mkay well ive been working on my vlad since he's free this week. I am confused which item to get as my 6th.

First 5 are:
Cooldown Boots
Will of the Ancients
Deathcap
Rylai's Scepter
Void Staff

For a sixth item i have 4 in mind for various reasons. As this is a 6th item, gold becomes obsolete afterwards so cost isnt taken into consideration.

1: Warmogs
With his passive offers
1270 hp (full stacks)
31 AP

2: Rod of Ages
Ignore the mana because its useless, this however does offer a balance between hp and Ap. With his passive it offers
742 hp
95 AP

3: Hextech Gunblade
Also has useless stats, AD and Lifesteal i can only imagine would help taking down towers and his autoattacks when everything is on cooldown. The only reason I'm considering this is stacking the spellvamp with will of the ancients. With his passive it offers
98 HP
70 AP
20% Spellvamp

4: Guardian Angel
Obvious reasons, armor, magic resist and a revive.

edit: upon further consideration ive swapped out void staff for Abyssal Scepter and made the 6th item a Zonya's Hourglass

Deathfire Grasp

actually thats exactly what ive done. Swapped out void staff for abyssal scepter for penetration and magic resist, then made 6th item Hourglass.

Hourglass, Abyssal.

I like to get the following:

-cdr boots
-WoTA
-deathcap
-abyssal scepter
-Zhonya's hourglass
-void staff

I generally don't Rylai's because then I'd have to not get mr or armor, both crucial to have on a champion like vlad that requires getting in close to deal his maximum damage. As for the slow: it's nice, but not essential unless you're responsible for cleanup most of the time. I also wouldn't skip void staff for abyssal, most of the time void staff will give you more damage against any foe that happens to get more than very light mr. This is especially true since you won't have sorcerer's boots to add that extra magic penetration (since cdr boots are better for vlad).

Basically, for the magic pen:

-abyssal beats void staff in magic pen if they have less than 50 mr
-abyssal + sorcerer's shoes beats void staff if they have less than 100 mr
-if they have over 100 mr on any of the people you'll be wanting to kill, void staff is superior to flat magic pen items.

As mentioned above, Ionians or Sorc, Will of the Ancients, Deathcap, Abyssal, Zhonya's, Void Staff. It works wonders.

How is hourglass not on your list of items?

Some pros prefer GA but in an average setting Hourglass is gonna outdo GA. Invuln on top of your pool whats not to like.

sorc
wota
rabbs
zons
abyssal
dfg

rylais is a waste. you dont need to slow them in a team fight, you kill them. ult+ignite+dfg and 1 spell rotation of E & Q kills their carry.

N1 NA Vlad here (lolking.net it).
Every game is going to be different, and you can't just "cookie cutter" builds.
You really have to build with how the game is going.