Vlad's so hard for RIOT to work with because his kit is anti-fun to begin with. Any time they buff him even a little he becomes a little OP. I think vlad's in a good spot now as to where he isn't overwhelming but he isn't that underwhelming either.

Before the September nerf he was closer to a 50% winrate than he is now. I feel that he's now borderline viable for tournament play and that the nerf should still have been balanced out with a buff to his Q. Riot's reasoning behind the damage nerfs at later ranks to his E was because he was keeping up its stacks with no consequence and wrecking teamfights because of its AoE capabilities. Q is a single damage ability, so wouldn't it make sense to compensate for the E nerf by giving his Q's later ranks increased damage?

I dont know, i think most people play him wrong. Theres always those few people who just dominate hard with him.

How is overrated a champ who basically can't die when you reach late game?
he can have 3k hp, 120 armor and mr and still 600 ap, withouth mentioning that he recovers a lot of hp every 3 seconds and he can be un untargetable for 2.
I'm not saying he needs a nerf, even i would like to see a little buff on his E, you know revert the nerf that riot did some patches ago, but overall i think he's fine.
Of course, vladimir's early is just weak, and you shouldn't be playing it agressively against most of the champs.

Vlad has zero CC or mobility. Your team needs to buy him time to do his sustained damage, which can be better than Karthus's. So your team has to bring the CC and protection, making him a narrow pick. DFG nerf really hurts him badly, since he benefits so much from CDR and there's no AP CDR item without mana anymore. He isn't the unkillable tankasaur people make him out to be - he has to be in harm's way to do his damage, so he takes a lot of abuse.

Vlad is still very strong, and for the love of god stop trying to see if champs are balanced/weak/strong by their win rates.

Alistar is still a perma ban and he has a 44% win ratio.

lol wtf

I rush Haunting Guise so I have 0 problems at all.

I think many players have the misconception that Vlad is a capable early game champion like other mages, when in fact he's actually more vulnerable in the first few levels, and requires rank 4-5 of Transfusion to eventually be able to hold his own. He's a great mid-late game champion -- you have to play the long term game with him. Thinking he's weak because he can't go toe-to-toe with other champions early game is going to give the assumption that he's weak. He's fine once you get past the first few levels. Level 9 is when he really starts to turn it up.

Try running ignite and adding that to your combo. That true damage gets amplified by the 12% from your ultimate (or any true damaged for that matter, so vlad would work well with say olaf or vayne on his team)

Why not just make his E only give stacks when it hits an enemy. Revert the damage back to before September patch. Now Vlad has to start with lower dps and build upwards to his max potential instead of just spamming E while running to the teamfight to get the 4 stacks at the start of the fight.