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Still waiting on those Vlad QoL changes before you over-buff him, Riot. His ult is not the answer.

WoonStruck··29 votes·1,873 views

Giving Vlad's ult more healing won't fix a damn thing. Hell, I'm pretty sure people would be more satisfied with the heal on his ult being removed completely to put power somewhere else.

Seriously, take a moment to actually look at Vlad and its pretty obvious what he needs and what absolutely will not help.

For some reason, you guys always seem to choose the "this will not help" option for buffs to him. _ Edit: I swear you people just see "Vlad" and downvote. If Riot keeps going in their current direction, you'll hate him a hell of a lot more than if he got these fixes._

Edit: Just for a second...compare the power of Taric's ult, which has a 2.5 second delay, to Vlad's ult, which has a 4 second delay. Relying on that heal for anything is practically impossible, even if you cast it early. When you do manage to get it, its often not enough, or you didn't need it in the first place. Its nothing but a win-more aspect of his kit now, much like his E slow in the overwhelming majority of cases. Not to mention how you'll never be able to properly balance an offensive/4-second-delay defensive tool like that.

29 Comments

Vlädïmïr7 votes

I still don't get why people downvote this guy's Vlad threads. He makes valid points in every one of them. :/

WoonStruck6 votes

Eh, that's the boards for you. The bandwagon mentality here is pretty insane lol.

Cynika5 votes

keep fighting the good fight woon, a red has to respond eventually (I hope).

SnowFall2 votes

Lots of people hated the pre rework Vlad, they won't change easily

WoonStruck5 votes

There seem to be a lot of bugs with Q as well.

Why aren't these being addressed before buffs:

If you cast Q immediately when it comes off CD, it consumes Blood Rush, but does not give you the boosted damage and healing. This could likely be fixed by buffering the passive before Q is actually off CD.

There are many instances where casting Q goes on CD without dealing damage or healing. Most notably as a unit is dying. This is normal for most abilities, however, considering the HUGE influence Vlad's windows of power have over his pressure (missing just one can literally screw you), Vlad's Q should be a special exception, where if it doesn't deal damage, thus proc the heal, it should not go on CD. Another option is simply lowering its start-up delay.

The combination of these two changes would fix a lot of issues that any playstyle revolving heavily around Q, as opposed to E, has.

dasmaschine234 votes

I'm not really saying I like the heal on ult. But this patch was like a giant bag of vlad nerfs. It seems like they made up their minds on these broken q and e mechanics.

My thinking at the very very least, q needs to be doing consistent damage and heals, until q is reliable as it was, you'll never recover from a bad e now. Wave clear would be alot easier if you knew every q was actually a decent recovery.

Only reason I threw an ult instant hot out there is if there has to be an ult heal, it might as well set vlad up to do some serious tides damage, instead of waiting around till after the fight is pretty much over.

Over Innsmouth4 votes

I like the heal on his ult, but I acknowledge that that's both a personal thing and that his ult is the last place to buff him up.

Vlad's always been about consistency; being a consistent threat until he dies. He doesnt unload his stuff onto you and then sits there waiting for his dick to get hard again long CD's to come back up. If he needs buffs, they should go into his basic abilities.

And that's before we get into the bugs like Rush Q not healing properly if you use it too quickly.

dasmaschine232 votes

ULt heal is like having a spoiler on a gremlin.

A number of reasons have been posted as to why vlad has weak sustain now and unable to land damage with high broadcast and narrow window. But so far we haven't heard anything about that being investigated.

Itemization nerfs and q and e mechanics have turned him into 'badimir'.

WitchQueen Annie2 votes

Vlad needs more reliable ways to land his damage.

I suggest making E instant cast (keep the health cost payment at 10% and keep the minion block obstacle) but make it instant cast... have the damage be between the current Max and current Min on the higher side

This will keep the Counterplay aspect while making the damage more reliable

Vlad can go back to his old identity and actually team fight by continuously landing Qs and Es that deal damage as opposed to waltzing around trying to land attacks that take time to Charge and chunk himself for nothing...

I'm pretty sure its RELIABILITY that's the issue, not damage or healing

If you want to change the Ult... I suggest returning to the 12% damage amp and removing the Heal

NO ONE CARES ABOUT THE HEAL ON THE ULTIMATE

WitchQueen Annie2 votes

I have to agree with the OP though.

Recently, Riot's focus on fixing Vlad seem to be focused on irrelevant issues that won't really help him.

  1. Raising the numbers on E and the heat on empowered Q... This isn't helpful because players continue to find that it way too hard to land the actual damage to any level of acceptable reliability against skilled opponents; the numbers could be a great deal higher and it would still be useless

  2. Raising the Heal on the Ultimate...

?????

What? Like... really? Why even focus on that when the bread and butter of the kit (Qs and Es) are completely unusable and unreliable?

WoonStruck2 votes

Q and E are kind of mixed signals.

Q feels like it has impact, but is too unreliable. Nobody builds AP because its that unreliable.

E feels like the unreliability is fair, but has too little impact stat-wise, specifically against MR. This seems to be the viable option, but it still has a terrible win-rate because it lacks impact.

New Vlad has no effective power-spikes. I mean, there's kinda Rylai's, but that's more so you actually offer something for your team than a power-spike, especially because you need to go on to totaling 40% CDR before you're worth something, and even then, you're just supplementary damage to your team. You can't actually accomplish anything by yourself unless people are making extremely bad decisions against you.

WoonStruck2 votes

Bump because Vlad seriously needs changes.

The more I think about it, the more I can assure myself that the heal on his ult realistically does absolutely nothing for him outside of drain power from other areas of his kit, due to 'power-budget'.

You can't shorten the duration or the amp becomes useless. You can't buff amp strength to compensate that, or he becomes insane in tanky, bursty, and wombo comps.

If you want him to retain a scrap of his current ult and be a decent champion, the heal HAS to go.

option paralysis2 votes

No man, we had a problem with normal q doing jack shit --> buff crimson rush q (????). E does no dmg to people with mr and takes so much of your HP and gets blocked --> Buff E base dmg by 10 (??????). Idk what to say man, it's like they don't play the same game we do. I played a Vlad game and never have I ever thought that "hey man, vlad needs more healing on his ult". I thought that his normal q is just plain trash and I get the feeling I'm using it just to get the 3rd Q and even then people just walk away from me and I feel like a moron. And his E, I just hate so much. I loved wave clearing on old Vlad, now it feels like a fucking chore and I don't see why a mage can't wave clear like any other mage... and with a spell that takes 10% of his max hp.

WoonStruck1 votes

Yeah, I'd honestly rather have them only have blood rush Q ever apply.

Seriously, regular Q x2.5 for everything (including CD), every Q procs (a most likely toned down) Crimson Rush. Vlad now feels better, even if he would then be a burst champ as opposed to sustained DPS.

Casting spells just to get to your next one doesn't feel good. Its like if you made it so Ryze's Q did absolutely nothing to 'justify' his passive.

Regulus ag Sun2 votes

E to not self-slow or to slow half as much as it does now and be able to be held indefinitely for costing 10% of my health.

Crimson Gimmick bar to NOT display itself to enemies so they just start running away as soon as my bar turns yellow and I go back to new garmac Transfusions.

dasmaschine232 votes

I get the feeling this will be ignored. It feels like alot the folks who didn't play vlad pre-rework seem to be saying they like the change. And Riot has been really quiet about doing anything to fix these busted mechanics.

They should be listening to the former vlad mains who understand the kit the best.

WoonStruck2 votes

They should be listening to the former vlad mains who understand the kit the best.

The main thing I'm upset about is that they promised he would still be a consistent DPS threat, which he no longer is.

He's closer to a burst mage, but worse because he doesn't have anything close to 100-0 burst, has no CC, no mobility, and has to set up his Q proc first, and only has a 2 second window to actually throw his shit down.

dasmaschine231 votes

{quoted}

The main thing I'm upset about is that they promised he would still be a consistent DPS threat, which he no longer is.

He's closer to a burst mage, but worse because he doesn't have anything close to 100-0 burst, has no CC, no mobility, and has to set up his Q proc first, and only has a 2 second window to actually throw his shit down.

Yes, I just didn't know what to say to this patch. I tried playing him bursty too and there's no way to really itemize for high damage on vlad now. Not enough ap or health to make his e do enough other than cause him to lose trades. Also found myself holding onto 2nd q now and hardly using q I case I need a pinch heal from and speed from cr while running away.. because I'm going to lose any trade.

Maybe that's the real reason swifties are recommended in his build now? =D

Pyrodinium1 votes

Just for the record: What are the things Vlad needs, in your opinion?

WoonStruck2 votes

Vlad needs one of three things, probably not a combination of any.

A) Wota used to provide a 'padding' for his heal particle's return with the instant damage-based heal. Now that that's gone, the time it takes for him to get his heal was effectively nerfed with the update.

Prior to the update, his animations felt fair because of this. After, you're left waiting a second after you attempt to cast Q before you get your heal. This leads to him feeling much clunkier, and prevents him from succeeding in his best-case scenarios (low hp, close fights).

To make matters worse, his W still avoids his Q particle, can cancel his Q (the damage and everything, putting it on CD though), and it takes nearly 2 full seconds after you're vulnerable post-W until you can get the particle from Q, if you attempt to cast immediately.

B) The MS buff on Q to scale with level, possibly the duration of Blood Rush scale as well. The window is too small and the 'enabler' too weak for him to be a decent pick after laning phase. This is the large majority of the reason people build him high HP, rather than AP. Q's window is too small to rely upon, so AP builds are considered weak.

C) His E could get % bonus magic pen on a full charge. Considering how unreliable his kit is, and his current lack of impact in games, when he manages to land E, it should have a noticeable impact. Currently, it can only impacts extremely squishy teams; specifically ones with little-to-no MR. %bonus magic pen prevents it from being oppressive to squishies, but makes it so E isn't 100% ALWAYS an inefficient option against anyone that's built any MR, even with Void Staff.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

What vlad needs:

Q- Increase duration by 1.5 seconds, remove the yellow coloring (just gray and red like annie's bar)

W- Remove E from interacting with W

E- Increase range by 1 teemo

R- Auto-pop on a unit with HP lower than the BASE damage(Not total damage but the base damage) that would fix it's lacklusterness and make the delayed healing right instead of them skarnering vlad.

(Skarner'd- Overbuffing the wrong things then when finnally fixing what was actually wrong they explode and need hyper nerfs. Sadly this caused skarner's chain of reworks.)

WoonStruck2 votes

Everything you said is reasonable...except ult.

And I only have one issue with the ult. The healing should absolutely be removed.

There is no point to it. The only way that heal has an impact is if 3+ pop at the same time. The issue is that you have to wait 4 seconds for that. Compare to what you get out of Taric's ult after 2.5.

You will never, ever, be able to realistically rely on Vlad's ult's new heal. And that brings up a lot of problems. There are two major arguments for getting rid of it:

First and foremost is that its effectively a win-more button now. Either the heal is a bonus you didn't need, or often enough it will not be enough to help you, especially with that massive delay.

Second, it funnels power out of other areas of his already lackluster kit.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Yea I don't give a crap about the healing either too low, too delayed, even if they raise the amount it's so dam delayed there was no use in it in the first place.

If they removed the healing for that auto-execute if hp is lower than base damage suggestion I have I would be much happier.

And I actually like all of vlad's kit except ulti cause ulti is lackluster not only in visuals but the damage/damage amp/healing/ how delayed it is/area of effect basically I just wanted the ulti reworked for the mage patch but they kept it with a slapped on heal.....

BoundaryBreaker1 votes

Bump to hopefully get some red attention. Played Vlad once post rework and was pretty much a potatoe from start to finish. Haven't played him since.

WoonStruck4 votes

I tried him quite a few times.

The issue, as far as power, is that you have to get a lead early and abuse it. If you don't, you fall off harder than assassins in seasons 1 and 2.

Even if you do get a lead, if people invest in a single MR item, it almost invalidates your lead, as you can never capitalize on it with quick kills as Vlad, and you lack mobility/cc entirely to make plays.

dasmaschine231 votes

Some of my thoughts..as long as RIot killed wota, and they want to keep the current mechanics.. and are wanting to keep the ult heal.

I think these would keep in spirit of the changes while not leaving vlad feeling likeep roadkill.

  1. Remove heal on ultimate OR make it start to heal over time based on vlad max health and # of targets infected beginning the instant it is cast maybe.

  2. All qs buff damage/healing x2 at least. Empowered no extra damage but keep the broadcast and movement buff.

  3. E, remove both slows but keep the same.

  4. Fix passive ratios. AP scaling at 1.4 was fine. Vlad should have the option of a strong ap build. Health scaling at .04 is pitiful. 5k health will land about the same amount of damage from E as 700 ap with significantly more damage done to himself. Allowing a hp build vlad a little more AP should help to justify/offset the high cost of e.

  5. Fix q bugs

  6. Leave w alone

DevlinCrow1 votes

Vlad was one of my favourite champs but I played him once in ARAM and I've completely gone off him, he's not as interesting as other champs anymore.

Would like them to remove the heal from the ult and make his E like his old E where they hit all enemies in range, not like projectiles that stop after hitting a minion.

LaughingStapler1 votes

Does he still have the Q bug where if you press it really fast it doesn't work the 2nd time?

WoonStruck1 votes

What do you mean? For the 1st stack, or for the actual CR proc?

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