Dev Corner: Stashu talks Vlad

Well, I have a few thoughts.

First, regarding his E (since that seems to be one of the most likely things that is getting changed). I would like to see it become a cone AOE spell that is chargeable; dealing more damage and costing more health depending on charge time. I'd even like to give him some flexibility with it in that he can use it (as in start to charge it) in pool and things like that. Tradeoff would be that it can actually miss.

Second, because it seems that they want to stick with his high sustain playstyle (something I'm happy about) I would wonder if the idea of another passive solidifying that concept would come about; tie his damage output to his health in some way shape or form. This could be done in a few ways; his damage could be based off his current health, so that the lower his health gets the more damage he does. Or, thematically, it could work in the exact opposite way; since with lower health, he has less resources at his disposal, he does less damage. Either of these has drawbacks and benefits.

I'm only mentioning the above because if his Q is going to transfer over and be anything similar to what it is now, they will have missed on the worst designed part of Vlad's kit; there has to be something gating that Q to keep him from falling back into the same patterns.

I would also like to talk about Vlad's R. While it is low on their priority list, I think it could use some help. The reason is his ultimate is, mostly likely, balanced around him hitting multiple people with it (likely not all 5, but maybe 3 or something like that). This makes Vlad's ultimate strictly worse in a 1v1 situation because Vlad cannot optimally use his ultimate; he can get (at best) 2 spell rotations at 12% increased damage before a relatively weak piece of magic damage hits them. I would really like to see a mechanic where his ultimate put more emphasis on either the damage amp or the actual damage dependent on the number of champions that were hit by it. So, in a 1v1, it might only give 5% increased damage but detonates for ultimate level damage vs hitting 4 people where it would function more like live.

Finally, I think it is important and a correct decision for Riot to leave Vlad's AP to Health (and health to AP) passive. My reasoning is as a short ranged mage that has no CC, if he didn't have some meat on his bones naturally he would be too squishy to function in the game. The only other short range mages I can think of are Cass (who is also getting reworked) and Ryze (who has always been impossible to balance) and even these 2 have some CC. So I completely agree with keeping Vlad's current passive; if he didn't have it he would never be good.

I think vlad's main issue in live is his W and Q honestly, the Q gives whats basically unlimited easy mindless sustain, like a even worse version of the shen Q they removed in rework, I would find it more interesting if his Q was still a strong sustain tool but required he do more then click, a ability where he marks a target with his attacks or spells giving him back a set ap scaling amount of health on hit comes to mind. Vlad's W is basicly the opposite of game play, its a moving zhonya's with a completely ignorable damage and slow attached to it, the sustain with it is nice if he uses it wile on top of a minion wave at low HP but because it scales off his health for damage it never does enough damage to justify it as a offensive tool, and as a defensive tool it offers nothing for someone working around it, all a opponent can do is wait for it to wear off wile there low health target slides away from them, personally id like to see it adjusted to do more damage so it becomes a meaningful part of his combo and force a player to decide to save it for escape or use it for damage, or make it a less absolute defensive tool, like making vlad move in a single direction for its duration or slowing him wile a pool. As far as his E ill be sad to see it go, wile it dosn't offer much gameplay I enjoyed the aspect of having a large portion of his damage relying on a low cool down aoe, its scaling cost and healing increase supported a much more dangerous high risk play style then the rest of his kit provided. I think his ult and passive are the most well designed parts of his character, the passive providing the tankiness that other more fun close range Mages desperately need ( I'll always pray for your buffs ) and his ult adding a meaningful increase to team fight potential on a champ that would otherwise be just a very small albeit annoying gnat with no burst damage and not enough tank stats to frontline.