User blog comment:Willbachbakal/(Champion Rework) Vladimir, the Crimson Reaper/@comment-1876049-20150107134522/@comment-1330314-20150107145432

A ground-targeted ability could definitely work, and one of the earlier versions of Corrupted Blood I thought about was this orb that you could cast over minions and would shower the area around it in blood. My main concern when thinking it through was that it could potentially be very oppressive against melee laners: 's a nightmare to deal with as a melee champion precisely because of her orbs (and her E), which can easily whittle down her opponents as they try to last hit. I want Vlad to be fairly weak early on, and since we already have an issue with melee champions not being very well-equipped to deal with ranged champions in top lane I don't really want to add to the problem.