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A Discussion on Vladimir (And Sustain in the Top Lane)

Gretch·5/22/2015, 11:23:25 PM·3 votes·769 views

I want to make perfectly clear before anything else that this is not a rage/salt thread or post, or at the very least is not intended to be.

So, that said, some of you who frequent the top lane recently may have encountered a Vladimir. He has seen a spike in popularity since patch 5.7 or so, and I'd like to talk about his place in the top lane and the issues that have been brought up with it.

Vlad, as many of you may already know, is a mage with a bit of a weak early game but a strong late game, with one of the main focal points of his kit being sustain and sustained damage. Typically, when offered advice on how to deal with Vlad, people will recommend an aggressive early game, to zone him from his creeps and deny gold, and awareness of his ability cooldowns, mostly his pool, so that he cannot escape from or turn around a fight unexpectedly. However, these tips, as simple as they are to understand, will not always help.

To put it simply, when against a competent Vlad, he will rarely die 1v1 in lane after he has built Hextech Revolver, unless you play a counter to him. Now, there's nothing particularly wrong with having a champion be susceptible to hard counters but strong against others, but characters that do not directly counter him in lane will find it a rather large challenge to kill him, or stay in lane at all, when he knows what he's doing. Trading with Vlad is impractical for a long list of top laners after he gets Revolver. Even if they outdamage him, he can sustain it back with a point and click, single-target-for-max-vamp Q, on a low CD. If the laner facing Vlad does not have built in sustain or builds directly to sustain in their kit, then trading will result in a Vlad with no lost health and his matchup being low on health and mana, if they are not manaless.

This isn't so much on Vlad's kit as it is sustain and how to deal with it, especially in the top lane. Say you are an AD champion in the top lane, and you do not have Grievous Wounds built in to your kit. How do you counter Vlad's sustain?

You don't.

You can build tank and resistances against Vlad's damage, or whoever else you're playing against's damage, to lower how much damage they deal to you, effectively lowering the amount healed. Unfortunately, this does not apply to minions, monsters in the jungle, and for a majority of items, your team mates. Since the removal of Executioner's Calling, there is no effective way to directly counter sustain.

I'm not asking for Executioner's Calling back. Some surefire item to immediately cancel out sustain would ruin a lot of champions and their kits, Vlad being one of them. What I am saying is that there needs to be better methods available than what is currently in place.

Sustain has its place in the game. It allows champions to apply more pressure without having to back as often, and rewards certain champions and their players for being smart in teamfights and duels, by deceptively "having more health" than they appear to. That being said, sustain in the top lane at the moment is not fun, especially when it is a safe, ranged, point and click like Vlad's. Lifesteal and Spell Vamp invalidate trades, and create an unhealthy duality in certain champions (again, like Vlad), with the mindset of either "No point in trading, he'll just heal it back and I'll be worse off", which is boring and creates an uninteresting relationship between top laners, or "I have to outdamage his sustain", which is reckless, and can often lead to feeding, which we all know what happens after that.

Please understand that not every champion that employs Spell Vamp or Life Steal is like this in its entirety, as some champions have innate sustain built into them without having it be a main focus of their play. Vladimir was chosen because his entire kit and image is of one of sustain, and problems with his kit and the way he plays may be hinting at an overall problem with champion sustain that needs to be addressed. I'm not calling for a nerf to Vlad, a nerf to Life Steal or Spell Vamp, or a rework of how sustain works in the game.

So, I'd like to have people in here to discuss how sustain through Life Steal and Spell Vamp are affecting the top lane, or even the rest of the lanes and the jungle, if you think it affects them as much. Share your thoughts and ideas; is sustain in a healthy or unhealthy spot? What could be done to tweak it, if it needs tweaking? Please feel free to give me any criticism or feedback on my writing as well. I don't think my argument is perfect, and I'd like to hear from the League community on what I believe is a subtle but recognizable issue. Thanks for your time.

2 Comments

Mandang05/22/2015, 11:47:09 PM2 votes

Sustain's way too binary in league - many champion kits (not just Vlad's) depend heavily on it, and the only counter mechanic absolutely destroys the sustain (cuts it by 50%). Too often the game is decided on "Do we have a heal debuff for X champion?" This is bad for the team that needs to deal w/ that champ and it's bad for that champ themself.

Though, to be fair, the answer to "How do you counter Vlad's sustain as an AD champ top lane?" is life steal, which is a far better stat than spell vamp, with better item options, that works for more champs (only a few champs bother buying spell vamp). Just like laning against Vlad seems futile, the minute that top Lee Sin gets Hydra, you might as well forget any ideas you had of killing him. The same is true for most tops that get hydra too.

Sustain does have a place in the game, and I don't think it's any more or less valid than Riven bursting you down with her kit. That, of course, is the counter to sustain: burst damage.