Vayne needs a tweak, not a rework. Here are my thoughts.

Vàýńé·Jul 29, 2015·3 votes·3,310 views

So Riot, most of you have come across a champion by the name of Vayne, and without being cocky or ignorant, I'm going to tell you what all of the fuss is about and what I think should be done. If you guys are in the process of tweaking her, let us know, so we stop complaining about it.

ALL CALCULATIONS ARE WITH NO RUNES OR MASTERIES

Lets look at Vayne's base stats level 1:

498 Health
5.4 Health Regen
232 Mana
7.0 Mana Regen
550 Range
53 Attack Damage
.658 Attack Speed
19 Armor
30 Magic Res.
330 Movement Speed

Okay, so this is relatively normal for the Average ADC. She actually has less health and less armor than the average ADC (Corki, Lucian, Sivir, Jinx.) Although the slight health and armor decrease, she does have more range, most ADC's clock in at about 500-530 range.

So you must be thinking, how is she OP? Well, it's not her stats that are making people uninstall, it's her kit. I don't know if you guys have looked at it, but it's very strong.

Lets take a look at her kit and overall damage:

--Passive: Night Hunter | Range: 2000

Vayne gains 30 movement speed when moving towards a nearby visible enemy champion.

--Q: Tumble ACTIVE: Vayne quickly rolls toward the cursor's location, causing her next basic attack within 6 seconds to deal bonus physical damage.

BONUS PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50% AD

Tumble resets Vayne's auto-attack timer.

--W: Silver Bolts PASSIVE: Vayne's basic attacks and abilities mark her target with Silver Bolts for 3 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. The third stack consumes all Silver Bolts on the target to deal them true damage.

TRUE DAMAGE: 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 / 60 (+ 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% of target's maximum health)

The percent health component is capped at 200 against monsters, and attacking a new enemy cleanses the previous target of all Silver Bolts.

--E: Condemn ACTIVE: Vayne fires a heavy bolt at the target unit, dealing physical damage, knocking them back and applying Silver Bolts.

PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 45 / 80 / 115 / 150 / 185 (+ 50% bonus AD)

If the target is knocked into a wall, they takes the same damage again and are stunned for 1.5 seconds.

--R: Final Hour ACTIVE: Vayne temporarily gains bonus attack damage, increases Night Hunter's bonus movement speed to 90, and gains 1 second of stealth when using Tumble.

DURATION: 8 / 10 / 12

BONUS ATTACK DAMAGE: 30 / 50 / 70

So, that's a lot of words right? Let me break it down for you. The main thing that sticks out to me is her W, Silver Bolts.

Level 1 Base Stats + Rank 1 W - Every third auto you deal 20 True damage plus 4% of their maximum health ( 20 On Average ) for a total of 40 true damage and 93 Damage overall.

Level 18 Base Stats + Rank 5 W - Every third auto you deal 60 True damage plus 8% of their maximum health ( 240 On Average ) for a total of 300 true damage and around 409 Damage overall.

So once again you may ask, what's so broken? Its simple, it's her W. A 3000 health tank at level 18, she does 300 true damage with 3 shots, not to mention her massive crits along with BORK's stats. Their health bar is practically incinerated. It's like casting Darius's ult 3 times with 9 Autos and, as long as you didn’t uber feed, it’s very easy to get to this point, even when behind. So Riot, we're not complaining for no reason. She really is massively overpowered. The community really does have some good ideas so listen to them, but just try to work on her. I don’t mean completely rework her entire champion, just tweak her kit. Maybe turning her true damage to physical damage…. something along those lines. I would love to have a discussion over her and I have some ideas of my own (being a Vayne main) on how she can be tweaked without completely killing her (and ruining my ranked career) that are just simply too long to fit into a Boards Post. If you want some ideas (which I'm sure you have plenty already) add me: HKG Austin. Thank you guys for this wonderful game and keep up the good work!

Sincerely,

~Austin

16 Comments

VàýńéJul 29, 20151 votes

Feel free to leave your ideas here! Please make them respectful! Enjoy!

~Austin

67chromeJul 29, 20151 votes

So once again you may ask, what's so broken?

Mostly I have to ask - why did you post all of Vayne's stats and skills in this?

Those are all on this very webstie. Link to her page or something, listing everything just seems really inefficient.

she does have more range, most ADC's clock in at about 500-530 range.

550 is the most common AA range for a ranged champion and what more ADC's have. Going off of an average here isn't that useful, as a few ADC's like Graves screw that up.

Also - ability range on ADC's is massive. Ezreal Corki were the go-to champs for seasons 1, 2, and 3 with item 3078 and mid-game caster focuses, being much closer to mages with solid auto-attacks over committed auto-attackers.

Despite the low AA range of Sivir Graves Lucian , they can all out-range Vayne and win initiative, getting the first hit off in many cases: with certain abilities and vs. a squishy target like Vayne, that's a substantial range advantage.

Its simple, it's her W. A 3000 health tank at level 18, she does 300 true damage with 3 shots, not to mention her massive crits along with BORK's stats. Their health bar is practically incinerated.

This argument has a few flaws.

First: Vayne's true-damage hits are akin to the poison status in Pokemon. Don't know what Poison does in Pokemon? It deals damage equal to 1/16th of your opponent's maximum HP as true damage every turn. This is in a game where you can double your damage output and then proceed to OHKO anything thrown at you. Poison is awful in that game.

Shaving off 10% of someone's HP in 3 hits has it's uses, but in most games killing someone in 30 hits is pretty unimpressive. LoL is one of those games where it's not impressive, most mages can turn a squishy into paste with 1 QWER combo, removing a player from the field in less than 2 seconds. Similar things can be said for many assassins and even a few fighters.

When you get to the tanky side, it's not like Nasus or Cho need 30 hits to kill an opponent either. Nasus only needs 2.

Vayne isn't the one doing the incinerating, if that's your issue with her - you might want to take a look at the rest of LoL's damage-dealers.

Second: Don't complain about items with average synergy on a champion.

All champions can get items, many champions work well with Kingblade. When Vayne gets stats from Kingblade, her rivals get stats from their items. Which might be Kingblade.

Also - average game only lasts ~33 minutes and sees ~11k gold per player, about 3 major 3k items, 1k in boots, and 1k in the bank when someone's Nexus goes down.

When Vayne has critical strike chance and Kingblade, half of an average game is already over: which limits her power through both of those things by 50%.

I mean - there are champions like Riven Annie that are terrors with 0 items and can bring the strength of their kits throughout closer to 100% of a game.

Third:

This notion of Q_Q tanks are screwed.

LoL is a game with strategic elements. For strategy to be solid or engaging, you want to exploit your enemy's weaknesses and play to your strengths: which often change depending on the match-up. You can't rely on the same tactic working over and over again, because muscling your way through your weaknesses and your opponent's strengths isn't stratagy, that's just being a derp.

And look at other mechanics in LoL:

Tenacity, Cleanse, and QSS don't effect pulls, grabs, flings, knockbacks, knockups, or slowing fields. 600 range can be negated by 600 mobility. All CC countermeasures are useless vs. created terrain. You can't dodge point-click skills. Point-click skills can't be cast on targets that are stealthed/in fog of war/in brush/untargetable item 3102 prevents suprise QWER bursts, your opponent will always see you coming. BV and Zilean Ulti hard-counter reset mechanics. All damage is 100% useless vs. invulnerability and stasis. Defense doesn't do anything vs. %Max HP True Damage.

Vayne's capacity to counter out-tanking strategies isn't synonymous with no counterplay and being broken.

Anyways - Vayne's true damage isn't broken, it's not the massive amount your making it out to be (or rather the solid amount it is is fairly low relative to other damage sources in the game), she's still item-reliant, and there are plenty of ways to deal with her besides building defense.

I'd have to say - she's a pretty balanced champion. Mostly her play-style and bonuses just get the subjective/emotional parts of people riled up, appearing like a solid PvE RPG hero to run with for the long haul, hogging the glory of kills her team helped her with and looking good end-game when early and mid are just as important. She seems deceptively stronger than she really is.

VàýńéJul 29, 20154 votes

Shaving off 10% of someone's HP in 3 hits has it's uses, but in most games killing someone in 30 hits is pretty unimpressive. >LoL is one of those games where it's not impressive, most mages can turn a squishy into paste with 1 QWER combo, >removing a player from the field in less than 2 seconds.

First, where did you get 30 hits from? Sure, from your calculations it would be 30 hits but, your not taking into account Critical Strikes, Bork's Synergy and the fact that, you can be 2 5 with decent CS and get to the of point of massive damage and never being able to be killed, because you already killed them all. Also, with Bork, you actually are doing 8% of targets max health in physical and true damage. So tehcnically, 16%.

Anyways - Vayne's true damage isn't broken, it's not the massive amount your making it out to be (or rather the solid amount >it is is fairly low relative to other damage sources in the game), she's still item-reliant, and there are plenty of ways to deal with >her besides building defense.

Second, It actually isn't that much, its just the pure fact (stated in the article, if you read it all) that she requires so little kills to get to the point of massive damage output because of her true damage. Like I said before, its not a lot, but also take in to consideration her stats with Bork, Phantom Dancer, Last Whisper, Statikk Shiv. Also, when I pick Vayne, I expect my team to build a team comp around her (which they do) that consists of champions that can peel very hard.

she's still item-reliant

Aren't all champions? But yes, she does synergize very well with Bork and Phantom Dancer.

Don't complain about items with average synergy on a champion.

"Average" Synergy? Dude. There is not one item in this ENTIRE game that goes better with Vayne. It's like they build the item for her. Sure, every mage has Luden's but they should. Movement Speed Buff and an AP Boost, but Bork, It ties in so correctly with her kit. That isn't "Average" Synergy

When you get to the tanky side, it's not like Nasus or Cho need 30 hits to kill an opponent either. Nasus only needs 2.

First, that's way late in the game and depends on your top laner.

Vayne isn't the one doing the incinerating, if that's your issue with her - you might want to take a look at the rest of LoL's >damage-dealers.

Really starting to think you didn't read the whole thing. This was addressed in the article.

For strategy to be solid or engaging, you want to exploit your enemy's weaknesses and play to your strengths: which often >change depending on the match-up. You can't rely on the same tactic working over and over again, because muscling your >way through your weaknesses and your opponent's strengths isn't stratagy, that's just being a derp.

Yes? That's why I also said, you need to change your team comp to work around Vayne and against the enemy team.

Also - average game only lasts ~33 minutes and sees ~11k gold per player, about 3 major 3k items, 1k in boots, and 1k in the bank when someone's Nexus goes down.

When Vayne has critical strike chance and Kingblade, half of an average game is already over: which limits her power through >both of those things by 50%.

Both are a bit flawed. It just depends on players and play style of players. Also, that is not true.

Any more arguments your unclear about, let me know! :)

~Austin

RiotRiot ShadowStormJul 30, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Anyways - Vayne's true damage isn't broken, it's not the massive amount your making it out to be (or rather the solid amount it is is fairly low relative to other damage sources in the game), she's still item-reliant, and there are plenty of ways to deal with her besides building defense.

I'd have to say - she's a pretty balanced champion. Mostly her play-style and bonuses just get the subjective/emotional parts of people riled up, appearing like a solid PvE RPG hero to run with for the long haul, hogging the glory of kills her team helped her with and looking good end-game when early and mid are just as important. She seems deceptively stronger than she really is.

Vayne certainly seems to be a hot-button topic lately. A lot of your comments here talk about her weaknesses and how to deal with her, and I tend to agree that she's not that out of line.

But, to play devil's advocate, she's currently the 2nd most picked champ in the game at Plat+ ranked play, behind only Thresh (who is known for his flexibility). But Vayne isn't usually considered that flexible of a pick (protect the Vayne comps and whatnot), yet she's being picked frequently with over 50% win rate.

Maybe there's something more going on? What are your thoughts on that?

(Note: Not a designer, don't work on balance, or anything like that. Just stopping by to chat!)

ErockandrollJul 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot ShadowStorm,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=KwAJ6uai,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2015-07-30T19:32:44.209+0000)

Vayne certainly seems to be a hot-button topic lately. A lot of your comments here talk about her weaknesses and how to deal with her, and I tend to agree that she's not that out of line.

But, to play devil's advocate, she's currently the 2nd most picked champ in the game at Plat+ ranked play, behind only Thresh (who is known for his flexibility). But Vayne isn't usually considered that flexible of a pick (protect the Vayne comps and whatnot), yet she's being picked frequently with over 50% win rate.

Maybe there's something more going on? What are your thoughts on that?

(Note: Not a designer, don't work on balance, or anything like that. Just stopping by to chat!)

I think it's a combination of Early game bullies getting nerfed to death. But I also think it's Vayne's ridiculous Synergy with BotRK. Scales well with her Silver bolts. Usually rushed first. And because of the early life steal you can exactly poke her down in extended trades. And lastly, combined the BotRK active with her passive, and Q, and your unable to actually peel off her either.

Her weak early game is not emphasized when her core item has such strong synergy.

Solidair3Jul 30, 20155 votes

I think this is a good point and gets to the main problem, or the symptom, I guess. Vayne is not flexible. She should struggle early and be more of a high risk high reward sort of champion.

The problem right now is that she doesn't seem very risky. She has all the tools available to her to get out of trouble (between stealth and a knock-back stun, terrain reliant as it is), as well as % max HP true damage (that comes with base true damage) which is uncounterable by nature except by shields which no one has lots of access to and attack speed slow, which vayne builds so much attack speed typically it almost doesn't matter if you have frozen heart AND randuin's omen.

I think there's something going on, but I'm not sure what it is. If she's too safe, I wonder if lowing her attack range would be fine? Then again, maybe that's not the heart of the problem. Really only the balance team has access to this sort of data, so it would be nice if one of them would chime in on Vayne's current great success.

Alternatively, maybe the secret lies within her base stats or stat growths. NO IDEA, MANG.

I know win rates aren't the best indicator of what's going on, but I think a marksman who supposedly has a difficult-to-use kit should probably not sit above 50% win rate.

Angry MonsterJul 30, 20152 votes

It pretty simple actually she has damage enhancers that can crit, a AA reset, stealth and is multi purposed.

It is impossible to name one situation vayne is not good at. She duals, team fights, 1 v 1s, and can turn around assinate attmeps. Hell if you want you she is able to solo in the top lane.

Sure her early game is weak until level 4..... Though i would not call that weak.

THe problem is that every other ADC has been nerfed over the last 4 years. The math of her W does not even make sense. It hurts squishes more than tanks. She is a ball of stats and has no real weaknesses.

DHNinjaJul 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot ShadowStorm,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=KwAJ6uai,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2015-07-30T19:32:44.209+0000)

Vayne certainly seems to be a hot-button topic lately. A lot of your comments here talk about her weaknesses and how to deal with her, and I tend to agree that she's not that out of line.

But, to play devil's advocate, she's currently the 2nd most picked champ in the game at Plat+ ranked play, behind only Thresh (who is known for his flexibility). But Vayne isn't usually considered that flexible of a pick (protect the Vayne comps and whatnot), yet she's being picked frequently with over 50% win rate.

Maybe there's something more going on? What are your thoughts on that?

(Note: Not a designer, don't work on balance, or anything like that. Just stopping by to chat!)

What I notice a lot regarding Vayne is that Vayne can do rather poorly in lane and die frequently. Let's say she dies 6 or 7 times before 20 minutes in, but manages to rush item 3153 But as long as she has something that vaguely resembles a front line and a little peel she can reliably wipe out most of a team on her own rather quickly.

She's a champion that can rely on late game and late game alone to bounce back simply based on how she scales. I feel she scales far harder than any other champion in the game.

I feel her popularity is result of that scaling and the fact that she's an ADC who eases the burden of peeling for her because she has some of the best self peel an ADC can have and the means to effectively ace once she gets BOTRK.

RetillinJul 30, 20151 votes

He problem (to being a little strong) is her lack of weakness vs other adcs. Yes she has bad wave clear and low range. But she was supposed to be mechanically challenging. In for being that, had really high amounts of damage. But she has too many "safety" options. Invisibility, tumble/dash, knockback/stun, passive mobility boost when chasing. Her problem (like Kass/Zed/Yas/Riven/ect...) is that her mobility isn't punishable for how much damage she can do. Riot seems to undervalue how much power mobility is when doing their power budgets for champions.

RamuhdoJul 30, 20151 votes

protect the Vayne comps

I think that, because Vayne is incredibly strong at duelling, and has invisibility to get out of hairy situations, she doesn't need as strong of a "protect" composition as, say, Kog'Maw. Mobility and a disengage with a potential stun lets Vayne get rid of unwanted attention herself, while her movement speed is high due to passive, and the usual BotRK people build on her. (Meaning kiting potential is strong.)

I think Vayne's winrate is good because towards end-game, she's rid of most of her weaknesses.

ArchadionJul 30, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot ShadowStorm,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=KwAJ6uai,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2015-07-30T19:32:44.209+0000)

Vayne certainly seems to be a hot-button topic lately. A lot of your comments here talk about her weaknesses and how to deal with her, and I tend to agree that she's not that out of line.

But, to play devil's advocate, she's currently the 2nd most picked champ in the game at Plat+ ranked play, behind only Thresh (who is known for his flexibility). But Vayne isn't usually considered that flexible of a pick (protect the Vayne comps and whatnot), yet she's being picked frequently with over 50% win rate.

Maybe there's something more going on? What are your thoughts on that?

(Note: Not a designer, don't work on balance, or anything like that. Just stopping by to chat!)

That would be because of the nerfs to the earlygames of almost every strong ADC over the past few months, with the few un-nerfed ADCs with strong earlygames being viewed as unviable for one reason or another.

Kalista had her autoattack damage reduced. Jinx had her close-range R damage reduced, and then had her minigun Q's attack speed nerfed. Ashe had her Volley's damage reduced, removed the multistacking on her Q's passive, and had her Q's 5-shot active no longer work on towers. People like Ezreal and Varus have been going mid recently. Corki and suchlike seem to be out of meta. Quinn, Urgot &etc are taken toplane. Caitlyn is powerful but her primary spikes come earlygame and lategame, while most ADCs are currently being used to shove towers and take objectives in the midgame. Tristana might be decent now, but she's boom-or-bust if I remember right.

Take all that into account, and what's left? Vayne always rises in dominance when the earlygames of most ADCs has been nerfed (and this is coming from someone whose favourite ADC is Vayne); she has a "weak earlygame", but after most of the in-meta champions have had their earlygames nerfed, suddenly her earlygame is pretty strong. The other case in point is Sivir, who always rises in dominance after sequences of ADC nerfs, because she's a mobile scuttle crab for her team who also does good damage in teamfights and splitpushes. Vayne is powerful after just getting BoRK, and Sivir is powerful all the time.

I know you're not a designer and don't work on balance, but, that's my two cents. Earlygame nerfs for ADCs + Vayne needing only one item to reach her midgame in a meta favouring midgame fighting + Meta not favouring severe boom-or-bust lane bully ADCs like Draven? She's making a comeback because of that.

AMYS GRAVEJul 30, 20151 votes

She is touted as a low range adc and that her counterplay lies there, but her AA range is in fact average.

Also her insane synergy with BotRK and PD means she never has to think about building different items because those two rushed will almost always be the correct choice. Given most games end ~3 items we only really see one build path on her with IE 3rd.

VàýńéJul 29, 20151 votes

Bump! ~ :3

Baseball3bJul 30, 20151 votes

I think if they knocked down her AS/level slightly and buffed lane bullies up to par Vayne would be back to a decent place.

O Fallen ScholarJul 30, 20151 votes

Wanna know my thoughts? item 3153 This fuking item gives too much raw power to Vayne, it's a fact (no other champ gets so much power from it than Vayne imo). Back when this item wasn't even introduced, Vayne was in "comp reliant pick" state. Now she is 100% pick no matter the comp. It's unhealthy and I don't think that was Riot's intention afterall.

Vayne was supposed to be "niche" pick in certain comps. As I am aware from Riots part.

What I would nerf is her attack speed scaling or tweak some of her base stats (since there are many champs who benefit from item 3153 therefore hard to balance ). Despite Caitlyn still zones her pretty hard and is good counter to Vayne. A good Draven player can also beat her.

NemeBroJul 30, 20151 votes

My only real problem with Vayne is that her "bad early game" is something of a bad joke. Compared to most other champions who are often said to be "hypercarries", her early game is actually really strong, with a low cooldown escape and great self-peel.

Nasus has a bad early game. Jax has a bad early game. Kog'maw has a bad early game. So does Twitch. All late-game powerhouses.

Vayne? Vayne can be bullied by some ADCs, but she is easily able to farm, and the item she rushes (BotRK) ensures that she has the sustain to make up for her "weak early game", and Vayne is perfectly capable of getting kills and making plays early game. Nasus? Nasus isn't getting a kill off of you early game unless you play badly or the jungler ganks.