Pros

• Can be hard to lock down
• %HP True damage
• Great self peel
• Melts tanks
• Great repositioning skill
• Dragonslayer skin

Cons

• Mechanically intensive
• Can have a difficult laning phase
• Learning how to most effectively use tumble takes time
• Have to position well to output a lot of single target damage
• You have to buy the Dragonslayer skin

For my runes it's a very standard AD setup with AD reds to help with last hitting and having a stronger early game, armour yellows to reduce damage taken from the enemy ad carry in lane and flat MR blues as many supports deal a lot of magic damage early like Annie and Karma, and without the flat resist you can lose a lot of HP to just a few of their abilities. This selection of runes allows you to maximise how long you can stay in lane by negating at least some of the opponents poke so you can farm up and become powerful later in the game.
With the recent updates to attack speed and lifeteal quints and now the Doran's Blade I take attack speed quints over lifesteal, as you can sustain enough just from the blade as it gives the same percentage lifesteal as two lifesteal runes and you can scale much better with attack speed.

For my masteries I take a very standard AD carry setup, which include attack speed, attack damage and armour penetration in the offense tree, also taking a point in Dangerous Game as it can save your life and net you a double kill in those bot lane all ins and teamfights.

Block/unyielding in the defense tree are pretty much mandatory as they are incredibly good masteries, along with HP regen and flat/% health to be less squishy.

I don't dip into the utility tree as you can easily avoid using too much mana in lane if you do not spam the use of Condemn.

Feast Combined with Doran's Blade can easily keep you in lane, this is incredibly important on Vayne as she can have a difficult laning phase especially against champions such as Lucian and Draven who bring a lot of early game damage to the table and being able to stay in lane and farm/gain exp is paramount to you scaling well into mid/late game without being incredibly behind.

With heal being buffed in the 4.5 patch it is now a great summoner spell, it does almost the same job as barrier but scales better into late game and with the added utility of movement speed and being able to affect more than one person I would recommend taking it over barrier. Even now in patch 4.12 I would still recommend heal over barrier unless for some reason your support has taken heal.


I sometimes swap out heal for Cleanse depending on lane opponents/enemy team comp.
If there is a Nasus in the game I 100% take Cleanse as his Wither destroys your damage output.
Fiddlesticks is also another champion who I take Cleanse against in a majority of games as a flash Terrify can easily spell your death.
I take Cleanse sometimes vs Thresh or Leona in lane to break thresh's Death Sentence or to escape from Leona's stun lock, but I feel that a Quicksilver Sash against Leona and Thresh is good enough since you can dodge abilities with tumble.

A must have, it's an all around great summoner which can be used to escape, re-position in a fight and also be used aggressively in lane or teamfights.

Offensive Items

With the changes in recent patches to AD carry build paths, Blade of the Ruined King is the only real choice to get first as Vayne now since Bloodthirster is too expensive and is no longer as effective as it once was. The change to the active on Blade of the Ruined King is great for Vayne as she now can reposition in fights and skirmishes a lot faster and kite more effectively, losing some of the burst damage on the active hasn't hit Vayne much as her damage output is still insane without it. The increased %HP on each auto attack also let's you melt tanks a lot faster than before. Overall it's just the best item to build first right now hands down.


Phantom Dancer's attack speed and critical chance are great for Vayne, along with it's unique passive to be able to walk through creeps which helps Vayne and any other AD carry kite well without getting stuck on a rogue minion who wants you dead.

I like to swap out Phantom Dancer for a Statikk Shiv when my team lacks wave clear or the enemy team has a lot of armour stacking opponents, the 100 magic damage or 200 if you crit shouldn't be underestimated as it can make a huge difference in a small skirmish or full blown teamfight with the splash damage.

Bloodthirster is a staple third item on AD carries these days, it's a great tool for surviving as the lifesteal bonus coupled with the shield can help keep you healthy through an entire fight, it also gives a good amount of AD still so it's a spike in both damage and survivability. This item combined with Blade of the Ruined King makes your job of surviving to output huge amounts of damage a lot easierand makes it even harder for enemies to 1v1 you if you decide to splitpush.

Last Whisper of course is a staple on AD carries, as the enemy starts stacking armour the harder and harder they will be to kill until you finish this item, even though you are Vayne and deal a lot of true damage, it will still take you 3 hits to proc Silver Bolts and the damage done by your auto attacks inbetween procs is still very important.

Defensive Items

For defensive item I like to get Quicksilver Sash to remove debufss such as Wither or to drop abilities like Fizz's Chum the Waters off of you, completlely nullifying them and allowing you to continue doing damage instead of having to prioritise escaping and in many cases saving the use of flash, it's also cheaper than a Guardian Angel

A Guardian Angel is always a good choice if you are not very good with using active items or just in general as it is a free second life! It's especially good if there is a champion like Zed or Kha'Zix on the other team or other strong assassins, so you can survive their insane burst and not give them resets to kill the remainder of your team.

Banshees veil is a great choice if you are against high poke champions such as Nidalee, Lux or Xerath as getting hit by a spear or any part of their combo can easily lead to death, loss of a turret or loss of a baron/dragon. So being able to entirely block a spell can have a huge impact in sieging/objective dance scenarios. It can also save your life against high burst champions such as LeBlanc who is very popular right now.

End Game

I usually end my build with an Infinity Edge for a big damage spike in the end game, or in very rare cases another Phantom Dancer if I need more mobility.


You can swap out your boots for Zephyr in the super late game, if the game goes that long, for the attack speed, attack damage and sometimes the tenacity gained can help you survive if your Quicksilver Sash or Cleanse is on cooldown. You will move slightly slower so positioning may become harder but sometimes the other stats gained make up for it and give you slight damage edge you need to win the game.

Boot Enchantments

When it comes to boot enchantments there are 3 choices, Homeguard, Furor and Distortion.

Homeguard is especially useful when behind and you need to defend your base against a siege, it's also useful for basing and quickly getting to baron.

Furor is a great pick up if you need to kite and the enemy team doesn't have many gapclosers that they can use to get to you after being Condemn'd away.

Distortion is a great tool that is often overlooked on AD carries a lot, it allows you to have flash up sooner which can be crucial in those game deciding fights to dodge an important skillshot or get out of a Jarvan IV Cataclysm.

Q - Tumble

Tumble is the ability that makes Vayne who she is, it allows you to constantly reposition in teamfights making you very hard to lock down and in lane can be used to avoid large amount of damage and deal out a lot of damage yourself!

W - Silver Bolts

Silver bolts is what makes Vayne so scary in the late game, the %HP true damage allows you to shred through tanks and squishies alike with insane single target dps, positioning yourself to use this ability effectively will take time to master but once mastered you will be a force to be reckoned with!

E - Condemn

A great multi use ability, can be used to set up stuns in lane or catch someone in the jungle, is also a great ability to peel for yourself to keep you alive in skirmishes, good uses of condemn can easily change a game.

R - Final Hour

Vayne's ultimate, fantastic for teamfights giving you a great AD boost along with a huge boost to movement speed and the ability to stealth with Tumble. With Final Hour and good positioning Vayne can easily win a teamfight almost single handedly.

You can take Condemn at level 2 depending on how much cc your lane partner has, if you can stack CC at level 2 you can easily burn a flash or net yourself a kill. If your jungler is coming for an extremely early gank taking Condemn can help to help set up an easy kill or force a flash.

I usually don't level anything at level 2 unless I am sure I can make use of it, such as someone positioned next to a wall for condemn or if I can do a lot of damage with silver bolt procs following a Taric Dazzle/ Leona Shield of Daybreak for example.

I max Silver Bolts first because it synergises so well with the attack speed and the %Hp damage you get from building Blade of the Ruined King first.

I take 2 points in Tumble before maxing Silver Bolts though just for a the 5 second cooldown as opposed to 6 just as a personal preference as it has helped me in those slightly longer trades to get two tumble enchanced autos off instead of one.

I then max Condemn last as it is more useful than your other skills at level 1 comparatively.

Naturally I take points in my ultimate Final Hour whenever possible at levels 6, 11 and 16.

Early laning

Hitting level 2 first in bot lane is very important because if you are level 2 and your opponent is level 1, the raw stats you gain from being a level higher increase your power dramatically and you also have a 2nd skill which you can use to deal damage, a lane can be decided this early due to being able to force a flash or even get a kill really early on in the game giving you a huge cs and experience advantage. Using this advantage you can easily zone the enemy out of any further cs or experience.
If this happens the only way this lane evens out again, assuming you don't horribly misplay, is if their jungler gets a successful gank or series of ganks as this lane will be relying on it's team to do well so they can farm up to be relevant.

Goals in laning

As Vayne it is very important you keep up in CS, and don't fall too behind your opponent.
Losing a lot of hp in any lane is a sure fire way to fall behind and eventually lose lane, luckily for you Vayne has a great skill in tumble to be able to dodge skillshots such as Leona Zenith Blade and Caitlyn Piltover Peacemaker nullifying a lot of your opponents damage.
The key to laning well as Vayne is avoiding damage with the use of Tumble, to be able to farm, and get advantages in trades vs your opponents when they don't have important abilities ready to use against you because you just used Tumble to avoid them.

Trading as Vayne

Tumble can also be used as a soft attack reset and as a hard attack reset.
If you auto attack then tumble and auto attack again your auto attack will be ready to fire as soon as you finish tumbling allowing to you get a good amount of damage out quickly. This is the soft reset.

The hard reset is more complex as you have to be positioned next to a wall, to do this you auto attack, tumble into the wall and then your tumble enchanced auto attack is instantly ready to fire as you don't do the tumble animation because it is cancelled by the wall.

If you are losing an engagement as Vayne you have a great tool in Condemn, using it to knock away an enemy who is in a good enough position to kill you, or if done in time can stop an opponents gap closer allowing you to escape. A Lee sin gank for example if you time condemn well enough you can cancel his Resonating Strike ability stopping him from being able to apply his Tempest/ Cripple on you.

When going all in on an opponent, pop your ultimate Final Hour for a big boost in movement speed, attack damage and the ability to have Tumble stealth you, this way your damage potential is a lot higher making it more likely you will get the kill and if something goes wrong in the all in, you still have Tumble to escape in stealth or even outplay your opponent and still secure the kills.

General Philosophy

What I like to say about and AD carries teamfight is that the enemies job is to kill you so make the enemies job as hard as possible.

The Main Aim

When it comes to teamfighting you should be trying to position yourself as safely as possible, allowing your team to peel for you easily whilst doing damage to the highest priority that is in range. Whether this is the tank or an out of position carry, just do damage to it whilst making it as hard as possible for the enemy to kill you. This is not just for Vayne but for every AD carry.

Your Advantage Over Other AD Choices

This is where Vayne excels because she can constantly reposition in the fight with the use of Tumble and the added stealth from Final Hour makes it very hard for enemies to hit you with skills, making them have to predict your movements giving them a higher chance of missing, you also avoid auto attack damage for the duration of the stealth which can save your life in close 1v1 situations at the end of fights. You also are incredibly fast at shredding frontlines as Vayne, if you can kill their frontline before they can kill yours, you pretty much win the fight from having the sheer numbers advantage.

Practice Makes Perfect

Teamfighting isn't exactly something you can learn by reading a guide however, it's takes practice and experience of knowing what is and isn't a safe move for you to make, just try and make sure you deal some damage whilst staying alive to aid your team in winning the fight and you should have done your job, an AD carry really shines when it comes to cleaning up the end of the fight and with the movement speed boost from Final Hour you can do this easily.

More matchups to come soon!

This guide is still a work in progress.
I will be continuing with the matchup section and be adding a support section in the future.

Currently updated for patch 4.12

Thanks for reading my guide, don't forget to vote and comment. Thanks!