Talk:Vladimir/@comment-1920550-20150108062523/@comment-25447003-20150117183509

In real games S4 it's proved that Ryze's win rates is pretty good (and even better at higher ELOs), whilst Vlad's win rate is mediocre. And also pick/ban rate of Ryze is much higher, there is some reason he's considered new king of top lane (as of the nerf of "Preservance" mastery 4.2; Jax/Renekton/Mundo/Shyvana seems subpar against Ryze).

Ok we can ignore the S4 statistics and continue theorycrafting a bit. I'll try to explain some details why Vlad has weaker laning phase (and weaker mid/late game):

1/ Cooldown: the main harrass ability is Q: Ryze starts with 3.5s and Vlad starts with 10s. It's 3x spammable, if we do not count anything else. Yet Ryze's innate can reduce 1s per abilities, and Q passive gives more 10% CDR. So even when Q ranked 5, Ryze's Q can spam 2 or 3 times more than Vlad's Q.

2/ W ability: Ryze's W is better at laning phase, since it can root opponent and deal decent damage. It can be used to poke/harrass whilst Vlad's W is not viable to deal damage, just an escape with a big price. The only edge it's better than Ryze's W is when to escape a nuke/burst ability (post-6). But generally Ryze's W is better for escape gank; and in team fight a flash "snare" opponent's AD/AP carry is much valuable (initiation which can take down that carry) than a "just hide and no attack".

3/ Item synchronization: this is a bit subtle, but it's actually a very important factor that distinguish a "bully" laning phase and a "tower-hugging" one.

+ 3.A: "Tear": just 700 - and for Ryze it's just an extra 300 gold, practically since most of the time he got the 400 mana item at start. Whereas Vladimir needs at least 1200 Gold for Hextech Revolver (in some cases Vlad may rush Haunting Guise - 1400 gold - or Seeker - 1200 gold); let alone the cost of Doran's Shield/Ring and health potions. Both champions are not very good at last hit and early farming; which makes the difference between 300 Gold and 1200 Gold more noticable. (not to mention when being zoned or lane-frozen)

+ 3.B: Once Ryze has 300G he buys Tear, then he can harrass opponent all day. Even when he doesn't care about farming and has 0CS since then; his damage scale up to 65 magic damage per Q hit: 6.5% * (250+750), and 45 damage per W hit, and from ulti R. So he can easily save up for RoA (1200G - Catalyst to be exact, which has nice scale per level as well). Once Vlad has 300G, it's nothing helpful. He still needs 900G+ more to have something useful; in that period there are at least 15 champions can bully him  and deny his farming - if Vlad strive for saving up and not back (Recall) he may die and give opponent 300G, which will result in more "bullied".

+ 3.C: Catalyst/RoA has the sustain per level and sync very well with Ryze's kit. But even the next important item for Ryze: the FrozenHeart, has been reduced cost 2900G->2600G (and 2450G as of 4.21), it's build path is easier than Vlad's ZhonyaGlass ; give more tankiness and team fight presence. Vlad? "I missed S3 items so much. Wota cost up to 2500G from 2000G and I have to endure it, Seeker is nerfed as well, even the boot (CDR/MRpen) is so expensive that I don't want to rush a Haunting Guise..." .  And the post-6 nukers can burst so hard that even sometimes Vlad has to buy MR to survive up to lv10, ...

4/ Some "minor" stats: like MovementSpeed 340 vs 335, base attack 55 vs 48, base armor, ... really matters! Last hits, harrasment, gank escape, spell rotation, ... Even just small numbers, they add up, and they makes the other weaknesses (like farming - i.e. gold starving) more severe. If you have ever felt the "nerf" of a champion you "main", you'll see that Rito just adjust very small numbers on those stats, and your champion is significantly weaker... you'll understand :)

There are a few more, but I think above is enough for "snowballing". Sometimes just 1 kill/death is enough to delay the scale of Ryze/Vladimir; especially harsh for top lane.

Those weaknesses are basically why Vladimir don't have many presence in S4 and need some buffs in S5 !