League-of-legends – What situations/champions are Manamune designed for

You mustn't mix up life steal and spell vamp.

Life steal steals on physical damage (meaning auto-attack for vlad). In fights, you very rarely use your auto-attacks to deal big damage because you're a caster.

Spell vamp steals on magical damage (meaning all of his spells), this is want you want if your plan is to steal more life.

• Zhonya's Hourglass is great because vlad's ult has low range but must be cast in battle engage to hit the most enemies and for the 15% extra magical damage. The two second invulnerability will allow you to stay alive in the heart of the battle if you get targeted.
• I also very often use Hextech Revolver with Vlad, but you need some AP. It's no use having 50% Spell vamp if you don't deal any damage.

Vlad spells cost life, the good thing about more spell vamp is you can get your life back faster with transfusions minion lines and you can cast life costing spells (specially Tides of Blood that stacks) with less impact on your life.

EDIT : I went to have a quick look at all the different Vlad builds. All (or nearly all) of the descent builds have hextech revolver in them with its evolution to will of the ancients - give more AP, more spell vamp and an aura :-)

Akali has huge advantages in her skill set that allow her to excel in Dominion.

1. Dominion involves a lot of 1v1 fights

   Akali is one of the best 1v1 champions in the game. Her mark of the assassin just gives her enormous burst, even at early levels.

2. She has an amazing escape mechanism using Twilight shroud

   This is perfect for juking in the middle of the map, and perfect for protecting her when she is defending a turret.

3. Her mobility using via Shadow Dance

   You are never going to escape from her, especially if she has a slow. She can also use it to bink to escape by targeting minions. This, along with her Twilight shroud make her a very tricky champion to kill and a champion almost impossible to escape from.

4. Her damage is hybrid

   Is is pretty hard to counter Akali because of her different damage types. Getting the balance of defense, mobility and offensive items is hard enough.

5. She has innate spell vamp through her passive Twin Disciplines

   Her spell vamp combined with the high burst makes her very hard to kill quickly. This also gives her a lot of sustainability through leeching health from minions. Without the ability to nuke her down easily, she can try to escape using her shroud/ult/summoner spells.

6. More champions play 'glass cannon' builds than on Summoners Rift

   Glass cannon champions tend to be easy prey for Akali. A lot of builds are base around kiting and mobility. Kiting just doesn't work on her because of her ultimate and she has HUGE burst which will bring down any squishy champions pretty rapidly.

7. The Dominion is map is designed to be played offensively

   Akali can gank pretty freely as there aren't really any 'safe zones' you can run to, i.e. behind your tower line on normal matches. This leads up to her snowballing pretty quickly as she is just fantastic at picking off roaming enemies.

8. She snowballs rapidly

   Her burst gets insane if she is fed, combine this with the inability to escape from her and your team are in for some big trouble.

9. Akali is based on energy

   She is not the only manaless champ, however manaless champs have always had the advantage of being able to spam skills at no cost. This means Akali can constantly push lanes and leech health through her passive, without having to worry too much about going back to base to heal up.