Vayne Build Guide by MFireWilliam

BANNER

Props goes to Nyoike for this work of art, simply lovely.

Pre-words

Hello everyone, and welcome to what I hope will become my extensive guide for Vayne.

I hope that you all like it, and constructive criticism is always appreciated. Trolls and people who just goes "This is bad -1", the exit is to your upper left corner of the screen. Please go out that way.

I would very much appreciate that you read PAST just this, even though you might just be thinking "TL;DR!", as I will do explenations for everything I do in this guide, what you should and shouldn't do, and so on.

Please leave an actual comment when you vote rather than just "+1" or anything the sort, it's much appreciated and will help me improve as a guide writer for future champions, or any old champions which I just might happen to love playing. Thanks once again.

Pros and Cons

Pros
- Good harasser.
- Strong burst when you want it.
- Exellent mid laner.
- Exells highly at chasing, as well as 1v1 and even 2v1.
- Strong ganker.
- Can even take down tanks no problem.
- Tumble makes you look like a ninja. 'Nuff said.

Cons
- Weak if targetted and ganked
- Not great at escapping if getting chased by more than 1-2 people
- Can't go through walls with tumble :(
- Has no AoE what so ever, relies 100% on picking down one enemy at a time.
- No awesome skins of any sort. Vindicator is the best looking but still looks sort of bad D:

How does this work?

I hear what you're right now shouting out the first thing you can at the monitor

"YOU GOT NO SURVIVAL BUUUUUUH!"
Survival is not anything I personally go for, but of course if the enemy team has a lot of damage either in AoE or ranged single target, you should of course get one item to increase survivability.

But if you want proof that this build actually WORKS, then here is your proof

Strategy

So, how do you want to play Vayne?

Well, as Vayne you want to constantly be on the look for someone you can easily rip to shreds in a three shot combo. Remember, with your passive, chasing is one of the easiest thing on the planet. (Note, her passive only works if your target is visible, and you're facing in the general direction of him (Standing at a slight angle will work, but having your back to him will not). If he jukes into a brush, you will lose the speed until you can see him again.)

Remember, when laning in early game, you can on a lot of champions EASILY keep them out of XP range due to exellent harassment, and strong nuke/chase meaning that if they do the wrong thing or take a step too far, surviving is out of the question.

That's for laning, now. Your role in Team fights is NOT to charge in there and just get slaughtered thinking "IMA TAKE AS MANEH WID MEH AS I CAN" and be a some sort of Martyr. Your role is to play it tricky, stay behind your group when ever possible and snipe off the most squishy targets one by one, especially their carries if possible. Even a tryndamere can be suprised zerged by you, if you time it right.

If you want to really suprise someone with the damage you can do, what you should do is first shoot them twice, Tumble in and then shoot them once more, with just a few items this will rip off about 500-700 hp no problem.

If you want a small intro I say watch this, Vayne's Champion Spotlight
I also recommend that if you've just picked her up and never played her, to go into a Co-op vs AI or custom bot game, and just practice positioning, and using tumble correctly.

THE core, and other items

Your core items are, and no matter what you should ALWAYS have these in a game (ofcourse unless it goes super bad, or it's a very quick match)
These are your three core items.

Items of which you can chose from are then

Build 1 - Full on Carry

This is my "supreme" carry build that will end up in so much damage that your enemies will not be able to survive what so ever the moment you decide to go for them, of course this has disadvantages, such as lack of survivability if getting targetted. With only little over 2.2k hp and only small doses of armor and magic resistance

But on the plus side, on unarmored targets (their carries if they're stupid) you can literally Tumble out towards them and shoot them once for a 1.9k-2k crit. That's always so much fun.

In this build, you need to play way more carefully and a bit more "cowardly", never be the first to enter a team fight, and certainly never go to the front while enemy AoE is up.

I recommend this highly if your team is doing good, and it's the build that I personally use all the time, so far only losing 2 out of 10 matches on Vayne.

Build 2 - Survivability

This build is made to have WAY more survability to it, to every extend. You actually have some decent armor, HP and magic resistance in this one, with it including banshee's veil into the cocktail to have a better chance against their casters

With this build you can risk getting further ahead in the battle itself, and actually take some damage without getting boned the moment they switch onto you.

As you can see, in this one for the early game I switched Condemn for Silver Bolts, the reason for this is lack of early game damage, so it works very well.

I recommend this build if you're having trouble and usually getting picked off quickly.

Build 3 - The anti-tank

This build is what I use whenever I see an enemy team that consists mainly of enemy champions with a larger than 2.5k health pool, and over 100 armor, then I gun for this as with these items, and Silver Bolts alone, you can make mince meat of their tanks, no matter health or armor. Remember that.

Recommended for.. going against tanky teams? (obvious)

Early Game

In the early game, what you should always try to get is the mid lane, unless a champion listed as Impossible (See list near end) is in the same lane as you, in which you should call a lane switch with someone who is more viable at laning against said target.

If you don't get the mid lane, then it isn't the end of all, Vayne is still very capable of going into a side lane, or solo laning if you have a jungle. Her easy evading with Tumble makes her awesome against champions who use skillshots in their laning, as you can just tumble out of it's way and A: Get a buffed shot in on them, B: Chase them away because they don't want to take that damage.

For early game, you should start with a Doran's Blade. I found this being better than anything else I tried. The 100 hp helps you lane a bit longer, the damage is neat for a starting item, and the lifesteal, though not that big at all, is still something that can help you keep yourself in the lane for a little bit longer.

Last hitting is essential for Vayne, is you lack any AoE attacks at all to take down multiple minions at a time, timing is all. Always look for a minion with about 60-70 hp left, sometimes even 100 as you can just tumble in and shoot it once to death.

If your enemy/enemies in the lane consists of people that need to be in melee range to do anything, you're golden. You can essentially zone them out of the lane completely by yourself, by just standing where the enemy minions are, and only last hitting to make sure the minion fight is in the middle.

If you can't zone them out from the lane, just try to help your minion wave push as much as possible by shooting the minions, and still focus on last hitting something that can be oneshot easily.

Getting a sheen early is essential for your laning, as it allows you to deal a heavy burst every single time you tumble. Trust me, it works. You should recall or what ever you need to do, the very moment you can get a sheen.

Mid Game

In the mid game you get three choices of how you wanna do things:

- You can either go around in the lanes, always looking for an easy target or gank.
- Keep laning, and try to zone out your enemy even more and last hitting
- Start jungling a bit, go through the jungle and just take out what you need.

The choices of what you want to do here is situational, I'd say if you've managed to push the enemy tower down, unless it's going really splendid and you're already pushing the second tower, you should go on a gank hunt, and jungle in the meanwhile passing through to not miss out on any XP, or atleast not too much.

If you haven't taken down the enemy turret yet, you should deffinantly stay in your own lane and keep making sure to get those last hits.

A last hit heavily underrated if you ask me

One wave of minions (6 minion average) can basicly give you 120 gold if you manage to last hit all of them, that means that in just 3 waves you can make more gold from just last hitting, than you can in a kill and then perhaps being forced to go back, losing XP and extra gold.

Of course, while in the lane you should always look out for if the enemy overextends, or puts himself in an unfortunant position (A la near a wall where you can shoot him into and stun.)

Just keep following the build I put above to a degree, and then make your items depending on what sort of team composition the enemy has. Remember as of patch 1.0.0.118, Mercury treads is not your only choice for CC reduction anymore.

Late Game

The late game is all about the team fights and possible ganks. Your role in a team fight is alike that of every other ranged carry:

Standing behind your group, well guarded.
Snipe off their squishiest/most important champions first
Take down the tanks last.

If everything goes well, and you do what you're supposed to along with your team, a clean and easy victory for your team should be in the horizon. Just remember that

Team Fights

Here I will go into more extensive info on your role in a team fight, what to do, what to not do, and how to position yourself, with images. The images will come a little later as I can make them accessible

Your role in a team fight is to make sure that the enemies carries don't do ****, for example if they have a self centered AoE (A la Karthus Kennen Fiddlesticks), you should ALWAYS try to knock them away from your group using Condemn, as this can basicly save your entire team from being screwed. Alike in such scenarios, if the enemy has a Katarina as their strongest carry, you should always save Condemn for when she decides to use her ulti, as it can completely ruin her ability to take down any of your team, and can save your whole team from taking lethal damage.

What you want to do is try to always stay in the background of the teamfight, use Final Hour to buff yourself up, and start shooting at their most soft targets (Usually their carries if they focus on damage), as Tumble and Silver Bolts alone can easily annihilate their HP in about 3 shots, to the point that they either have to retreat or die.

Your order of killing should always be:

Their Support
Their AP carry(ies)
Their AD carry(ies)
Their bruiser
Their tank.

Laning

What do you want to do when you're in a lane? You want to make the enemy wish they had never picked that lane, that's what.

You can do this in one simple way, using your passive to always get atleast TWO shots in on the enemy, by running up, shooting, Tumble, shoot. This will deal a good amount of damage easily, and in many cases, without them being able to do anything about it what so ever.

As much as harassment and zoning is important, so is last hitting crucial, aswell as map awareness. This includes that you keep an eye on the minions health bar, aswell as getting some wards on the team to always know if an enemy champion is coming for you, or trying to sandwich you so you can't escape.

This is the most important things, always.

Remember, using Tumble correctly combined with Sheen can EASILY ensure you a kill in the early game.

Ganking

The way you want to approach ganking, is waiting for the correct moment to jump out, this means when EVER the enemy is in a position where you can align yourself to shoot him into a wall with Condemn, auto attack, Tumble and auto attack again for a massive burst damage. Always use Final Hour for this, as it has a fairly short cooldown and is nearly always available to use.

Champions you (don't) want to lane against

Easy
Kennen
Tryndamere
Katarina
Karthus
Singed
Urgot
Trundle
Jarvan IV
Mordekaiser

Medium
Malzahar (can also be hard, depending on if he's decent, or good.)
Nunu
Caitlyn
Corki
Cassiopeia
Ashe
Akali
Pantheon
Kassadin
Xin Zhao

Hard
Anivia
Urgot
Vayne

IMPOSSIBLE!!

These are the ones I've so far tried to lane against, more will be added runningly as I lane against more of them, and positions may change, as this is only after a couple of days worth playing as her.

Other runes

Other runes you can use are Greater Glyph of Magic Resist, and Greater Seal of Health, since they add to your survivability in both early and late game.

I would never recommend not taking the Armor penetration marks and quintessences, though, as armor penetration is vital for any AD carry to have, unless they want a bunch of their damage to be gone.

Change-log

(Note, it's DATE/MONTH/YEAR, not anything else)

13/05/11: Written and published.
14/05/11: Updated some parts minorly.
15/05/11: Added banner
16/05/11: Added Vayne and Urgot to the Hard list
29/05/11: I give up - The internet community has proven to be worthless. No more updates or anything for you. Go enjoy some other guide, you can thank the jerks for this.

Contacting me for info

I made sure there is a number of ways that you could be able to reach me,
first and foremost there would of course be through comments, which I will be checking once a week.

Second is through a PM on this site

Third is through an email setup for Mobafire: MFireWilliam@hotmail.com

Fourth is through an ingame Private Message, my Summoner name is "MiniWill"