It's not as simple as "you stated".
You can't see the bigger picture. Let me paint it for you.
Ocean's basically forced into one of two pigeonholes: Mage or Warden.
That's because** two of Ocean's units are Mages, and two are Wardens.**
The one-star Mage is a caster "tank" that relies on draining HP at melee range to be effective. If he doesn't get both sides of this exchange, constantly, then he won't be effective.
If he gets physical jammed, he won't be able to cast and he dies. If he gets magic jammed, he won't be able to cast and he dies. If there's a Soraka anywhere in the tri-state area, he won't be able to cast and he dies. If he gets crit to death, killed by blademaster spam, stun locked, frozen, stands on an Inferno patch, gets nibbled by Kindred, or the enemy has built a Trap Claw, Morellonomicon, or Red Buff, he won't be able to heal from casting and he dies.
And to add to his woes, because he's running HP steal, he has to outlevel his opponent. If he faces a higher star level unit, he dies. If he faces an equal-star level unit of a higher rank, he usually dies.
In other words, Vladimir is a weak-as-hell unit that gets outclassed by virtually every other Rank 1 healbot, and is really only useful for laughing at noobs and saying "But you didn't stop the Vladimir!"
Both of the Wardens are high HP frontliners who soak up damage. One deploys a shield and one sends out short-duration CC. Neither do a very good job of covering for the fragile caster "tank" that prefers to stand at melee range himself. You can build Warden, but if you do, there's no reason to buy Vladimir. He doesn't get the bonus and won't be protected by all the tough guys - he'll go around them and die. And if you buy seriously into Warden, then you get Ocean2 anyway, without needing to buy the other units.
Lastly there's Syndra. Syndra is a pretty good AOE splash mage. She gets better later, when her spheres often hit multiple targets. She's outclassed by Neeko, though. She doesn't synergize well with her teammates - Thresh will usually end up lanterning the frontline, and Nautilus is very unlikely to protect her from an Assassin. All too often she squeaks too close to the front and goes 'splat'. In fact, the shield tank Thresh is outclassed by Ivern, who has stronger long range shields, and the stun wall Nautilus is outclassed by Maokai who is manaless and can't be magic-jammed, and benefits from fighting ability-heavy teams.
Which by the way, is Ocean's Achilles Heel. The raw stats on all the Ocean units are tragic. Block their skills and they are done. Soraka alone beats Ocean. Nami's great - but anyone playing Mystic to deal with magic damage is going to want a Nami card. Or just anyone who wants to stuff a Rank 5 on their line.
In situations when Ocean is the arena element, you can run Ocean Qiyana. This gives you a pretty good assassin who skills slightly more often. But she doesn't work with the tanks and she won't protect Syndra or, should you reach her, Nami. And to make matters worse, both you and your enemy get a space with an immediate mana boost. In a situation where you are constantly generating mana slightly faster than your opponent, being able to start the match with a skill is a significant leg up for the enemy. If the Ocean tile is ANYWHERE but middle of line 2-3, center of the board, your opponent will benefit more than you do. If it's on the frontline, your tanks will waste it as theirs make use of it. If it's at the back, you risk assassins and have to walk into range anyway.
So, essentially, everything Ocean can do, Wood/Druid can do better. Earlier. Ironically the best way to play Ocean is to NOT play Ocean, to run the fewest possible Ocean units while getting the mana bonus you want.
You're best off stuffing an Ocean Lux on your backline and completely avoiding Ocean, if you want the Mana Boost.
