Vladimir's balance issues

I'm an avid player of Vladimir, and I feel right now he's not in the best place at all. He still has an atrocious early game that can be easily abused, items that he used to try and spike mid game ( , ) have been nerfed, and with the changes to his E a while back (Pay 8% health to deal 6% of your health as damage, but with a 1.0 AP ratio) made a rush less viable.

Not only that, but the way the Vladimir player plays his champion has drastically improved with the rework (getting the third Q, E is now more of a risk) but his counterplay is still not improved.

You can still shutdown a major part of Vladimir's power by simply Autoing him with , or , both of which are click shots with the Vladimir player having no way to interact with it besides running away, waiting for the wounds to go away.

However, if you do not apply Wounds, he becomes an unstoppable juggernaut mage, killing everything, never dying.

He needs work, definitely not as much as Mordekaiser (bless his soul, finally confirmed by Meddler for a rework) but I think he needs something around the Shyvana level touch up to finally make him fun for both sides to play against, and not just stat check counterplay (if I click him with Grievous Wounds, he heals less).