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You're a low dmg top laner, and the enemy sends Vayne up there, what do you do?

InsaneSamurai··2 votes·483 views

Apart from beg for a trade(then probably not get it, and have one of the most annoying possible laning phases hehehe). A half decent Vayne will never get ganked unless your jungler is really slick, she'll eternally kite the poor melee guy shes laning against, and she will be scaling faster offensively than you can keep up with defensively. Her kit pretty much guarantees that the top laner will never out trade her unless she does something stupid, so you just have to give her the lane, getting whatever measly cs you can off spamming skills under the turret. It doesn't take long for her to get out of control when she's practically free-farming top lane, and when it's a Vayne that's a serious problem.

I'm not fully convinced she's balanced anyway, I mean if someone can take an adc top lane and start winning trades with someone like Maokai in no time, I really feel like something is wrong here. Are ADC's really supposed to be that self-sufficient? She can peel for herself, chase endlessly, dashes every few seconds, and when all else fails she pops the ult and vanishes. Her kit is just too much for any melee champ that can't pull a Xin Zhao on her. The W gives her much higher damage output than her opponent(unless they're Riven or something), the passive makes sure if the enemy runs close enough to get shot once, they're getting shot all the way back to the turret, and her Q+E pretty much guarantees that you won't be catching her with anything unless she bricks something.

Anyway, balance aside, what's the best thing to do in this situation? Within a few minutes the Vayne will be making the top laner pay for any cs with huge chunks of health, and you can only safely farm under turret if she doesn't stick around to keep poking you(which she can do pretty safely with a ward up). Do I just go to a different lane anyway and try to help them? Or do I become the 2nd jungler? I know giving away top lane is absolutely terrible, but is it worse than getting almost no cs and risking feeding the Vayne even more?

12 Comments

Omnipherious2 votes

If you know you are against a Vayne top you need to itemize appropriately early game.

item 1074 and early defensive masteries go a long way. Also, she has 0 wave clear. You need to punish her with CS for hitting you (i.e. make yourself a target when a minion is about to die). Force her to choose between hitting you and getting a CS. Abuse brush, she has no way to check it herself. She used trinket? Good, no protection from ganks. Let the jungler know immediately.

Get a few CS yourself and return home for more potions. If you're going to return home, shove the lane; don't be afraid to let her auto you if it means you get to AoE the wave for 2-4 CS and force her under turret.

If you play at Vayne's pace you are going to lose. Only let her hit you when you know she's in range of 3+ minions so she takes damage in return. Use early levels to your advantage. If she starts E, her trading power is shit once it's used and you have 20s window; that's plenty. If she starts Q, that's still 6s you can use early on. If she has Q + E at level 2 then you should be looking for favourable trades and using her E as your free escape.

The key is preparation and abusing your windows well regardless of jungler aid.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

Thanks :) My main problem is not knowing I'm going against her before hand, due to draft or some lane swapping. It's rather rare, but when they are good and always ward the river, it's just hell up there. The last time I did know she was coming so I got a doran's shield, which did seem to help quite a bit for a few levels, but I'm thinking my main issue is not going for her early enough, and when I do, not being able to catch her. On the tough games, I request and usually get ganks, but she has it warded, rolls, condemns, possibly ults, and I end up wasting the jungler's time just so I can get one wave of cs(yikes).

From what you're saying though, it seems that I need to not be afraid to B early to get something to help out, likely armor, perhaps boots? It seems that very early off(lvl 4-6) she forces you off the minion wave fairly easily since she can chase you all the way back to the turret, using the bushes to almost entirely negate the minion damage. I can poke her with a spell or two, but then she chases me back to the turret autoing me several times in the process thanks to that chase passive. Once she goes B the first time, it's pretty much over because she lifesteals more than you can even deal to her.

Omnipherious2 votes

You need to treat your HP as a resource and trade it effectively. Say she has 70 AD at level 1, your armor reduces damage by 33% and you have a D.shield. You walk up to a minion to get a last hit, Vayne hits you for 42 ((70 - 8) * 0.67) and misses a CS; additionally, Vayne takes 20 damage from minion aggro (very reasonable since melees deal 12 base).

So the outcome of the trade is: You: +23 gold, -42 HP Her: -23 gold, -20 HP

This is perfectly reasonable given that you have a HP and regen advantage from shield. Assuming Vayne combo'd an auto > Q, that guarantees a minimum of 2 melee minion rotations worth of damage and some caster shots which can easily add up to 40 damage. In that situation, you did take more damage but consider that your minions aggro'd her while her minions continued to hit yours. The lane is now naturally pushing in your favour just because you let yourself get hit one more time. You could easily justify hiding in the top middle brush and missing 2 - 4 CS while the lane pushes and you regen/call for assistance.

Good early trades are crucial as melee vs range and I cannot stress the importance of abusing brush enough. If you have teleport, it isn't out of the question to aggressively trade or go for CS even if you get taken to >50%. The CS you got guarantees potions to sustain and you could easily trinket a brush and TP to it to scare her off the wave.

Another way to gain advantage is to simply get to lane before your opponent, this gives you an opportunity to offset whatever disadvantage you have in the match up by getting a first strike via brush. Something as simple as having a 1 potion advantage can swing a lane. Once you get a first hit, there is literally no downside to purposefully missing CS if it means you achieve zoning by just popping your head out of the brush. You can literally just zone your opponent for 2 creeps to die, lose zone control and still have XP advantage for level 2.

Top lane is a game of inches. You need to know where and how to get the smallest of advantages.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

Ty for all the insight! Also, it's funny to think about how one can be too focused on cs, but that's definitely the case at times :D

EvilRabbitt2 votes

Vayne http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Vayne Just some provisions for discussion. Passive: Don't try to run, it won't work. Q: More damage after use. You see her tumble, pop a shield or move back a second so she will overextend for that damage. W: The kicker. Don't get low while you have 2 rings. %HP in true damage (no negation available) E: Push skill. Use this in combination with Q. If she tumbles then pushes you back, Tumble isn't applied so you can wait it even more. R: Does what its supposed to do- secures a kill.

Vayne is undeniably a strong champion. Your best choices are to get items that flat out increase your armor, because your hp will work against you. Armor and HP regen will be rewarding more than anything. item 3075 item 3069 You said melee, so item 3110 will work well in nullifying. Pretty much you want to just be tanky in a non-maximum health capacity. Hope that helped some. And yes, a support item that regens so strongly is very valuable.

EvilRabbitt1 votes

All my opinion of course. I don't play any defense. Just from what I can understand when I hear Vayne's get mad.

Omnipherious2 votes

Just a note, having a plan late game is fine until you realize that the game never goes late.

Getting item 3075 and/or item 3110 are the right choices but what if you can't get the 2-3000 gold for them? The importance of early game items like item 1074 and/or item 3047 cannot be understated.

Additionally, getting tank stats without any additional max HP is a bad idea. You are not just fighting Vayne; she has a team. It is true that Silver Bolts deals %HP damage from your max but that is 1 out of 3 hits. You still need HP to survive everything else. Thornmail without extra HP doesn't help you because you can't survive long enough to return damage anyway.

redniwediS2 votes

Depending on how your team is doing it might be a good idea to let her take your tower. If your mid and bot lanes are doing well they can assist in stopping Vayne as she extends toward your second tower, or you can leave the top lane and push down mid instead for some early grouping.

Your low damage is compensated somewhere else in your kit, use that to your advantage.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

I think you're right, at certain times. I couldn't really say exactly when(apart from having at least good jungle control), but I've seen it work out nicely where the top laner gains a bit of a safe farm range from it, or when the enemy keeps pushing and gets caught. Sucks to give the enemy team a turret, but I do think under the right conditions it's a good call.

2000boxes1 votes

you take blitz top and when she goes to poke just pull her under turret and just completely ruin her game

utDOOM1 votes

Most adcs can win top vs other melees; its just that vayne is more popular and can kite really well. Also, right now low damage top laners get trashed by the meta (ex renekton, aatrox, jax) so its not really a good idea to be picking them.

If you get forced into that situation ninja tabi, dorans shield, and armor helps alot. Also, when your jungler's ganking bait her into a fight and then back off a little to try to make her overextend.

Also, whatever you do don't abandon the lane. Your just gonna give her and her team more free gold and a tower. Try to freeze the lane near your tower, so if she tries to bully you she will overextend and get killed by a gank.

InsaneSamurai1 votes

I see what you mean, but the problem with trying to hold turret is that she will slowly chip you down to a condemn-dive kill range. If the Vayne always has a ward and condemn off CD, and starts running as soon as they see the jungler, you can't really catch her without some pretty specific champs.

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