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Dear Riot, can we talk about Vladimir?

Over Innsmouth··6 votes·1,009 views

I love Vladimir, I do. I'm sure I'm not alone in that, but let's put that to the side. I'll try to make this as brief as possible.

Since the Mage Rework in 6.9, Vladimir has been fairly consistently receiving buffs, nerfs and tweaks to his new kit.

On May 9th, he received a hotfix that buffed the AP scaling of his Rush heal, and buffed the base damage of Tides of Blood for both min and max values.

In patch 6.10, he received a couple of tweaks aimed at Q and the E-W interaction, as well as a substantial buff to his R healing-pop, especially when procced against larger groups of enemies.

In patch 6.11, he received a couple of VO-related bugfixes, but no number changes.

In patch 6.13, he received a tweak to his Crimson Pact values (reverting them to the AP-favouring values pre-MYMU) and a base damage nerf/scaling damage buff to his Q.

In patch 6.14, more bugfixes, no actual changes.

In patch 6.15 - the current patch - his movespeed was reduced by 5 and an extra 2 seconds was added to Sanguine Pool's cooldown at all ranks.

Currently on the PBE, he has a pending nerf to his base health from 550 to 525.

So, Riot. All I want to know is whether you're satisfied with the current state Vladimir is in and whether all he will need from now on are number changes to his kit, or whether you feel he could benefit from a larger, single-person update that requires a full team to work on. I'm not contesting your decisions on nerfs/buffs, because dedicated mains of a Champion will almost always be able to perform with success unless that Champion is specifically gimped (pre rework-Poppy /Yorick ). It's your game, I will make Vladimir work in my own hands.

I just want to know what direction you're taking the most beautiful blood man in the League. Are you content with his current iteration, or do you feel that (like Mordekaiser) a group-scope rework wasnt sufficient for him and he needs more work?

Yours Bloodily, Tides of Blood.

17 Comments

WitchQueen Annie4 votes

I'm pretty displeased they are nerfing him solely based on his performance in LCS games (which assume perfect communication and coordination).

While for the vast 99% of other scenarios, he's perfectly balanced and these nerfs will only hurt his performance for the casual gamer unfairly.

Over Innsmouth1 votes

It happens. It's unfortunate, but at least they arent truly gutting him.

25 health is noticable early, but shouldnt be an issue unless the Vladimir is getting far too cocky/caught out.

WoonStruck1 votes

Actually, he's unbalanced in any circumstance due to his ult.

His base kit is not why he's being nerfed. Its solely his ult.

Vladimir offers a relatively safe laning phase (like all other champs picked in LCS...), gets durable and is able to emit a great zoning threat for taking objectives due to how he works (and has always worked), and late game he can bait people into over-committing with his ultimate's heal.

His ult's heal is the only new aspect of his kit, but that can hardly be considered the issue.

The real issue is the damage multiplier on his ult. That's why he's taken. Because Vlad offers things that are usable, even if they aren't as good as what other champs can offer, while also providing a 10% damage boost, he will remain pick/ban in competitive.

As long as he has a team-wide insane utility buff like that, he will either be pick/ban or such a horrible champ that its not worth picking.

WitchQueen Annie2 votes

This is pretty much why I play him.

I pick him in Ranked because of the Safe laning (he has NO bad match-ups in mainstream Mid once you know how to vary your play style according to the match-up). His laning is so reliable that if you manage to sidestep even just 40% of the enemy's skill shots, you'll likely never die because you'll just heal back.

He's a damage dealing AOE tank. Generally in this game, you're either Squishy but deal tons of damage... or you're Tanky but deal no damage. Vlad gets the best of both, he's Tanky AND he deals damage and its not just single target damage, its AOE damage.

That Ult is also flat out the best Ult in the whole game in my opinion.

I still think Vladimir + Malphite + Amumu + Jax + MF is the ultimate team comp in the whole game.

WoonStruck1 votes

Tbh, I'd rather have Vlad top and run Ori mid for the overall stuff she adds.

WitchQueen Annie1 votes

Mid Vlad + Ghost/Flash is unbelievably overpowered.

You auto-win more than 50% of your match-ups if you get SV while not sacrificing much damage. You generally can't be bullied out of lane. And you can Ghost Gank bot lane with Hemoplague followed by E.

Putting him in Top always felt sub-optimal to me because his abilities and his Ult are AOE but putting Top makes it harder for him to join team fights; he also doesn't have tower push. He could TP into fights and then Ult but its much more telegraphed than a Ghost assault.

Putting him in Mid allows him to easily join team fights and skirmishes and really takes full advantage of his AOE kit.

I also feel he can be counterpicked in Top hard (ex Riven or Irelia) while in Mid Lane none of the mainstream Mid picks can push him out.

**I don't know about after these massive nerfs to his E's power though... **

WoonStruck1 votes

Its true he has an easier time mid, but he can offer so much more to a team if he's top, overall.

Anyone that played Vlad prior to the rework can already fight Riven, Irelia, etc because you had an infinitely harder time with those match-ups pre-rework. Who you lane against literally doesn't matter as an experienced Vlad.

TP in non-competitive/communicating teams is much weaker now with the nerfs to TP, btw. Especially on Vlad. You're often better running flash+ghost there like everyone did prior to the rework as well...

WitchQueen Annie1 votes

yeah Riven pre-rework was a very hard counter to Vlad in top; it was virtually impossible to win against anyone who knew that they were doing 1 vs 1 without help.

Post rework though, I've done better against Riven in top. But it might also be because I've learned how to abuse minion-positioning against melee match-ups and overall improved at playing cool downs (her cool downs are hard to play though because of the large number of gap closer burst type attacks)

WoonStruck1 votes

I never had problems with her prior to his rework either.

I start boots with MS quints. Dip into range of where she can get to you; don't Q.

She'll start to go aggro, if she doesn't, keep doing it. You can usually get CS while doing this as well.

When she goes aggro, you simply turn around and she won't be able to reach you, because she's can't really judge the engage distance well if you're safely skirting her max range. If she tries to flash engage on you, 90% of the time you can just W out and be under turret. Worst case, you flash too and she won't be able to do anything to you for the next 5 minutes.

The moment she backs out, auto Q auto auto auto. If you took damage, go heal off gromp/krugs without taking damage. Your rushes should be cdr boots, codex, and kindlegem, maybe a chain vest if she's going pen.

Post-rework this is even better.

Ereldra1 votes

He also has a nerf to his E on the PBE although it's coming with a bit of compensation:

Tides of Blood (E) 
    Cooldown increased to 13/11/9/7/5 from 9/8/7/6/5
    Health cost changed to 8% at all ranks from 10% at all ranks

And generally I don't really know about his rework... I mean, the reason they changed him was due to his old kit beeing sort of toxic so they had to keep him in a state where he was more or less clearly underpowered because if he wasn't he would have become extremely oppressive to play against, especially in Pro-PLay. And now... that is happening again. They have to nerf and nerf and nerf him even though his winrate for normal players is already one of the lowest (4th lowest Midlane, lowest of all Toplane) simply because if he is played in a highly coordinated environment with a team built around him he becomes insanely strong. (these funny bulldozer comps with Shen, Heca, Vlad, Sivir, Karma that just run straight at and through you^^)

I like playing the new Vlad, it's alot more fun than the old one and in this regard it was a success but concerning his "game-health problems" it seems to me that they didn't manage to achieve anything... they still have to keep him extremely weak because otherwise he becomes extremely oppressive in Pro-Play.

WoonStruck1 votes

that 8% health cost means its scaling is dropping by 20% as well.

He's not being nerfed for anything that he does outside of ulting, essentially.

They only nerfing him because he's in the LCS (look at every other common LCS pick), and he's only in the LCS because of his ult and the fact that his laning is somewhat safe.

Xeruon1 votes

Right now, I wouldn't question any nerfs. With Worlds happening soon, we know Riot trying to have the more interesting-to-watch champions get more play, and nerf down some of the staple champions.

Over Innsmouth1 votes

It's not that I'm questioning the nerfs (though I am upset). I just want to know what they intend to do with Vladimir.

The thing about his presence in the LCS is another topic, and the reason he has a presence there (as far as I understand) is that players are picking him because he's above average at what he does (AoE damage and sustain) but not the best, an exceptional stone wall that denies lanes from snowballing and soaks a tremendous amount of punishment in the lategame, and - most importantly and the main/real reason people are picking him - provides an AoE 10% damage amp in teamfights.

If Vlad is overtuned and they're nerfing that, I'm fine. If Vlad is doing exactly what he's fucking advertised to do (above-average AoE and sustain, damage amp teamfight presence) and they're nerfing him for that, I'm a little miffed.

I'd rather see the pros play what they want to play rather than what Riot deems they want to see played.

Xeruon1 votes

Hey man, even Shen was nerfed. Fucking Shen.

Why? Because Riven and Jinx are more fun to watch than Trundle/Vlad/Shen. It's that simple.

option paralysis1 votes

I think they won't bother with reworking him again, because that would mean they didn't do anything with his mymu. Although, I'd like to see his full rework. I think he will always be toxic and complained about in his current state. IMO the update didn't do anything except making clunky counterplay, but then they added 1k++ healing and hp scaling on his E, so he's toxin again. I hate the new particles too, blood lord skin Q and E before looked and sounded AMAZING, now I barely see the life dripping away.

My ideas for now would be: maybe give his normal Q more healing but also take some of the healing away from crimson rush Q for more dmg. This way both normal and crimson rush Q have something to give, now I feel like normal Q is garbage and you just use it to get the 3rd one. Also, they could give him less hp scaling on E and more AP scaling, thus making AP builds more common and he wouldn't be so toxic to play against with tanky builds giving dmg. His ult can be something like brand ult but with blood bouncing around targets, infecting them and giving you increased dmg if you hit them when they're infected. Same niche, but more skillZ. Obviously, still doing dmg afterwards or during. Idk, there's so many ideas, not just nerf the numbers, hurr durr.

BloodyTompon1 votes

They're happy with him relative to what he was. He's much improved from that. He could be improved more, but there are a number of other champs that are worse off atm so I wouldn't expect him to receive any significant changes for a very long time.

option paralysis1 votes

But other champs don't have such a high pick rate in lcs and high ban rate in solo q. That's why he should be prioritized rather than nerfing his numbers for 4 straight patches. But like I said, that would mean the MYMU didn't do anything, so they won't rework him again.

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