Balancing Issues I've Noticed Around Vladimir
So I recently played a game as Vladimir top against a Master Yi, and the interactions with abilities and items just brought up, in my mind, a few things that could use adjusting. First off, while I don't know if it is intentional or not, the damage tick from Master Yi's Alpha Strike still applies to Vladimir even if he activates his Pool before the damage occurs. So, Alpha Strike, Master Yi is untargetable, Vladimir Pools, Yi reappears, and then damage occurs to Vladimir while he's untargetable. I feel like considering Yi's cooldown is reduced with auto attacks, whereas Vladimir has a VERY long cooldown on his Pool, that would mean the only purpose of becoming untargetable during the Pool is sort of diminished by the fact that you still receive damage.
Another irritating issue is that the gold efficiency and the passive on the new Executioner's Calling provides such a strong tool against any HP regening Champion such as Vladimir, Zac, Dr. Mundo, and probably even Nasus/Renekton/Gnar when their HP increases. For being only 800gold, it grants 15 AD(which early game, 15 AD is a strong addition to auto attacks which procs the passive, meaning the player that purchases the item is GOING to be auto attacking). It also grants "Grievous Wounds," which reduced healing by 40%. The thing that could use some balancing is adding a prerequisite, or adjusting maybe how the grievous wounds is applied via auto attacks. The only other item that applies Grievous Wounds is Morellonomicon, which is an item for Mana-based AP spell casters, and it applies the same 40% reduced healing, however it requires that the target of the effect be below 40% HP, where as Executioner's Calling does not. Cutting all that healing from when a champion is at 100% HP grants 0 counterplay, as you can't "spell shield" with a Banshee's Veil, or Cleanse with Cleanse, Mikael's Crucible, etc. That means with the first 800 gold, you completely counter any healing Champion type.
Possible solutions could be that the auto attacks only apply a stack of Grievous Wounds, maybe reducing healing by only 8%, stacking up to 5 times, with all stacks dropping off after three seconds of not having been hit by an auto attack. Another solution would just be have an HP requirement set at 40% just like Morello, just so the final item also has a comparable passive to Morellonomicon. At least this way, their is a chance to back up before all 40% reduced healing is applied, and that amount of counterplay is designed so the player being attacked has to determine whether to cut their losses and wait for it to drop off, or trade back and try to outdamage. But then if you have a champion like Mundo/Zac/Vlad where you won't out damage early game, then your only choice is to back up, and at least backing up before 40% reduced healing is applied yields some sort of positive result for responding to the advantage that the enemy has with Executioner's Calling, versus "your skill set and playstyle is completely countered by 800 gold."
Any thoughts/feedback/other solutions/numbers are welcomed!