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Vlad Rework: Worst Rework Ever?

WitchQueen Annie·May 21, 2016·6 votes·1,260 views

A champion was off-meta, had a low win rate and had short range, no CC, and no mobility. Let's remedy none of that; instead, lets add new issues by making most of his kit worse than ''skillshot.''

His AP ratios will be Nerfed. His sustain will be Nerfed. His reliability will be Nerfed. His damage will be Nerfed.

Whenever he launches an attack that actually deals damage, it will be heavily telegraphed in the name of counterplay. Damage will be nominally increased here and there but the attacks will be near impossible to land against pros.

There will be fleeting windows of strength for the character (2.5 seconds of Crimson Rush) that will be impossible for the player to really use against pros. For the rest of the game, his bread and butter attacks will deal sub-par damage.

Damage will further be cut down, instead, some delayed healing will be tacked on to a place where its not needed (and where its too late to do anything). OH MY GOD THE ULTIMATE HEALS NOW! SO FLASHY!

**BUT HEY PEOPLE! VLADIMIR IS NOW A FAIR CHAMPION FOR THE OPPONENTS TO FACE! **(even though you know... now there's virtually no reason to pick this champion anymore)

**THIS REWORK IS A PHENOMENAL SUCCESS! **

Fair summary?

12 Comments

Serpents EmbraceMay 21, 20162 votes

Cassiopeia

and also later....

Cassiopeia

Dominick DestineMay 21, 20162 votes

[{quoted}](name=Serpents Embrace,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZHPKfpuE,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2016-05-21T03:57:48.733+0000)

and also later....

+1

KVbqbFsC8eMay 21, 20162 votes

Mordekaiser

dasmaschine23May 21, 20162 votes

I counted 17 vlad nerfs and 5 supposed 'buffs' in this patch. What's really messed up 4 of the things that 'buff' him are things that are inconsequential and dont help (like the .5 sec haste and ulti heal).

If I could permanently delete my Vladimir in protest I would because he's that awful. He's basically stuck making an entire build of picking items to try to compensate for all of his weaknesses instead of getting any synergy.

Not only is his damage weak but his sustain is one of the lowest now. (irony?). The counterplay though is so over the top that I think even a brand new player could be talked through countering him on the spot with pretty much any champ selection.

He was awesome before because he had low winrate but slightly above average skill to play him (probably should be published as 5 or 6). This meant that good players could get above 50% win and he wasn't so common that he was appearing in every game.

(I don't go by the published 'difficult' ratings because they'll publish champs like 'katarina' with an 8).

WitchQueen AnnieMay 21, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I counted 17 vlad nerfs and 5 supposed 'buffs' in this patch. What's really messed up 4 of the things that 'buff' him are things that are inconsequential and dont help (like the .5 sec haste and ulti heal).

If I could permanently delete my in protest I would because he's that awful. He's basically stuck making an entire build of picking items to try to compensate for all of his weaknesses instead of getting any synergy.

Not only is his damage weak but his sustain is one of the lowest now. (irony?). The counterplay though is so over the top that I think even a brand new player could be talked through countering him on the spot with pretty much any champ selection.

He was awesome before because he had low winrate but slightly above average skill to play him (probably should be published as 5 or 6). This meant that good players could get above 50% win and he wasn't so common that he was appearing in every game.

(I don't go by the published 'difficult' ratings because they'll publish champs like 'katarina' with an 8).

He doesn't even have a logical Itemisation path anymore.

If you're doing mostly AP you either fit a Spirit Visage in the order somewhere (which is awkward as hell since it gives no offensive capabilities) or you'll find that your Es delete yourself. You're also discouraged from building full AP because of the new Q mechanic (you keep missing the empowered Qs and are mostly hitting at 0.45 AP). Then you feel FRUSTRATED because your damage output is half of what it was with Old Vlad when you went full AP and you're left wondering why you didn't just pick Ahri, Lux, or Fizz.

If you want to max CDR so that you can try and hit empowered Qs more often, its screwed up because you lose tons of AP (Zhonya, Abyssal, Visage etc give sub-optimal AP with the changes).

If you build Health, you can deal ''tons of damage'' but its highly unreliable and misleading (since a huge bulk of whatever ''damage'' you've dealt you've in fact dealt it inconsequentially to tanks and 100% to yourself). So its mostly Stats Wanking. That and your Qs and Ult hit for nothing late game.

WitchQueen AnnieMay 21, 20162 votes

His ''buffs'' are useless.

No one cares about the healing on the Ult (in fact, they should remove it and move more power into unempowered Qs).

No one cares about damage increase on E, its the RELIABILITY, not the damage that's the problem right now. The ridiculous health cost + the fact that its so telegraphed that you can't land it in high elo on the targets you want. They need to make it AOE, instant-cast (with a moderated amount of damage), lower the health cost or some combination of the above. Even if it comes at the cost of damage, E needs more reliability.

WitchQueen AnnieMay 21, 20162 votes

Vlad can no longer land more than half of his damage on paper.

People walk away from your Crimson Rush procs (2.5 seconds) or they proc at the wrong time... you're left hitting weak Qs at 0.45 AP.

People walk away from your highly telegraphed Es, the attack ends up dealing more damage to yourself than the enemy over the course of the game (or you just end up insta-casting it and only hitting at 0.30 AP).

The Ult has less damage amplification which is huge (again, NO ONE CARES OR WANTS THE HEALING ON THE ULT, FIGHTS OVER BY THE TIME IT TRIGGERS).

So Riot can keep increasing the numbers on E as much as they want, its a useless ability because of how easily minions and tanks block it and how easily it is for key targets to move/dash away when you charge it.

**More power should be transferred to unempowered Qs.

E should get reduced damage in exchange for making it AOE and instant-cast (you can install a Zed damage reduction mechanic beyond the first target hit if you want)

R's healing should be removed and power should be shifted to other aspects of the kit

R's damage amp should be returned to AT LEAST 12%... to make Vlad more of a team champion with a team fight that can help team mates, 10% is just too low and an unnecessary nerf**

OleandervineMay 21, 20161 votes

I'd say Shurima Cassiopeia tops it, but that's my opinion. They stripped her kit of all of its damage and crammed it into a passive that gave it back 40 minutes later and overloaded a spell with a tool tip that makes J. R. R. Tolkien weep.

WitchQueen AnnieMay 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

I'd say Shurima Cassiopeia tops it, but that's my opinion. They stripped her kit of all of its damage and crammed it into a passive that gave it back 40 minutes later and overloaded a spell with a tool tip that makes J. R. R. Tolkien weep.

Cass is a serious contender you think?

WitchQueen AnnieMay 21, 20161 votes

how is it worse than Vlad though?

Serpents EmbraceMay 21, 20161 votes

I don't think I can comment on that. I didn't play him before, so I don't know how different it is.

You'd have to find someone who played both to really get a better picture on it.

But hers is disastrous. So if hers isn't worse, it's probably on par with Vlad's. The hotfix kind of helped... :\ But it's not... there yet.

warpenguin555May 21, 20161 votes

The rework that gave birth to the term Olafing is still worse, others that beat it are Morde and Skarner. (Cass is kinda debatable, i just dont care to debate it due to lack of interest in the champ)

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