Should Vladimir be nerfed?

As a followup to my previous post, one of the hot topics for many months now is whether or not Vladimir is overpowered. It’s been about 10 months since he was released and has been a strong pick in both normal and ranked games, regardless of ELO. He’s often carrying games, whether in my favor or not, and frequently he’s extremely hard to kill.

Vladimir did receive a few nerfs over the past months, but none were of any real significance. Just last patch, his Transfusion (Q) spell got a slight nerf to the healing received, but it’s such a small change that will not impact him at all. Riot has been really careful with him in the past and apparently is afraid to make any significant changes to balance him, while at the same time they’re making stupid decisions for other champions and then revert it the next patch (take the AP Alistar for example).

The question of Vladimir being OP is a difficult one, as he doesn’t by default have any wonder-skills able to one-shot players, but his ability to harass, heal and deal sustained magic damage is certainly one of the best in the game. Let’s take a closer look at his abilities first.

Abilities

Q – Transfusion

At earlier levels Vlad’s Q is not as powerful due to the rather long cooldown, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed before, after level 9 he becomes a real beast with a 3-second cooldown. At max rank this spell deals 250 damage, and scales with ability power at a .6 ratio. Additionally Transfusion heals Vladimir for a not so insignificant amount: given enough ability power (say Rabadon’s Deathcap), a Hextech Revolver and/or a Spirit Visage, he often heals for 1/4 of his total HP. He can be especially annoying with cooldown reduction boots or even a blue buff, as the frequency of his “Q” spam is nearly impossible to handle.

W – Sanguine Pool

Sanguine Pool is no doubt one of the best escape abilities currently in this game. While seemingly the health cost to cast it is high, it pales due to its usefulness, and besides he rarely needs to cast it while on full HP, so the actual health cost is often healed by a single “Q” afterwards. While in Sanguine Pool Vlad can’t be targetted, he can dodge projectiles and spells already cast on him, and he can even dodge Karthus’ ultimate. Granted, he can be killed by DoTs like Ignite while in Pool. However, there’s more to this ability: it also heals Vlad for 12,5% of the damage dealt (scales with his max HP, which is often pretty high), and as if it wasn’t enough it also slows enemies on top of it, making it a great offensive ability as well.

You can use it to escape ganks, deal extra damage, give yourself 2 seconds — often enough for another “Q”, and slow down enemies while chasing. Lots of utility in a single spell, comparable to a 3000-gold worth of Zhonya’s Hourglass, but even better. The spell also used to speed up Vladimir while in it: it was never in the spell description, and I think it got removed a few patches back, but I’m honestly not sure if it’s still there or not.

E – Tides of Blood

Tides of Blood is also a powerful spell, dealing quite a bit of AoE damage as well as increasing his healing on subsequent casts. While the 70 health cost at max rank might seem high, it’s really not. Again, “Q” heals for quite a bit. The spell scales rather low at .45, but with the damage increase on multiple casts it can be really, really painful. Also helps him farm minion waves extremely fast, not like he needs any more help.

R – Hemoplague

Hemoplague, his ultimate, is insanely good as well. At rank 1 it deals 150 damage which granted isn’t a lot, but it also debuffs his target(s) to receive 14% extra damage from ALL sources for 5 seconds. In case you haven’t caught it, Vladimir and his whole team will deal 14% bonus damage to the targets affected. Since he can often catch 3-4 opponents with Hemoplague, the damage dealt by the spell and by subsequent casts by him and teammates can be more than deadly.

Passive – Crimson Pact

His passive, Crimson Pact, is also where the problem lies. If you’ve ever seen a well-farmed lategame Vladimir with 700 ability power and 4000 health, you know what I’m talking about. While most casters have to build some sort of defense and health items, Vladimir gets is completely free. Health pool without any resistances ain’t much of a defense if you’re being focused, but still it’s different when you DPS a Malzahar with barely 2000 HP, and Vladimir who maybe has a Rylai’s Crystal Scepter and over 3000 HP. Not to mention the fact he can Sanguine Pool away from harm.

Example time. I did a test and as a comparison, with Rylai’s and Rabadon, Annie has 2300 health, while Vladimir has 3000. Before you flame, yes, I realize it’s not the ideal build for Annie.

When I compare Vladimir’s abilities to those of Annie, Veigar and similar AP carries, he does indeed seem a bit overpowered. Not necessarily by damage and AP ratios, but by the ability to sustain himself, push lanes, farm extremely well, harass like a boss and consistently escape ganks. Most other champions don’t have that luxury.

What to Nerf?

So in order to tune his abilities to be more in line, I suggest some or all of the following:

1. Make his “Q” not heal him at all

Think about it: why would it grant him free healing? Mordekeiser uses health for his abilities as well, but I don’t see any of his abilities healing, unless he builds some spell vamp. Make Hextech Revolver a decent, upgradeable AP item and make it a core build for Vladimir, essentially giving him healing on his abilities via spell vamp stat. It would be especially fair for him to have to build a Hextech because he doesn’t need to invest any gold in mana regen items, unlike a lot of other champions. Certain ability costs would obviously have to be adjusted accordingly, but it could work.

2. Make projectiles hit Vlad in Sanguine Pool

I can’t remember any ability currently in game that allows you to dodge projectiles. If you locked a stun or something on Vladimir, regardless of Pool it should still hit him.

3. Nerf the passive

Seriously, this is one of the best passive abilities you can have. There are some similar passives in the game but I don’t find them nearly as strong:

• Singed’s Emepowerd Bulwark: Increases Singed’s health by 2.5 for each 10 points of mana he has.
  • Nearly useless because you can’t exactly build Archangel’s Staves on him
• Rammus’ Spiked Shell: Rammus gains additional damage as his shell becomes reinforced, converting 25% of his armor into attack damage.
  • A more than decent passive, but doesn’t give him anything gamebreaking
• Galio’s Runic Skin: Galio converts 50% of his total Magic Resistance into additional Ability Power
  • Helps him poke you and farm better, but again nothing gamebreaking

Building a Rylai’s Crystal Scepter and a Rabadon’s Deathcap gives Vladimir about 400 ability power, a useful slow on his abilities (most notably the spammable “Q”, essentially making him slow you all the time), and almost 800 bonus health from passive, not counting the +500 HP Scepter bonus. I’ll do the math for you: it’s about 3000 HP.

100 ability power = 100 bonus health sounds far more reasonable. As far as I know there is no other caster (or champion for that matter) that can build pure damage items and get defense at the same time, at least not as a passive ability (Sion’s “W” springs to mind, but hardly comparable to a passive).

Would it make him bad?

I honestly don’t think so. It would make him play more carefully and build an additional item (Hextech), but he would still be a strong pick just as he has been since the day he was released. Some of his abilities wouldn’t have additional (unnecessary) utility, but they would still deal the same damage with my suggestions. It might make him less good, but definitely not bad.

What are his strengths?

• He can harass extremely well
• Farming is easy with 2 AoE spells and a strong single-target nuke
• He is very hard to gank, especially if he uses Ghost and Flash as summoner spells
• He doesn’t need to build mana regen runes or items (essentially enabling him to invest into either ability power or defensive stats)
• Very sustainable with “Q”, especially after level 5-7
• Decent team fight utility with the debuff on ultimate
• High health pool
• Really easy to farm and lasthit minions
• Quite often able to dodge tower hits with Sanguine Pool

Can he be countered?

Of course he can. I’ve found Malzahar, Swain, and Cassiopeia to be effective against him. Not only can Vladimir be countered, but there are currently several other more viable AP carries that are played in high ELO because they fit the team composition better. Still, Vladimir is in fact a frequent pick regardless. On the other hand, I think it takes far more skill to play the aforementioned champions, unlike Vlad who is fairly easy.

Needless to say on low/mid ELO ranked and even normal games, he stomps players with ease. So do many other champions, but Tryndamere and Master Yi don’t exactly work in ranked games, and are extremely rarely played vs. any decent players.

I know there’s tons of Vlad fans out there who may or may not realize it, but their favorite champion needs some adjustments, not to make him useless, but just enough to put him in line with other champions. All the aforementioned gives him great strength and it takes more than a -5% healing on “Q” to change it. If we can only pool our efforts, Riot might finally stop being negative and give Vladimir a well-deserved nerf.

As a final note, I do play Vladimir.