This will be a short and sweet guide to playing Vayne.


This guide is based almost entirely on theorycraft. Come at me, bro.


Still, I made this guide because the other ones don't seem to know what they're doing and I'd like to see how far good game knowledge can get you regarding champion playstyle and even site rankings.

If this guide gets too high (which I doubt it will, given the hellhole that the first few days of voting on a new champ are), I'll probably archive it to let someone else with a bit more experience come along.

Without further ado, the short and sweet guide to playing Vayne.

Format borrowed from HeAt's Kayle guide

Pros:
-Extremely maneuverable, making it very easy to position yourself in a fight
-Very difficult to gank
-Very strong 1v1 champion as well as a potent assassin
-Strong tower pusher because of her mobility
-Extremely potent burst damage

Cons:
-Very vulnerable to CC - more so than most other carries
-Lacks the pure sustained damage of a standard ranged DPS and lacks the burst damage of a standard assassin

Greater Mark of Desolation


Greater Marks of Desolation are the only Marks you should be considering. They greatly increase your damage potential seeing as the majority of your damage is physical and the rest is true (unless buying Bloodrazor).





Run mana regen seals because Vayne's mana pool is one of the poorest in the game and she can struggle late-game without a reliable source of MP5.

Attack speed seals are viable as well because of how well they assist with last-hitting, in addition to making it easier to proc your W.

Armor seals can be used if you're anticipating a hard lane matchup or simply want more survivability.






CDR blues if you want a slightly lower cooldown on your E and ultimate.

Flat magic resist to counter mages early

Scaling magic resist to counter AP characters late-game.



Greater Quintessence of Desolation


Flat health quintessences for the obvious extra beefiness early game.

Movement speed for another positioning advantage as well as making you much faster than your opponent in lane, letting you get an advantage on them (ESPECIALLY if you start with boots)

Armor penetration to bump you up to 27 ArP, letting you deal true damage with most of your autoattacks and skills for a good part of the early game

Ghost+ Flash because she's a ranged carry.

Ghost lets you catch up to enemies that are also Ghosting away, since your passive makes you faster, as does your Tumble. It's a lifesaver, especially during times when you're out of mana or are being snared.

Flash is amazing utility as well as combo material with your E. Use it to position yourself, use it to flash in for a kill, etc. Too good not to take.

While Exhaust and Ignite are viable as well, there's no point to take them when Ghost+Flash are available to you.

Start out with either a Doran's Blade, for the extra health and damage; or Boots and 3 Health Potions for a huge positioning advantage early on.




The first item you want to rush is your Sheen, because it will massively increase the damage you deal with your Q. The combo is too good to pass up, and the extra mana helps quite a bit (although it's a pity that the ability power is wasted).

Then buy Mercury's Treads. In a game where you don't feel like you need it, buy Ninja Tabi or Ionian Boots of Lucidity, but 99% of the time you want the good old Mercury's Treads because of how much CC resistance they give you, essential on a character as squishy as Vayne.




This is your core. Trinity Force amplifies your damage by a TON, as well as making you faster and harder to kill because of the health and slow. Black Cleaver gives you armor reduction, letting you hit harder, as well as AD and attack speed, two things that you can never go wrong with. The attack speed lets you proc Silver Bolts faster as well.

Banshee's Veil is the staple defensive item and should almost always be bought, since it will save your *** so many times.


After that you want to branch out, possible choices being:

- Guardian Angel to keep yourself alive
- Madred's Bloodrazor for much more damage, attack speed, and survivability
- Bloodthirster for lifesteal and much more damage
- Infinity Edge for drastically increased damage

Get Q first, E at rank 2, and W at rank 4.

Then max R>Q>W>E.



Max W before E. Max W before E.

"Why?"


Because of common sense.

What the hell are you gaining by maxing E first? At rank 5 it's still a 12 second cooldown, meaning that you probably won't be able to use it twice in one small skirmish no matter if it's rank 1 or rank 5. Doublelift said, during HotshotGG's Vayne playtesting, "You use your E for the knockback and stun, so leveling it up doesn't really have a point".

While E does fine damage, it's also extremely mana-consuming. Considering that Vayne's mana pool is one of the lowest, if not the lowest in the game out of all the mana champions, you don't want to be ranking up a skill that you can't consistently rely on for damage.

W on the other hand is a passive source of huge TRUE damage. Autoattack+ Tumble attack+another autoattack is extremely easy to get off and deals a huge spike of damage.

That's all for this very short guide to Vayne. Remember that this is mostly a theorycraft guide, made mainly for fun, but also out of exasperation due to the number of people that DON'T KNOW HOW TO PLAY HER.

A summary of key points:
-Get Merc Treads because CC will spell your doom
-CDR isn't hugely important because your Tumble is on a 2 second cooldown and your E's 12 second cooldown will be fine where it is.
-Triforce+The Black Cleaver is your core.
-Banshee's Veil is your staple defensive item.
-TUMBLE ALL THE TIME


Happy gaming.