Should I just quit that shit?
The main item route for him in lane is to rush into getting hextech revolver as the AP+12% spell vamp is amazing for him, but that costs around 1200.
If the direct counter item in lane costs 800, every single top carry(which is all i face these days, thanks Riven, Darius, Fiora, Garen etc) then even if I get a kill on them, they still counter me and can usually do it before I even get my healing online.
Whats a guy to do?
Heaven forbid Vlad has a counter in the laning phase.
I think "finally some actual counter"play" to Vlad in lane lel". I hate that champ :v
I am not looking forward to fighting super overtuned adcs for the next three months while riot figures out how to balance their unique identities. Wasn't balancing items for a class that basically all built the same thung hard enough? Now they all have a gimmick that's going to make itrm balance hell for months. I might take my first large break from the game.
I main Vlad. (Well that may be an overstatement, I kind of fell into him when Sona got gutted, and now Miss Fortune of all things is possibly overtaking Vlad as what I'd call my main) If it helps to say, here's what I do against most of them:
I almost always start with an amplifying tome and a potion, simply because more AP means more healing. I also bring Spellvamp runes. They're expensive, sure, but having half a hextech gunblade should do wonders at all points in the game.
Play really aggressive against Darius and Fiora in the first level or two, (poke whenever you can) but shift into being more passive once they get all their skills. Your goal then becomes to avoid confrontation against all four of them. Beware Darius' pull. Keep track of Fiora's vital markings; If you see the marking thing pointing towards Fiora, keep your distance until it goes away. If the marking points towards your tower, you should be fine. Of course, position to avoid her dashing in to hit your vitals if it ever points somewhere in between.
On your first recall, rush Ionian's. This is less important for Fiora and more important for the rest. If you're fighting a Darius or if Ionian's isn't enough, don't be afraid to rush Alacrity as well. Movement speed, assuming they don't also rush boots, will give you an enormous edge against these four, especially Darius and Garen. Darius can be extremely oppressive if he has an advantage. His pull can become inescapable. Movement speed lets you bait them out much easier and makes disengaging against him (and preventing engages) possible. Against Garen, he simply can't get to you, and if he runs at you, you can still get away before he closes the distance. Against Fiora, it's a bit trickier, but as long as you don't let her at your vitals, you should be able to outpoke her and deny her all-ins. Against Riven, you can walk away from her when she tries dashing onto you and punish her for it with pokes.
If you do this all well enough, you should be able to deny farm to all of them except Fiora when you have a vital mark pointing her way and Darius because Darius. When that happens, always be careful of ganks.
Once you get spellvamp, (sometimes even if you haven't finished WoTA) I also highly recommend building a Rylai's. It gives you a lot of cc and makes you excellent at kiting. If you're far ahead, it makes it very hard to get away from you.
As a vlad main on the PBE, he is completely useless now. If you are going against an AD top, they simply need Executioners and Hexdrinker, and you are basically countered the entire game. We are trying to get it changed, but we all know Riot knows best.
I mean, out of ALL of those, the only 2 that are remotely interested in early armor pen would be Fiora and Riven, and they already steamroll Vlad as is. Garen and Darius are more interested in bruiser items like BC, Titanic, or just tanky items.
What is even worse, I don't think it will be juggernauts. Now if you see Vlad on enemy team, you can just pick an adc I guess.
IMO There should be an item that negates the grievous wounds, like an item passive that says "every X seconds the next healing your champion receives will remove grievous wounds". Maybe also allow it to remove slows or something as well.
I tend to start boots, I use to do amp tome until i got to gold, where people were a lot smart on how to beat Vlad, Having boots and 4 pots is just nice for the early game, My builds tend to change every game, but you need more damage stop building Spirit every game(idk if you do, its what I use to do). Passive is nice and is a good item if team has 3+ AP OR 2, if they are very strong. But I would rather Abyssal than Spirit now. Damage beats the passive of Spirit. It allows you to one shot Squishies late game with stacked E,Q combo and ult. Late game, I end up 1v2ing ADC+Support and winning. But my items I think are most important are CDR Boots, Will and Hourglass. I tend to build crystal a ton and void staff almost every game. I also get Deathcap, Abyssal, Spirit(very situation) if I am running CDR per level blues, I sont get CDR boots, I get Sorcs, though I rarely do that. Sereiously I have almost 500 ranked games on Vlad this season if you count the games between my main and my smurf. If you have questions, hmu.
Every time I see someone say "I main x champ" I facepalm and think this noob thinks they're faker.
You don't main a champ. You play the game, there's over 120 of them. You have one you prefer.
I like adc, I play them all and even some non-convensionals I make work. If your playing draft, you need to counter pick effectively. Using vlad over and over against champs up top is just asking for pain.
That being said, you may need to build different. Guides and preferred items are great, but they are rules of thumb. Grabbing a spirit visage and going tanky might work better against those match ups. The nice part is you can range them and should use that to your advantage to win trades and freeze lane. Vlads a good mage, but he's got a nice kit for other things too.
Tl,dr of this thread,keep on playing whoever you want,also I say this with my heart since my main is someone who also going to get crippled hard by executiner's calling:I don't think riot are enough mentally disabled to allow this item in the game again,atleast as a passive,but IF they magically do,don't play Vlad. It's just not worth it,wasting the entire concept of healing and sustain. Not only my and your champs will be crippled,but many more.
EC on melee opponents doesn't scare me as much as the thought of omnipresent GW on every ADC to deal with each others' lifesteal, mostly because that likely means that they've got broken amounts of it and that lifesteal is a massive issue. At that point, sustain heavy champs like Vlad, Swain, Mundo, etc. will be taking massive indirect nerfs to their lategame as all of their healing is completely destroyed. They may be buffed to compensate, meaning that lane opponents who don't buy GW items will struggle even further and players end up feeling worse about trying to play against them, which will get them dumpstered.
But for now, I think Vlad players are mostly safe. If you're just sustaining up, EC will do very little if your opponent is playing a melee champ, as they should be far out of range. The issue will mostly be in trades, but Vlad's healing in trades isn't amazing enough that I think he'll be hit that hard in the laning phase like you're worried about.
If both players are farming, Vlad has 
or 
chances are I will probably have 
and 
. So again, Vlad is pretty countered. Also for Vlad to have those 2 items you are looking at 6000 gold, instead to a 4200 counter on the ones I suggested. And those items are not even a rush item for Vlad, most people would go 
or even 
. Vlad is strong against the right champs, however saying he doesn't get countered issue is absurd; I mentioned all but a few counters that came to mind in 5 seconds. There is a reason he doesn't see pro play, and it's not because he's OP lol.
Back to the original issue, yes Vlad to me is in a weak state, and this new Executioners just makes him even less reliable.
