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Vladimir Top Lane Nerf Him? (How do you counter him?!)

Silents429·3/2/2015, 5:53:26 PM·1 votes·1,422 views

I play top lane, a lot of it this season, but I have been easing towards the jungle again, the 1 and only champion I have yet to see any clear weakness too, is that friggin vampire.

For context I play when I go top.

Fends the best of the 5, given I can harass and sustain, but obviously limited on my Mana, Unlike Vladimir, who has no resources and infinite sustain.

Against any competent Vladimir, who just times his stupid puddle either when I E or when I am about to ult, I can't really touch him in lane, despite being a lane bully.

At least GP is ranged and can farm with his Q, but his Mana goes to shit quickly just by doing that.

This is one of my favorite champions currently, and I can't do anything towards Vlad, I can't execute him because of all the sustain, he can force my passive out with constant poke while he heals off it. I try flipping him into my minion wave only for him to puddle out of it, then rise up and heal again.

The only champion of the 5 who when I hit 6 with some lifesteal, can actually go toe to toe with him, usually after capitalizing on him making a mistake. Even then, Vlad can sit and poke me down.

Now I don't want to see Vlad gutted or nerfed, but for the love of me can't see the counter to him, I try farming under tower but he can harass me while I am under tower, and the tower doesn't react fast enough to ever hit him. (I once flipped him as Voli into the turet with turret aggro and that wasn't enough)

You can't poke back in lane because he just heals constantly, especially when he gets that you can't engage on him, because any messup tends to lead to him puddling out, which gives him movement speed, slows you, does damage, AND heals him.

He is built by building health and AP thats all he has to do. And he doesn't have to worry about mana at all. How do I beat him? Not even with just my champions but in general, It isn't until late game I am able to just all in him, but it doesn't work that way in lane.

19 Comments

BluePolarizer3/2/2015, 6:32:39 PM3 votes

Swain owns Vlad at all points of the game:

in lane, splitpushing, and teamfights.

There is literally nothing Vlad can do against Swain.

FHMarshy3/2/2015, 6:00:17 PM1 votes

Try Swain , Vlad's pool will not nullify the slow or the damage from Swain's E and Q.

Give Swain a try, you might like him :)

RogueWill3/2/2015, 6:09:49 PM1 votes

XinZhao Fiora Irelia generally do really well against vlad as they have strong dps. Just walk next to Vlad start autoattacking, wait for his pool and when he is out of it dash towards him.

Vlad pool cost 20% of his current hp so Garen should be able to bully out of lane if you are carefully enough not to push your lane when you spin. He will have troubles killing him thou.

Trash MammaI3/2/2015, 6:45:28 PM1 votes

Basically what others said. Once his Q is on cd bully him as much as possible till you force a pool out then hit him hard or go with swain/teemo/Cass etc. Even karma. DoT's really hit him hard since he can't stop it even while pooled. Karma works pretty well though. You can bait out his Q with your shield and his pool doesn't stop his tether. Only issue is her Q being blocked by minions so kill potential might not be as good

DanofDemacia3/2/2015, 8:24:45 PM1 votes

Jayce is good and remember he's a mage. I used to have trouble to but then I remembered he's a mage. His aas do nothing and he has CDs. After he uses a move go in and fight him. Also start with a flask and pots and keep buying pots play the sustain game.

ratclan3/2/2015, 9:55:55 PM1 votes

Play Riven

hadre3/2/2015, 10:05:48 PM1 votes

if you have a chance to counter pick you take advantage of his shit level 1-5. You get first blood really fast and then procede to dumpster him over and over. Take ignite too so he cant heal as much. I typically play pantheon into him so i can return poke with spear throws then all in him around level 4. Also if you can push harder then he can then he has to Q minions to keep wave out from tower.

FooDang3/2/2015, 11:57:08 PM1 votes

Irelia =GG

Evil Jester3/3/2015, 12:09:43 AM1 votes

JarvanIV once vlad uses his flash, his melt can't escape jarvs ult, and jarvain can normally 1v1 vlad no problem as his sheild soaks alot of vlads burst.

DrMundo chunks vlads HP like mad, and can out sustain him if he can last till 6.

also any champions with a damage over time ability like Malzahar with his E Swain with his Q and E Teemo with his E and shrooms and with his passive. DOT effects still work through vlads melt.

AHeroNamedHawke3/2/2015, 5:55:48 PM1 votes

Well all of your mains are extremely terrible picks against Vlad, so I can see how you'd have trouble

Lissandra Pantheon Fizz are better picks, and AD Fizz literally can't lose the matchup unless you unplug your keyboard

4ManVotedAgainst3/5/2015, 2:15:31 PM1 votes

I just laned against a Vladimir using Galio with success. I took a very wild guess as to how to counter him & it seemed to work for me anyway. Basically, you can farm pretty safely against him until you have that 1K gold mana-regen cup-looking item, last-hitting at turret as necessary. I started Flask & Health-Pots, and since most Vlad-players seem to like to shove lane to your turret, you are basically safe from over-extending & can wave-clear quite easily without your turret taking too much damages. I should mention that my runes do contain mana-regen seals so that I do not stay completely OOM for too long but it seems to be best to try to only use Q to clear minion-waves since E is rather mana-intensive.

Once I got my ult, basically, I hide in the upper-lane brushes, flew into him with E/Q&Alt+W, followed by using R whilst he went into "pool" mode, then stuck an ignite on him, landed a few more blows & got a kill after landing another E (and even safely got away from the enemy Vi's gank-attempt). When it comes to team-fights, look for which-ever of your team-members has the lowest health or who-ever is being focused, particularly if they're being attacked by Vladimir, THAT is the ally you want to W, because then it will convert Vlad's leech-damage into a heal-effect instead.

Try not to use the W on yourself during fights unless you're being focused and try to save it for until someone IS being focused. I did make a few mistakes, costing us some team-fights, but corrected myself during the last two team-fights, and we even secured a Penta-Kill during an earlier fight for our Jinx, too. Yes, our team managed to win in the end, but my inexperience with Galio could have really cost my team a win, due to some earlier mistakes of putting W on myself during fights or accidentally on myself blah blah basically what I said above since that match was also a learning experience.

Vladimir always made me cringe and head-desk and face-wall and other such things since I usually use Malphite top (and switch to Support-Rock if the enemy Top-Lane picks something like Vladimir or Rumble). Come to think of it now I might have to try Galio versus Rumble some day and see how it works out. Hope more people start having more success with strong counters against Vladimir now that I've posted this (especially if they happen to queue on my own team of course because I am try-hard-ing to win due to ego-problems or something).