Hi guys, I'm Krishmaster, this is my first guide so be easy =). I have a lot of experience playing vayne, so here are my two cents, in around 400 games with her. And I can tell you without a doubt she is my favourite champion in this game, and will continue to be for quite a while. This guide is for anybody who knows how to play vayne or wants to know how to play vayne. IMO learning her is a great investment and asset, as she can literally decimate teams with the proper player. Never in my life have a played anything as scary as a properly played vayne- she is the female batman

The reason I wrote this is primarily because I'm bored, but also because I just do not see vayne that often, and it does sadden me, so many people have not realized her potential. She is still a very strong and viable AD carry in the proper hands. She gives satisfaction when you outplay your opponent, I for one do not enjoy rolling my face on my keyboard playing the trinity, it doesn't give me that sense that I earned my win. Vayne is a great AD carry, but she should not be picked every single time, she is NOT a safe pick, practice her enough and you will be able to stalemate most lanes, even hard counters, and win most others.

As Bebe showed in Worlds, if vayne is played well ( His build is just...no...), she can and will dominate lesser skilled opponents. Who needs a map?
For vayne this statement is the most true- Win lane, Win game.

Runes are pretty standard here, Flat AD marks/quints for easier last hitting/ more AD in general, Flat armor seals because your base armor is trash, and Flat MR glyphs because a lot of supports/ADC do magic damage.

- Must have, no discussion

- Cleanse is great against AoE cc comps, or Taric at bot lane, a good spell if you are not going aggressive.

- Exhaust is not suggested, if you are going very defensive/ are scared of being dove later in the game.

-Heal has fallen out of favor, most ADC now run ignite, so heal is not going to save you anyway.

-YES, ignite, go aggressive, get kills, catch them off guard, people do not expect a vayne to fight back early.

- Only as top vayne, and that is very rare and VERY situational, not going into that here.

-Does not help at all, you already have pretty good chasing, ghost will not help much later, and does not do much in lane.

This build is quite standard for Vayne.

*REWRITING THIS*

Start Boots along with three Health Potion

Build 1 to 2 Doran's Blade, build 3 if you are losing very hard. I do not like Wriggle's Lantern because you will have to sell it back losing a lot more gold, and it does not provide HP, armor helps slightly, but a lot of burst is MR, Corki, Ezreal, so I prefer the HP from Dorans.

A Vampiric Scepter really helps in the laning phase, great sustain against poke and harass. Next, you want to build a B.F. sword, then eventually into a Bloodthirster.

I prefer BT rush over IE rush because BT allows for vayne to have the sustain she needs to survive poke-> burst and also force trades in lane, while also allowing her to get up close in teamfights and live.

Next, you want a Phantom Dancer because it synergizes so well with Tumble and Silver Bolts.

After the Phantom Dancer, build a Last Whisper if they are stacking armor, I.E Maokai with a Frozen Heart /Morgana with Zhonya's Hourglass/ or a top with Warden's Mail.

If they are not stacking armor, build an Infinity Edge, then later round out the build with a Last Whisper, or vice-verca depending on their armor.

Round it all off with a Guardian's Angel


Quicksilver Sash- I personally do not like this item on vayne, you should not be getting hit by very hard cc, i you are unsure of your positioning and are scared of getting cc chained by all means buy it. There are very few occasions when I would buy a QSS, a good Ashe who can hit arrows, There is a Malzahar or Warwick on the other team. I did not say Skarner because you should not get grabbed, that is your own fault if you did, and aresult of bad map awareness/postioning.

Okay, here is where we get interesting. Yeah Yeah, pro players max Q first in lane, but for what? Extra Tumble harass, the decrease in cooldown is not THAT good, and the damage scales terribly, 5% each level. Condemn allows for massive burst, and Silver bolts allows for just as good harass, you will not be using Tumble on cooldown in lane, you will get counterharassed, but maxing Condemn first allows for the burst that scares the opponent, and they will make a mistake and die for it.


- Tumble, this is a one point wonder, you will not be spamming tumble in lane as it costs a lot of mana, and the shorter CD and scaling is not too great.



- Silver bolts, awesome against tanky lanes that include Graves, Alistar, Blitzcrank, Leona etc.



- Condemn, this is what is scary about her in lane, one mistake , one step near a wall, and a good vayne will punish you, maxing this first allows for tons of burst, and combined with a heavy CC support, lots of kill potential here.



- Final hour, this skill defines vayne, it provides her exactly what she needs- stealth. The second the bruisers and tanks jump you, pop final hour and tumble, and you can kite quite nicely, and juke. Not to mention the ridiculous attack damage steroid and movement speed bonus while chasing.

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This is what you can do if you can hit condemns and use tumble at the right times- notice how I used tumble to dodge rupture/silence, while also placing me in position for a condemn stun on cho.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcnCmWpE_cw&feature=youtu.be

Please watch this if you do not understand this part, it is very informative and will help explain her combos and set you up for the rest of the guide. But please do not pay attention to his summoners or builds, he just shows you guys what I am talking about visually and much more clearly.=)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yH06YfJjm8 -Ciderhelm


1) Your first priority is always CS, only harass when you see them getting too close ( In which case you auto-attack, tumble auto-attack, auto attack- this procs silver bolts which deals pretty decent burst), or if they are about to last hit a minion ( You will see them move closer and start their animation, if you do not have a minion to kill soon, you may auto attack tumble- if by this time you have passed the line of YOUR minions you back off quickly to prevent counter-harass, if not then you may finish off another auto attack to complete the combo).

Tip- Tumble is an auto attack reset- so you can autoattack, then tumble to quickly autoattack again, this helps a lot when csing or when fighting

2) Play aggressive. Unless you are against Graves/Taric or Tristana in general, or Leona/Taric + Corki you can play aggressive. Everybody says that vayne's early game is atrocious, believe me it is, but there are skills that allow you to 100-0 people easily, especially at the level you are playing at. If the above lane combos are not seen, you can bring Flash Ignite, if they are, pack cleanse instead of ignite.

People normally do not expect a Vayne to play aggressive, and they also underestimate her damage, I find tumble to be a 1 point wonder, although others prefer to max it first. I grab Condemn at level 1, level 2 tumble, and level 3 Silver bolts. Depending on the lane, you max either Condemn or Silver bolts first, yeah yeah why max Silver bolts? Against tanky lanes with graves/taric/alistar/leona/blitzcranks silver bolts does a hell of a lot more damage than you think when compared to Condemn and increased tumble damage.

Your burst with a quick AA-> Tumble->AA->Condemn into wall->Ignite-> AA->Tumble-> AA onto a support such as Soraka,Sona, Lulu, Janna or any ADC will do insane damage if Condemn is maxed first, just about 100-0ing any of them, and on top of that you have the damage of your support. Now, how can you pull this combo off without getting your face blown off?

Most AD's will push the lane while they try to harass you, see graves,sivir,varus,corki,or anyone else, the only exception is Ezreal perhaps. Just sit back and farm until the wave reaches the bush closer to your tower. Then ask your support to ward that bush. Normally, the support will move into that bush in an attempt to both support their ADC and zone you. That allows for the combo mentioned above netting an easy kill. If they are not moving near walls, make them. Play aggressive, tumbling around and auto attacking, avoid skillshots with tumble when possible and return harass. They WILL make a mistake, and that is the time when you can force a flash or net a kill.

Remember, if you are playing against non-idiots, use your tumble to position yourself that you can land a proper condemn. So, the combo here becomes, AA-> Tumble to the side->Condemn->AA. At level 3-5 condemn, you can literally drop people from 50% to 0 in almost no time, for reference, the double proc of condemn hits as much as graves Q and R combined.
Credit to the Creator of this picture.

3) Push the lane if you can safely. When you are paired against a decent ADC that will not mindlessly push or does not spam wave clears- push, or any of the above mentioned counters. Before doing this, if on blue side ask your support to kindly ward the tri bush and near dragon area, or if on purple the dragon area will suffice. Attack the minions often, but do not Auto attack, still getting last hits in and constantly shove them to tower. At the tower the opposing AD is forced to play defensive and use abilities so as not to lose CS, meanwhile being unable to harass you. At this time you can just slowly chip away at their health with autos and wait until the time when you can dive, or have a jungler come and dive with you.

To do this you need ward placement like this:

Now....lets do some burst numbers

Assuming you have followed this build to the letter...

Lets say you are bursting an ezreal, because nobody likes pretty boy ezreal.

Lets say it is a level 6 fight. You have Level 3 condemn,level 1 silver bolts, Level 1 tumble, and level 1 Final Hour. You are both even, as you should be at this point, went back once and have one dorans blade and one boots. Therefore you have 101 AD, or 32 bonus AD.

You open up the fight by tumbling and autoattacking, which is 131 dmg, then condemn into a wall which is 260 + 32 dmg, AA for 101 dmg, silver bolts procs on this hit for 20 + 38(Assuming ez hp is 940), ignite for 170 damage.

In total, this is 131 + 292 + 101 = 524 Physical damage, reduced to 383 damage(assuming ezreal has 47 armor)

383 Physical + 58 True + 170 True = 556 damage that ezreal could not return during the time he was stunned.

So, 940 - 556= 338 hp remaining from just YOUR burst. Your support can probably do just as much, and don't forget you can still chase ezreal down.

Tl;Dr A proper condemn onto a wall is just about an assured kill if you are not too far behind or screw up.

Early game- You are decent, outplay your opponent and you will crush them.

Vayne punishes the mistakes of your enemy harshly, but punishes her user's mistakes even moreso. Remember that.

Max condemn, around level 3 it becomes very potent, and that is when you get kill potential, play passive early, observe their AD carry and let him/her do whatever they want with the lane. If they are pushing, gladly allow them to do so, if they are just last hitting and ignoring you, PUSH THEM BACK, shove it to tower every wave, constantly harassing them, poking, until the time is right to go all in.

But above all else, try not to die, this is not the worst of it.


Midgame 15:00~, This is the most dangerous and important time for a vayne, it is at this time that most AD carries played are strongest and will snowball into oblivion like: Graves, Ezreal, Corki . If you are significantly stronger than your lane opponent by this point I.E 2 kills up, and around 20 cs , you can beat them easily. Around 1 kill and 10 cs up will allow you to still bully them around a little. But if you are even or behind, play passive. It is around this time that AD carries reach level 11-12, and so they have maxed their primary skill, and have gotten level 2 of their ultimate, AND have almost maxed their secondary skill, so the burst is going to be insane. Tell your support to play passive or aggressive as needed and try to keep even at this point.

Late game ~25:00, 30:00ish
Congratulations- You have made it to safety, you are the juggernaut now *****.
Depending on how you are doing, this is the time when you will shine. A vayne with ~7,000 gold by this point is doing decently well and you should have greaves, dorans (1 or 2) , BT, PD, or almost near completion of the PD. The second you get PD your damage becomes insane- all of that attack speed synergizes so well with Silver bolts, the movespeed helps her chase that much better, and the crit , is well, crit.
It is at this point that you should be doing the majority of your team's damage.

Look at that. Enough said.


Can you guys now see how much damage her steroids give her? Play her properly and she is the HIGHEST damage carry in the entire game.

I can summarize teamfighting as vayne in one sentence.

If they see you first, you die, if you see them first, they die.


At this point the game becomes revolved around positioning. and around you, forget the laning phase, line behind your tanks at all times, because literally EVERYBODY knows if a vayne lives for more than 3 seconds, someone is going to die.

Do not Ultimate BEFORE you get beelined, and believe me you will be.
The reason is, your ultimate lasts only 12 seconds at max rank, you are not using it for the damage, that is just icing on the cake, but for the stealth.

You WILL get rushed by bruisers and CCbots, if you see an opening, take it, if you are playing vayne to begin with you have balls, so this next part should be of no problem.

If their team does NOT have heavy cc/suppressions/massive AoE cc you can do this.

The bruisers and tanks will rush you, hopefully your tanks and peelers can hold them off. If they can't, there will be an opening in the enemy's front line made by the bruisers- their squishies are completely open. If you have balls of steel, you FLASH into the side of their team in an attempt to flank(Do this ONLY if you are in extreme danger) , if done properly the bruisers and tanks on their team will be preoccupied with your team, meanwhile you can go to town on their squishies. *Note* This can only be done with certain comps, think about cooldowns blown and ultimates about to be dropped before doing this. I.E don't flash into a kennen. Then it is merely a simple Ult if you havent used before, into a tumble for stealth, positioning yourself properly now, condemn the AP carry- do not care for the stun just get them away, and go to town on their Ad carry.Then adapt to the situation, and remember, this is when tumble shines, use it to dodge skillshots, position, juke, stealth, anything. Creativeness counts on vayne.

If the enemy has a team of massive CC I.E 2 of these- Kennen,Morg,Galio, Alistar, Naut ( Or others I am forgetting) or pure assassins hellbent on killing you - Diana,Akali,Morde Etc.

Wait. Let your team fight the 4 v 5 for around 2 seconds, everybody WILL tunnelvision on your team, and forget about the vayne coming in out of nowhere, many cooldowns will have been blown in the initial initiation (hue) and people will not notice you as easily. You can just take your position behind your tanks/peelers, and shoot away, hitting whoever is threatening to your and/or right in front of you.

KNOW THE RANGE OF ABILITIES, Vayne HAS to get in close to do the damage she needs to do, that is the reason people play vayne, the insane damage she can do when played by people who have mastered her. But you also need to have very good knowledge of the champions you are playing against, and with. For example, when first entering a teamfight you must think " Okay, that Warwick has just blown his Ult, but theres an alistar right there, and moving up to shoot him would put me in range of a headbutt pulv combo, or a riven dash into stun", you need to constantly notice important cooldowns being blown, primarily CC and gap closers because you can only peel 1 person, and that is with condemn which has a long CD. Just stay alive, Auto attack, and when you can and are certain you will not be punished for it, move up and attack their squishies.


Take this for example, know the range of Galio's ultimate for instance, do not get in range and do not get CCed, do this for just about every other champion and keep these ranges in mind at ALL times, and you will have learned what positioning truly means.

Cons-

You are squishy, you have no insane base stats like graves, your base HP is the second lowest of all ADC, and your base mana is terrible, and your base Armor is the lowest of all ADC, and your movement speed while running away is terrible, and your escape skill can only be used once every 5~ seconds while running away, and your peeling mechanism has a long cooldown and costs a lot of mana and does not stall them for long.

You don't have any get out of jail free card like the trinity we see today, all you have is tumble, use it wisely.

Pros-

TONS OF DAMAGE HOLY ****

But if you are better than your opponent, and your support has half a brain, you can crush them. Vayne has one of the highest skill caps in the entire game, there is so much potential, mastering her creates, IMO the strongest AD carry in the entire game.

Play against these lanes as vayne, and you are going to have a bad time.

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The reason for this, is because Taric makes these guys even tankier against you, while also zoning you or stunning you allowing for them to follow up with their ridiculous burst which will probably kill you at level 6.

Supports to pair with

Vayne works will with just about any support, it is the support that dictates how aggressive she is in lane.

Alistar- Absolutely great support with her, he has the heals she needs, and the ungodlike cc that allows her to easily set up condemn kills, Pulv into Condemn into wall into a headbutt back is a sure kill.


Blitzcrank- Wait for grab and punch, condemn into wall, just try not to get poked beforehand because you have no heals


Janna- This is a massive poke fest, just wait on a shield, and AA-> tumble AA-> AA for tons of damage, she also has great peel for you and cc, great support.


Leona- Coordinate with her and set up combos, let her initiate with her tankiness, she can hold down an enemy for multiple seconds, allowing you to position well for a good combo.


Lulu- Meh do not suggest this pairing, she does not synergize well, little kill potential, just farm


Lux- She has very good burst, so around levels 4-8 you can be aggressive. She has a great bind and slow that allow you to poke and combo very well. This lane can snowball very well.



Nunu- Blood boil is very good for poking and skirmishes, max Silver bolts first, and poke until you can go all in



Shen- Play passive, poke one AA at a time, let shen do the initiates, he does better lategame when he can shield you though.


Sona- Levels 1-5, go poke crazy with her, your burst is very good with condemn, power chord.




Soraka- Poke hard, dont go all in, but poke and wear them down, rely on heals and mana.




Taric- Truly outrageous. (Hes good, go balls to the walls)

Opponents-
Ashe- Annoying, she will kite you, but if you land a good condemn combo she cant follow up, be more careful post level 6 however


Caitlyn- Annoying, she pokes, but if she makes a mistake and you can get a good combo off she is done.


Corki- Watch for his Q when you walk up to CS, his escape is very hard to catch up to, and his machine gun will shred you, and post 6 his burst is quite good, hope to have a support with very good CC so that you can kill him.


Draven- Play passive, he outdamages you hard, just farm, wait on a mistake and pounce on it. His Q is better than your tumble with no cooldown, and he has a damaging passive, with a good steroid and global ult, do not fight him evenly.


Ezreal- Aggressive, Dodge his Essense flux and Mystic shot with tumble when you can, and you will outdamage him, wait on a mistake and go all in with your support, he is VERY squishy.



Graves- Let him push with buckshot, freeze the lane and farm, you cant kill him because of his IMO dumb passive unless he makes a grave error (hehe), poke when you can his range is 525, smaller than yours, max W first and slowly wear him down, DO NOT THINK YOU CAN 1 V 1 HIM EARLY HIS BURST IS INSANE. *Insert faceroll here*


Koggers- Once he gets that W leveled up, and hits level 6, you will be hard pressed to CS and kill him because of his E, he does very well against vayne, a soft counter.
He can still be outplayed, any mistake and he is dead if you have a hard CC support.


Miss Fortune- Annoying yet again, she can poke hard and slow you, but if you have a heavy CC support, you can beat her after the first few initial levels.


Sivir- Complete and utter joke to play against. Crush her. Balls to the Walls. Tumble counters her Q, and her spell shield does almost nothing because you dont use spells other than condemn haha. Bait out the shield and kill her, poke hard, her AA range is small.



Varus- He is quite strong early with Q poke, however you can allow him to push, but if he is good he will counter and zone you. He has very good poke, healing reduction, burst, snare, and can stop your mobility and chasing. Another soft counter.


Mirror- GL whoever is better wins

Do not give up. After one game as her do not say "Wow she is a terrible champion I got stomped on", or "I can't figure out how to play her". You will. Practice her and practice her, her kit is the most fluid and well thought out I have seen in a long time, she has such simple skills, but it is very difficult to achieve perfection. She is the most satisfying carry to learn because everyone adores a good vayne- everyone is scared of a good vayne.

Vayne is horrifically underplayed, many do not realize her strength or take the time to learn and master her. She is a great champion, but is constantly characterized as having a "weak" earlygame, a great vayne player can transform her early game into dominance, Vayne punishes opponents who makes mistakes harder than any other, while at the same time punishing the player just as hard for their mistakes.