There is a difference between a champion that is weak early game and vulnerable early game

I was reading a thread about and someone said that she does not have and never had a weak early game, she just had a vulnerable early game. Her early game was always pretty decent, due to her safety and her powerful steroid. But since other ADCs used to have a better early game with stronger steroids or early burst damage, Vayne always seemed to be weak.

It is important to note that Vayne's early game is actually strong and really oppressive against most top laners, which is why she is used sometimes as a top laner; if you are melee, good luck farming against Vayne, and what is worse, no top laner can outscale her (apart from Vladimir). The only reason why she isn't popular top is because she is really squishy and people don't seem to understand that if you have an "ADC" at a lane other than bot lane, you don't need to use an ADC bot lane, you can replace him with an early game bruiser, for example, to try to shut down the enemy ADC.

But back to the thread's subject; there are some champions said to have a weak early game, when they are actually just vulnerable; which means that they either have a strong early, or have a lot of safety/trading/killing potential, they just have a weakness early game that can be exploited. Apart from Vayne, another great example of a champion who is vulnerable (not weak) early game is . He actually has a lot of cheesing potential during the early, his mobility and trading potential is immense. His weakness that can be exploited is that he is really squishy and if his all-ins do not go right he will have a hard time for the rest of the lane phase until he can finish his core items; Yasuo either wins or lose trades, and if he loses trades, he will have a hard time recovering from them.

Another example is , she is said to have a weak early game, but she is actually just vulnerable. Vulnerable in that you can potentially bully and harass her out of lane. However, she is completely resourceless, has a ranged point-and-click poke, her trading potential is actually decent, and she has a instablink to escape from ganks. On top of that, Katarina has a ridiculous snowball potential, so if she happens to get ahead, she becomes a oppresive force. She also has decent waveclear.

To be honest, there are very few champions who are actually weak early game. Three good examples are Poppy, Fiddlesticks, and Kog'Maw.

lacks any trading potential, is extremely mana hugry, is vulnerable to harass, has extremely limited mobility (so she is vulnerable to ganks too) and is completely dependent from items to be able to scale well. She also lacks poke and sustain. Also, she lacks waveclear, and has a hard time farming.

is really squishy, vulnerable to all-ins, need items to scale well, his harass is weak, and lacks waveclear so he can be outpushed. This lack of waveclear is made worse due to the fact that Fiddlesticks is an AP champion with an horrible auto-attack animation and base AD, so it is extremely hard to last hit with him. When going jungle, Fiddlesticks is also vulnerable to counterjungle, and his early game is made worse due to the fact that he doesn't scale well with Runeglaive.

, when going bot lane, he is weak because most ADCs can out-trade him, he is easy to bully, vulnerable to all-ins and ganks, and depends from items to scale well. He also lacks waveclear, but thankfully it is not hard to last hit with him.