This is my first guide. Constructive criticism welcome!

I'm going to take a look at a few different ways to approach Vayne, some based around being a bit more tanky, others closer to being a glass cannon.

NIGHT HUNTER

NOTE: This will not help you run away!

Night Hunter + Boots = Nice early game harassment. It allows you to get that extra shot in as your opponent backs off which could mean the difference between proc'ing Silver Bolts or not. Excellent chasing ability and insane speed increase when you activate Final Hour

TUMBLE


Yes, the extra damage is nice and makes for great early game harassment. Also, Tumble is an incredible skill-shot dodging ability. It is for these reasons that we max tumble first.

Phreak does a pretty good job of showing you how to harass with Tumble early game and gives an awesome display of skill-shot dodging in the Vayne spotlight video.

(roflstomp dodging @3:21) Play Video

Harassment with Tumble

Attack --> Tumble --> Attack --> Attack (If/When possible)

Tumble --> Attack (Close the distance and hit the bonus damage, continue to chase or get out before taking return harassment)

If you see an oportunity to stun, do it! Get as many auto attacks in as you can for Silver Bolts. Utilize the attack cooldown reset that Tumble gives you.

Kiting with Tumble

Tumble's low cooldown allows you to repeatedly kite away from dangerous enemies. Combined with Condemn it is very difficult for a single champion to even get near you. (and then take flash and exhaust into account and you're one hard-to-catch, cross-bow-wielding *****)

Dance. Attack, step away, attack, step away. If they move away from you, chase them. Night Hunter Will allow you to catch them to continue attacking. If they ever get too close for comfort, tumble away. If tumble is on cooldown, use condemn to keep the distance.

Utilize condemn as a last resort for kiting. It is a rather long cooldown compared to tumble and is far more mana intensive.

Escaping with Tumble

Because tumble gives you a six second buff that is consumed when you attack before the cooldown activates, you want to attack something when possible after using tumble while you run away. Be it a creep, an enemy champion, or neutral monster, hit it once and keep your *** moving. Ditching that six second buff and getting tumble ready again as soon as possible is worth the time it takes to fire one shot, assuming firing that shot won't get you killed. This is a good way to increase your odds of surviving.

When you tumble while Final Hour is active, you suddenly have some decent juking potential. Change directions, set up a stun with Condemn, do whatever you have to do to get away. Activating Final Hour and tumbling down the lane in a straight line isn't going to help a whole hell of a lot and more than likely wastes your ultimate.

Remember, you aren't a super speed machine on steroids when you're running away. You're a damn sloth, and you have to juke like there's no tomorrow.

Ganking with Tumble

Activate Final Hour and tumble in from out of sight. The 1.5 second stealth gives you some time to position yourself to set up a stun or what have you. It also makes your sudden appearance a bit more surprising ;)

Team-fighting with Tumble

I can't urge you enough to not spam tumble in team fights. Here's why:

• In the spotlight video, you probably heard Phreak explain that tumble resets Vayne's attack delay, allowing her to attack again immediately after the tumble is complete. This is awesome for the early game, not the late game. By late game your attack speed is fast enough that it will actually delay your next attack instead make it faster, which in turn means you'll proc Silver Bolts less frequently.
• You won't be a skill-shot dodging machine because Tumble will be on cool down when you need it
• Your kiting ability will be decreased, again because Tumble won't be available when you need it

Here's when you SHOULD use tumble in team fights

• Avoid disables
• Avoid costly skill-shots
• Kite!
• Clean up / Chase
• Depending on the situation, it can be OK to tumble closer to the action to get that last tick of Silver Bolts before the enemy gets out of your range
• Your auto attack isn't enough to kill someone, but the bonus damage is.

Note: Only one item in this list even mentions the bonus damage. It's nice, yes, but you should have more of a reason to use tumble than just that, and believe me, there will be other reasons to use it.

SILVER BOLTS

Primary damaging ability. Completely passive, we take it for the proc damage of course. The only thing to note here is that the proc counter resets whenever you pick a new target. So when you start attacking someone, try to finish at least one set of Silver Bolts for the bonus damage before changing targets. If you can get more in, great, if not - oh well.

CONDEMN

Condemn is crowd control. "But, but, if you max it first, it does great damage!" Sure, but the long cooldown makes you a very bursty champion. As the hard physical carry, you can hold more weight on your back with sustained damage through Silver Bolts.

Treat condemn as a form of disable. It can help you kite, it will allow you to stun people, but it shouldn't be your main source of damage. You want your auto attacks (silver bolts) to do the work for you, your other abilities are utility, they exist to let your auto attacks do more.

FINAL HOUR


What we'll lack in raw attack damage from items, we'll make up for with Final Hour. With this active, you can chase down nearly anyone. You'll be able to position yourself where you're needed in team fights, and the invisibility with Tumble will help you avoid damage and escape.

Activate this for team fights, chasing, some escape utility, and face-rolling damage.

Tumble or Condemn. Never Silver Bolts

When to take Condemn

When a level one stun outweighs the ability to tumble.

Bottom lane with Blitzcrank? I usually take Condemn first here. If he pulls someone into a bush at level 1, you just got first blood. Plow that moron into the wall and destroy him.

Early team fight? This could go either way. In most cases Condemn first. Yeah, you can save yourself with Tumble, but you won't be able to save a team mate if they need it, and you've got flash anyway. A lot of early fights happen near terrain. The more terrain is around, the more likely you are to get a stun.

When to take Tumble

Take tumble first when there isn't a real use for condemn.

Cripple and Blink of an Eye and very important. Having those available when you need them can mean getting a kill or surviving a gank.

4/4 sorcery for a little cool down reduction. We aren't getting any elsewhere, so take it where you can (Plus it's better than a measly 3 attack damage from brute force).

The utility tree is fairly flexible, do what you want with it, but take Blink of an Eye, Quickness, and Utility mastery. Those are all obvious choices. More red buff means more win.

Marks
Greater Mark of Desolation - Obvious choice here for any AD carry
Seals
Greater Seal of Attack Speed - Helps you put out more rounds of Silver Bolts
Greater Seal of Armor - If you feel you need more defense instead of attack speed
Glyphs
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist - Much needed for pesky burst casters
Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist - Another viable option
Quints
Greater Quintessence of Desolation - A bit more umph in your lane presence.
Greater Quintessence of Health - Nice for early game survivability.


Pick runes that fit your playstyle. Hyper aggressive pre level 6? Get flat magic resist instead of scaling, etc

There really aren't any other spells to consider :P

I take Flash and Exhaust because they both have offense AND defensive potential.

Ghost really only has defensive potential - after Night Hunter + Final Hour you hit diminishing returns very quickly and Ghost really won't up your speed that much unless you're running away.

Ignite is obviously only offensive, does some damage and prevents healing. An acceptable pick against a team with some huge healer if no one else on your side has ignite. ( Dr. Mundo Swain Vladimir)

Always take Flash, as it's too good to not have.

STARTING ITEMS

OR

I prefer boots and pots for sustainability and easier harass. At no point in time will you see me pushing my lane to regain health with the leech from Doran's blade. If you auto attack to gain a bit of hp, you better be prepared for a gank.

BOOTS

OR OR

My main preference is Mercury's Treads, I only included the others in order to discuss them as options.

Mercury's Treads provide much needed magic resist and tenacity. Great boots on almost any champion.

Berserker's Greaves - 25% attack speed = more Silver Bolts! Yes, but you'll have to find other ways to make up for the lost magic resist and tenacity from Merc Treads. Cloak and Dagger can work well here if you want to go for a pure attack speed build.

Boots of Swiftness - I tried these for a while because I wanted the extra speed for escaping/chasing. It really hardly helps with chasing though because your passive + ultimate makes you move like the wind. These boots just push you too far past diminishing returns to make them worth while. And once you learn to use your abilities to escape instead of pure speed, you won't really need them anymore. Cloak and Dagger is also a good option here.

TANKY

You still get decent damage output with far more survivability.

CORE

--> --> -->

POSSIBLE BUILD VARIATIONS

Great for fighting physical heavy teams. Lots of armor, good attack speed, 73% crit chance, 30% slow, great stuff.



This is a decent route if you need to squeeze in Banshee's Veil. Here Phantom Dancer and Frozen Mallet are sort of combined into Trinity Force This opens up the extra slot needed for Banshee's Veil. Black Cleaver is taken instead of Infinity Edge to help make up for the lost attack speed.


If you need more magic resist, you can exchange an item for Wit's End.

GLASS CANNON

You can kill E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E.

CORE

Possible continuations

OTHER ITEMS TO CONSIDER

Probably one of the more debatable items. Ties in with getting Trinity Force or not.

Here's why I get Zeal instead.

• Sheen makes your damage output sort of bursty, I prefer something more sustained on Vayne.
• Flexibility in mid-late game builds. The only viable option for Sheen is Trinity Force. while you can upgrade Zeal to Trinity Force OR Phantom Dancer.
• There is no need for any stats Sheen offers. It's purely for the passive. Every stat from Zeal is great.
• I'm a big fan of the move speed from Zeal. A lot of times it lets me delay upgrading my boots a until after I finish Madred's Razors.

A must-have against Jax.


Damage and life leach. Works fairly OK with builds focused just a bit more on offense.


Excellent on a team mate. I think if you want life leach, just get Bloodthirster as your B. F. Sword item.


A little armor pen can go a long way.


A cheaper alternative to Banshee's. Helps against Warwick and Malzahar. Stick with Banshee's Veil against Karthus, though.


If you feel like screwing around in a normal game / pubstompping. Please don't risk it in a more serious atmosphere :P

14/06/2011 - Added Glass Cannon and Summoner Spells