Hi everybody, this is my first guide, I decided to make it for one of my favorite champions, Vladimir! Vladimir is a complete beast in top lane, with a solid laning phase, and insane lategame, he can push lane fast, and reacts very well to ganks. He has his downsides, but if you play him well, you will scale into your great lategame no problem!I prefer to play Vladimir as an AP offtank focused on dealing constant dps with some survivability, please note that the guide listed above isnt something you should follow everytime, adapt to what's happening in the game!

Pros Cons

Has great lategame [*] gets countered really hard by some top champs
good sustain and teamfight presence [*] can be shut down really hard by those champs
one of the best escape mechanisms [*] gets hit with the nerfbat alot :(
has an awesome legendary [*] has a complete lack of cc (pool doesnt count)

I take standard runes for Vlad top, armor seals for survivability against the top lane bruisers you will be meeting alot, Mpen marks to deal more dmg, AP per level glyphs, because remember, youre a lategame champ! And lastly flat ap quintessences, to deal some extra damage in the early levels.

The summoner spells i choose for Vlad are Ghost and Heal

I take This one, because Vladimir is a pure DPS champion,he has no real interactions with flash, except for flashing then using one skill, when you could do alot more skills with ghost.

I take heal because it's a very nice replacement for ignite, I'm not taking ignite because its made for burst mages, or mages with strong CC, Vladimir is neither of these,hence i take heal to bait people into turret, it also has a nice interaction with Tides of Blood :D.

In this chapter, I'm going over every item and why i choose it for vladimir

3 Health Potion , this is the standard opening for almost every lane, dont have alot to add here

This item has risen from the depth of Tiamat and Leviathan into an actually useful item, it gives nice magic penetration combined with your boots and runes, you will be doing almost true damage on squishy opponents! That is why it should be gotten first.

This is pretty much standard on vladimir, he doesnt use mana but health for his abilities, so he needs this to sustain, and make it so his Q gives him TONS OF HEALTH.

alot of people like to go with cooldown boots, but seeing as I buy haunting guise too, I prefer these for more magic penetration.

I buy this item for some extra health and AP, and a nice slow on all of my abilities (especially Q). Alot of Vlads get this, and so do I ^_^.

Time to finish your book, more AP, more spellvamp, and a nice aura for your teammates.

Now that you have this, you're gonna deal some big damage...... That's all it's good for really, lots of damage.

This will be your second to last item, and your defensive one. It can be any of these items

Zhonya's Hourglass when dealing with burst and lots of AD damage
Abyssal Mask For dealing with low magic resists and/or lots of magic damage
Guardian Angel When you get focused alot because youre the one carrying (and you should be!)

You're last item will be for when you sell haunting guise at the end of your build.
You can either buy one of the remaining defensive items if you need them, or a Void Staff to replace your lost magic penetration.