Will vladimir need another rework down the line?

Ever since they vlad medium scale rework I felt that overall it was much more positive than I expected, but it only felt like it did half of what was intended to really help fully realize our favorite hemomancer, below im going to list what I felt was done right and what could have been expanded upon. Success of the rework as a whole and what was improved upon compared to the state of old vlad. With reasons why it was a step in the right direction.

                                                    Reason 1.Give vladimir players more option to make his kit less binary in gameplay and playstyle, while maintaing or adding moments of visceral triumph.

This was been in my eyes the most successful part of vladimirs kit, having options in his kit which has lead more more combos that can be done as well as adding much more 'oomph' feeling to his kit has been the most notable. The change to his E makes it add some decision making on vlads kit of positioning for the massive blood bomb to be sent out on the fight and making you choose how much youre willing to pay in your health to amp up the damage. The change to his ult was very appropriate in this regard as well spellvamp being vladimirs main source of healng along with his q made his healing very sustained however very unnoticable during a entire fight a +76, +235 +54 isnt that much noticable as opposed to now, now landing a multi man ult makes using your ult feel very noticable and rewarding. Getting a 2k+ heal can turn the tides of a fight and makes you playing around that hp pop very satisfying.

                     Reason 2. Gave windows of power that vlad and his opponents can play around.

This is ever so slightly behind the first point in importance, but im sure we can all agree that before the rework vlad was the epitome of a statcheck champion. If you had better stats basically you win if not you lose due to how simplistic his kit and playstyle was to go vs. Now with the currenty form of his kit power is very clear to both vlad and his opponent making damage coming out of vlad not seem so hidden. The q mechanic is the most notable one as having a meter below vlad will give both vlad and his opponent clear chances of when hes going to hurt A LOT and when hes going to be healing A LOT, not to mention having the extra healing be mostly based on missing hp is very good to make vlad have to take risks to get the most out of it. The E is very noticable as having a 1 second channel time to get its damage up gives opponents time to either cc him asap to stop the damage from increasing or just disengaging in order to avoid the damage entirely, its AOE being missliles being able to be blocked was also a good addition to make getting to the backline vital to get the damage off. And finally the ult is noteworthy as well as having a massive amount of burst healing no matter your current hp gives opponents info as well as us vlad players when were going to be getting a large chunk of healing off.

Those are the most notable points I can make about the positives of the rework, any other ones I felt were too small to be added or must have overlooked.

Now Lets go into the aspects of what could have been improved, not listing this as a negative because overall the changes to me feel so positive that these aspects feel more along the lines of missed potential as opposed to a negative experience when playing as vlad.

                    Reason 1. Still lacks a unique niche to bring to team compositions.

This is to me the most notable issue with vladimir as a whole since his rework, when hes been picked as a champ its been because he can deal a lot of damage while building twords the defensive ap items and by the nature of his kit getting more out of it than others. When playing as vlad you know your niche to playing him, you can deal A LOT of damage but you got to get everything setup for yourself, getting the q preped before you engage channeling your e, trying to hit as many targets with your ult are the noticable ones, as well as having the highest potential healing of all champs int he game in forms of burst healing, this differes heavily from most dominant champs when it comes to healing, darius,swain,trunle,mundo all have abilities that keep the healing much more consistent with vlad )with perhaps darius on the line of burst healing to sustained, but a low cd on his q and it being the same always as opposed to the crimson rush system makes it more consistent).

This is all fine and dandy for vlad and playing him but when your team sees a vladimir he offers next to nothing in terms of a strategic niche in why hes played, you might say the ult gives a strogn niche while I agree with this a 10% damage amp in its own right doesnt have as much impact as more strategic niches other champs gives, when a adc hitting a ulted target they 344 attack going to 388 wont make them feel like "wow vlad really made that impactful". And this is to be expected vladimir is not a selfless champ by design we are playing to not amp our teams power but more to hurt the enemy team and have his niche be more twords nerfing the enemy teams power as opposed to buffing our teams power if that makes sense.

                        Reason 2. Crimson rush should be a mechanic that his kit revolves around as a resource and not as a simple q buff.

This might be the most controversial but this mechanic was truly underutilized as a way to really get rid of the old statstick archetype that vlad suffered from as a champion, being a hemomancer vlad should have to work around this mechanic in order to get the most out of his kit by addressing one of his biggest issues that his kit suffers from of the battle mages in the game.

He has no reason to stay in the fight after using his combo whatsoever except to be in range when its off cd in 5-3 seconds (assuming level 13 so q and e are maxed out, and cdr obviously).

This is what might be holding vladimir back very much so looking at the whole class of battle mages in the game Using the battle mages classification from riot Karthus Vladimir Ryze Swain Rumble Cassiopeia Aurelion Sol Gangplank (hybrid Skirmisher) personally dont agree with this one I think skirmisher is more close to what gp is or a burst mage since his barrel is a 1 combo ability and hardly gives him reason to have sustained damage but its riots list and I agree with the rest here Malzahar

All of these champs listed have a form of sustained damage in their kit that forces them to after a initial combo to keep themselves within their opponents range to keep the damage going, vladimir doesnt have that feature currently in his kit. Vlad is teetering more twords a burst mage with lower cooldowns as opposed to a battle mage because of this reason.

Giving him a crimson rush mechanic that affects his entire kit in some way would give vlad a reason to keep fighting after his cds are down initially and make his kit put in a better direction that makes vlads gameplay more simple for his opponents to understand while adding more nuance to our favorite crimson reaper and spicing up his kit further.

                 Reason 3. Skillcurve in vlad should be slightly-moderately put further in the direction he rework took him.

Vlad before the rework was too simple of a champ to play i think we can all agree, very low mechanical needs and very easy to understand and get the hang of after about 5 games or so. The rework helped aid this issue a bit by making vladimirs skillfloor a little higher as a whole while making his skillcap Id say around a 6/10 of all champs in the game, slightly higher than average to get the more advanced tactics down.

That being said vladimir theme of blood being normally seen as a 'forbidden art' akin to other champs in the lore such as zed follow this same pattern of lowish skillfloor to get everything his kit can do down, but making the absolute most really showing champion mastery and very VERY visceral feelings of champion master. I feel that with adding a mechanic to make vlad feel more purposeful of a champ other than big damage, large self healing could very much add to this and give vlad a more Gameplay,architype,difficulty curve put better together as a whole.

Anyways thats my thought on the rework after playing for it some time and to answer the question initially of the post do i think vlad will need another rework overall? Yes I do vladimirs kit still is shown to be problematic akin to the old vlad with the issues of tanky/damage ratio his kit has while the overall goals of making fair a better step in the right direction but not fully realized as a whole and thus will hinder vlad in giving him a good spot in balance, very small meta shifts still affect vlad moreso than others and makes getting him to a 'perfect' spot overall much difficult than it should be, which a rework would resolve.

OF NOTE. By rework and assuming you read it all I dont mean scrapping anything in his kit really I like the way it is but perhaps adding more and fleshing it out would give more balance levers for riot to manage than the current one of vlad.

Anyways thanks for reading this all much appreciated. If this gets enough traction and support in the near future Id love to share my personal thoughts on how to address the issues of the rework that I listed above to really show what this champs thematic is capable of!