Talk:Vladimir/@comment-27019624-20160818031458/@comment-5211662-20160905060018

What I mean with Vlad having little utility is that, if you compare him with other champions in the game, all he has to offer to help his team win are 4 things: a slow on his W, the damage amplification on his ult, his somewhat good but not amazing tankyness, and his damage. That's all. I am NOT counting things like the slow on Rylai, for example.

Damage is the main thing that Vlad offers to help his team win. He is mostly made to do damage. Yes, Vladimir has a lot of utility in the sense that he has many things on his kit besides damage, but if you look closely, almost all of this utility is centered around himself. For example, his sustain. All of his sustain is made to help himself, Vladimir can't heal allies like Soraka can, for example. He also has some tankyness, but it he definitively does not have Malphite levels of tankyness, and teams would rather have another champion if they wanted a dedicated tank. His tankyness is mostly to help himself, allowing him to survive enough during battles to allow him to deal damage and sustain. His W slow and damage amplification are all of his other team-based utility and they are all situtional and come with a long cooldown.

Vladimir has no hard CC, does not have means to start teamfights, he has no peel, no shields, no sustain for his allies (only for himself) and anything else that he can give for his allies other than the aforementinoed things. One can argue that he also has waveclear to help his team push to win, but so does many other champions, just like damage.

All of his self-centered utility, while good, do not help his team to win that much. For example, Vladimir's self sustain is definitively good and many find it to be obnoxious to deal with. However, it doesn't matter how much Vladimir heals himself. If he can't deal enough damage to an enemy, he can heal himself to full HP and this will still not help his team to win.

This is the reason why Vladimir is useless when behind; he has no utility to back up if he is behind. Same reason to why champions like Master Yi or Zed are useless when behind. They have little to no utility to help their team win. The utility they have is mostly to help themselves, not their team overall. This is also the reason why a behind Lulu is still helpful to her team; even if she is too weak to do meaningful damage, she has many ways to help her allies (shields, CC, an HP bonus, peeling). If her damage is overtuned, all Riot has to do is nerf her damage, and with that, you have a trade off for picking her instead of other mages, including Vlad.

Champions like Vlad are hard to balance and a pain when they are strong because to allow them to be as useful to their team as possible, they must deal a lot of damage, and combine that damage with any possible self utility they have. Compared to Lulu, you can't just nerf Vlad's damage. By nerfing it, there is a risk that he will become too weak as a champion as damage is the main thing he has to offer for a team.