Talk:Vladimir/@comment-5211662-20150508044048

I hope that Riot does not nerf Vladimir. I was strongly upset when they nerfed Lulu and Kha'Zix, which are my other two mains. Thankfully Lulu is still playable at mid, top and support, and is still strong (albeit not THAT strong). However, Kha'Zix has been nerfed so much that he is barely viable at jungle and extremely weak in lane, and he can't assassinate anyone that is not isolated, and even then, other assassins have higher damage.

I fear that Riot will do the same thing to Vladimir as they did to Kha'Zix. Really, Vladimir isn't even that strong. He has a really weak early game, he is so weak, that champions he is supposed to counter, such as Zed, Yasuo and Jax, can kill him if they all in him at the first 3 levels. He indeed has a lot of sustain, but without proper resistances, he can't win trades against some champions. For example, without proper itemization, Rumble can outtrade Vlad, even when taking Vlad's sustain into account. And Rumble lacks sustain. Vladimir can outsustain most champions, but it's not until late game that he can actually outtrade them. Also, it is very hard to CS with Vlad unless you use his Q, but then you can't Q his enemy laner (that only applies to early game, of course).

Plus, he has other problems. For example, he has no hard CC, and his only actual soft CC is a mediocre slow on his W. Thanks to this lack of CC, he can't peel for his teammates, nor he can interrupt dangerous abilities such as Katarina or Fiddlesticks' ultimates.

He has short range, and can be kited. For example, a Jinx with crits and lifesteal late game will 1x1 Vlad unless he manages to have Ghost or Flash, Jinx can be killed easily if you catch her, but the problem IS catching her.

Finally, Vladimir is weak to CC. Most Vladimir players do not build tenacity and that makes Vladimir even weaker against CC. Using stuns and fears on Vlad during a fight can make him a very easy target even when taking his tankyness into account.

He may be deemed strong now, but that's only because the meta shifted from early game champions to champions that scale well into late, and most of those are tanks, and Vladimir counter tanks. People didn't realized that Vlad was a late game god before, because it was really easy to shut down him with the many early game champions that were popular. With that said, Vladimir is still balanced. I hope that people learn how to counter him instead of bitching for nerfs. Also, Vlad is a really hard champion to master. He may have easy mechanics, but you have to actually be good with him to know how to win against what he counters and even to win against what counters him.