Vayne is a short-ranged ADC/ marksman who is arguably the best duelist in the game. Notorious for her incredible late game potential, this hyper-carry deals some of the highest late game DPS in the game thanks to her Silver Bolts. I have played hundreds of games of Vayne in both Solo Queue as well as Ranked Teams. She is my favorite champion and is more difficult than your average Marksman, allowing a high skill cap and room to out-play your opponents.

Pros:

• Late game hyper-carry
• Highly Mobile
• High Skill cap
• Easy to reposition in team fights with Final Hour and Tumble
• High dueling potential allowing exceptional split-pushing (My favorite)
• True Damage shredder, prevents Vayne from falling off if she gets behind
• Easier to farm under tower

Cons:

• Weak Laning phase
• Relatively short range (550)
• Hard to master
• Condemn is hard to use properly
• Easy to get nuked
  

Runes

Taking 3 Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed are really strong Vayne right now. They synergies especially well as it helps to proc her Silver Bolts. You will also win trades more frequently than you would with other Quints. It advances you stronger through out late game because your silver bolts are your main damage. The faster you hit the more you are dealing true damage. Also it makes it faster to hit for your Tumble to proc.

Taking Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist and Greater Seal of Scaling Armor is whats going to make the best late game Vayne. The point of playing Vayne is you don't want to be going all in till late. Past level 9 both these runes are flat with Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Magic Resist. Which means at level 9+ is your best play because that's when you should have maxed out your Silver Bolts. Greater Seal of Scaling Health makes her more sustainable throughout the game, making her harder to kill late game.

Masteries

Taking 18-0-12 is essentially is a personal mastery page that makes me what I play. Masteries and runes are meant for your experience just like builds. Like most professional players say, don't just copy another build, experience of your own. Most of the CC and how close range combat that season 4 has brought to us makes Vayne more invulnerable, making almost 2 second Tumble too long. Then again masteries are not what makes the players good.

Heal
After Heal received a buff in Patch 4.5 it became a very strong summoner spell in a lot of situations. Defensively, it scales considerably better than Barrier into the late-game. It also provides a 30% movement speed bonus for you and an ally which is effective for both engaging and kiting.

The optimal time to use Heal is against teams with sustained damage and a tanky front-line.

Barrier
Barrier is a viable summoner spell on any ADC. The shield will help you survive, however with the buffing of both Heal and Exhaust I feel this summoner spell is over-shadowed by other options. If a support does have heal, than barrier can still be an option.

Cleanse
Cleanse was really popular with Vayne early 3rd season. Still not as strong as the heal as of right now. Can be used for heavy CC meta team at bot lane. But your support can just get Mikael's Blessing or you can get Mercurial Scimitar. Cleanse is just not really needed right now.


Flash
Flash should be taken 100% of the time on any ADC as it is currently an irreplaceable summoner spell. The increase it provides in both mobility and survivability makes it an essential in any ADC's kit.

Core

The first item of your core is Blade of the Ruined King. This is such a great item on Vayne as it provides everything she needs. Blade of the Ruined King offers Attack speed to proc her Silver Bolts, Life-steal for sustain and AD for increased damage. The active offered by Blade of the Ruined King is also extremely helpful and is a large contributing factor to Vayne's early/mid-game duelling potential.


Phantom Dancer is a very strong second item on Vayne. It increases attack speed, which helps to proc her Silver Bolts, as well as increasing critical chance by a substantial amount (increasing her Damage per second (DPS)). Phantom Dancer is renowned for being a very high single target DPS item and Vayne's Silver Bolts amplifies this damage substantially. Phantom Dancer also includes walks through enemy units which is highly useful for teamfights


Last Whisper is Vayne's 4th or 5th core item. The reason for this is because building attack speed with damage then rushing into defense is more important, lucky for vayne she hardly needs to build it with the silver bolts. With the meta being as it is; having tanky tops and junglers, the armour-ignoring passive of Last Whisper is a vital asset to Vayne. While building Infinity Edge as your third item will increase your damage to squishy targets such as the enemy Marksman and Mid-Laner, in team fights you're going to be spending A LOT more time kiting the enemy top-laner and jungler which is why building Last Whisper as your 4th or 5th core item is significantly more effective.

Getting a defensive item after your Last Whisper, and hence, core is complete is very commonly seen on the pro scene. Although it's not always necessary to complete your defensive item straight away, I would recommend getting at least a Negatron Cloak or Chain Vest after you complete your core. Only ignore defense and rush an Infinity Edge if you're sure you're going to be safe. What's the point of building offensively if you're not going to be alive to fight anyway?

Defensive Item

ADCs generally limit themselves to one defensive item. The optimal defensive item to build will vary in every game. And it's optional you get two depending on how the game is. The following is a list of the main ones taken by ADCS and the certain situation each of them are best for:

Guardian Angel is a great item against a team which has one set of burst. An example of a good champion to build Guardian Angel against is a Syndra or a Zed who will attempt to full-to-nothing you. Guardian Angel is a strong item as it gives you a second chance, however, if you position poorly you will be killed again as soon as you're revived.

Randuin's Omen is absolutely my favorite right now. Since the Feral Flare started comming out. Most junglers were all about picking attack speed champs and most of the mid laners are now AD. Randuin's Omen stacks great for protecting burst and slowing down enemies that are a little near or on top of you. It also has good advantage on the health where you can easily life steal back up.

Mercurial Scimitar is great against hard CC comps such as Amumu, Leona and Lissandra. Being able to instantly cleanse hard CC means you have have higher DPS and more presence in team fights. However, like the summoner spell Cleanse, it does take skill to put this to good use so make sure you are comfortable with using this item. Keep in mind that knock-ups can't be cleansed, so if their main CC is something like a Malphite, I wouldn't recommend this item.

Banshee's Veil is a safe pick in a lot of situations and provides HP as well as magic resistance. More importantly, however, it provides immunity from long distance initiations such as an Unstoppable Force or a Solar Flare. It is also a good choice if you find yourself against a siege/poke comp as it will be able to block strong poke such as Nidalee's Javelin Toss or Blitzcrank's Rocket Grab and will help to prevent you being pushed off tower.

Frozen Mallet is also a viable defensive item and is great for increasing your kiting potential. This item is optimal to build if you aren't receiving the red buffs, or your team is lacking peel for you. Although its still more of an offense because the only defense it requires is the slow.

Other Items

Doran's Blade and a Health Potion should be your starting items every time as they provide good sustain. The health from the Doran's Blade helps you survive Vayne's very weak early game. The Warding Totem is currently the best trinket for ADCs during the early game, pretty standard.

Statikk Shiv is a good option if you're behind as its cheaper and its passive will allow you to farm faster to catch up. It is also a good item if your team lacks wave-clear. It also provides an extra movement speed over Phantom Dancer. Not my own favorite right It does apply more movement speed if you want more mobility. now, since I really only use it for more wave clear champs.

The Bloodthirster is a good replacement to Blade of the Ruined King against assassin comps where nobody on their team is stacking health. If the enemy team-comp looks something like Riven, Kha'Zix, Ahri, Sona, then The Bloodthirster is the right choice. I would only recommend getting Bloodthirster if you are really ahead early game and you can just rush it over blade.

Another viable build path is a second Phantom Dancer as either your third or fourth item. Replacing your Last Whisper, the incredibly high attack speed and movement bonus will make you a high DPS kiting machine. Although, If the other team is particularly tanky/has a lot of armor, I wouldn't recommend this build path.

Enchantment: Furor is a great boot upgrade to increase kiting potential. Probably my favorite enchantment on any ADC. Evey auto-attack you do increase movement speed for a short period of time. Very good and fun for Vayne.

Zephyr is a good enough for good for replacing a lot of things depending on the game you play. Like before if the enemy doesn't have much armor you can replace the Last Whisper for a Zephyr. You can just get if you are really ahead going against cc team.

Infinity Edge should be your last item or near your last item. If you are really ahead early you are welcome to get it early. You should really get it after you get your Phantom Dancer so it applies the critical damage. It's pretty standard that you buy this one every ADC. Statikk Shiv is a good choice with Infinity Edge for it's good wave clear (again don't need wave clear for Vayne) but you won't get as much critical damage chance as a Phantom Dancer.

Vayne is a VERY weak laner. This is undoubtedly her weakest stage of the game. During laning phase avoid trading too often with the opposition as unless you can pull of a good Condemn which stuns the enemy, you are unlikely to win. Try to survive laning phase by farming and waiting for your jungler and support to make plays for you. You are still able and it's still possible to make plays for lower elo, (gold and below) in the early game. Platinum player and above will try to out trade you no matter what and they KNOW you have a weak early phase so they will abuse it.

After completing your Blade of the Ruined King you hit a very nice power spike. You are no longer weak and can, if played correctly, duel (1v1) most other Marksmen in the game. Using your Blade of the Ruined King active is VERY important when playing Vayne as it allows you to kite much more effectively.

I highly recommend not fighting till reach level 9. By level 9 you should have maxed out your Tumble and have reached the peak of the normal Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Magic Resist if you are running Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist and Greater Seal of Scaling Armor. Highly take advantage after that stage.

After you finish your core of Blade of the Ruined King, Phantom Dancer and Last Whisper and hit level 13 (meaning your Silver Bolts are maxed) you are ready to deal some serious damage.

Being confident enough with your skills and map awareness to the point where you become an effective split-pusher is an extremely important skill, especially when playing a Marksman who's good at duelling such as Graves or Vayne. Vayne generally isn't a champion you play to group up as 5 and push down a mid tower as a team. This is because not only is she relatively short-ranged, but she also has poor wave clear. When playing Vayne, with the help of your team get wards deep in the enemy jungle and keep pressuring bot-lane. Sucking the enemy Jungler and Mid-laner to assist in killing you will give your team a chance for them to take the important objectives such as mid towers.

As Vayne the best thing to do is just farm as much as you can and stay alive and keep as much awareness in the jungle. What I normally do is clear bot every time, once you do that you try to rotate mid. You MUST keep going back and forth between bot and mid. You are almost never to go top unless they are contesting baron. You can even stay bot the entire time unless your team is having a bad time. Remember that Vayne is a really good split pusher and can get out of harsh situations.

Your Condemn adds another stack of your Silver Bolts. This means that you can autoattack, use Tumble and then your Condemn to pull off a fast combo which deals good damage as well as pushing your enemy away, reducing their chance to trade damage back. However, using this method a lot during laning phase will chew through your mana very quickly. I would not recommend using Condemn just for it's use, I would really save it only to Cancel ults, push them to allies, or knock them to wall.


Tumble is an auto-attack reset. If used against a wall there is no cast time at all and therefore is an instant auto-attack reset. This is helpful in clearing jungle camps and increasing DPS against Baron and Dragon.


Vayne's stealth provided by combing her Final Hour and Tumble is an EXTREMELY useful tool. While learning Vayne it took me a long time to truly appreciate how helpful it is. After your stealth activates do not feel the need to Auto Attack straight away again. Instead, use this time to position yourself well. The stealth also allows you move unpredictably, dodging skill shots and catching the enemy off guard.

When trading auto-attacks with the enemy make sure to auto-attack, and then Tumble. Try not to use Tumble as your first attack as you're missing out on the auto-attack reset.

Keep an eye on your own minions and auto-attack the enemy Marksman whenever they go in to last-hit one. This will force them to either miss a CS or take free poke.

When you are bot lane trying to split push, usually the jungler's want to stop you. The best thing is when it comes to fighting stay close to the wall as possible. It's the best bait to Condemn them to the wall. Condemn to wall is extremely important as you can get almost 3 extra auto-attacks.

Time and practice your Condemn as a strong disengage. You can cancel out Lee Sin's Sonic Wave, Pantheon's Aegis of Zeonia, Jax's Leap Strike and much more. You can also use it to save your teammates

Understanding your job as a Marksman/ADC is important. Your job is to deal consistent DPS to the enemy team and your priorities should be as follows:
1) Keeping yourself safe.
2) Attacking Carries and High priority targets, as long as it doesn't compromise your positioning.


A trap for new Marksmen/ADC players is to get too greedy and kill-hungry. Keep yourself well positioned and avoid compromising your safety/position to chase down an enemy unless you have a significant advantage.


In saying that, however, Vayne's kit is better than other Marksmen for assassinating high priority targets and her stealth allows her to repositioning herself in situations other Marksman/ADCs would not be able to survive.

Ashe is really difficult to deal with early game and majority of late game which safe to say its literally your biggest counter. Let her push to your tower and just farm under it. stay behind or inside minions to stay away from Ashe's Volley. A good Ashe will know to save her Enchanted Crystal Arrow the moment she hears your ult, If you have the fast reaction and mechanics too maneuver, you won the fight. When her Enchanted Crystal Arrow is down, best thing to to is have a timer ready. At all cost you are able to fight her or call in for a gank. She is extremely vulnerable without her ult.

Caitlyn Is another pick hard to lane with too......But only in the laning phase of course. Any Caitlyn will out trade you in lane like no other. Caitlyn is an annoying champion to lane against. A good Caitlyn will maintain the tether between her 650 attack range and your 550 attack range. The main thing to remember about laning against a Caitlyn is to not take too much free poke (avoid being hit by Headshots). Vayne’s DPS is higher than Caitlyn’s, even at early levels. This means that you have the potential to all-in Caitlyn if the right opportunity arises. Make sure to use your Tumble to dodge her Piltover Peacemaker , as well as using it to close the gap between her and yourself when trading. If you aren't in a good enough position to use your Condemn to stun Caitlyn, save it to interrupt her Ace in the Hole. Remember not to waste your Condemn. If you use it incorrectly it will give her an advantage as you are opening up the tether between the auto-attack range differences. Vayne will continue to become progressively stronger than Caitlyn as the game goes on.

Corki is probably the best AD carry duelist in the game, to be honest. Even more so when he had his blind. Corki is all burst which is what Corki will do to you. Do NOT stay in your minion pit and farm away. Corki can still out duel you at any fight. If you try to dual him after level 9 than you have good mechanics, but even matchup Corki wins the duel. It best to say safe at all times. Chances you won't be fighting many Corki's in the Season 4. Corki will outlane you pretty much the entire lane phase. I would suggest trying to not feed him, because his early/mid game can snowball the game. You outscale Corki late game, so just play for that.



Draven is an extremely strong champion during laning phase. Try to completely avoid trading with Draven whenever he has axes spinning as you will very seldom win the trade if he does. Draven is VERY dependent on keeping his axes spinning. This opens up opportunities to take advantage of Draven’s positioning especially during team fights (both teams can see where Draven’s axes will land). After hitting your Blade of the Ruined King power spike you will likely be able to duel Draven as long has he doesn't have two axes spinning. If he has only one axe spinning you can use your Condemn to prevent him from catching his axe (not only as a stun, but simply by pushing him away from the point where the axe is going to land).

Vayne can stand in the creep wave and trade basics with Ezreal, using her Tumble and with her Silver Bolts she'll win trades with basic attacks. Ezreal can't use his Mystic Shot to poke her if she's in the creep wave. She can also Tumble to avoid his Mystic Shot when she doesn't have creeps to protect her if she's skilled. The only way Ezreal is good against Vayne is because he can use his Arcane Shift to land at a safer position after being hit towards a wall with Vayne's Condemn. However the support makes a huge difference in this lane as in all lanes. This is also a true skill-lane. ALways care for Ezreal's Trueshot Barrage, do not recall in obvious places.

Vayne vs. Graves is a skill match up. A good Vayne can avoid the Buckshot's with well timed Tumble's. Playing safe up until 6 is when Vayne starts out scaling Graves. However, Graves' burst is still incredibly dangerous and you can lose the match up with sloppy play. If you can avoid the Buckshot properly, you can max Silver Bolts second and still out damage him. Even if he hits you with Buckshot, you can reduce the damage by tumbling backwards. An early Vampiric Scepter can help if you get hit too much. Late game a smart Graves will use his combo on you first. Hard to do much when even late game in a straight 1v1 Graves can decimate Vayne before she can get her 3 autos out.

Vayne has a very good kit against Jinx and tumble makes it easy to dodge a lot of her Zap!'s. Her Switcheroo! isn't a threat if you stay away from minions when she's splashing, and her attack speed doesn't have that true damage aspect that Vayne has. Her Super Mega Death Rocket! is harder to dodge, but can still be dodged fairly well with Tumble. Also as Vayne, you should have some movement speed from a Phantom Dancer, so her traps should be easy to avoid. From levels 1-5 there is a very high chance that Caitlyn will just bully Vayne as Jinx would too. Vayne can't do anything about her Fishbone AA and if Vayne gets close enough to do damage, you are allowing Jinx to put higher base damage AA on you with Pow Pow. But just like the Vayne vs Caitlyn lane, against Jinx if you farm well enough and scale to mid-game around level 6, you can kill Jinx easily if you know what you are doing. Vayne excels at chasing down enemies and Jinx has no natural escape. You just need to bait out and not get snared by her Flame Chompers!.

Everytime you come in to take a cs as Vayne, Kog'Maw will just turn on his Bio-Arcane Barrage and hit you 2 or 3 times. If you want to retaliate, you'll eat his slow and even more auto attacks. Either play this lane very safely as Vayne (with a W Sona or Soraka) or play a really aggressive kill lane to abuse Kog's lack of natural escapes ( Taric and Alistar). The only part of the game where Vayne will be stronger is mid-game, so make it count and really punish Kog for every mistake he makes, because end-game you won't get much of a chance to do this if Kog positions well. I would suggest trying to snowball out of lane phase so you can take objectives and win before he gets his items.


Vayne can dodge all skillshots of Lucian pretty easily and completely negate the damage of The Culling. He doesn't have any cc at all, so he can't lock Vayne in place unless he has a support with high amounts of cc (like Blitzcrank or Leona). On Vayne, max Tumble first so you'll can dodge everything he throws at you thanks to the lowered cool down. Be careful on the early game, stay on the side of the minions, so you can not get hit by his Piercing Light. Just trade with him as much as you can by tumbling. It's fairly an easy match up.

Try to stay behind minions and last hit. She has a really strong early game. She is practically useless late game with all the CC champs that have been out. Harass with your tumble only if you can and play defensive. You need a hard cc as a support because Miss Fortune has no real escape abilities. Do not stand behind your creep wave as because Miss Fortune will just Double Up a minion and try to hit you. As when dueling her. Try to Condemn her to a wall, if you can't do NOT Condemn UNTIL she ults.

When Vayne gets Blinding Assault her only option is to run or get highly out traded. As a Vayne and as always play passive. You can out trade him only his passive is not on you or he just used his Blinding Assault and that if he missed it. You will not find many Quinn's in this season so you would be safe from him. Be wary of his Tag Team / Skystrike, very hard to kite and orb walk. If possible make sure condemn to wall, Condemn him away and not at wall will not do any good since he will catch back up to you.

This is one of the easiest match ups for Vayne. The only thing that Sivir can Spell Shield off of you is your Condemn which isn't your biggest threat. If Vayne tries to land 3 hits, Sivir just kites away. That's not a bad thing, though; as Vayne, all you have to do is land one attack on Sivir, and she's forced to back off. If she lets you land a second, you Tumble forwards for the third and drop a chunk of health off her. Either Sivir tries to trade, and loses the exchange, or she's forced to play passively for the laning phase. So long as you don't let Sivir land Boomerangs on you from a distance, you'll just zone her out. Early game she might run with a lulu or someone aggressive bot witch you are forced to fight under tower. No matter what Vayne is weak early game but can still trade.

What makes Tristana a counter to Vayne is that her AA range will eventually outrange Vayne. In fact, you can safely poke Vayne once you reach around level 5 or so. Don't forget to max out your Silver Bolts. However, once you get to the mid game, Tristana falls off weak because none of skills scale in AD and only scales in AP, so you will end up having to farm for most of the mid game (at least you will end up pushing the tower. I had strong disadvantage against a Caitlyn player early game and I eventually won a game because I manage to farm up and push bottom very strongly and gained lots of gold and exp while Caitlyn was too busy in the teamfights. Thus being said, since Vayne's damage involves lots of uber spiking, you might need to play a bit defensively with Tristana unless you have an offensive support.

Its not a hardcounter with Twitch alone; in a 1v1 both champs have a fair shot at each other, but in lane with a partner, Twitch is better at exploiting his support. Twitch's ult has more potential when his support initiates. He stays at a relatively safe distance while dissing out massive damage that, with a proper initiate or CC by his support, will hit both targets. Meanwhile if Vayne fights alongside a good initiate by her support, her damage is focused on mostly one person ( Twitch) and the support can easily get away. Twitch dosnt counter her per se, but he does better in lane, with his support, and in teamfights than her. To help you more bring more pinks with you whenever he is chasing away place it down it has a good radius.

Varus falls off a bit during late game comparing to Vayne, he is kinda like a male version of Ashe since he has no gap widening skill, and his performance scales off how well his teammates cooperate in team fights, and his burst damage isn't that good neither. On the other hand, Vayne's Tumble and Condemn gives her movement and positioning advantages while her Silver Bolts and Condemn gives her insane burst. He has more range than you and also does %HP damage. He deals mixed damage and out trades Vayne pretty much all game. Unless you snowball out of lane you will have a tough time vs Varus. Try to dodge his skill shots with Tumble. If you can dodge one of them, then you win the trade for sure. The problem is that his Hail of Arrows is so wide that it is hard to miss even with you trying to Tumble out of it.

This is my first Character guide. Layout is not mine, but the guide is.
You can check me out at League: KittyCow, MLG MadLife

I know longer main ADC no more but this is still a very useful guide for vayne since i do still play her from time to time. I do not recommend playing her as much in rank because she has not been good for the overall meta currently and has a low win percentage.