Vayne is a very strong champion that is able to dish out crazy amounts of late-game damage. Her ability to one-shot squishies is very high if she is able to reach her full late-game potential. Playing Vayne as an assassin instead of an AD carry is actually quite strong if you are able to execute her enemies correctly and without messing up.

This high risk/high reward play style allows for Vayne to fill the assassin position, which is arguably safer than the latter, due to where you stand in team fights and when you are supposed to go in.

Vayne is a very powerful pick, and is almost impossible to shut out of the game entirely since, even if destroyed in the laning phase, will eventually get an item or two and be able to do some damage. She is quite a difficult champion to play, and often isn't played to her full potential, but when she is played well enough she has the potential to carry games by herself. That doesn't mean every time she goes into a 1v5 she will destroy everyone, but it means that she really can't be stopped in a team fight and will kill everything she touches.

I'm going to pass on my knowledge about Vayne to those who are willing to read this guide, and I promise that for those who read this will not be disappointed.

-Runes-

The rune page that I have constructed is actually quite effective for ADCs. These runes are especially effective on Vayne because she is very squishy--these runes remedy that weakness. It's also quite good to have attack speed where you can because as an ADC you want to have a high DPS. At the start of the game your DPS will be very low, but getting attack speed increases your damage output, no matter how small an amount it may be at the start of the game. The attack speed scaling you get from your runes are very very apparent once you get your first attack speed item.

I have
[*] 9 Greater Mark of Attack Damage
[*] 5 Greater Seal of Scaling Health and 4 Greater Seal of Scaling Armor
[*] 5 Greater Glyph of Attack Speed and 4 Greater Glyph of Magic Resist
[*] and 3 Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed

[*] The attack speed scaling you get from these runes are about 17%. You will have noticeably high attack speed quite early on in the game because of these runes, which is exactly what you want. The faster your attack speed is, the more damage you will be able to do with your passive. This attacks speed scaling, when paired with the amount from masteries, comes to a total of 22% total bonus attack speed scaling--this means that Vayne will get 22% more attack speed from individual items.

[*] The scaling seals of HP, Armor, and MR are quite useful. Since we are trying to out-scale our opponents, getting scaling defensive runes allows you to take more damage than you usually would. Scaling MR is amazing since Vayne's MR doesn't increase with level, and scaling runes are more effective than flat runes after level 6. The fact that Vayne has a very low max HP pool, getting large amounts of armor without the health to sustain it is just a waste.

-Masteries-

[*] Why Feast instead of Butcher ?
CS'ing will be just a bit more difficult, almost unnoticable, than it would be if you had Butcher but at a very reasonable expense. Feast will reward you 3 HP and 1 mana for every CS you score, allowing you to stay in lane longer without lifesteal or health pots.

[*] Spell Weaving
This mastery, stacking up to three times, increases spell damage based off of how many times you've hit an enemy. An auto attack increases spell damage by 1%; at max stacks your spells will do 3% more damage. Vayne's Q damage can be amplified by this effect. It's a small amount of damage amplification early on, but once you get any damage, your ultimate, and levels in Q, it becomes pretty apparent how useful this mastery can be.

Blade of the Ruined King, or BOTRK, is an essential first item on Vayne that is about as essential to her kit as a Trinity Force is to a Corki or an Ezreal. It's health-melting passive that does bonus damage to enemies based on how much health they currently have and an active that makes Vayne impossible to escape makes for one scary build.

Blade of the Ruined King gives Vayne the attack speed, damage, and lifesteal that she needs to win anything. She isn't like most AD carries that rely on Infinity Edge to make for most of their DPS through Critical Strikes and just raw AD, or others that rely on burst damage to quickly blow up enemies. Vayne needs attack speed and Critical Strikes to do some pretty serious damage, and Blade of the Ruined King is the item that makes her strong.

and
Phantom Dancer, Statikk Shiv, or both?
Getting both of these items is certainly a very strong thing and increases the strength and amount of times that Vayne is able to crit because of crit chance and the power of the Statikk Shiv proc.

In pretty much all cases, I'd say that Statikk Shiv is more powerful than Phantom Dancer because it gives any AD carry that gets it some burst damage. This item works well with Vayne since the crit and attacks speed that Statikk Shiv lacks in comparison to Phantom Dancer, the passive damage proc makes up for it since it's a pretty crazy amount of damage all at once. Tumble + Statikk Shiv = Massive Crits.

Phantom Dancer is the more solid choice of the two since the stats given present more consistent results as well as being more efficient than Statikk Shiv. The crit chance is high, the attack speed buff is high, it has a lower movement speed multiplier but is able to compensate for that with a passive that allows Vayne to ignore unit collision making it second nature to walk around fights while stealthed.

Both Phantom Dancer and Statikk Shiv at the same time? Sure--not with this build though. One of these is definitely more than enough, and getting both of these instead of one of these and Youmuu's Ghostblade is foolish since it decreases overall damage out-put but quite a bit. Attack speed and crit may be high, but AD and Armor Pen. will be quite low. It's really just a preference thing--choose which one you want, and really think about it, because you will only be able to have one at a time.


I feel like Vayne is a champion that can utilize Youmuu's Ghostblade due to her kit being one akin to an assassin. AD assassins like Zed, Talon, and Riven, to name a few, will often get this item because it's activation provides them with stats that greatly increase max DPS. It also provides its user with Crit Chance, Armor Pen, AD, and CDR, all of which are stats that Vayne can benefit from. The Armor Penetration is especially potent since it makes everything that she does hurt just a bit more than usual.

Without CDR, Vayne's Q, Tumble, at max level will be on a 2 second cooldown. 10% CDR of 2 seconds isn't that noticeable when used once, but when used constantly it will almost always be off of cooldown.

The attack speed you get from Youmuu's Ghostblade active is the same as Statikk Shiv, but you get 4x more movement speed for 6 seconds, which will be more than enough time to melt your targets.


Vayne benefits a lot from this item but it can be quite difficult to use once you've gotten it since you won't have insane attack speed or crit. It really won't even matter honestly since she will be tanker because of the HP stats Black Cleaver gives her, hard to kite/chase because of the Rage passive, and will have lots of armor reduction. Black Cleaver also gives Vayne 20% CDR, pretty giving Tumble no cooldown. The Phage passive that BC gives Vayne is strong and gives her the potential to snowball a team fight by running around at very high speeds; Cleaver + Final Hour + Night Hunter = Hyper-Sonic Speed.

and
You should never be building both of these items at the same time on Vayne because the damage you'll be getting will often be made useless due to the amount of armor your enemies will be stacking. The only times when she will ever really be able to get both Bloodthirster and Infinity Edge will be if the enemy team lacks any tanks that will relentlessly stack armor. Black Cleaver and Youmuu's Ghostblade are the best for this task, and are much more effective than getting Bloodthirster and Infinity Edge.

Infinity Edge is a really good item because the damage you will be doing from your critical strikes will be increased to 2.5x your AD instead of 2x. Vayne needs Critical Strike Chance--as much as she can grab, and Infinity Edge allows her to get as close to 100% Crit Strike Chance as possible.

Bloodthirster is a great item as well and is a lot safer of a choice of the two since it allows Vayne to out-sustain her enemies, and is especially great against enemies with high amounts of sustained and burst damage. The lifesteal and overheal passives that Bloodthirster has is very strong, but do remember that you have sacrificed sustain for more damage. It's worth it in some cases.


Zephyr is a situational item. Vayne should never get this item--ever--EVER. Don't even think about ever getting this item for her ever...Unless she's reaches full build and has about 3,000 gold that she doesn't know how to spend. If such is the case then look no further for you have come to the right place! Don't know what to build? I say, "No problem" and I hand over the item Zephyr.

This item will replace berserker's greaves - homeguards and sit nicely in Vayne's inventory. This item give her more AD, attack speed (which is something that certainly could't hurt), CDR (she will have 40% at this point), and a large movement speed multiplier. These things are literally all Vayne will ever need and complete this build very nicely. Something really not that great about this item is the Tenacity that it gives her. It decreases the duration of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, blinds, silences, and immobilizers by a whopping 35%, which is something Vayne will never really be able to utilize despite being very vulnerable to CC such as the kinds that renders less effective. I mean, it's not that great of an item but if she can get it, that'd be great.

(This item is actually very strong and is something that you should get her when she's finished her build entirely. Don't build it at all unless you can buy all the parts in bulk since every other item is too important to the build to get rid of for a piece of another item.)

I don't like maxing Silver Bolts first because I think it is a waste of time. Sure your passive procs will do more damage, but that won't really be relevant til mid/late game. Tumble is much more effective a lot earlier in the game because of the way it scales and the mobility it gives you at max rank.

Silver Bolts, at level 3, will do 40 (+ 6% of your target's max health) as bonus true damage. That's a lot of damage, but it won't do that much damage to people who don't have lots of health. It does lots of damage, once skilled, at all points in the game but until mid-game, three points in [silver bolts]] is only really necessary--any more and it will be a waste of damage.

Tumble, at max rank, will make Vayne's next basic attack do 50% more damage; at this level, it will have a 2 second cooldown. The damage that Tumble does is increased when her ultimate is active due to the bonus AD she gets. With this she will be able to kite and chase very effectively, and her DPS will actually increase if Tumble is used regularly.

Maxing Tumble first actually increases Vayne's attack speed, and overall damage, since Tumble resets her auto attack timer. This is kinda what allows this build to work. Lots of CDR and Armor Penetration instead of a relentless amount of attack speed. Her mobility, which is very important in team fights and small skirmishes, is very high with Tumble constantly off cooldown. It allows Vayne to stealth and re-position more often.

Vayne need to stay alive at all costs, and not everyone on your team might see this as a priority. If she are being chased relentlessly and is unable to kite her enemies effectively, then have your team peel. If they don't peel for you, then just remember than in fights, you are going to have to wait and sit behind everyone else in your team. If you don't, then Vayne will easily be shut down by bruisers and tanky champions with CC.

In team fights, don't go in. Let your team take the big ultimates first--let your enemies burn all of their cooldowns, then you make your move. Don't just mindlessly jump into the fray, you are going to want to stay away from any potential threats coming from the enemy team. If you find an opportunity to jump into their back-line and execute one or more of their carries without being stopped, then go for it. Those would only really be the times when diving in is justifiable.

-Attack Animation Canceling-

Vayne's ability to kite multiple enemies is nothing short of incredible. Although this may be true, you can't rely on her damage and her tumbles to be able to kite enemies since she is very vulnerable to burst damage and CC. You need to learn to Attack-Move (or Attack Animation Cancel), even if you aren't being chased. You want to pretty much master this in order to get the best results possible. You will be very hard to CC and shut down if you are constantly moving around and doing what Vayne does. Her passive makes Attack-Moving very easy because once you attack an enemy, it triggers her passive movement speed bonus. This is especially useful when being chased since the enemy will basically have to be a Homeguard Hecarim to be able to chase you down.

Constant re-positioning makes it harder for Vayne to be pinned down because moving around all the time makes skill shot's very hard to lane, and makes it easier to move into a position to condemn an enemy. Kiting her becomes difficult because Night Hunter makes her faster, extremely fast during Final Hour's duration. Attack Moving allows Vayne to cover more ground by not wasting time on completing her basic attack animation after her attack's missile has left her person.

You can pick Vayne into anything and be extremely successful as long as you play the match-up correctly while also having a support that is able to compensate for the possibly unfavorable situation. The enemy support determines what kind of lane Vayne will have to play because their support will also determine what kind of support yours will be.


Caitlyn does counter Vayne the hardest because of her range advantage; There is a way to play this lane, and if done correctly Vayne will thrive within this lane. If you find yourself playing Vayne vs. Caitlyn, then you will need to grab a support with a strong lane presence as they will be zoning Caitlyn away from you. You don't want a peeler because you don't want to take any damage; hard engage is more favorable in this match-up because that's what will be zoning the Caitlyn.


Leona is incredibly tanky at all stages of the game, and her abilities do quite a bit of damage to squishy targets. It's not enough to chunk off large portions of a target's health, but her balance between tank and damage is perfect; you can't focus Leona in team fights because it's a waste of resources, and you can't get away from her CC and damage if she lands them correctly.

The fact that she's very tanky allows her to dive enemies easily while also taking their occasional harassment in lane. Trying to poke a Leona out of lane is really just a waste of mana because she really doesn't take much damage at all, and it's a lot easier for her to just turn on you. The Leona and Vayne lane is a scary one--while they try to peel Leona off of her target, Vayne is doing all of the damage.

Leona does very well against supports without Janna-level peel since she is just able to go in and do a bunch of damage and secure possible kills for Vayne. Leona does get countered by Thresh, but it really just depends on how quickly Thresh can react to Leona's Zenith Blade. Thresh also can't really engage a Leona unless he's initiating a gank because they will just be out-traded.


The best support for a hard-farming lane where Vayne is at an early disadvantage. This would mean that Soraka is the best support for Vayne when she is laning against a hard-engage support because as long as Soraka has mana, Vayne can CS somewhat properly without dying or trying to go for a trade that would be unfavorable without Soraka. Astral Infusion is seriously ridiculous as it is very potent and has a very low cooldown. If Vayne gets poked down very hard, Soraka can just heal her back to full in less than a minute. Vayne needs to stay alive in lane to have any meaningful impact during the mid game, and avoiding as much damage as possible, saving Astral Infusion for when it's really really needed, will make all the difference.

Soraka's sustain in lane is crazy-- Vayne will basically never need to back for health as long as Soraka has mana. She will heal Vayne and herself quickly, and you will be poking her enemies down as she heals herself up. If the enemy bottom lane has no sustain, then Soraka will be able to poke them down to create a considerable difference in health.

The true strength of Soraka is her ability to shift focus. The enemy bot lane won't be able to kill Vayne unless they kill Soraka first; while you are trying to kill Soraka, Vayne will just be do what she does all over the enemy bot lane. It may result in the fight being turned and having Vayne secure several kills. Soraka may die, she shouldn't if you can kite correctly, but even if she does, you can still come out ahead with a double kill or at least a kill on the enemy AD carry.


Thresh is probably the most versatile pick for Vayne. Although he can't heal like Soraka, or peel like a Janna, or Engage like a Leona, he has a little bit of everything. His Flay can be used defensively or offensively as it will temporarily hinder the movements of those he hits. Thresh is able to disengage or engage fights very easily--he can land a Death Sentence on someone and then go for a damage trade, an all in, or to set up a gank. Death Sentence is a hard CC ability and can be used as a disengage. Dark Passage can either get someone out of a sticky situation or get a teammate close enough to assist him in his engage on a target.

The reason Thresh is so versatile is because his kit can be used for different purposes--Soraka is meant to keep her carry alive and in lane by out-sustaining the enemy bot lane, Leona is meant to engage, peel, and tank; Thresh can be used for both of these purposes. He doesn't do what they do nearly as well, but he is able to do what they both do at a decent level. Thresh is quite a bit more difficult to play than most other supports since you need to know more about AD carry and support champions and skill shots to be super effective, but even decent Thresh players can have a huge impact in the bot lane.


Braum, aside from being insanely tanky, has lots of CC and early game damage. Winter's Bite can poke down the enemy AD carry, but shouldn't be relied upon because spamming it would be a waste of mana unless he can land it consistently. Winter's Bite applies a stack of Concussive Blows. Concussive Blows is very strong since it allows you to deal tons of damage, damage that they can't retaliate with (if they don't die that is). Unbreakable can be a very clutch ability to use since it blocks a large amount of damage from any source, working like Yasuo's Wind Wall, it deletes projectiles completely. Braum's shield will block anyone behind him from skill-shots and ranged basic attacks, but he will still be effected. Braum's ultimate, Glacial Fissure can be used defensively or offensively and can make a huge difference in a fight if landed.

and
Nami and Janna are quite similar since their kits pretty much do some of the same things. Nami has more CC and sustain while Janna has a kit dedicated to utility and peel.

Nami's Q, Aqua Prison, is a suspension ability that deals damage, quite a bit once skilled, and reveals enemies that are caught in it. Janna's Q, Howling Gale is an a knock up ability that can be charged to do bonus damage. Howling Gale has a much longer range than Aqua Prison and has a much faster activation speed. Since Aqua Prison has a short, but noticeable, channel time on it, it can be sometimes hard to land effectively. Howling Gale can be activated immediately and and be used to peel off enemies at the drop of a hat.

Janna's W, Zephyr, passively gives her a very large movement speed buff and allows her to ignore unit collision. Zephyr's active can only be cast on enemies, but slows them greatly--doing this removes the Zephyr buff from Janna until the ability is off of cooldown. Nami's W, Ebb and Flow, is a healing/damaging ability that can be used on anyone. Ebb and Flow can be self-cast, cast upon allies, and cast upon enemies. This ability heals allies and damages enemies, and bounces to nearby enemies/allies to damage/heal them for a deteriorating amount. If used correctly, this ability can poke down an enemy lane and heal her lane at the same time.

Nami's E, Tidecaller's Blessing, is an ability that can be self or ally cast, that makes the target's next three basic attacks do bonus magic damage based on rank and the amount of AP that Nami has. These empowered attacks slow the targeted enemies for 1 second and do not stack. Janna's E, Eye of the Storm, very similar to Nami's Tidecaller's Blessing empowers an ally's basic attacks except Eye of the Storm increases a target's base AD and gives them a shield. Eye of the Storm can also be cast on turrets, giving her credit for enemies that die to them while her shield is on it.

Nami's ultimate, Tidal Wave, is a damaging AOE ability that knocks up and slows all enemies that are hit while applying the Surging Tides buff to allies that walk through it, giving them an insane movement speed buff. Janna's ultimate, Monsoon, is a channeled ability that works exactly like Katarina's ultimate that is disabled if she moves or uses any other abilities but doesn't if she uses a summoner spell, knocks back all enemies within a range of 875 and heals all allies within a range of 725. These ultimates are both pretty game-changing within their own rights, but both serve generally different purposes. Tidal Wave can be used as an engage, peel, or disengage while Monsoon can be used as a disruption, mass sustain, disengage, or peeling ability.

Nami and Janna both have good synergy with Vayne and choosing between which is better really just depends on what kind of lane the enemy is running down bot. Nami does better against a poke lanes while Janna does better against really aggressive lanes.


Alistar works very very well with Vayne since he really has everything that she could want (besides range); Alistar is EXTREMELY beefy, he has a hard engage ability, he has a CC ability, and he also does some decent damage. He does lots of damage in the early game since the base damages on his abilities are very high, but Alistar will be building full tank so his abilities won't be scaling at all.

Alistar's passive, Trample, makes him do damage to nearby enemies and structures just by walking near them--this ability also makes him ignore unit collision for it's duration. The damage minions take from Trample is doubled. This ability scales with AP and levels and really isn't meant to do much damage later in the game since everyone will just tank up and the further his team pushes up, the more resistant to damage structures will become. This ability is useful at all stages of the game, especially early, mostly because of the disregard of the unit collision mechanic. This allows Alistar to basically walk up to the enemy bot lane by walking through the minion wave.

Alistar's Q, Pulverize, is a knock-up ability that has a short stun following it that deals some pretty good damage, especially in the early game. This ability actually scales quite well but won't really be seeing the light of day since Alistar won't be building any AP. It's base damage is very high so it still has the potential to shave off a pretty decent chunk of a squishy's health bar. This ability, due to the long duration of the CC, presents more than enough time for Vayne to post up and position for a clean condemn on the enemy AD carry. This will almost always guarantee a kill since the enemy AD carry won't be able to move for quite a long period of time.

Alistar's W, Headbutt, is a knockback ability followed by a 1 second stun, that deals quite a bit of damage to it's target. This ability is a dash and it's animation can be interrupted half way through, before touching the target, and be used as a gap closer. This combo is known as the Headbutt + Pulverize and is very potent since it doesn't require the usage of flash.

Alistar's E, Triumphant Roar, is a healing ability that effects all ally units within a 575 radius. This ability heals even minions and is great for sieging and staying alive in lane. This ability doesn't really heal for that much at a time, but will get the AD carry back to full in under 1 minute.

Alistar's ultimate, Unbreakable Will, makes him take 70% less damage, removes all forms of CC on him upon activation, and gives him bonus AD. This ability is great for tower diving, peeling, or just straight up going head first into a team fight since nobody will be able to kill him for the duration since he's so beefy and basically shifts the focus of the fight away from him.