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TL;DR: The E animation of EVERY SINGLE Vladimir skin has been bugged for the last ~3 years. As well, Vladimir has critical gameplay bugs on his Q and W which have also been around for a significant time.
Given that Teemo and Lee Sin have been revealed as the next ASUs, and MF/Lux will likely be next after those two, it will likely be a long time before many of the less-popular champions who desperately need art updates (such as Vlad, Gragas, Zilean, Rumble and others) receive them. However, Vlad in particular has had a significant visual bug that affects his E ability on all of his skins. When Vlad fully charges his E, he is supposed to hold an orb of blood above his head as seen in these clips:
However, this animation later disappeared, as seen here:
This is true across all of Vlad's skins. I believe this animation first disappeared around 3 years ago, since Dark Waters Vlad is the last skin to have the animation: Dark Waters Vlad (old, on release, not bugged) while Nightbringer (the next one) did not: Nightbringer Vlad (on release).
I could not find any legitimate reasoning behind the disappearance of the E orb on Vlad's older skins; it seems like a random visual bug that creeped in at some time. It is understandable if Riot never made an orb animation for the newer skins and would not want to go through the trouble of animating one, but the orb animations on the older skins should be re-added since they enhance the fantasy and improve the feeling of the E.
Secondly, Vladimir also has two gameplay bugs that I know of which have been around for a while.
- When Vlad uses Q on a minion and it dies during the 0.25 cast time, Vlad does not receive the healing from the Q, does not gain a stack of Bloodthirst, and it goes on cooldown: Video. This does not appear to be intentional since the Wiki clearly states the following: "If the target becomes untargetable, dies, or is too far away or no longer in sight during the cast time, [Transfusion] will cancel but does not go on cooldown nor pay its cost (if applicable)" (Wiki Link).
- Vladimir can occasionally be hit by turret shots in W: Video. This should not happen, as Vladimir's W does not have a cast time and should instantly make him untargetable (Wiki Link). I'm not entirely sure why this occurs, but if I had to guess I would attribute it to likely being due to some sort of server tickrate issue.
These gameplay bugs are EXTREMELY frustrating when they do occur and should be fixed immediately.
Overall, fixing these bugs would be a well-welcomed QoL change for Vladimir.
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