In the discussions of Vayne I have noticed that the tendencies is to play her strictly as a ranged carry. I suggest a different approach: Tanky DPS. Before you go "WTF!? Atma's Impaler?" (Yes) read on.

Thanks for reading and feel free to comment. I hope to keep my guides quite up-to-date from now on.

This is a Tanky DPS build for Vayne. It is not a ranged carry build and it is not an offtank build (tanky DPS is NOT an offtank). Do not think that you are a tank, do not think that you are a ranged carry. You are in between these two.

The idea here is that you are able to do more than kite enemies and gives you some protection from being focused. Being CC'ed no longer means you die instantly.

Furthermore, with the armor and magic resistance in this guide you can out DPS other Vayne as they will lack resistances. Simply put, your damage reduction will more than make up for any difference in damage. Dufftime makes the arguement more explicitly here: http://www.mobafire.com/league-of-legends/build/offtanks-the-new-metagame-79701

Furthermore you can contend with melee carries with this build (See play tips)

Vayne's ability to deal percent damage and high baes damage allow her to build decent survivability without compromising damage.

PROS (Both Vayne and this Guide)
A ranged unit that can take a hit.
Good damage (This build seems to be able to kill the regular Vayne builds, but that might have been me being more fed, too.)
Can solo top and build tanky. This might be a thing to consider at higher ELO. While I do not feel that Vayne is a Teir-1 champ, she has an interesting place in the metagame as a possible ranged tanky-DPS (or with a little work, Offtank).


CONS
Attack range is meh (I am spoiled by Caitlyn)
Build is expensive (though manageable)
Squishy early game
I personally thimk her lack of AOE damage makes her farming suck.

The Doran's Blade to start gives a nice health boost and some AD to get you going. I personally hate her last hitting without it.

The Second Doran's Blade is optional. I like it, it gives good stats for the cost and further improves Vayne farming and damage.

Sheen should be obvious. With Tumble this increases your damage significantly.

Boots I also feel are pretty obvious. Move faster=good.

Phage gives AD, a slow, HP and builds into Trinity Force.

Mercury's Treads can also be Boots of Swiftness or Berserker's Greaves if the enemy is CC-light and you want to take a Cloak and Dagger later. Against normal and heavy CC teams I have been taking Merc's.

Trinity Force makes you hurt and gives a small amount of survivability. The movespeed is nice too. This is one reason we don't need to get Boots of Swiftness.

From here we need resistances or we are going to be too squishy. Hence Chain Vest and Negatron Cloak. I usually get them in that order since I have MR runes and Mercury's Treads.

Banshee's Veil is a great item in general. It further protects Vayne from pesky casters and gives health to work with Atma's Impaler.

Atma's Impaler seems a bit strange on her. I agree. But it gives 52 AD, 45 armor and a bunch of Crit chance. Since Tumble can crit this is nice. It also helps you not die. Overall it seems good. The only thing that might be better is to get a Randuin's Omen instead, but I am not sold.

I suggest Guardian Angel and Infinity Edge for late game. However there are a number of good options to fill the last item slots:

Infinity Edge This lets you do massive crits (brings your critical hit chance 55%). This generally gives a lot of damage and helps you push.

Guardian Angel gives armor since Atma's Impaler is not enough in most cases. Also the revive is nice.

Last Whisper is a good Armor Penetration Item. I recommend this if you are against people like Rammus and Malphite or a number of tanks in general.

Madred's Bloodrazor is a good option against tanks or people who stack health. I would recommend this against tanks and people like Vladimir, Jax and Rumble.

Randuin's Omen is a great armor item. Just don't forget the active.

Wit's End Seems really good on Vayne, I have been meaning to test it but I haven't yet.

Force of Nature is solid if the enemy team is AP-heavy.

Thornmail is the same as the above for AD-heavy teams. However I would suggest Randuin's Omen to counter melee AD carries since the active lets you run circles around them.

Cloak and Dagger If for some reason you did not get Mercury's Treads you can take this instead.

More Tankiness Variant:
You can take a Heart of Gold in place of the second Doran's Blade and build Randuin's Omen after Trinity Force.

AP heavy teams:
Hexdrinker counters Karthas and AP-heavy teams. Just don't wait to long to get it or it won't do anything (read: buy before trinity). Against AP-heavy teams you should be fine, this build is very MR-heavy.

Against AD-heavy teams:
I suggest getting a Randuin's Omen or Thornmail. Both are good, the Omen is probably better on Vayne. Also lets you take Atma's Impaler afterwards(<-yeah, after) and get another 5-10 AD.

Other Boots:
There are a number of alternatives to Mercury's Treads. I would suggest a Cloak and Dagger later and either Boots of Swiftness or Berserker's Greaves. Ionian Boots of Lucidity are not bad either, but I would say the 3-boots are the second best choice.

I would say that all the armor penetration runes should make sense. They are the best way to increase your damage with runes.

Greater Seal of Vitality gives some survivability and gives 175 HP at level 18. This is 3.5 AD with an Atma's Impaler, too.

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist is what I am using right now. There are a lot of mediocre options here, this seems good. Greater Glyph of Attack Speed and Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction are solid options too. I am still testing this.

Offense gives more damage. I tried putting some points in the defense tree but I found that the increased experience in utility was more helpful. So 21/0/9 masteries.

0/21/9 might be worth trying but, honestly, I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Vayne's skill sequence is pretty basic I think. Tumble is great, so we max it first. Next is Silver Bolts to get more damage. This is better than maxing Condemn second, without the bolts you won't have enough damage. One point in Condemn is great at level three so you have the knock-back and stun.

Alright there are a number of good summoner spells:

Ignite. Yay damage! There is nothing like doing more damage. This should teach people who can't run away from you anyway not to...run away from you. Also good against healers (like Vladimir and of course Tryndamere).

Flash. No one likes to die. You can also flash to the other side of people to set up awesome Condemns.

Ghost is a great spell, I am not sure you need it AND Flash. You aren't Ashe, you actually have move speed.

Exhaust is OK. I personally prefer Ignite, but every team should have one of these.

Teleport. Every team should have one of these, too, and it can be you if you want it to be. Just be sure to take the mastery for it.

SPELLS NOT TO TAKE

You know all those spells I didn't mention? Leave them to the support characters. Personally I feel that Rally with the mastery is underrated, but I still would not get it on Vayne.

There are a number of things to consider when playing Vayne.

1. The Basics. Derp, I chased and died (I know better than that). Derp, I tried to focus Trundle before Ashe (I know better than that). Basically, play smart and CLEAN.

When I say play clean that means avoid unnecessary risks, pay attention to you surroundings, don't go alone, don't waste time, and always work to win the game. Don't go chasing kills and simply try to secure an advantage for your team rather than trying to get kills. Kills are nice, that is likely to be the advantage you get, actually, however towers and dragon are good too. Don't get yourself killed and win the game.

2. Dealing with in-your-face AD carries. I mentioned that this was possible with this build. It is: When they dash to you (i.e. Alpha Strike or Bladesurge) you can autoatack, Tumble diagonally away to reset your autoattack timer and dodge their attack, then Condemn to push them away and proc Silver Bolts. This should give you a significany health advantage and allow you to kite the enemy. There is no way that you could do this with a build without survivability since you would die in the initial burst.

3. When laning, you can use tumble to dodge counterattacks. You do not have to use it to deal bonus damage to champions. Rather you can hit an enemy, tumble behind creeps or away, and use the bonus damage to last hit a minion. This allows you to harass more safely, but your damage is less good than tumblinb up to the enemy and hitting them. This is possible too.

4. AP carries: MR and a Banshee's Veil. I would recommend staying out of range until you can kill them. The idea here is that they cannot burst you down due to your high MR, and you kill them with their spells on cooldown. The invisibility from Final Hour+ Tumble helps too.

5. Tanks: You do true damage! Just focus them last.

6. Kiting: Tumble+ Night Hunter+ Trinity Force=Kill

7. Final Hour towers to dust.

8. THE BASICS!!

9. Always consciously try to improve your play. Think about playing better and you will. Make it a goal, keep and open mind and have fun. You will win more games this way.

5/20/2011. Published Guide on Mobafire.