Vlad Rework

So Vlad's Q is his problem? Well it's also one of the most iconic parts of his kit. It's an instant cast point and click spell that draws blood from an enemy and gives it to Vlad. What if instead of healing Vlad, it gave him a speed boost and slowed the enemy? This would be much, much easier to balance than a spammable heal.

However, this would destroy his identity as a sustain mage tank, UNLESS if he got WotA, like he probably would still do if he had health costs. Look at Mordekaiser for example, who gets Hextech Gunblade for sustain.

You might argue that Morde already has some built in sustain, so if I want to make the comparison, Vlad should have some built in sustain as well. Maybe Vlad could have sustain tied to minions, like someone else proposed. Little blood drops could appear where minions die, and Vlad could pick them up to get a heal over time. As long as Vlad was weak early, this make it feasible to zone him away from his source of sustain and make it interactive to lane against him. And even without something like that, Vlad still has his healing increases from his E. This would interact well with getting a spellvamp item like WotA, which would also lead to him getting Spirit Visage for the further increase.

Giving Vlad generally higher base damage but lower scaling would compensate for his weaker lane from the loss of sustain, and would allow him to focus more on his tank aspect and less on his mage aspect. There really aren't enough mage bruisers (only ones I can think of are Mordekaiser, Rumble, Diana, and maybe Elise), so there would not be much overlap. You might argue that this would lead him to just build tank and benefit from the AP he gets from building health due to his passive. That may be true, but that could easily be fixed with number changes. As long as there is significant benefit from building both defensive and offensive stats, he will build them both. This can be done with adjustments to base damage, scaling, and his passive, all of which are relatively easy to adjust compared to the design of skills themselves.

These changes would keep Vlad's identity mostly intact while making him much healthier for the game. As long as he is interactive, he can be allowed to be a consistently good pick. Obviously when he comes out, Riot will release him too strong at first, and then either nerf him into oblivion or near oblivion (i.e. Skarner, Mordekaiser), or he will be consistently too strong (i.e. Gangplank, Fiora). If he is at least healthier overall, then I would argue that is a success, even if he is not at the same power level as everyone else.

I would love to hear what you guys have to say, especially Malicious Metal. He made a great post about Vladimir recently, and it inspired me to think about what I think should happen in the Vlad rework. Thanks for reading!