Hello, im 18 years old and live in Estonia. I used to play vladimir, but it doesnt fit my playstyle anymore, im keeping this guide up so all the new vladimir players out there would be as good as i once was. I started to play league of legends at the end of season 2 , when i started to play i mostly played top lane then my champions were like darius , and tryndamere , then in season 6 i started to main rengar until he got reworked. Finally in season 7 (in may) when i started to main vladimir , i found that i really like mages so i tried them all , first games i did with vladimir they were terrible :D I ALWAYS gave away first blood :D i played him a while and then ragequited and started to play viktor . I played viktor aswell a bit and then i understood that vladimir is for me.So i started to onetrick him.You may ask how did i learn him ? well i just played so many normal games with him and thats how i learned him. When i reached to diamond elo in season 8 i started to understand that i need more champions to carry with i looked for months and found these 3 champions i used to play Veigar, Viktor and kassadin

Sometimes I stream on twitch:
https://www.twitch.tv/playcabex

i currently have 738749 points on vladimir

You can pick vladimir whenever you want speccaly in low elo(gold,silver,bronze). He is such a great champion for climbing because of his kit. You can easily solocarry a game when you get fed.You need to be careful on certain match ups.

"Vladimir is always a good idea" -PlayCabex

+ Great Sustain with Transfusion
+ Top Tier Late Game Carries
+ Great Escape Tool with Sanguine Pool
+ Shines In Team Fights
+ Great Engage in Teamfights
+ Amazing AoE attack with Tides of Blood
+ Uses HP instead of Mana
+ Scales Well with AP items



- Hard to farm with early (in terms of AD)
- Easy kit to learn, difficult to master
- Early game can be a struggle for newcomers
- Lack of mobility
- High cooldowns early game.
- Has no hard crowd control
- Very prone to ganks when Sanguine Pool is down
- Not the strongest against shields

12.10b

With the 12.10 nerfs it hit vladimir quite hard but the 12.10b made him okay again. With the healing reduction nerfs, you actually heal more during grevious wounds on compared to before the durabilty patch and having the q reverted for laning phase.

You start the game , you buy dorans ring and health potions and then walk to your lane.

When you get to to lane (mid) you pretty much farm and poke with your q , 2 seconds before red q comes start to walk towards enemy to use the q. When you get to level 2 you can start poking with your e and q= charge up e and then try to use q on enemy and also e if you can. I dont know why but if you go in with your e and q , when e ended then they walk back and you can q them , idk why :D
When you get your red q try to use it on enemy or if you can't and there is a cannon minion, use it on that. If you charge up your e and then press q then your e will instantly cast

When you are fed enough and mid is pushed you can roam , but its kinda bad , because you are slow and you will miss a lot of farm, i recommend staying mid because you can kill jungler and laner both , so the enemy team needs pretty much entire team to kill you , just push in and they will come

When you have atleast 1 item and you are against squishy laner and jungler ganks you , if the jungler is tank you can get 1 kill , if you are fed then you can kill them both just try to land your ult on both of them, if jungler is aswell squishy you can kill them both.

You heal more from raptors than minions but less than champions.


Your ult increases damage from every source from everyone in your team.

You can use your flash when you are in w or you use your e.

You can use your items when you are in w.

When you use your e and then cast q then e will instantly cast

When you use your e and you flash it won't cancel your e.

When you use your e and you go into w then it won't cancel your e.

I recommend you to put your e on normal cast.Why ?
Because you can do your E + FLASH + R + E + Q
Something like this:
Play Video
Believe or not , but you can acctualy do a animation cancel with vladimir. I want to point out , please put your e on normal cast , you cant do it with quick cast. So , how to do it? If you press q at the same time when e is about to end , then you do it. here is an example:
Play Video

Here is the video where i talk and show it:

Play Video

Early Game

You start the game with dorans ring and health potions and walk to lane. You wait until minions spawn or go invade or whatever your team wants to do.
When minions are in lane, you're going to farm and what i like to call "test my damage" , it means im going to do damage with my q , e and with combo (e and q) to calculate how much damage i do to do flash combos , when you know how much you do then you know how much you do even with items, when youre level 6 you know that your damage is increased which means you do more damage with everything you have.

Mid Game

in mid game you are still farming and pushing and if you can you can roam , but i don't
usully do it because vlad is slow af when it comes to roaming without predator, so , when im winning im farming and pushing as much as i can because i know i can kill enemy jungler and mid laner both and then push , which mean enemy fed bot lane have to come mid to defend, and if they don't i just push enemy towers, when your'e losing you still farm
your items and you can try to gank bot lane with your jungler, when you are fed or not , in fights you try to hit as much enemys with your ult as you can and focus killing their back line, only place where i roam is river , when my team do drake and they need my help or when there is fight.

Late Game

In late game you are with your team and you do stuff with your team and you fight, again you try to hit as many enemys with your ult as you can and focus killing enemy back line

So here are there runes and the reason why i use them.

So lets start with Phase Rush
Vlad is very slow if i use e then i am even more slower, also its good to run it down in teamfights, also if you do flash combo you can easily run away after you do it.

Nimbus Cloak
As said before vlad is slow , so this will add even more movement speed.

Transcendence
it will give you more cooldown , also will give you ap if you have over 45% cd

Gathering storm
Vladimir is a scaling champion , and also gathering storm scales which makes it perfect choice for vladimir.

Futures marketa lot of people question me about this , but its very good on vlad , you want to get your items as fast as possible, thats why you take it.

Cosmic insight
Gives you cooldown reduction which is good.

8 haste
Extremely good, because you get 8 haste instantly at the start of the game

10 adaptive
give you extra ap in early game

15-90 hp
good in early because youre going to get more hp

Remember ap = hp and hp = ap

- Good to all in and hit your q. It's also really good to run enemies over since it gives you movement speed.

- This item works really well with vladimir due to it's passive and item components. Vlad get's a lot of extra hp and this item converts it into ap. Perfect item for vladimir. It also burns enemies from their max hp

- You get flat magic penetration and also movement speed. With enough flat magic damage, you deal pretty much true damage to champions, who havent bought any magic resist.

- You gain magic penetration which is giga good against tanks

- it will give you a lot of ap , and hp because vlad's great passive. AP=HP AND HP=AP

- This item is pretty decent against a team, whos damage is mostly ap (for example 4 ap 1 ad). You can defo get this as your 6th item. Increases your healing and also gives you ability haste, heatlh and ap.

- You get ability haste, ap and armor. It's really good because let's say your abilites are on cooldown, you can use it to buy time. Since it gives you armor, it's really good against ad teams.

- you will get spellshield , ap and health , also mr and cooldown reduction, good against who have like a pull or click on things also for ap hp and cd.

- You will get ap and health. It's a must have item against healing champions like yuumi and soraka.

- Another great item for vladimir. You get even more mobility and ability haste. Makes you spam your abilities more often. It also grants you a pretty decent amount of ap and some hp. Definetly one of the must have items for vlad

Passive: Crimson Pact
Every 40 points of bonus Health gives Vladimir 1 Ability Power and every 1 point of Ability Power gives Vladimir 1.4 bonus Health (does not stack with itself). Practicly when you buy hp you get ap and when you buy ap you get hp

Q: Transfusion
Vladimir steals life from the target enemy. When Vladimir's resource is full, Transfusion will benefit from massively increased damage and healing for a brief time. Your first 2 qs are regular but third does much magic dmg and heals you a lot

W: Sanguine Pool
Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood, becoming untargetable for 2 seconds. Additionally, enemies on the pool are slowed and Vladimir siphons life from them. You become untargetable but ignite or like kayn's ult does dmg when you are in w

E: Tides of blood
Vladimir pays his own health to charge up a reservoir of blood which, when released, deals damage in the area around him but can be blocked by enemy units. It uses your health but does a lot of magic dmg. There are 2 casts on that: 1st cast and 2nd cast, 1st cast(happens when you press e and thenimmediately press e again) doesn't take that much health but does low dmg, 2nd(happens when you hold your e longer) cast takes much health but does a lot of dmg. There is a blue line when charging up, you don't need to wait until it goes off, just wait until the blue line is full and press e PS! use your e on normal cast, its much easier to do combos and go into e and w

R: Hemoplague
Vladimir infects an area with a virulent plague. Affected enemies take increased damage for the duration. After a few seconds, Hemoplague deals magic damage to infected enemies and heals Vladimir for each enemy Champion hit. This ult is pretty broken: you heal yourself,deal magic dmg and also causing enemys to take 10% increased damage from all sources for 4 seconds.

You always want to max your ultimate when you can
So , you first wanna max your q because in early game its your main damage. each time you level up your q , your damage increases , your cooldown goes lower and you heal more.
Second you want to max your e because this is your main damage in mid and late game (q aswell), each time you level up your e , your minimum damage increases , your max damage increases , cooldown goes lower and you slow % will increase by 5%.
third you want to max your w , because you dont need to max it in early and mid game , you want to do as much damage as you can, and this will not give you high damage , so its better to max your w last

If you have time to , check out this, it my vlad guide in yt
Play Video
I forgot to put combos in the video , so they are here
Play Video

If you need any kind of help with vladimir add me on lol (PlayCabex) or write in in the comments and i'll try to answer as soon as possible.

If you want to do like an one on one and try combos etc then comment or add me in lol my name in eune is PlayCabex".I am in na and eune server, if you need help in na then you need to messeage me because i mostly play in eune server

I have done some great outplays with vladimir and they are on my youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-cglt8MWNs&list=PLf2_Wv4-J7UVb_Lt1YChou3aasODsruWU


If i missed something, you want to ask something or you want me to add something else then comment and i will try to answer asap

Vladimir is a very great champion. you can play him whenever you want but you need to be careful with some match ups. if you play him a bit you can understand abilities and stuff but if you master them/they are in right hands you can truly demolish enemy team

But yeah , thanks for reading and see you on the rift