-Vocal-:
I'm finding she's one of the few champs that doesn't benefit from straight maxing out a single skill first. Her skill order is pretty weird but I'm finding that this method is yielding the most damage output and utility from her abilities as needed at different stages of the game:
Q-E-E-W-Q-R-W-Q-W-E-R-E-E-Q-W-R-Q-W is the order I like.
Q is your best and cheapest harassment tool, so you take that first in case people wanna start **** at level 1. Two ranks in E gives you all the damage you need from that spell for awhile, because when you hit a poisoned target it's on a .5 second cooldown. So that generates you like, 200 DPS from that spell alone... at LEVEL 3. Anybody who stands still to fight you is dumb. W is a great farming tool and very useful for making sure you get gold under your tower, it lets you be way more efficient, and upping that slow coupled with a strong speed boost from your Q gives you insane relative mobility early-mid through mid-game. However once those two are strong enough to farm and harass well, I find going back to E gets her into champion slaying mode once again, at a time when it's pretty necessary.
I also think people are erroneous in saying that she doesn't need CDR: Considering her Q is a .9 AP ratio AoE bomb, it seems to me that spamming it would be pretty important! Between masteries, CDR/level runes, and a Morello's, you get nearly 40 percent CDR, which puts that Q at something stupid like 2 seconds. Two second AoE at a .9 ratio is pretty powerful for a single spell! Karthus bomb on steroids, IMO. And Fiendish Codex is a great laning item for her because that bit of mana regen works well with her passive to make sure she keeps a healthy mana supply. After the Codex you can get Giant's Belt to start on your Rylai's, then finish the Rylai's ASAP or get the Morello's first; if your team has lots of slow then delaying the Rylai's for more damage seems more efficient IMO. After those two items I build around the enemy team. If you find yourself needing Mercs over Sorcs, I think your third caster item should be a Void Staff.
Miasma is amazing I don't know why people hate on it. It does deceptive quantities of damage if someone stays in it too long, and as a result gives you really good zone control. Plus the slower it makes them, the easier it is for you to get in range for a quick E, then Q then two more E's.
Her ult is hard to use in teamfights well, but I'm starting to get a knack for it. The key is to observe your OWN play with other champs and realize when people will advance to cast spells and when they won't. I'm actually getting decent and predicting spell-cast times on other people and using that 1/2 second as a window to eff them up. And in team fights, whenever the enemy gets a good stun on an important target, they tend to rush in and focus instantly; and of course, this means they all face the same direction.
She's lots of fun. Although the effort required to do well with her feels really lame when you can get almost the same damage output from someone like Ryze with significantly less effort. Which is why I bought him and am now buying lots of mana/level runes lol.
Edit:
Also, I found Tristana does well against Vlad in mid! Who knew. Being able to **** his healing and win exchanges by forcing him to pool is pretty neat.
Of course, my opponents were Taric Vlad Mundo Swain Yi, so even with ES and ignite I didn't have enough healing reduction to go around and we lost. But what's important is I ***** Vlad 1v1.
