The vlad "nerfs" (which was really just an update to how spell vamp items worked) were actually a very big deal.
I maintain the spellvamp change barely dented Vlad's viability. Yes, the sustain from having a gazillion revolvers was very good. However, once that was taken away people realised "oh hey, Vlad actually carries pretty decently" and just shifted to that instead, lo and behold, you barely got a change in power because the increased damage meant your WotA had good sustain and you were killing stuff faster because you built AP.
The big nerf for Vlad was the one on him against his Q. That was like a 25-30% nerf to his DPS (and heal) from Q.
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