Boards›Gameplay

The state of Vayne

GimmeYoPeaches·7/3/2015, 6:46:22 AM·14 votes·2,236 views

51.78% Win rate

32.7% Pick rate

She is picked every 1 in 3 game for a reason.

Riot, can we discuss the state of Vayne?

The last change to Vayne was in season 4, patch 13. It was a buff. A lot of people are complaining about Vayne (rightfully so), and she seems stronger now than ever, because tanks have a more pronounced role after the release of cinderhulk.

She is also doing extremely well because of the fact that her main counters (namely Corki, Graves, Caitlyn, and Kog'maw) are struggling against the "tank meta" due to lack of mobility, shorter range, and overall lack of rounded power from early game to late game.

She has a lot of mobility, which isn't much of a problem due to the fact she has abysmal attack range.

The biggest problem with Vayne lies in the fact she can deal max health percent true damage. It takes 3 attacks to proc silver bolts, which means any educated Vayne will build attack speed items. She also gets a huge attack damage steroid from her ultimate as well as her vault procs/auto-attack reset (2 second cooldown, max rank).

True damage is supposed to be countered by health stacking, however Silver Bolts deals percent health damage as true damage. There is no counterplay to that. Randuin's Omen and Frozen Heart? Those were nerfed back in season 4 to a miniscule 15% attack speed reduction each.

Randuin's Omen costs 2850g. You get 15% attack speed reduction to attackers. Frozen Heart costs 2450g. You get another 15% attack speed reduction to attackers. Berserker Greaves cost 1000g. These basically cancel out both the aforementioned items for less than half the gold, and assuming the marksman takes 4 points in the offensive mastery "Fury," the 30% AS reduction from both items is canceled out.

What Vayne needs is counterplay which she is very much lacking.

Here are a list of suggestions:

Change Silver Bolts to flat true damage or tone down the percentage This change would make it so that you can reasonably build heath to counter Vayne's extreme scaling. It would probably hurt her late game, but make her less oppressive mid game.

Buff Randuin's Omen and/or Frozen Heart This will add some counterplay to Vayne without relying on picking Malphite every time there is an enemy Vayne. It will also help tanks scale better into late game against other ADC's, however it will also help tanks dominate more mid game.

**Make Frozen Heart auras stack ** This would need to be done within reasonable limits. My thought is to make it so that these Frozen Hearts stack multiplicatively between members of your team (take tenacity for example). Either that, or just make the aura's stack at a max twice.

Buff the champions that are meant to counter Vayne This will bring back reasonable counterplay against Vayne, and add more variety to the champions pool that normally sees competitive play.

Remove the base damage from the Silver Bolts so it is only percent based I find this to be the best option, if any were implemented, due to the fact that Vayne has a very strong mid game presence against most other champions due to the bursty nature of silver bolts. If it was changed to just the percent health true damage, rather than the flat base damage it deals on top of that, it will make Vayne less oppressive from early to mid game, and still be effectively helping her scale into the late game. This will also help her keep her identity as the late game tank killer.

Riot has stated before that just because a champion takes skill and coordination does not excuse a champion being overtuned (e.g. Leblanc).

Edit: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/MUE7n1Nb-if-the-primary-counter-to-true-damage-is-health

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3697743

http://forums.na.leagueoflegends.com/board/showthread.php?t=3611316

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/tUxfUUoE-max-health-true-damage

http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/954437-league-of-legends/67245488

I don't understand. I'm not the only person who believes that Silver bolts is broken, and has remained that way for a long time. How am I getting downvoted?

The only way to counter her Silver Bolts proc is to have attack speed reductions. However, with Season 5 and the end of Season 4, the only items that reduce attack speed have been nerfed into the ground.

Edit 2:

I also am not suggesting to do ALL of the above, but merely one, which would be enough to bring her back down to Earth.

28 Comments

Kivolan7/3/2015, 7:16:10 AM4 votes

The problem, as I see it, is that ADCs are supposed to require peel from their support / rest of the team in order to carry the game.

"Fuck that, I'm Vayne!"

Her tumble has a TWO SECOND COOLDOWN. That's a TWO SECOND COOLDOWN REPOSITION that also adds extra damage.

Did you actually get into range of her? No problem, she can knock you away... With a possible added 1.5 second stun. Her short range does nothing when you consider that her passive is added movement speed. Either you're running away from her, which is impossible, or you're trying to get on top of her... Which is impossible.

Her and Kalista have the same mobility problem. =/ She could keep her true damage for all I care, I just want a fair shot at killing her.

GimmeYoPeaches7/3/2015, 7:34:24 AM3 votes

I updated the original post with some citations from other users in the community that feel as I do WITH people agreeing.

[{quoted}](name=The True Bard,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3l4gNngZ,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2015-07-03T07:28:31.983+0000)

Vayne has two facets of counterplay -Oneshot her -Outskill her

Isn't this pre-rework Leblanc mentality? I mean, Riot did say they were against gameplay like this.

[{quoted}](name=Sona Ping,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3l4gNngZ,comment-id=000000000000,timestamp=2015-07-03T07:16:28.363+0000)

Of course Vayne has counterplay; "Counter-play" does not mean "move and dodge out on all damage because it's a skillshot". Christ...

No. But things like attack speed slows (her main counter) shouldn't be canceled out by a 1000g purchase when you spent ~5000g to buy them in the first place. That's lack of counterplay if you ask me.

{quoted}

The problem, as I see it, is that ADCs are supposed to require peel from their support / rest of the team in order to carry the game.

"Fuck that, I'm Vayne!"

Her tumble has a TWO SECOND COOLDOWN. That's a TWO SECOND COOLDOWN REPOSITION that also adds extra damage.

Did you actually get into range of her? No problem, she can knock you away... With a possible added 1.5 second stun. Her short range does nothing when you consider that her passive is added movement speed. Either you're running away from her, which is impossible, or you're trying to get on top of her... Which is impossible.

Her and Kalista have the same mobility problem. =/ She could keep her true damage for all I care, I just want a fair shot at killing her.

I agree that part of the problem is the mobility, but that isn't the issue I'm concerned with, seeing as how there are appropriate ways of catching someone with a dash. However, Kalista's mobility is another story for another day. :)

Hasztalan27/3/2015, 7:20:29 AM3 votes

Vayne's counterplay is : go in her face and blow her up.

0ur0boros7/3/2015, 6:58:46 AM3 votes

I'd like to pose another question. If Vayne is the only marksman that can efficiently deal with tanks, doesn't that stand to reason that tanks are in fact in a very strong position? If it were otherwise, all or most marksmen would be legitimately overpowered.

You also raised a point that Vayne herself has counters in the form of other marksmen. Which leaves only one logical explanation. Vayne is a tank killer. She always has, and always will be. I don't think that much, if anything, needs to be changed about her.

Anisoptera7/3/2015, 11:18:04 AM1 votes

Gotta down vote this. No counterplay, are you kidding me? Champions like Caitlyn and Corki poke the shit out of her during landing phase. She is incredibly squishy and has the lowest defensive rating out of any ADC. Supports that can harass like Zyra will make her life hell.

Her tumble is a small reposition, every 2 seconds at max rank. Kalista has a reposition every basic attack, the maximum being 2.5 attacks every second (5 per 2).

Being almost entirely auto attack based means that she cannot simply throw out poke in the same way a Caitlyn might throw out poke.

Her kit is fine, her win rate is fine, she has plenty of counterplay. I refuse to hear arguments against Vayne when Kalista exists with that passive and infinite stacking.

One more thing. Vayne doesnt explode people instantly like you seem to think she does. Like any ADC, they need to avoid damage and remain in a sustained fight.

If Vayne has a full health bar and your team just got aced, then the problem clearly isn't Vayne.

And before you say "Vayne main spotted", yes I do play Vayne a lot but this is not a biased argument. You are just trying to create a circle jerk against champion and failing.

TheXtractor7/3/2015, 2:46:02 PM1 votes

The last time vayne's silver bots was touched (which wasnt a bugfix) was in patch V1.0.0.118b, which was in 2011. The damage was nerfed then. (which was right after her release).

After that her silver bots has always had the same damage. If this was really a problematic part of her kit or was too strong. She would have either

1 Been played A LOT more often in the last 3 years to be justified of nerfs (she has been up and down in balance because of item changes and other things, mostly received small nerfs and small buffs over the time but she was never a major powerpick).

2 Been nerfed on her silver bolts specifically.

gaby1best7/3/2015, 3:11:27 PM1 votes

A lot of people are complaining about Vayne

Find me a thread where someone complains about Vayne. Not Vayne mains, just Vayne as a champion.

Anyway. Vayne is a late game carry. She's also an ADC. What's an ADC's role? Melt tanks. More or less, every ADC can fuck up tanks if you give them the time to do so. Right now, Vayne is the best tank melter. This is, was, and will be her role. Now, you complain about countering her. How to counter Vayne?

  1. Lock her down. 2 seconds and she's dead.
  2. Instakill her? You should have an assasin in your team. It's his job to kill Vayne. You (as a tank) only need to give him a window to do so. So, while Vayne attacks you(and maybe her team busts you with their CC), the assasin kills her. Easy as that.
  3. Thornmail. Armor still works against her, and this will hurt. Again, your job is to distract the enemy team from your squishies while they delete their carries. If you can also damage her, it's even better.

You probably forgot that tanks are not supposed to 1v5, and their role is not to kill anyone.

GimmeYoPeaches7/26/2015, 8:27:50 AM1 votes

The tank meta has fallen from grace and Vayne's pick rate is still the same.

Bârd7/3/2015, 7:28:31 AM1 votes

Vayne has two facets of counterplay -Oneshot her -Outskill her

KirbyCake7/3/2015, 8:41:28 AM1 votes

vayne is garbage, even adc mains won't touch her

Droogzy7/3/2015, 9:41:49 AM1 votes

Her Silver Bolts are quite powerful, but here's the critical part of Vayne's kit: she can not switch targets in a fight, once she locks into attacking one target, she needs to finish the other two shots to get her max DPS off, if you're smart, the moment you see her converging onto you with AA, you collapse back into your team, now she has two choices:

Either she can be a dumb ass and follow you into the waiting arms of the entire team, which is what I see most Vaynes do.

Or she can back off, and because she didn't get the true damage proc off, she does shit for damage, because as you said, she builds AS, not damage.

And no, buying 1,000 boots does not counter your 5,000 investment. A Vayne will ALWAYS build those, regardless of her circumstances. A Vayne will always expect the same DPS after buying 1,000 boots.

Suddenly, when you throw in Randuins and Frozen Heart, its a very unusual feeling to be shooting significantly slower for Vayne players.

Vayne is suppose to be the hardest of hardest counters to Tanks. So when tanks become strong, so does Vayne.

As much as you might dislike her, she is a necessary champion to include. She was released to combat when Tanks were even stronger then they are now and were the equivalent of raid bosses. Her existence allows for that to never happen again.