The meat

Finally we're getting to the actual meat of this guide. Items, runes, masteries and matchups are all great. However, knowing those isn't whats going to win you a game. Knowing what to do, when to do it, and WHY will. Its important to know why we do something or else you will just be following a guide blindly. There is going to be a lot of information in this section. So grab your reading glasses. I'm going to detail how to play vladimir in every stage of the game. I will go into detail on how to lane. How and when to teamfight. How and when to split push. When to cast what ability. Champions that synergize well with Vladimir. Champions and abilities to look out for. Various tips and tricks, and anything else i can think of. I will attempt to explain in detail everything i have learned from playing vladimir over the years.

HATE

LOVE

Without a doubt the weakest part aboutis his laning phase. He has extremely high cool downs, extremely low base damage and is very squishy, and it doesen't help that some of his abilities cost health. He has some very bad matchups for innexperienced vladimir players. However if you master vladimir there is actually no matchup that you should be too worried about. I used to always say that swain and fiddlesticks were unbeatable, but they are actually not that hard. You just have to adjust your playstyle a bit.That being said im not just going to say "laning sucks" (pun intended) and leave you to your own devices.Most matchups consist of the same tactics and strategies to play against. First and most important, goodplayers say youris never on cooldown. Well for a goodplayer youris never OFF cooldown. I see too manyplayers try to justthe enemy laner and thats obviously ideal but if they are out of range i see a lot ofs just sit on transfusion for 1-3 seconds. Don't do this, as soon asis up you need to cast it on the closest target. Havingup for even 2 second costs you so much health. Now that being said you have to be aware of your cooldowns and your positioning if you can get in range tothe enemy laner as soon as your cooldown comes up then thats great, thats ideal.Auto attacks are you best friend in lane.has a 10 second cool down 90 damageat lvl 1. What this makes most players think is "oh all i have is 90 damage" but they completely forget about auto attacks sure we only have 48 attack damage but that combined with the hybrid pen runes we take can really start to add up if you land 3-6 auto attacks at level 1. You can NEVER stop auto attacking your opponent if they are in range. This doesnt mean you should chase them through minion aggro to auto them, but while they try to farm just whack them a few times inbetweenCD. Everyone underestimates vladimir's damage at lvl 2 with a few stacks of, auto attacks and. Our little vampire becomes a very real threat. You'd be surprised how many kills i have managed to snag at lvl 1 or 2 because people just dont expectto do anything at those levels. They expect to walk all over you. The rivens are the ones that i usually kill at lvl 1-3.If you get an early kill and their jungler doesnt gank you a lot your lane is basically won. Most champions can't come back against you without help. The hardest part about playing vladimir is before we getafter that it gets so much easier. Not to mention once we getaswell you can really make the enemy laner's life a living hell.The question i get most often is "do you keep yourstacked in early levels?" and the answer to this is "sometimes" its so situational this question is really hard to answer. Sometimes i dont keep a single stack ofsomtimes i keep 4 sometimes i spam it as soon as its up. It all depends on your hp, enemy hp, minion position, which champion you are laning against, jungler position, how far you are in your build, how many health pots you have, if you have, if you have, there is just too many variables. This is one of the things you will just have to learn from experience i think. Just like "how much damage will mydo" it will all come with learningI will be the first to admit that i am biased when it comes to how good split pushing is. I love split pushing. It just fits my play style perfectly. If you have ever seen me play a game or have played with me then you know that i very rarely leave my lane. My friends always tease me about it. Like if i come down for a dragon they will say "are you lost? This isn't top lane."I think that split pushing is a very effecient strategy to win games with. If you can put enough pressure to draw the jungler and sometimes even the mid laner up to help their top laner. You relieve so much pressure from the rest of the map. Your jungler is free to make plays bot lane and secure dragons. Alternatively if they leave the top laner for dead. You can push all the way to their inhib. I have had many games where i literally solo split push all the way to their nexus.Split pushing forces the enemy team to react and do one of two things. Either they gank you or they try to win on the rest of the map.People always ask me "what do you do if you get ganked?" and i say "kill them both" although im joking there is actually a lot of truth in this.fights mostly the same regardless of how many targets there are. You useandandto damage them. All of these spells are AOE. Most people underestimate's damage, killing the jungler and the top laner is a very real posibility depending on how strong you are. I have had a lot of games where i get so strong i can 1v3 their jungler. top and middle. Meanwhile my team is free to do anything, take mid tower, 4 man bot, take drag or take baron.If the enemy team responds by trying to win in the other parts of the map this is where you just become the biggest ******* league has ever seen. You dive. Repeatedly. Your flow chart becomes this. Is the enemy laner alive? -> yes? -> dive them -> Repeat.has one of the safest dives in the game. If you get ahead asyou can just crush the enemy laner over and over again. Under any tower. Vladimir actually does a lot of damage against the turrets once you get a few items. And the fact that he's ranged makes it a lot easier to dive and take turrets. Since you are ranged you can auto the inner turret a few times to remove the shield buff. If you dont do this you risk not having enough damage, dying, and potentially giving your enemy laner a way back into the game.The hardest part about split pushing is knowing when to group. I tend to say you dont group until you haveand. Once you have these items you are ready to carry your team to that sweet, sweet, V. Of course this can vary, if your team is getting absolutely demolished and the enemy is taking an inhib. It's probably time to group. However if you can trade a few towers for an inhib of your own, thats completely worth.Split pushing is a delicate strategy. Your team willyou oryou. There is no inbetween either you are extremely successful with this strategy. Or you will get put in the waste bin.If you are fed but keep split pushing while your team gets trashed they will flame you so hard. In their eyes you are losing them the game by not grouping when usually in fact you're saving the game by not letting the enemy group and seige.Or you will be taking turrets left and right, getting kills and your team will love you because they basically get to do anything they want.After theandnerfs split pushing is stronger than ever. If the enemy team leaves you alone split pushing an inhib is not unlikely.Teamfights is whereabsolutely dominates. He is an absolute powerhouse in late game team fights. He has insane damage. So much so that he can kill the 3 people that are generally squishy. The support, the marksman and the mid laner, with just ourcombo.Your job, i repeat your JOB. Not your goal, not your aim, not your wish, your JOB. is to kill at the VERY LEAST 2 people on your own. Generally you should try to get the marksman and mid laner. However even getting the marksman and support or mid laner and support is great as well.Late gamecan justinto a clumped up team and cast your combo on the enemy team. If they focus you,intomakes it nearly impossible for the them to kill you while your team follows up. If they dont focus you just spamandand profit.With 40% CDR people never expect your pool to be up twice and sometimes even three times in one fight. It can completely turn a fight if you use it to dodge an important ability. Late game the marksman and mid laner cannot survive your combo of4 stackand. They will have one defensive item and that will not protect them from our damage.The most important thing when teamfighting with vladimir is castingon as many people as possible. The more people you get with your ult the easier the fight will be. Especially if you have any AOE on your team.You might be thinking holy **** vladimir is OP, and he is, but hes not invincible. With my build i prioritize damage over anything else. That makes us a bit squishy. We have a ton of health but not many resistances. If you get caught out late game and get CC'd you are just dead. No two ways about it. So you need to make sure you use both yourandvery wisely and only when you really need it.