Commenting on the tragedy that is Vladimir's rework.

Do you know what is the best way to describe Vlad's current state now? Half-assed. That's pretty much it. It's like you've tried to change him, but with as minimal changes as possible. And, since the champ needed a lot more than that, it is ABSOLUTELY NO SURPRISE the result is downright garbage.

Vladimir was the first champ I bought with IP when I started this game. I looked through the roster and thought: "THAT'S MA CHAMP!" and started saving IP for him. On top of that, I took this even further and started saving on Spellvamp Quints that should give me quite an edge in toplane. I've played a lot of Vlad-games since then, and when you announced the rework, I had my hopes up. A little at least, however I was also sceptical for two reasons:

1.) The Karma Rework. That was when Riot first reworked a mage. And it was a disaster. Since then we have seen many good reworks, but not a single mage one. It was like they had absolutely no clue what the theme of that champ was, but well, Vlad is a bit more distinctive, so maybe that's not an issue...

2.) It was a roster update, meaning he would barely get any art ressources, leading to the fact that all changes would occur in a really minimalistic spectrum.

And I was right to be sceptical: you screwed it. You wanted to make Vlad strong AND healthy to play against. However, the only true strenght old Vlad had, was that he was exactly NOT healthy to play against. So sticking to the old design while at the same time trying to achieve healthy counterplay is something that will inevitably fail.

And now, for the sake of counterplay is numbers are either garbage or the damage is so heavily telegraphed only a totally inexperienced player will take it - and the reason for that is simply because too much of Vlad's power budget is still stuck in hidden power factors. These are:

• The point&click Q that had to be dumpstered with the Crimson Rush mechanic,
• The damage amp on the ultimate. Powerfull, especially when you hit 5 people with it, but too much variance. Also, never really noticeable.
• The AoE aspect. Again, too much variance. Best possible outcome and lowest possible outcome are too far apart. Sure, you will only hit 1-2 enemy champs at most with it, but it has to be toned down far enough so that when it hits 5 it still is balanced.
• The Passive. Free stats never really feel impactfull, unless you get a shitton of it ( )

I'm not saying we have to get rid of all of it, but some of that has to go and be replaced by something else. Also, this would be a chance to expand Vladimir's theme a little. There's a lot of awesome stuff you can do with blood-powers, so why is he reduced to being such an annoying mosquito that sometimes squashes itself into a puddle?

So, we know Q is supposed to be the drain skill, right? But having it instant causes problems, so you delay it. So far, so logical. But there are WAY better options than this weird crimson rush mechanic. This could be connected with the theme from the ultimate (infecting blood) into a mechanic like this: "Basic attacks and abilities cause blood stacks to build up on the enemy champion for 2 seconds. Hitting them again builds more, up until a cap. Using Q removes all stacks, damages enemies and heals you, the power of damage and heal being dependant on the number of stacks.

One could even expand on the infected-blood thing by brining it into connection with the pool: the slow is now dependant on how many blood-stacks the enemy has. Would be logical: the more you have infected the enemy, the more control you have over them. And now we could pursue that idea further, and suddenly we have a concept for a new ultimate that could replace the old one.

Vlad currently has two identities: the slippery sustain guy who's hard to kill AND the AoE guy. However, both together is not really a good mix. But one of them is part of his theme with the bloodmage-thing going on, the other can be easily removed without hurting the first theme. "Blood-Mage" is not exactly an archetype known for AoE effects, such as one would expect from a character like Brand. So in that case: tune down the AoE, but increase the 1vs1 power instead.

Also, Vlad has another unique thing going on that has no yet been utilized: he is the only one in league who attacks with his own blood. Like, he literally throws it at you. That could work for some nice natural appearing weakness...

After some thinking I thought of something like this that could work: (That here is just one prototype and I know I have no clue about proper design, but still this might work better than the current one)

Passive: Basic Attacks Deal Bonus Magic damage (scaling with AP and HP) and apply Blood-stacks on the enemy, but cost Flat HP to use. (Also, eventually keep the stats thing but tweak it accordingly).

Q: Transfusion: Consume all Blood-Stacks around, heal for every stack. Killing an enemy unit with this grants bonus heal and reduces the cooldown.

W: Sanguine Pool: (same as now, let slow scale with Blood-Stacks. The ability itself also applies some for a minimum slow, but not much).

E: New Ability: "Red Lance": First cast: channel and drain your own HP (like current E): second cast: long line skillshot that pierces enemies and roots them in place. Damage, range and Root duration are dependant on how much of your own max HP was used. Enemies gain Blood stacks during the root.

R: New Ability: "Absolute Dominance": Channel, but you can move, although slowed: Slows a target enemy with Blood stacks. Slow increases with Stacks. Enemies with Maximal Blood stacks are suppressed instead. Recast for "Harvest": an empowered version of Transfusion that deals %Missing HP damage to the target.

And that's just stuff that I came up with on the fly now, and still that sounds somewhat more authemtic than the current Vlad...

If you have own versions of how to rework Vlad, just post it here ^^