A Buyer's Guide to League of Legends: Vladimir!

As one of the few champions in League of Legends who can support, deal damage and tank, this is one versatile Vampire!

It's been about a week since Vladimir the Crimson Reaper made his debut within League of Legends (LoL), and he's already managed to impress much of the LoL community with his unique health points based play style. But is Vladimir the hero for your team? Let's find out!

To give a quick rundown on Vladimir's abilities and passives, all of Vladimir's abilities cost HP to cast, as opposed to most classes that use mana, energy or cooldowns (which means they have no real "resources" to draw from, they can simply cast their spells whenever they are up). Probably the scariest thing about Vladimir is really how much area-of-effect (AoE) damage he can deal with his combination of Tides of Blood (if maxed, this can deal some decent damage), Sanguine Pool and Hemoplague.

To be honest, I hadn't expecting to enjoy Vladimir as much as I did. Whenever a new champion hits the stores, I typically play a few games as one of my 'main' champions (Morgana, Kayle or Heimer) so that I can see how the community experiments with this new addition. What was interesting about playing both with and against Vladimir, however, was just how varied his "builds" could be. There is a rather large demographic of players who firmly believe in building Vladimir as a supportive caster; I watched as they threw out spells left and right, and they would always get that Hemoplague in at the beginning of every fight. On the other hand, I've also seen a few very successful Vladimirs who just love to be in the middle of the fight. In their particular case, Vladimir is a phenomenal opener who can slip away after absorbing a pile of hits.

In this way, Vladimir is actually quite versatile when fitting into a team, although it should be said that he may not do "as well" in that particular role if you should think of him as a pure support, or pure damage dealer, or a pure tank. What I mean by this is that, unless Vladimir gets lucky and grabs a ton of kills by midgame, his killing power is really not all there. In this way, Vladimir is really not the spell slinging powerhouse like Ryze, Annie, Morgana or Anivia, although it's clear that Riot Games never really wanted him to be. If you should play Vladimir with this mentality of becoming "like" a pure caster, however, then Vladimir might be rather problematic for you.

Vladimir fits well into teams as a fully supplemental champion, but I don't mean you should just build him as "support." His ultimate, Hemoplague, is always massively useful in team fights because it causes the enemy to take an additional +18% damage from all sources. This ensures that Vladimir will remain relevant throughout the game, even if he gets killed dozens of times. Vladimir really shines if he's placed in the hands of a flexible player who isn't afraid to tank, support and deal damage at various times in the game. If you already have a tank, but your tank lacks strong initiation abilities, you can think of building Vladimir as partial support and partial tank. Just make sure the enemy doesn't have a silence, because if you get silenced before you can go into your Sanguine Pool, you may just die.

Ultimately, this is one hero that will take a firm spot within my typical rotation of Morgana, Heimerdinger and Kayle, as he really does appeal to my own style of play, especially considering that I play a lot of public games with only one or two friends. Thus, while I can be assured of my own hero in every game, since I have no idea what my new teammates will pick, going with Vladimir is a great choice because I can flexibly alter his build to suit my team's needs.

Should you ever get the chance to dictate to your teammates, however, there are tons of heroes who both benefit and compliment Vladimir; Xing Zhao, Annie, Ryze, Gangplank and even Anivia can capitalize quite well on Vladimir's Hemoplague, and tanks like Amumu or Rammus are always glad when they can jump into a fight without all of their enemies staring them in the face. Alternatively, champions like Kayle, Morgana or Zilean can do some amazing things with a Vladimir, as all three have the ability to rescue him from the fight, and all three can deal some considerable damage to everyone caught in the slow of his Sanguine Pool (which is often almost everyone).

Just remember, Vladimir's real strength is his flexibility, so try not to pigeonhole him into one specialized role, and if you're expecting to play him in a very specialized role, you should consider that there are better support champions, DPS champions and tank champions out there. Are there better champions out there who can tank, support and DPS, all in one game? Probably not!

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