Super Smash Bros. is Nintendo’s premier fighting game franchise. The series released its fifth entry,
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, in 2018. The brainchild of Masahiro Sakurai (the man behind
Kirby and
Kid Icarus: Uprising), it is beloved by many for its fun and easy-to-grasp gameplay, and more notably, its massive crossover status. The
Smash series has always been about characters from all different franchises and companies duking it out. With a whopping 81 planned characters (plus seven clone characters, referred to as “Echo Fighters”), every player is bound to find at least one they like.
However, no series is without controversy, and people often find themselves lamenting the characters that DON’T get in, and sometimes even those that do.
I realize that there's a post talking a lot more in-depth about one of these characters, so if you'd like to read that as well here's a
link.
A Brief History Lesson Super Smash Bros. debuted for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, with this
classic commercial depicting mascot versions of popular Nintendo characters duking it out to The Turtles’ “Happy Together”. The game was a smash (heh) hit, and featured twelve playable characters (Mario, Donkey Kong, Link, Samus, Yoshi, Kirby, Fox McCloud, Pikachu, Luigi, Ness, Captain Falcon, and Jigglypuff). It supported up to four players, and had a variety of items that could be used in battle. More characters were added throughout the sequels, including third party characters such as Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. In the third game,
Super Smash Bros. Brawl, a new item was added to the game: “Assist Trophies”, summonable NPCs that could assist the player who summoned them in battle. Each Assist Trophy did something different, and many characters who otherwise wouldn’t have a shot at being playable got to appear this way. One such character was Waluigi from the
Super Mario Bros. series, who would run around the stage and stomp on opponents while hitting them with his tennis racket, making them briefly immobile.
When the fourth game for the Wii U and 3DS came around, several cuts and changes were made so the game could run on the comparatively weaker 3DS hardware. The game also featured no story mode. However, there were three big hope spots for fans. The first was Mii Fighters, which allowed players to create their own custom fighter (either a Brawler, Gunner, or Swordfighter), with a variety of costumes based on various characters. The second was the inclusion of DLC, which allowed new characters to join after release (for a price, of course). The third was the biggest of all: the
Fighter Ballot. This was a chance for fans to vote on which character they’d like to see join
Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and WiiU.
The Fighter Ballot The Fighter Ballot was extremely popular, with thousands of people voting for their favorites. Aside from “meme” picks like Goku or Shrek, some of the most popular choices, at least according to message boards and polls from the time, included Ridley from
Metroid, Waluigi and Princess Daisy from
Super Mario Bros. (this despite Waluigi still being an Assist Trophy), Sora from
Kingdom Hearts, the Inklings from
Splatoon, Shantae, Wolf O'Donnell from
Star Fox (a character who had been cut during the transition between games) Banjo-Kazooie, Geno from
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, and quite possibly the loudest fanbase, King K. Rool from
Donkey Kong Country. The ballot came to a close in October 2015, revealing the winner to be…
…
Bayonetta.
While Bayo certainly did have her fans and supporters, many people were…underwhelmed, to say the least. Bayonetta was allegedly the most popular character in Europe, and in the Top 5 in America, though some folks found this hard to believe. Things weren’t helped by the unpopular reveal of
Corrin from
Fire Emblem Fates as a DLC character before the ballot closed, with many people stating that there were too many
Fire Emblem characters (at the time, the game had six different characters from the series). Eventually, the game was
datamined, and it was revealed that Bayonetta’s data existed in the game just two weeks after the ballot opened up. Mii Fighter costumes of some of the more popular picks were released as consolation prizes, but it still stung. Sakurai stated that the ballot was meant to pick fighters for a future installment, and not for
Smash 4, but this is a bit hard to believe given that the website outright said the character would be for
Smash 4. However, there was still hope for these characters in the future.
Everyone is Here…? The fifth game in the series,
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, was quite possibly the most hyped-up game of the decade. It promised to be the ultimate (heh) dream match, with
every single fighter from past games returning. It also introduced several highly requested newcomers, including
Ridley (complete with a shoutout to his supporters),
Daisy (I cried tears of joy at her reveal), the
Inklings,
Simon Belmont (and his descendant Richter) from
Castlevania,
Isabelle from
Animal Crossing, and of course,
King K. Rool, all of whom generated a lot of hype. This only expanded when the DLC was revealed, with several unexpected characters from a variety of different companies. However, one character was notably missing: Waluigi.
The Purple-Clad Plumber For anyone who doesn't know,
Waluigi is a character who originates in the game Mario Tennis. He was originally created solely so Wario could have a doubles partner, and quickly became a mainstay of the spin-offs. At first, he was seen as an unnecessary character who only existed as filler, but his role in Matthew Taranto's
webcomic Brawl in the Family saw him gain popularity. The comic mostly focused on video game-based gags while occasionally having longer story arcs. Waluigi would show up to
take over the comic every once in a while, with his catchphrase "TOO BAD. WALUIGI TIME." often appearing. People loved the comic's take on Waluigi as a zany, over-the-top, and somewhat tragic character. It wasn't long before this version of Waluigi became a meme, with the regular version following.
It’s a Cold and It’s a Broken Waluigi Generally, Assist Trophies are considered to be a “deconfirmation” for a character. While nothing in the game outright states that a character can’t be playable if they also appear as an Assist Trophy, nothing denies it either. There is
technically a chance, as the game does have certain conditions that disable assist trophies on certain stages (for example, the Moon from
Majora’s Mask can’t appear on the stage Great Bay, as it appears as a background element). Stage elements can also be affected by which characters are playing in a match. For example, King Dedede won’t appear in the background of Dream Land if he’s also in the match, Toon Link will be replaced by
Alfonzo (“Leave it to me!”) on the Spirit Train if another Link is playing, and Fox, Falco, and Wolf have
specific dialogue changes referring to one another. However, this has never been confirmed, and Assist Trophies have always been unplayable. Which brings us to Waluigi.
In early June, Waluigi was
confirmed to be an Assist Trophy, and therefore unplayable, for the third game in a row. As if to add insult to injury, the video also revealed that Assist Trophies can now be knocked out, and used Waluigi to demonstrate this. People were, to put it lightly, fucking pissed.
Memes were made about the situation,
songs were written,
petitions were signed to get Waluigi included, Matthew Taranto of
Brawl in the Family got in on it, years after the comic had ended, and a few (emphasis on a FEW) fans even started
harassing Sakurai in an attempt to get the purple plumber in the roster. A small group of
Waluigi cosplayers staged a protest at a Smash event, and while they had good intentions, they did make some staff and guests uneasy. Some theorized that the Assist Trophy thing was a red herring, and that Waluigi would be revealed as playable after all. People were literally
analyzing the colors of some chairs in the background of a video. It was crazy. Things only got worse for poor Waluigi when the first DLC character was revealed…
…a
Piranha Plant. Just a single Piranha plant.
Generic, nameless Piranha Plants have never been playable in any official Nintendo game before this, so its inclusion was a surprise. A few people thought it was a jab at Waluigi supporters (which, let’s be real, it obviously wasn’t). Once the shock wore off, however, the Plant was welcomed into the Smash family with open arms. The fact that it was free for a limited amount of time certainly helped. The next DLC character (and the first in the “Fighters Pass”, a series of five DLC challengers), Joker from
Persona 5, was also beloved by the fanbase, with
his trailer showing him literally hijacking the 2018 Game Awards. Then E3 2019 came, and fans were speculating on who the next fighter would be, with Erdrick from
Dragon Quest, Banjo and Kazooie, and Steve from
Minecraft being popular guesses. The latter two, in particular, sparked quite the rivalry.
Bears, Birds, and Blocks While
Banjo-Kazooie was originally considered a Nintendo property (it even had its own
commercial from the same people who made the “Happy Together”
Smash commercial), with Banjo’s debut (sans Kazooie) being in
Diddy Kong Racing, they were developed by the company Rare, which was later bought out by Microsoft. Microsoft and Nintendo are historically rivals, so the bear and bird joining Smash was seen as an impossibility for many years. However, many had hope, given that Microsoft and Nintendo had been on much friendlier terms in recent years. But there were some strikes against them. For one thing, Banjo and Kazooie weren’t exactly…relevant. Their last game,
Nuts and Bolts, was in 2008, and was seen by most fans as a disgrace to the franchise due to its change in gameplay and aesthetic. JonTron’s memetic
version of “I Will Always Love You” comes as a reaction to this game, in fact. If a Microsoft character WAS added, it would likely be someone more popular. Say…a character from one of the highest-selling games of all time? That’s right,
Minecraft.
For weeks, a rivalry brewed between Banjo-Kazooie fans and Steve fans, and a trend called “
Steveposting” began to spread. Starting on 4chan, people would post pictures of a grotesque 3D model of Steve harassing other
characters, often accompanied by a copypasta starting with “GOOD MOOOOOOOORNING /v/! Just wanted to remind you that we’re another day closer to Steve (yes, THE Steve from Minecraft) getting confirmed in Smash Ultimate! Make sure to save your tears for the upcoming Fighter Pass when Steve walks into the spotlight!” The most popular character for Steve to harass was Banjo. People would often argue that Steve had more
relevance, and post images of Steve
harassing, harming, or killing Banjo and Kazooie. One infamous video featured Banjo walking through a blocky landscape, remarking to Kazooie that they must have ended up in
Minecraft instead of
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. “Grotesque Steve” reveals himself, shows off Kazooie’s mangled corpse, and approaches Banjo with a sinister look on his face…the rest of the video is disgustingly NSFW, hence why I won’t be linking it or even describing it. If you know, you know. Overall, the rivalry was pretty bitter, and even genuine supporters for Steve grew tired of the “Steveposting”.
Finally, E3 2019 rolled around, and fans were excited for new content from Nintendo. One of the first reveals of the day was the second new DLC character for Smash…that being the
heroes from
Dragon Quest. Most people thought that Erdrick from
Dragon Quest III would be the representative, and while he does appear, he’s not the only one (the heroes from XI, IV, and VIII also show up as alt costumes). Japanese fans were thrilled, American fans weren’t as enthusiastic, and it looked like there would be no more Smash news for the day. That is, until the just before the very end of the presentation. A trailer began, similarly to King K. Rool’s, only to then cut to the King hanging out with Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. Suddenly, a golden piece bounces across the screen. Wait, is that…a Jiggy? No, it couldn’t be… DK and friends look out the window, to see a familiar silhouette, only for it to be revealed to be the Duck Hunt Dog in disguise. But then everything changes when the new character descends from above and knocks the Dog out of the way. That’s right folks, against all odds,
Banjo and Kazooie are in
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate!
As for
Steve, he and his fellow Minecraft friends were eventually added in October 2020 (in his familiar blocky form, thankfully), which put the rivalry to rest
for good. Finally, the Steveposting days were over. These new fighters were well-received, but the same can’t be said for the fifth DLC character.
Too Many Swordsmen, Are There? Generally, if a new game is released after Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, a free update will add content from said game, usually in the form of “spirits”, power-ups you can equip to your fighter of choice to give them a stat boost of some sort. In-universe, they’re explained as characters who have lost their physical form due to events in the game’s story mode. For example, equipping the Hammer Bro spirit will enhance your jumps. One game did not receive free update spirits, however.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is definitely one of the best games of 2019, in my opinion. With four distinct routes, a ton of morally grey characters, and an absolutely bitchin’
theme song, it’s definitely worth a try. While it’s not without its problems, the game is still pretty solid. The reason I bring this up is because
Fire Emblem: Three Houses got nary a mention in
Smash, despite being a new installment of one of Nintendo’s most heavily-advertised franchises. This led people to speculate that they were saving a
Three Houses reveal for later. And as it turns out, they were!
Now, the fourth DLC character,
Terry Bogard from
Fatal Fury, was not met with the brightest reception from fans. At the very least, he came with a lot of amazing music (a whopping
fifty songs from various SNK games). My personal favorite out of these is the
theme song from
Psycho Soldier. That sax solo though! While some people were obviously mad (or should I say…
fatally furious?) about Terry’s inclusion in the game, most of the memes came from fellow SNK character Mai Shiranui’s exclusion from any form of cameo (to preserve the game’s ESRB rating). Anyway, people were really expecting something big for DLC fighter #5.
The fifth DLC character was revealed in January of 2020. Many predictions included Sora from
Kingdom Hearts and Dante from
Devil May Cry. The trailer dropped, only to reveal that the final character for the Fighters Pass was
Byleth, the player character in
Three Houses. The trailer had a jab at the common complaint that the roster has too many swordsmen…to which Byleth responds by becoming a swords
woman, as well as using other weapons from their home game. And yet still, people were once again, to put it lightly, fucking pissed. Read the comments on
this to get an idea of it. After all, this now marked the eighth
Fire Emblem character in the game.
Naturally, some people
made memes about the situation. Others jokingly pointed out that one of Byleth’s alternate costumes gave them a
red outfit and white hair, just like Dante (though the costume was meant to resemble
Three Houses character Edelgard). Voice actress Allegra Clark, who voices a few characters in
Three Houses, had
this to say about the news. Even to this day, some people are still upset over Byleth’s inclusion.
The Heart of a Marionette Geno is a character from the cult classic
Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. The game is certainly an oddball in the Mario franchise, but it’s beloved to this day by many. Geno appears as a living marionette with a gun arm, and he’s been a popular request for Smash Bros for a while now. He appeared in the famous (and very fake) “
Grinch leak”, which incidentally also featured Banjo and Kazooie. YouTube animator
TerminalMontage is one of Geno’s most vocal supporters, and even Sakurai has stated that
he’s a fan of the character. So, what’s stopping the little puppet from getting in? Licensing. Geno is technically partially owned by Square Enix, so getting him in the game has always been tricky. He appeared as a Mii Fighter costume in
Smash 4, but fans had hope that he would appear for real in
Ultimate.
Now,
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate introduced some very interesting Mii Fighter costumes. Costumes usually come in two parts: headwear and outfits. Headwear can include hats, wigs, helmets, and even masks. That last one is the important one here. Certain Mii Fighter costumes came with a full-head mask of a character rather than just a hat. These costumes, which some fans refer to as “deluxe” costumes, also came with a song, making them feel like a sort of bonus DLC character. The most popular of these is
Sans from
Undertale, though Cuphead also has one, as do Vault Boy from
Fallout and Bomberman (though the latter two don’t come with music tracks).
So, December 2020 rolls around, and with it come the Game Awards. The new
Smash trailer shows several of our heroes facing off against the game’s main villain, Galeem…only for it to be sliced in half and killed. Suddenly, “One-Winged Angel” starts to play, and hoooooOOOOOLY SHIT
SEPHIROTH FROM
FINAL FANTASY VII IS IN. People were, to put it lightly, fucking STOKED!!!!!! There were a few whiny “too many swordsmen” people, but they were drowned out for the most part…
...then came the costume reveals.
Each new fighter generally comes with five new Mii Fighter costumes, whether they be outfits, headwear, or a set of both. Sometimes they’re related to the character, sometimes they aren’t. The first four were pretty basic, with outfits based on Aerith, Barrett, and Tifa, Cloud’s companions from
Final Fantasy VII, as well as a hat themed after a Chocobo. The fifth costume, on the other hand, led to a lot of disappointment.
I think we can all guess who it was. Geno fans were upset,
and definitely made themselves heard. To make matters worse, Geno’s headwear was just a hat, when a mask would have worked well. Him being a “deluxe” Mii costume could have been a nice compromise to get him in. The aforementioned TerminalMontage made a
short video on the topic, showing his disappointment with the results. Quite a few people
made fun of Geno’s supporters for ever thinking he’d be playable, while others celebrated the fact that
Sora or
Lloyd could still have a chance. And all of this came mere months after the revelation that the widely-rumored
Geno plush was in fact
a myth.
In Conclusion Super Smash Bros. Ultimate still has three DLC slots left, and everyone is wondering just who the final three will be. Personally, while I’m sure I’ll be content with whoever we get, there’s sure to be some fighting no matter what, and the only way to settle it…is in
Smash.
submitted by Quintessential Vladimir guide for season 11
Well hello there wonderful people. My name is Calvin and I stream under the name
Elite500, as the title suggests, I’ve been challenger for 4 seasons now and ended it since the last 2.
I’ve played vlad throughout every meta, no matter how rough or how much the playstyle has changed, and I’m finally here, bringing to YOU the absolute ULTIMATE, QUINTESSENTIAL, HOLY guide, everything you will ever need for season 11. At the time of writing this guide I’ve played around 500 preseason games and half of them in high challenger.
Why play Vladimir? Doesn’t he actually suck? Isn’t he noobchamp?
Do you wish to experience the pleasure of
entering teamfights and leaving them higher hp? Do you want to dehumanise yourself to and not even recognise your fellow teammates as sentient meat lumps? Can you handle the responsibility to take every game post 20 minutes as your responsibility?
Of course you do.
Table of contents:
- Setups: we’ll go over the main 2 setups including items, runes, summoners, and build
- How to choose between the two setups and which play-style suits you best
- Early laningphase and how to play matchups
- Every matchup in the game including recommended setups for matchups
- Unleashing unholy wrath upon your foes in mid to lategame
- Combos
- Skin choice
Setup one, the way of the gigalord:
Back in season 7 the chad vladimir players received an upgrade from thunderlords decree, electrocute, termed GIGALORDS back then, it’s power has been dormant and ever waiting since the nerfs of
2018.
This path is more optimally suited for those who wish to have devastating all in damage, those who wish to win lane as early as level 3, those who want to annihilate and leave them with .
no counterplay 100-0s This setup is best suited and optimally played against melee champions such as Sylas, Pantheon, Yone, Yasuo, Ekko, Akali, Kata, etc.
Summoner spells:
Ignite and flash are a must take with this setup, allowing you to deliver sudden oneshots with flash and having beyond unholy all in damage with ignite. Ignite also helps us with nimbus cloak and with procing electro.
Runes
Keystone:
Of course you’ll be taking
electrocute as your keystone, it allows you to win a lot of trades early into the game, it’s easily proccable early with auto Q auto or auto E Q or even auto ignite Q.
The trading is nice although the main reason you take this keystone is for the HEINOUS all in damage it can do, most champions can literally be 100-0 oneshot at level 6 if they’re not innately invulnerable (looking at you galio).
Minor runes, domination:
Taste of blood is absolutely amazing and helps out in every melee matchup, feel free to swap this to sudden impact if you’re deranged and play this setup into ranged opponents. (sudden impact proccable with rocketbelt.
Poro ward is extremely consistent and can be stacked easily to grant you free 4 ap level 3 and 30 ap at around ~ 16 – 18 minutes depending on how actively you ward and where.
Ravenous hunter synergises so well with vlads huge point and click Q damage, easily accumulating 10’000 HP healed in a game. While it doesn’t sound like much, since the rune was changed from spellvamp to omnivamp it now will even heal you slightly on autohits even without stacks helping you outsustain early. Some crazy gamer chinese vlads will take ultimate hunter since their server is perma fighting, it’s also a viable choice but feels worse to me.
Secondary runes, sorcery:
For sure my favourite secondary tree to spec into, although this one is a lot more preference, I think all trees are balanced it’s just more playstyle, you flash like a maniac? Go inspiration cosmic insight with cdr shoes rush and enjoy less than 4 minute flash cooldown etc.
Transcendence holy MOLY this rune got such a nice change in season 11, 5 ability haste at level 5? Sign me the hell up. The ability cd refund is also amazing on vladimirs W since it’s basecooldown is like 30 seconds, allowing you sometimes to pool twice in fights.
Nimbus Cloak to make up for the lack of mobility before rocketbelt nimbus cloak helps out so much allowing you to kite and rundown pesky season 10 dashy champs with ease. Optionally gathering storm is also nice but with this rune setup you mostly play for early mid domination and nimbus is also great lategame. My games have been decided 1000x more by having more mobility in clutch scenarios than having 40 extra ap at 30 minutes.
For the mini runes always
Ability haste, AP, and scaling hp Build:
You best be prepared to build mejais.
Starting item:
Your starting item should be
dark seal refillable every game, the dark seal buff now giving hp and 5 extra ap is absurdly good for vlad, random lucky early kills giving 10 ap is also beyond bonkers. Shaving off 350g on your mejais purchase is also essential.
First mythic:
Hextech Rocketbelt is by far the best mythic you can go in every game currently, amazing active, amazing components, amazing mythic passive, it’s just THAT good. The dash and ms is a great engage tool, hextech alternator synergises perfectly with your ridiculous ignite electro damage, the passive giving you 5 flat pen is amazing since you can get 18 from sorc shoes and another 5 from mejais since it counts as a legendary, the more flat pen you stack the more efficient it gets.
Second item:
Mejais Soulstealer allows you to single-handedly decide whether you wish to win the game or lose it, it’s a must buy and goes hand in hand with this playstyle, one two kills with a mejais, over 10 stacks? Literally the game is a done deal at this stage. Rocket belt mythic passive giving you 5 pen for a 1250g purchase makes it even good to buy at 0 stacks. I have completely 1v9’d too many games to count in the highest of elos because enemies make literally one mistake and die once.
Third item:
Void staff third? WTF what if enemies have no mr elite? Well let me tell you about this stupidly broken item that straight up out damages a god damn DEATHCAP even at 30 mr !? ? ? the item is 131% gold efficient, let alone when you pile up your 28 flat pen that you get from completing it. Remember flat pen reduces enemy MR AFTER the percentage, so let’s say someone has 50 magic resistance when you buy your void, magic resistance WH OMEGALUL? 28|40% stats on 50 mr leaves enemies with a whole 2 mr, 2 mr!!!!!
Fourth item:
Rabadons Deathcap while not nearly as good as it was last season still will round up your build, if you have just a few mejais stacks and you get these 4 holy items, the game is literally already over.
Few champions can experience the delightful feel of going in 1v5 and returning at higher hp than before.
Shoes:
Unless you’re rocking cosmic insight and want türbo low summoner cd, sorc shoes are the must go 100% of the time. Why would you need damagereduction from tabis if you oneshot enemies, why would you need merctreads tenacity if you can just dodge with your W 4Head.
Sorc shoes penetration just perfectly synergises with the rocketbelt mythic passive since the more flat magic pen you stack the more potent it becomes.
What the hell is the last item?
At this stage your power is so strong the final item won’t make a big difference, need dps?
Cosmic drive, need a second pool?
Zhonyas, need spellshield vs evelyn and zoe? Banshees. The itemshop is your oyster, get whatever you want last, I usually like to top it off with zhonyas.
This concludes the way of the gigalords setup and we’ll now proceed to the other setup.
Setup two, consistency king & lategamegod:
This play style was the meta for the longest of time and still remains viable, farm for 30 mins and then fight once and win the game 4Head. This playstyle relies less on your opponents being bad and more so on the inevitable victory that is 300 cs vladimir at the same time it’s also praying that your team doesn’t just perma fight for no reason which kinda happens a lot as well in soloq because people like fighting for no reason.
Summoner spells:
Ever thought how if everyone does just one thing the same way people would become insecure to try anything else but that specific way? That’s my opinion on using ghost > flash.
With this setup I prefer taking
ghost over
flash and ignite secondary. Why? Now that ghost’s duration gets refreshed on kills or assists and gives tremendous move-speed while only being on a 182 second cd with cosmic insight (163 with lucidity boots) allows you to have it up at literally every possible random teamfight, the mobility is insane for laningphase as well. If you can kill your opponent with flash in a certain scenario ghost will do the job and more, what do you do vs a vladimir that has kill pressure on your and pressed his nitroboost button? Flash away? Jokes on you this shit lasts 10000 years and he’ll just inevitably catch up.
Ghost in teamfights is also ridiculous, pop it right before someone dies and you have like 15 seconds of speed duration, can catchup to
literally anyone even foolish galeforce buyers who think they are cool with their mini dash.(bit pixelated)
Ignite secondary lets you have some decent kill pressure even with this setup
You can of course go whatever you please, struggling with bully mages? Go
flash tp, feel like you can’t catchup to that Ezreal in the backline?
Flash ghost is the answer, etc, it’s all viable and just needs playing around.
Runes
Keystone:
Phaserush has been Vlad’s most consistent rune since seasons now. It offers a lot of versatility in the sense that it can be used to slide in an extra auto in trades, chase people down, escape ganks easier and of course mainly to slide into the backline like
Michael Jackson moonwalking on the rift. Just like electrocute it’s really easily proccable, just three swift strikes and you’re running like
yourprincess runs from apologizing to Tuesday Even your initial ult cast counts as one of the strikes, so you could ignite ult q and boom you’re already zooming.
Minor runes, sorcery:
Nimbus cloak is an insanely good rune for vlad since the main thing you lack is mobility, and the more you have the easier it gets to get even more. If you have a reliable way of proccing phaserush such as nimbus cloak ignite all your mobility issues are fixed.
Transcendence just like with the electro page it helps you lane giving you cdr as early as level 5, and if you stack enough ability haste with zhonyas or even legendary double stopwatch you can always do some funky last fight game winning shit like –> pool –> zhonyas –> get asisst so trans ticks in –> stopwatch –> pool again. It’s like 10 seconds of immunity winning you uber clutch games.
Gathering Storm what better rune suited for the lategame king himself. All other options like waterwalking and scorch are completely outclassed by this free stats rune. I’d say Vlad is the most efficient champion in the game when it comes to flat ap considering you have ap to hp conversion, absolutely massive ap scalings with damage and healing (wtF), and an amplification on all abilites with your ult.
Secondary runes, Inspiration:
Free boots are really good at helping you scale up consistently and the 10ms it gives you on top of regular boots means you just zoom that little bit extra.
Cosmic Insight is also amazing at lowering your summonerspells, combined with haste shoes you can get almost 70 seconds off your flash, how insane is that.
Build
If you’ve been shocked by going ghost ignite you’re going to be quite surprised by this.
Starting item:
Just like with electrocute,
dark seal refillable is a beyond bonkers good item to start with, however since we get free boots with this setup going dorans ring is a more affordable purchase as well into a more difficult matchup like Orianna or Syndra. My logic is if you back with ~ 350g you’ll be having to choose either between dark seal or boots, but since boots are out of the equation you don’t even need to think about them so dorans ring is a lot more affordable. At the same time this setup focuses mostly on reaching unholy power as fast as possible.
First mythic:
Mythic? Only insecure players build mythic items first.
We build
DOUBLE FIENDISH CODEX that’s right. Become unstoppable. Vlad turns AP into a hyper efficient stat already with his insane scalings, so what about a 114% gold efficient PURE ap and ability haste stat? Fiendish codex’ passive is no longer unique so you can stack them.
From experience I’ve felt that anything more than 2 feels awful and going only 1 is also a viable option, although we want to accelerate ourselves and by this I mean let’s say we just pushed out midlane wave and we have some tempo. Raptor camp is up and your jgler doesn’t need them, you take them in 15 seconds total, because of this, the next time you take them you could afford another item meaning you took them 10 seconds in total, the next time 5 seconds and so on and so fort.
Getting pure ap and cdr allows you to do this faster and ultimately accelerating yourself to a point of having 300 cs at 25 minutes and being able to completely devour anyone in sight.
Second item:
Since I’m addicted to
Mejais I like to buy it second, however with this setup you can skip it, if you fall behind even slightly mejais won’t get the free 5 penetration that you would’ve gotten with a regular rocketbelt build and it becomes really hard to get back into the game. Just remember if you need the power of GOD to win this game, don’t hesitate to buy the holy bible.
The real Second item:
Now that you have around ~ 100 ap
Rabadons deathcap becomes efficient, even in its pathetic nerfed state it’ll still transform you into an onmipotent being. Deathcap is 92% item efficient with just it’s own AP and gets increased by 20% for every 100 ap so making it at MINIMUM 112% gold efficient of RAW pure AP power which Vladimir makes such enthusiastic work with. Now imagine if you had a mejais with some lucky 10 stacks on it, 136% gold efficient pure ap item combined with this? Oh Lord. Full mejais and dc = 357 ap = 500 hp more for FREE due to crimson pact.
Third item:
Most sane enemies when pressing TAB and seeing there is a 200 cs vlad at 16 minutes with a deathcap completed and double codex eagerly wanting to devour their feeble adc souls will attempt to purchase some magic resistance.
Falter their plans by buying an early
Void Staff, just like the logic we applied earlier with electrocute, void staffs 131% gold efficiency combined with sorcerer shoes allows you to deal near true damage to low mr targets and to those with more than room temperature IQ who’ve built MR? Well you have a voidstaff, what good does it do them.
Fourth item:
Woo! It’s mythic time yayyy!
This is the most satisfying thing ever, building a mythic item when you have 3 legendaries all giving you instant mythic passive.
At this stage you can choose pretty much all mythics, need more haste? Go
Nightharvester for unrivaled dps, playing against a lot of squishies? Unleash unholy burst with the
Rocketbelt, enemies stacked giga nitro mega amounts of mr and you’re having a tough time penetrating through it? Literally buy a
Liandry’s, it shreds enemy MR making your voidstaff and sorc shoes deal hyper amounts of damage. Since you have 2 codex Liandry’s is giga cheap at only 2500g and doesn’t eat up another inventory slot.
You can even decide to buy something else if you’re in desperate need for it like a Zhonyas or Morrelo, it’s not essential to have a mythic but I highly recommend it leaving it no later than this.
Last item (if you were a chad mejais buyer)
Just like the other electro setup, you may go whatever your heart desires as final ap item.
Enemies have a lot of ad? Zhonyas, need dps? Cosmic Drive, need magic res? Spirit or Banshees.
That’s pretty much it to the phaserush build, we’ll be covering when to go these setups next.
How to choose between the two setups
I am of the opinion that you can go either setup 100% of the time every game and not need to switch things up to find success, however there are scenarios where one is better than the other.
For beginners I recommend learning just one setup first or your opinion might get clouded by low sample size.
I also have a complete matchup spreadsheet with every matchup midlane in the game If you’re more of the assassin player, wanting to oneshot specific targets and having ridiculously high kill pressure in lane I recommend going electrocute setup.
If you more feel like playing an actual controlmage and maintaining 10cs/min and unleashing unholy wrath lategame with zero counterplay then go phaserush setup.
In a realistic scenario if you’re laning vs melee champions electrocute is much better for lane and the minor runes will have a lot of effect vs them. You can go both setups in both types of matchups and it’s perfectly viable you just have to be aware of your weaknesses and play around them.
Currently I think the meta favours the electrocute setup a tiny bit more since there is a lot of early fighting and lane prio is important to help your jungler. That being said having ghost ignite phaserush means you can join any fight you want since your sums are super low so try both and see which one you like more.
Early laningphase and how to play matchups
Level 1 – 5
With both play-styles you want to play as safe as humanly possible with Vladimir pre 6, try manage the wave so it’s always near your tower so you can’t get ganked and are easily able to lasthit. It is ESSENTIAL to have on point last hitting skills, if you do not, go practice tool right now and get 100cs in 10 mins with only autohits. These early autohits really dictate the pace of the rest of the game, same theory with raptors, how much money you have dictates how much money you’ll be able to generate.
If your lane opponent doesn’t have teleport (mostly melees) you can play a little aggro and sneak in a quicky succ every now and then onto your lane opponent and eventually either deplete their hp so they have to recall or their mana so they become obsolete.
Don’t use your E early much as it mostly hurts yourself more than it hurts anything else, the self damage is always the same percentage so it really feels bad using it early to sprinkle tiny 60 damage blood bolts at the cost of like 100 hp.
You may spam Q on the minions as long as you don’t end up pushing the wave to the enemy, what makes vlad really hard to play in high elo is players will freeze the wave as soon as it starts to push vs them and it’s impossible to unfreeze unless you call your jungler to help.
If you’re playing vs someone with teleport it’s extremely ballsy to trade with them as if you do they’ll empty their mana on you and hp and just recall and come back leaving you with low hp and unable to buy items and locked in lane, going teleport yourself with phaserush of course halfway counters this awful spot to be in.
Level 1 – 5 early electrocute cheese
This strategy is really really easy to pull off,
This video shows exactly how to pull this off, it’s incredibly easy to do with electrocute since you also have taste of blood and ignite if your lane opponent dares to contest this you can just punish them.
Basically you want to create a slowpush early, how do we do this? Try to fish for auto attacks or a Q on your opponent, aggroing the minions onto you, since they will chase you let them be pulled into your wave, while you drag them they will not be attacking your minions meaning the wave will push in opponent direction.
If you pull this off and just gently last hit the next 2 waves and then push in really hard when canon wave comes you’ll have stacked a MASSIVE ally wave under enemy turret while you have tempo to do whatever you like, recall get amp tome / ward for jungler / invade with jungler / anything you desire.
And what about my enemy mid, won’t he follow me and stop me? But how? He’s got 3 waves stacked under his turret trying to last hit them, he can’t just leave that or he’ll instantly lose the game.
This concept is very very important to vladimir players as your all ins are often able to 100-0 opponents, so if we do this strategy of stacking big waves at level 6- 9 and dive the lane opponent and they die they lose like 3 waves worth of cs, this is literally unbearably game losing for them and it’s SO easy to pull off especially in low elo. What on earth do you do vs a vladimir who stacked a wave, has an alternator, electro ult and ignite up and is furiously waiting to oneshot you?
Literally no counterplay other than going barrier or buying hp / mr. How do I get the wave to push into my direction so I can lasthit?
It’s very simple, most people will hit the wave level 1 like the utter troglodytes they are, just match their auto attacks and leave one out every few, once it slowpushes into your direction all you have to do is not kill the minions and let them be near your turret. The wave will ALWAYS freeze if 3 full hp caster minions are left alive and the next wave’s melee minions don’t go under tower.
Like this we can freely scale up to the lategame terror that Vladimir is.
My lane opponent has also read this guide and isn’t hitting the first wave? Wtf? If you can, push push push like your pregnant and try get your minions under enemy tower, if this happens the wave will simply bounce and start pushing towards you.
These 2 concepts are the simplest and most essential thing to know when playing Vladimir.
First recall
You’ve got around 1000g? You should start to look to setup a recall so you can either buy a
fiendish codex (phaserush setup) or a
hextech alternator (electrocute setup)
How do we do this?
We already know how to stack waves and crash them under enemy tower, so we simply preform just that, we push the wave out and once it’s under tower run away quickly and recall, the bigger the wave the better since it traps your lane opponent in lane while you get to recall and only lose 1-2 melees.
If you don’t want to lock your lane opponent in lane or they have tp or just don’t care didn’t ask, just push the wave out before or during cannon wave since cannon minions can tank like 8 or more turret shots meaning you have tonnes of time to walk back to lane without missing anything.
Not missing any cs during your recalls is really essential as Vladimir especially because you can’t afford to fall behind.
Vs mages who like to buy lost chapter it’s extremely important you figure out a way to force a recall before they get that 1300g because if they do somehow get that you’re in for a fun cock and ball torture session, especially with Orianna. That’s why if you can recall with 1000g you can get a fiendish and they’ll just feel awful buying a god damn mana crystal.
Post recall
You’ve just walked back to lane, you’re level 6 and have your 1000g item and haven’t lost more than 1 minions worth of exp. What do you do now?
Since you have some AP you finally get to have more than cannon minion levels of wave-clear
If you’ve got an easy matchup and are not afraid to push out the wave start pushing and looking for things to do on the map. It’s important to ask yourself these questions WHILE pushing so you don’t waste time making a decision when you already have tempo.
Can you kill your lane opponent? Dive him.
Can you help your jungler invade? Go for it, just remember you’re on a tight time limit if things don’t go well and you’ll lose farm mid with no gain.
Can you gank / dive bot/ top? If there is a guaranteed pay off, (know all summs, ults etc) then go for it! Just don’t risk anything, remember if both teams are equal you are likely to win because of vladimirs inevitable lategame scaling.
If you don’t have any options, simply ward or clear wards, going out of enemy vision forces your lane opponent to shit their pants and ping ? ? ?? ? ? ? ? where he go? Which takes focus from other players and makes them play accordingly.
Midgame
It’s
VERY important to go to sidelanes
IF Your botlane’s tower died and now enemy adc and sup go mid and try to take yours, since you have fuckall waveclear you can’t hold them away from the tower and end up losing more and more. It’s very important to also not share exp since the support will probably try defend midlane with you, you want to soak up that juicy sololane exp and start exerting pressure in a sidelane.
If you see lots of champs in one spot be ready to move asap because a teamfight might break out, although as Vlad maintaining 10cs/min is above everything, you can’t have any less if you want to carry games so some teamfights are just lost causes and don’t hurt yourself more by trying to get there in time.
You can generally tell when a fight will happen when either:
- Herald is up and no dragon
- Dragon is up
If ally mid tower is still up and dragon is down and herald is up what do we do?
Of course sidelane top and tell your
teleport toplaner to go bot and your adc supp to go mid, it’s very likely that a
herald fight will start and you wanna be there.
If dragon spawns and your team wants to contest that? Sidelane botlane and rotate mid at least ~20 seconds before dragon spawn so your adc can walk up reliably.
The only fights you
REALLY need to be a part of are for objectives
especially dragon, ESPECIALLY ESPECIALLY if you don’t have any dragons at all and enemies are stacking them.
Even the most terrible scaling champions like pantheon will be REALLY obnoxious lategame if they get something like an infernal dragon soul.
Just one or two dragons means enemy team won’t receive the dragon wincondition at like 20 mins which means the game will go on for longer, what happens if the game goes on for super long? Uh oh stinky poo poo lategame vlad arrived and you just take what you please at that stage of the game anyways.
Lategame & Teamfighting
This part of the game is much easier with
phaserush and ghost especially with ghost since it also has built in scaling with level, duration and speed.
If you have the potential to reach the backline and kill them then that should be your priority above everything, in 99% of the scenarios this is easily achieved with ghost phaserush, since you literally can’t run away from a ghosted vlad. Not even Ezreal with double flash can run, not even kassadin with 4k mana can blink away in a straight line,
and god have mercy if Vlad gets his ghost extended with an asisst or kill.
If you’re playing with electro and your rocketbelt isn’t enough to get you into the backline then try your best to hit as big of an ult as possible and peel for your next strongest member which is usually the adc. A fullbuild vlad demolishes anything that dares approach.
Most fights are extremely obvious when they happen late into the game, they’re either around sieging or around objectives like dragon and baron, you should always be around those when they spawn and farming nearby camps and minions.
Even late into the game you want to be farming farming farming, vlad is a super high resource champion, I’d honestly say the highest resource hog in the entire game, not even kassadin needs this much money, but not even kassadin can just engage 1v5 and demolish everyone.
Ability maxing
You want to
max your Q first on both setups, however if you are ahead and are going for the double fiendish codex setup I recommend putting 4 points into Q and then start maxing E out, if you do this your E will oneshot the enemy casterminions extremely early, normally only after lvl 11, with this setup as early as level 9.
So
Q → E → W and R of course at 6, 11 and 16..
If you’re playing vs a melee champ in lane going
W level 2 is definetly viable and can catch people off guard like a talon jumping on you without expecting you to pool. It does decent damage and slows like crazy unexpected, good for making enemies eat towershots when they think they can just weave in and out.
Combos
There aren’t really many “combos” and it’s mostly just generic efficiency and logical thinking, you make up a lot of things on the fly.
Here is a link if you are adamant on learning combos. Say we want to proc electrocute or phaserush level 1
Auto Q Auto There is also a multitude of ways you can combo with quick cast, smart cast, input buffer etc.
For the full combo with all sums, what works best for me:
Smartcast all abilities, Q for an empowered Q ready,
Charge E –> Flash –> Release E –> Ult –> Q – Ignite Some people like to
ult first as it releases E automatically upon pressing R however I feel like it’s a tiny bit clunky and if you release E manaully it’s literally impossible to react to unless predicted.
Super late into the game if you have phaserush you could also if you see enemies clumped up and you know they won’t be for long:
Flash –> R –> E W Since you flash you’ll instantly be able to ult and have nimbus cloak movespeed to make sure your E and W connect with someone, if they do you get phaserush and are able to chase everyone down once you come out of pool, pooling instantly doesn’t matter as much as well since if you hit a fat R it’ll heal you like crazy, this catches enemies off guard a LOT even in high challenger.
Skin Choice
Of course the most important part of the guide.
The tierlist goes like this:
Marquis: 9/10, Extremely small model, feels amazing to play with, cheap asf, regular ult is sometimes invis vs bigger targets like cho’gath.
Bloodlord 8.5/10, A timeless classic with absolutely insane taunting game, instantaneous laugh. Absolute badass voiceline, sounds and animations that make you feel allpowerful but at 1850rp? Idk..
Nightbringer: 8/10 Probably my most played, shortish cape, nice sounds and animations, literally invisible ultimate, beyond pay2win, if you’re looking for the most pay2win its probably this one.
Darkwaters: 7.5/10 basically budget nightbringer with a giga big nasty looking cape. Also has an invisible ult, arguably more invis than nightbringer.
Cosmic Devourer: 7/10 I like the stars aesthetic but imagine making a new skin without pay2win ult, what are you doing right??
Academy: 6/10 Kinda slick, not having a cape and being in a weird suit looks good but his hands look literally cancerbig.
Soulstealer: 5/10 wtf are these sounds, legit sound like it’s windy outside and has the most ugliest cape in the game.
Default: 4/10 bloodlord should be default and this should be removed, legit so beyond ugly.
Count: 1/10 Scuffed ass default vlad chroma so bad it should be against the geneva convention.
Vandal: dugu/10 You have to say no homo before using this skin, never touch another man’s skin.
Nosferatu ?/?? Absolute power.. At a price.
General tips
The minute you forget to farm is the minute you’re out of the game,
always farm. Taking jungle camps is really fast after double codex
Don’t be scared to use
ignite generously, if it means your opponent runs out of pots they’re FUCKED since you can just trade 50 hp for 300 of yours and you’ll eventually outsustain.
If you want fast results
NEVER blame your team, even if they fucked up, what good does it do you to just move on? Try figure out what YOU could’ve done to prevent x from happening
If you’re extremely strong and baron is already up, just tell your team to start it with you, you don’t have to finish it but it’s a
for sure way of starting a teamfight and making enemies fight you when you want it. Worst case scenario you keep hitting baron, they steal it, you end their lives, gg.
The period of where you have crimson rush gets
extended by E, Zhonyas, and Pool. For some reason if you have enough cdr and pool as soon as your E ends and start a new channel in pool that
E will have no animation and be invisible, not very usable though. If you have any questions, ask me anything I’m always happy to spread light on things I didn’t elaborate on. I also stream of course on twitch.tv/elite500, if I didn’t cover something feel free to ask :D, preferably on the post instead of on stream so others can see it too, I'm streaming as i post this guide so i'll
reply to comments in queue streaming right now again so i'll reply to comments in queue
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