Talk:Vladimir/@comment-4677525-20130320062435/@comment-4659726-20130321042906

I wouldn't say Rylai's is core. And I would highly be against buying tons of tanky items that have little offensive merits.

Good items for mid game are Seeker's, sorc's, Guise, Revolver. And while some people take warmogs on him now I just don't like how much the item actually costs for the hp and passive. It only contributes 25 AP to your damage and I personally would rather buy a Revolver+Guise with that money instead. It is a preference thing and for me, it is simply too expensive.

For top lane you likely will go 9/21/0 and take magic pen marks, hp/lvl seals, and either AP/lvl glyphs or flat mr depending on matchup. Quints are flat Ap. Don't forget that Ghost is extremely useful top lane as well for him, flash doesn't do much for you in terms of getting away when you already have pool.

Items you should be working towards/are good buys depending on the game (the big items, not counting the mid game items I mentioned earlier). Zhonya's(extremely useful in S3 and mostly better than deathcap top lane), Deathcap, Liandry's, Rylai's, Wota(last or near last), Abyssal, Deathfire grasp(squishy keeps being out of position? time to nuke with ult and dfg active).

Although it is highly up to the game, if you have enough CC from your jungler/mid/support and don't seem to really need to kite/are not being melted super fast, then you might not need to invest in a rylai's. Instead going for Abyssal because -20 mr for the enemy team on top of 40 ish magic pen from items and runes means you will be doing a lot of damage with your mid laner(if they do magic). Rylai's is situational, but not a bad item on him by any means.

Zhonya's has gotten a lot better since S3 started and I think that because of the higher AP and active it is now one of the best items for snowballing with vlad+a good item in general for many situations. All in all, as top lane vlad one 120 AP item is a good choice, and doesn't have to be deathcap. (you still need deathcap).

As for revolver, it is good. It provides sustain and is much cheaper than the hp regen you get from either visage or warmogs. Just don't upgrade it to wota ASAP since you usually can manage your hp costs well enough.

Do NOT build him with GA, thornmail, and bulwark like Method says. It is not a good idea to tank instead of doing damage because vlad doesn't have enough utility to back up a full tank build. He NEEDS to do damage otherwise he is just an ult bot.