Talk:Vladimir/@comment-24823977-20141008171519/@comment-25447003-20141213171344

I think I understand this. Especially if you were coming from other short range mages: Kayle, Ryze. Both Kayle & Ryze are beasty late game champions and can dish out more damage than Vlad while being tankier than him!

If you were from the short-range bursty (Annie, Veigar) you can see the damage is not high enough. Yet Vlad has the same weaknesses with them, he will be trouble (countered) with 2 types:

1/ long range mages: Xerath, Brand, Malzahar, VelKoz, Lux

2/ gap-closer bruisers: Pantheon, Wukong, XinZhao, Irelia (even the nerfed ones like Jax, Khazix, Rengar, LeeSin)

So, if your opponents is picking those champs I would suggest not picking Vlad. And when your supposed top lane is Kennen or Singed, the laning phase will be easy for Vlad, though :).

In other words, Vlad has been nerfed heavily and his counters are not nerfed enough for his cycle back again :)