I still remember the time where people were saying Vlad would be broken with the AP item changes...

...when what actually happened was that Vladimir did not changed much. The decrease on the "spellvamp" from WotA was a nerf against champions that don't stack magic resistance. On other hand, it was a minor buff against champions that stacked magic resistance.

Many of Vlad's optional items, such as Liandry and Rylai, became more powerful, so Vlad could scale even better into late game, especially since Zhonya got cheaper, so Vladimir could rush it faster.

But thanks to those changes and the fact that the meta has changed and tanks were no longer dominating, Vladimir is now considered to be balanced. I don't even know why people were saying that he would be broken, he has always been balanced, he was only popular in the tank meta because, well... it was a tank meta. And Vlad is a counter to tanks.

Why I am saying that? Because I hope that people don't do the same thing now when the marksmen itemization changes come to PBE. Imagine if people said that Vayne would be broken with the AD itemization changes, and then Riot nerfed BotRK, and Vayne suddenly became balanced.