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Riot, Regarding Vladimir in the Mid-Year Mage Update

Over Innsmouth··3 votes·3,342 views

It'd be wonderful, just wonderful if you could make him a little less...clunky to play.

I love Vlad a lot, and nothing will stop me playing him, but I have to be honest - he's not as smooth to play as I feel a Champion should be in 2016.

Of the four skins I own (BL, SS, Marquis and Academy) I almost never use the latter two despite liking their aesthetic due to the overall clunkiness of his abilities. SS feels smoother to use and BL uses different (albeit similar) animations for its casting.

The main thing I'd like to get at is the little self-stun he inflicts on himself when he ults, for about a second he can't use any of his other abilities. Alongside that is the general clunkiness that his abilities suffer. One almost always uses E and Q in tandem, and it'd be much appreciated if they could be cast simultaneously or at least not have one interrupt the other. Additionally, I don't think that a change such as the particles of Q still returning and healing a Vladimir who pools would be amiss or break him.

Thanks in advance to any Reds that find and read this little request/suggestion of mine.

11 Comments

RiotMeddler9 votes

Hmm, we might be in a position where we can remove the brief 'can't cast' window from Vlad's ult. From memory that was originally added to limit his burst, if so we can probably find better ways of doing that while making other adjustments. Hadn't realized the Q return would fizzle if Vlad pooled immediately after casting it, if that's happening we'll likely fix that too. I'll check in with the folks working on Vlad, see where their current thinking's up to.

Should note though that correcting those issues assumes both of those skills, or variants of them, are still on the kit in the update of course. We haven't figured out exact changes for Vlad, so can't say for certain just yet.

Over Innsmouth1 votes

Thank you so much for popping in and acknowledging!

If you need some suggestions in what way you might want to take his kit, I'd consider it an honour if you checked out a kit that me and Malicious Metal crafted and posted a while ago (it was posted under his account).

The short version of it is giving him an Aatrox-like resource bar that grants %healing bonus instead of AS, making Q have a hp cost that evens out against the heal at 0 resource bar, and heals him like on live at full resource bar (the idea being he still gets his heal, but he has to expend hp and stay in combat for it), giving him Zac-blob zones of hp regen that allow the enemy laner some zone denial, and changing his ult into a single-target damage amp (scales with %missing hp) that spreads upon death.

The general idea was to address what Riot considered the problem with Vlad; having little counterplay and being incredibly binary with his healing (which as a Vlad main I can agree with), by giving him more health costs, having to build up his heals and allowing enemies to zone him from a portion of his healing. The ult change was for thematic reasons, since we felt that the 12% AoE damage amp is a little dull and doesnt scale as well as we would like in the lategame.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/9Us3EPJJ-vladimir-the-crimson-reaper-and-his-upcoming-rework

Again, thanks so much Meddler! I hope you have a nice weekend!

TNHA Baritone3 votes

This is a serious insult-free question: Can you please address Karma in a separate post? Please. I'd give you my soul.

Blackquill1 votes

Hey Meddler, can you tell us who is working on the individual champions for the mid year mage update? We know already that Repertoir is working on Cassio and/or Malzahar but who is working on Vladimir? And will this Rioter also create such a "Hey players here is what we thought about to preserve for this champion, what is your view on this champion?" post like Repertoir did for Malzahar the other day?

GigglesO1 votes

{quoted}

It'd be wonderful, just wonderful if you could make him a little less...clunky to play.

I love Vlad a lot, and nothing will stop me playing him, but I have to be honest - he's not as smooth to play as I feel a Champion should be in 2016.

Of the four skins I own (BL, SS, Marquis and Academy) I almost never use the latter two despite liking their aesthetic due to the overall clunkiness of his abilities. SS feels smoother to use and BL uses different (albeit similar) animations for its casting.

The main thing I'd like to get at is the little self-stun he inflicts on himself when he ults, for about a second he can't use any of his other abilities. Alongside that is the general clunkiness that his abilities suffer. One almost always uses E and Q in tandem, and it'd be much appreciated if they could be cast simultaneously or at least not have one interrupt the other. Additionally, I don't think that a change such as the particles of Q still returning and healing a Vladimir who pools would be amiss or break him.

Thanks in advance to any Reds that find and read this little request/suggestion of mine.

Honestly I don't think vlad needs a rework... he just needs a few adjustments. The above adjustments would be nice, or even just always giving him a lower q cooldown would help, they could even nerf the early level damage to compensate for it being up more often.

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

He's one of the worst designed champions in league at present, riot admitted regret that he was released as he was, he needs rework for the sake of game health no ifs and/or buts.

Dominick Destine1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quinn of Yuri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ei188IF6,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2016-02-13T04:05:41.132+0000)

He's one of the worst designed champions in league at present, riot admitted regret that he was released as he was, he needs rework for the sake of game health no ifs and/or buts.

WHEN DID THIS HAPPEN?

I TOLD XYPHEROUS. I TOLD HIM. I TOOOOOLLLLLLDDDD HIMMMMMMM... in the old beta test/pbe forum section and then in regular forum, but he denied it, I KNEW THIS DAY WOULD COME. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Phoenix Kotori 1 votes

XYPHEROUS himself posted back 2012-2013 about how bad of a mistake Vlad even. (hard to find the post but was definitely before 2013)

Dominick Destine2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Quinn of Yuri,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ei188IF6,comment-id=0000000000000000,timestamp=2016-02-13T07:47:55.159+0000)

XYPHEROUS himself posted back 2012-2013 about how bad of a mistake Vlad even.

I'm talking about literally a week before his release and a week after.

I posted (Made a thread) that the character was terrible and needed to be changed/nerfed (He was broken on release, remember original tides of blood was an AoE heal/nuke like DotA's character (I forget his name)), one of the chick-rioters (Possibly Shurelya) came in and tried to defend Vlad's design but failed miserably. Xypherous then came in and argued/declared that Vlad was fine and he (and the lead designer) knew what they were doing (with Vlad). He dismissed my arguments and I said he was wrong.... Shurelya called him "Senpai" and fawned over his 'performance', everyone ate it up and my very valid criticisms were then forgotten.

BUT NOW HE FINALLY ADMITTED IT, AHAHAHAHA SUCK IT XYPHEROUS, I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THIS DAY FOR YEARS. YEARS! I'M NOT EVEN JOKING, I'M NOT EVEN JOKING AT ALL. OH MY GOD. YES, VICTORY AT LAST. MY LIFE IS COMPLETE.

LadyRenly1 votes

I don't really see how he is terribly designed, he's a champion that has a built in vamp sceptre that becomes a bloodthirster as time goes on but usually gets wrecked before he even reaches that point by Rivens who go ham

Pain and Anguish1 votes

You did it riot! You finally made me want to play other games and give way less of shit about this one. If you are going to totally re-work/ruin a champ just make a new one. New vlad sucks my asshole. Sorry it didn't offer all the tournament play options you only care about now, but some people enjoyed playing a basic champ with a simple play style. I know you give little to no shits about what common players think but just wanted to let you all know that you finally pushed me to stop playing and watching anything to do with this game. Favorite champ turned into shit. I guess Blizzard thanks you because I'm off to sink all my time into Overwatch and never think about this game again. Thanks so much.

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