Vladimir , the Crimson Reaper

There is a temple hidden in the mountains between Noxus and the Tempest Flats, where the secrets of an ancient and terrifying sorcery are kept. The area surrounding the temple is littered with the exsanguinated corpses of those who have mistakenly wandered too close. These served only to pique the curiosity of Vladimir, when – in his youth – he trekked through these mountains during his flight from Noxus. A day earlier, the teenaged Vladimir had brutally murdered two boys his age, for no better reason than to enjoy the intoxicating scarlet bloom that surged forth. He realized immediately that he would never be able to suppress his murderous desires, and if he remained in Noxus, his foul deeds were sure to catch up with him. Without hesitation, he abandoned the city-state, and journeyed south.

The trail of bodies led him to a crumbling stone temple. Inside he found an aging monk who appraised him with eyes of pure crimson. Vladimir surprised the monk by returning the wicked gaze with zeal. Recognizing the boy’s sinister craving, the monk taught Vladimir how to manipulate and control the fluid of life, often practicing on passing travelers. When it came time for Vladimir to learn the final lesson, the monk warned that failure would result in death. Vladimir did not fail, but success bore a grisly surprise. During the ritual, every drop of the monk’s blood was drawn from his body and fused with Vladimir’s, imbuing him with his master's magical essence, and that of every hemomancer before him. Left alone and suddenly without purpose, Vladimir resolved to return to Noxus, demanding enrollment in the League to prove the supremacy of his craft. When the Noxian High Command observed the gruesome fates which befell the palace guards, they elected to avail themselves of Vladimir's unsavory talents.

"That which runs through you will run you through." -- Vladimir


Vladimir's Abilities

(Passive) Crimson Pact - Every 25 points of bonus health gives Vladimir 1 ability power and every 1 point of ability power gives Vladimir 2 bonus health (does not stack with itself).

(Q) Transfusion - Vladimir drains the lifeforce of his target, dealing magic damage and healing himself.

(W) Sanguine Pool - Vladimir sinks into a pool of blood for 2 seconds, becoming untargetable and slowing enemies above him by 50%.

(E) Tides of Blood - Vladimir unleashes a torrent of blood dealing magic damage to nearby enemies.
Each cast gives him an Empowered stack (max 4), increasing his healing and regeneration by 8% each. Additionally, his next Tides of Blood deals 25% more damage and costs 50% more Health per stack.

(Ultimate)(R) Hemoplague - Vladimir infects the target area with a virulent plague. Affected enemies take 14% increased damage for 5 seconds.
After 5 seconds, infected enemies take magic damage. [/CENTER]

Reccomended Rune Page and Mastery Page

Mastery Page Setup http://img203.imageshack.us/img203/6793/masteriesn.png
Archaic Knowledge - Obvious 15% Spell penetration
Veteran's Scars - Starts you out with +90 Health, and a bonus of just under 4 Ability Power.

Rune Page Setup http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/198/runepage.png
Marks - Magic Penetration
Seals - Health/ Level, This gives us a small amount of AP, and a nice amount of health.
Glyphs - Cooldown Redcution/Level, to ensure we're spamming our skills and to hit high CDR.
Quints - I use 2 flat HP, and a movespeed quint. Quints are completely preference, use any you wish.


Reccomended Item Build

Starting Item - Amplifying Tome + 1 Hp pot - Level 1
Why? Amplifying Tome will allow us to quickly build our first item. When you start with a Tome, you will start out the game at level 1 with 26AP.
Damage? Your transfusion will deal 76 damage, and heal for about 23.5 HP.

First Item - Will of the Ancients - Level ~ 7-8
Why? 20% Spellvamp, along with 80 ability power is invaluable for laning and fights.
Damage? Your Transfusion (4) will be dealing 261 Damage, and healing for 74.25 Hp (+52 from Spell Vamp).
Tides of Blood (2) will be dealing 132 Damage, and will now heal you for more Hp than you use to cast it.

Second Item - Sorcerer's Boots
Why? 20 Magic Penetration allows all of your spells to hit harder, more damage, and more healing due to more damage dealt.

Third Item - Rylai's Crystal Scepter
Why? Rylai's gives 500hp (+20AP) and 80AP, plus an invaluable slow effect when you use a spell. Rylai's results in 100AP, and 660HP.

Fourth Item - Spirit Visage
Why? Later in the guide you will see why Spirit Visage is an amazing item on Vlad. It increases his effective Hp, his overall Hp, adds minor AP, and gives us some beautiful healing buffs and cooldown reduction.

Fifth Item - Rabadon's Deathcap
Why? Because it's a rediculously crazy item. Deathcap will give you a monster amount of Ability Power, along with a decent portion of Health from your passive.

Sixth Item - Optional\Survivability - Personal Choice: Banshee's Viel or Sunfire Cape
Why? Both give some minor AP, and each have their very own special unique passive. Viel allows you to ignore a negative spell, and gives magic resist. Sunfire cape allows you to deal 40magic damage to nearby enemies, and gives armor resist.


Other Items Discussed

Guardian Angel - If you're being focused in all teamfights, then go ahead and buy this. It has solid resistances, and of course its passive.
Leviathan - If you get mejai's, grab this too.
Warmogs - Try to dodge this item, as a second Rylai's will do you just as good, if not better in almost all cases. Rylai's also doesn't require stacks (Minion kills)
Mejai's - Doing well early game? Go for it, Vladimir is great at getting kills and assists and its extremely easy to get those stacks high.
Haunting Guise - Solid early game item, you'll end of selling it mid/late game though.
Force of Nature - As opposed to Banshee's Viel, this item is solid on vlad, seeing as he benefits from the Health Regen, and the obvious movespeed. Though I'd still take Viel anyday over Force of Nature.
Void Staff - If the opponents team is stacking heavy Magic resistance (120+) this is a very useful item.

Skilling Order



Hemoplague Transfusion Tides of Blood Sanguine Pool

Transfusion should be maxed first, as it's your main harass\heal spell.
Tides of Blood is maxed before Pool, as you should only be using pool when you get in trouble/dodge hard spells. It's also great for farming/last hitting.

Summoner Spells
Preferred choices are in red..

Ghost - Great choice, good escape and chasing ability.
Flash - Same as ghost, though ghost is prefered since we have our pool.
Ignite - Great choice, can add 10 AP if you get the mastery and deals nice damage. Also good to counter champions like warwick, Tryndamere, etc.
Teleport - Good choice, though it can really take away from our escape abilities (Ghost/Flash) or damage/counter (Ignite).
Heal - Not a great choice, we have Q on a 2.3 second cooldown that heals you for as much as heal will.
Fortify - Leave it for the tanks.
Cleanse - We have sanguine pool, cleanse isn't necessary.
Clarity - Please, just don't.
Revive - Not useful at all for Vlad.
Rally - No use, don't chose Rally.
Clairvoyance - Decent choice, it would be more used as a counter jungle tool or to help teamates.
Smite - You're not jungling, and dont need smite.
Exhaust - Only choose this if no one else on your team has it or no one is willing to take it.

Laning Phase

While laning you should always be trying to last hit, and harass if you can. Remember about 10minion kills are worth 1 champion kill.
Your auto attack is decent for last hitting, though it will take practice, as its a little slow. Transfusion will make up for any mistakes, as it has a low cooldown.
Tides of Blood is also great for pushing or last hitting minions.
NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER use your sanguine pool to farm minions or chase/harass a champion. Your pool should only be used to dodge hard spells or retreat.
You should let someone else go mid, someone who doesnt have the survivability we have as Vlad. We should be the one taking the 2v1 lane, as its easy for us, and at level 6 or 7, it's an incredibly easy double kill.
Once your level 13, if your jungle hasn't already killed dragon, you can solo it. It's reccomended you ask for help though, for a better chance of a sucessful kill (and it's faster).

Level 18 Stats

Level 18 Statistics following the reccomended item build:
Health: ~4208
Effective Hp: ~ 6600
Hp Regen/1: ~3.5
Ability Power: ~500
Magic Pen: 29
Mpen %: 15%
Armor: ~84
Magic Res: ~113
Cooldown Redcution: 23.1%
Movement Speed: 386

Why more focus on MR than Armor? No one should be hitting you with their auto attack, and if you are getting hit you pool out\move to the back.
You should be resisting the aoe spells, like ryze's spells, Lux's spells, Kat's spells, Ezreal's spells, etc.

My cooldown reduction isn't maxed! Why not?! That's because you can grab blue to make up for the rest. There are only a few champions who should have blue more often than you (Anivia, Ryze, Karthus, Ezreal) and these champions normally build mana items.

What is Effective Hp? Effective HP is the amount of hitpoints you have available after you factor in armor\magic resistance reductions.


Special Notes about Items

Rylai's - Rylai's gives a bonus of 20 Ability Power, and 160Hitpoints. This makes it superior in most cases to Warmogs and other HP options.
Spirit Visage - Spirit Visage increases your effective HP (by increasing Magic Resist) and gives us much needed healing buff + CDR Buff. Not only that, it gives u 10HP from its HP.
Banshee's Viel - Gives us 15AP ontop of its normal effects, small, but a useful bonus ontop of a great item.

Spell Vamp and Spirit Visage Information/Stats
Please take note that the following assumes your opponent has 0 Magic Resistance

Transfusion: 511.92 Damage
Base Heal + Spell Vamp + Spirit Visage = Total Heal
261.92 + 52.382 + 52.382 = Total Heal
366.688 = Total Heal
~367 = Total Heal

Tides of blood (per stack) gives +8% Healing effects.
Assuming you have 1 stack, transfusion will heal 396 Health.

Sanguine Pool: 640.8 Damage per unit, over 2 seconds.
Base Heal + Spell Vamp + Sprit Visage = Total Heal
76.896 + 15.3792 + 15.3792 = Total Heal
107.6544 = Total Heal
~108 = Total Heal

Tides of blood (per stack) gives +8% Healing effects.
Assuming you have 1 stack, Sanguine Pool will heal 116.5 Health.

Tides of Blood: 376.44 Damage
Spell Vamp + Spirit Visage = Total Heal
75.3 + 75.3 = Total Heal
150.6 = Total Heal

Tides of blood (per stack) gives +8% Healing effects.
Assuming you have 1 stack, Tides of Blood will heal 162 Health.

Hemoplague - 656 Damage
Spell Vamp + Spirit Visage = Total Heal
131.2 + 131.2 = Total Heal
262.4 = Total Heal

Tides of Blood is NOT factored into Hemoplague, as Hemoplague should be your initiation to any teamfight since it gives % Bonus Damage while Hemoplague is in effect.

Sanguine Pool

Sanguine pool is a special spell that releases any agression from creeps\towers and makes you invulnerable and untargetable for 2 seconds.
While in sanguine pool any damage over time spells will continue to do damage, but some spells can be dodged, for example:

Zilean's Timebomb
Sion's Cryptic Gaze
Taric's Dazzle
Karthus's Requiem
Vladimir's Hemoplague
Viegar's Primordial Burst
Fiddlestick's Crowstorm
Katarina's Death Lotus
Morgana's Dark Binding
Amumu's Bandage Toss
Ashe's Crystal Arrow
Anivia's Flashfrost
Anivia's Frostbite
Anivia's Glacial Storm
And many more. Any skillshot, or most land spells can be dodged.



Some examples of spells that will still proc their effect will in sanguine pool:
Amumu's Curse of the Sad Mummy
Morgana's Soul Shackles
Viegar's Event Horizon
Shen's Shadow Dash

Thank You for Taking the Time to Read My Vladimir Guide

If you have any suggestions please post them here or private message me. That includes constructive criticism.
If you have any corrections, please private message me them.
Please do not spam or flame here, this isn't the place.

Make sure to play smart, and be supportive, last hit, gank whenever possible, and The Rivers Will Run Red

DAMN YOU! I'M MAKING A VLADIMIR GUIDE! (as if he needs one)


Not reading this until I'm done with mine so i dont steal your ideas!

Not bad, i like it.

cute i like it lol

This post was edited by Kerberos on Jan 12 2011 10:58am

WotA fail

I agree with you

CDR runes are pretty useless you get like -8% from runes which is 0,32 seconds from 4 seconds and that's at lvl 18

I'd rather have 25 ability power at lvl 18

I disagree. I put this in my guide as well and with the recent buff I think its a great item for Vladimir as well as many other mages.

Wtf is this twilight shit you homo!

This and the Anivia guide are the only two I find worth reading.

I'm thinking of buying Vlad so this'll help me a bit. (Although I might go a bit differently item-wise.)