User blog comment:Ricoindigo/WORK IN PROGRESS : Mage update patch for Season 6/@comment-4996845-20160128053223

Vladimir

Core identity? Health juggler. It's not like he should heal up from 0 to 100 with his abilities alone and with no items to facilitate that. It's not like his (usually biggish) health pool makes him a tank. He uses that health (his true lifeblood) to deal damage. So he sucks your blood to throw it at you, just so he can drain you a bit more a moment later. He won't burst you down that way - he'll literally bleed you dry.

Main problem? Little gameplay involved. With just a single skillshot (that being his ult) and mostly moderate range on his abilities, pretty much the only thing that separates a good Vlad from a mediocre one is how he manages his trollpool/zhonya combo. Also for a DPS-centric champ he doesn't really have the tools to stick to his target and really get the damage in, aside from the slightly annoying but greatly outdated Rylai's permaslow (which is less relevant than in used to be due to the sheer amount of mobility modern champs possess).

Solution?

Drain Vitality (Innate): On dealing damage to an enemy champion, Vladimir also steals a portion of their movement speed, slowing them and hasting himself by the same amount.

Blood Sport (Q): Vladimir sends out a blood spike that impales all targets in a line, dealing magic damage to them, then returns to Vladimir's expected position. On catching the spike, he is healed for each target struck and his haste is refreshed. AP ratio on damage and heal increased to compensate old passive.

Sanguine Pool (W): Slow moved to passive. Haste reduced appropriately. Passively increases self-healing for every Bloodied enemy nearby.

Tides of Blood (E): Cost changed to maxhp%. Healing amp and stack generation removed. Hitting an enemy applies a stack of Bloodied to them, which causes them to take increased damage from Tides of Blood for a few seconds. At max stacks, the increase applies to all incoming damage. Added maxhp% scaling.

Infection (R): Vladimir launches a stream of blood in the target direction, stopping at the first enemy champion struck. If he hits an enemy champion, he dissolves into blood and enters the target's veins, dealing magic damage over time to them. While inside the enemy champion, Vladimir is fully targetable, but a portion of any damage he receives is also dealt to the target. He can also cast Q and E as normal.