Vladimir/Strategy

==Strategy==

Skill Usage

 * Having at least 1 rank of can help you survive much longer, as it resets minion, neutral creep and turret aggro. A skilled player can use it to turret dive or to dodge an enemy champion's ability.
 * Build up to level 5 for an ability that replaces auto-attacking, with the added bonus of a heal.
 * Using at the right moment can dodge spells like, , , ,  and.
 * It will also dodge abilities that are not skill shots such as and.
 * does not cancel or
 * can be cast without having any enemy targets nearby. This can allow you to keep the buff constantly active or build stacks to prepare for an attack. It can also increase the effectiveness of a Health Potion if used prior to activating it.
 * Gaining stacks of Tides prior to a gank can result in some devastatingly high nuking ability of even multiple enemies. For the same reason, Vlad's damage gets far better after about 10 seconds during a team fights as his stacks increase very quickly, which can result in massive AoE damage when combined with
 * Level 5 steals life fast enough that Vlad can stay at 4 Empower stacks without losing health. With endgame items and some spell vamp, Empower stacks will actually help Vlad heal faster.
 * causes targets to take bonus damage, so it is advised to use it at the beginning of team fights to have the enemies receive bonus damage.
 * When using, be wary of champions who can counter the delayed damage such as with ,  with , and  with . It is often a good idea to see if you can get in one last  to try and damage the shield, or if you have  to slow them.
 * is excellent if you need to wait for cooldowns to come up and don't have . Try this combo:, , , , , ,.

Build Usage

 * Start with an item that provides both Ability Power and Health for maximum effect.
 * is a great item for most casters, but Vladimir will get even more from it due to his passive: the scepter will grant 644 HP and 92.5AP instead of 500 HP and 80 AP. Keep in mind, as of patch 1.0.0.111,  none  of Vladimirs abilities will trigger the 35% movement speed reduction; all four of his abilities are considered "multi-target" spells, including, since it deals damage to your enemy and heals you shortly after, thus all of Vladimirs abilities will only reduce movement speed by 15%.
 * The combination of and  can prove deadly for your enemies, because 1 stack of both together grants you 46.4 HP and 8.8 AP. If you get 20 stacks it grants 928 bonus HP and 176 bonus AP in total.
 * As of V1.0.0.108, the are an excellent choice for Vladimir.
 * can be used on Vladimir to boost his heal dramatically, as it stacks with  effect.
 * is very effective on Vladimir with high AP, since it will increase the amount healed with as well as adding a healing component to the rest of his abilities. Interestingly, for the Spell Vampirism statistic,  is considered a single-target ability, not receiving the 2/3 healing reduction (i.e. 6.6% instead of 20%) penalty for multi-target abilities, contrary to.

Playing Against

 * When laning against an enemy Vladimir it is a great idea to buy an as the extra health and health regen will help you lane against him.
 * To zone him out of experience range you can use or  when he has a high amount of stacks on  as it is almost always a sign he is trying to restore his health with  so he can stay in lane longer.
 * Early game, stay just out of range of his transfusion, if he uses it on a minion, run and harass then back up before his transfusion cools down, it is possible to outharass vlad like this.