What I think about the Vlad Changes

DISCLAIMER: this is after one game, I went 45% CDR, thunder lords.

First off, He definitely feels overall weaker.

His Q: All his damage and sustain is reliant upon hitting the Crimson Rush Q which imo, is really silly. You feel like the first two Q's do nothing and then all of a sudden, bam! A large rush of Crimson blood! If they tripled the cooldown on his Q and made each Q the power of Crimson rush, I literally wouldn't notice a difference.

His W: I don't really understand why they lowered the damage, as it already does sub-par damage on its own but whatever. It's a powerful ability as it is, when used right. I don't know if the movespeed buff on it is new or not, but I'm really digging it. Combined with Rylai's, you can really slow people down and keep them around you for a while. Especially with the e spam.

His E: Probably the most awkward of the changes made. Costs quite a bit of health and doesn't really do much damage. It really just needs some sort of reward for hitting it, like 3% heal for each champion hit, capping at 10% (full refund) or at least have it pierce through minions to make it easier to use.

His ult: I actually love the healing. Hitting a 4/3 man ult is soooo nice because you can just go full ham and expect to get back like 1000 health when the effect expires. Definitely like the changes here.

Ultimately, I'm gonna say that riot is trying to move vlad away from the Mage role into more of the drain tank Mage dude. But a lot of the item changes really helped. Rylai's wasn't touched, abyssal and Zhonya's now give CDR which, imo, is essential to vlad now. Protobelt is also really nice for those engages and catching up to people so you can E spam them to death.