted tether.

on enemy: Drains the enemies health and healing vlad for a portion of the health lost.

on Ally: Heal ally at the cost of your own health.

The simple use of a dual cast, balances both aspects around the exact same cooldown. Which means in a heated situation, he would have to make a choice on how to use his abilities. Thought the targeted tether may be a poor example for creating counterplay, unless it was a skill shot. (similar to leblanc's tether.)

Uhh, if you're using Q to last hit, you're doing something wrong a lot of the time. I use autos for a HUGE majority of farming. Outside of that, its single stack E.

Q should be used to make people think twice about taking any CS and to add a little sustain to your hard match-ups.

WoonStruck1 votes

I disagree. His ult should be on an aggressive support champion. First and foremost vlad is a dps carry mage. He should retain his short range, immobile, high damage nature. It should be somewhat reliable.

His innate sustain is largely insignificant to the point where you don't need it compared to WotA. Only late game when he has the AP to back up the ratio is it worth anything, but its only enough to top you off out of fights. It rarely makes a difference in teamfights because you either die early, or you don't and destroy their whole team without a need for that sustain. Get rid of it and Vlad has way more potential balance-wise.

His focus should be damage. He needs an ult that allows him to be an individual. Not an ult bot. He will never have true potential with is current ult because if his kit is ever strong, his ult makes him pick or ban automatically. He needs an ult that pushes his passive further, like jax or ryze. Make him a real carry ffs. Without his ult, he has way more potential balance-wise. It needs to go, even if its a memorably part of him.

Charmed by Ahri1 votes

{quoted}

I disagree. His ult should be on an aggressive support champion. First and foremost vlad is a dps carry mage. He should retain his short range, immobile, high damage nature. It should be somewhat reliable.

His innate sustain is largely insignificant to the point where you don't need it compared to WotA. Only late game when he has the AP to back up the ratio is it worth anything, but its only enough to top you off out of fights. It rarely makes a difference in teamfights because you either die early, or you don't and destroy their whole team.

His focus should be damage. He needs an ult that allows him to be an individual. Not an ult bot. He will never have true potential with is current ult because if his kit is ever strong, his ult makes him pick or ban automatically. He needs an ult that pushes his passive further, like jax or ryze. Make him a real carry ffs.

Well albeit you are right. But The Vlad you are speaking of, seems like a 1v1 style champion. Jax and ryze have spammable abilities which is what riot is considering removing from Vlad altogether which is why i seggusted a more counterplay style carry mage vlad with support team fight cabailities. If they decide to give him a full DPS kit, that would be interesting. Which means he will be bursty with high CDS. Since they are looking into tweaking his CDR. Its all up in the air mind you.

WoonStruck1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Charmed by Ahri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=H6RNxIAA,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2016-01-24T06:52:19.116+0000)

Well albeit you are right. But The Vlad you are speaking of, seems like a 1v1 style champion. Jax and ryze have spammable abilities which is what riot is considering removing from Vlad altogether which is why i seggusted a more counterplay style carry mage vlad with support team fight cabailities. If they decide to give him a full DPS kit, that would be interesting. Which means he will be bursty with high CDS. Since they are looking into tweaking his CDR. Its all up in the air mind you.

Vlad's playstyle mid-late game has nothing wrong with it. They even said they find it acceptable. Their problem is with his early, and the consistency of his damage. Not how much damage he can put out. They know people want him to remain a short ranged DPS threat, but they want people to have ways to play against him as well. Keep the consistent damage, but make it so he doesn't automatically get it just for being in range.

Vlad will likely keep his spammable abilities, like Jax and Ryze. He will likely keep his W as well. The main change they are focused on is his Q. Maybe it always has a what...15 second CD? If he hits them with E, Q CD resets. It would maintain his current teamfight style without letting him sit back and poke people out of lane, using it as high sustain at the same time.

I just hope they change the ult as well. He's a carry mage, his focus should be on carrying, not giving his team a buff so they have the potential to do it without you, especially when that means he has to be weaker just for having it.

Charmed by Ahri1 votes

{quoted}

Vlad's playstyle mid-late game has nothing wrong with it. They even said they find it acceptable. Their problem is with his early, and the consistency of his damage. Not how much damage he can put out. They know people want him to remain a short ranged DPS threat, but they want people to have ways to play against him as well. Keep the consistent damage, but make it so he doesn't automatically get it just for being in range.

Vlad will likely keep his spammable abilities, like Jax and Ryze. He will likely keep his W as well. The main change they are focused on is his Q. Maybe it always has a what...15 second CD? If he hits them with E, Q CD resets. It would maintain his current teamfight style without letting him sit back and poke people out of lane, using it as high sustain at the same time.

I just hope they change the ult as well. He's a carry mage, his focus should be on carrying, not giving his team a buff so they have the potential to do it without you, especially when that means he has to be weaker just for having it.

I think your missing the bigger picture. He can still be a short ranged carry mage, but when allies are within his general area, his team fight potential will be exponentially greater in terms of front line support. E transfers health from enemies to allies as a heal. Still deals damage, but now allies will be more willing to fight along side him opposed to sticking back in safety while they let Vlad be Vlad. They can now partake in his aggressive gameplay. He doesn't need to become weaker to compensate this at all. Like kindred, people will stand near kindred's aggressive approach because of her ult. Only trying to give Vladimir the same meaningful gameplay.

WoonStruck1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Charmed by Ahri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=H6RNxIAA,comment-id=0003000000000000,timestamp=2016-01-24T07:12:49.940+0000)

I think your missing the bigger picture. He can still be a short ranged carry mage, but when allies are within his general area, his team fight potential will be exponentially greater in terms of front line support. E transfers health from enemies to allies as a heal. Still deals damage, but now allies will be more willing to fight along side him opposed to sticking back in safety while they let Vlad be Vlad. They can now partake in his aggressive gameplay. He doesn't need to become weaker to compensate this at all. Like kindred, people will stand near kindred's aggressive approach because of her ult. Only trying to give Vladimir the same meaningful gameplay.

Blood magic has to do with personal sacrifice for power, or using outside blood for power. Its not to give power to someone else. Its all entirely selfish.

Support would do the exact opposite of what his theme and fantasy are.

LostSoul6661 votes

I just hope blood lord finally gets a recall animation lol

Charmed by Ahri1 votes

{quoted}

I just hope blood lord finally gets a recall animation lol

Agreed! If they manage to put that into the works I will immediately hit you up for a toast to being legendary. Cheers

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