If the primary counter to true damage is health...

Tryce Maxwell·May 12, 2015·67 votes·4,313 views

Why does vayne's silver bolts do more based on max health? change it to current health or change the damage to magic/physical. Thanks.

106 Comments

Mylon RequiemMay 12, 201530 votes

Vayne is the only tank-killing ADC in the game with comparably awful range (Kog'Maw has Bio-Arcane Barrage [W]). She's also comparably weak in lane to nearly every Marksman champion. She needs all the damage she can get.

inb4 salty, ignorant Bronze "Vayne is OP pls nerf" people get here

MLDzXnRRRMay 12, 20157 votes

[{quoted}](name=Mylon Requiem,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=MUE7n1Nb,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-05-12T09:23:45.993+0000)

Vayne is the only tank-killing ADC in the game with comparably awful range (Kog'Maw has Bio-Arcane Barrage [W]). She's also comparably weak in lane to nearly every Marksman champion. She needs all the damage she can get.

inb4 salty, ignorant Bronze "Vayne is OP pls nerf" people get here

550 range is not awful with +30/ 90 (with ult) bonus ms. Her Q is 300 range. So she can snipe you from far with Q autoattack. With such high MS steroid, dash and knockback only point and click abilities are effective against her. There is a reason she is one of the most popular champion in the game. People spam only Katarina and Thresh more.

Loken StoneheartMay 12, 20159 votes

{quoted}

550 range is not awful with +30/ 90 (with ult) bonus ms. Her Q is 300 range. So she can snipe you from far with Q autoattack. With such high MS steroid, dash and knockback only point and click abilities are effective against her. There is a reason she is one of the most popular champion in the game. People spam only Katarina and Thresh more.

MS Bonus only works when moving TOWARD champions. It doesn't help escape.

She's popular because she's a satisfying champion, and tanks are popular right now. She isn't necessarily great.

Champion SkinMay 12, 20152 votes

She is also good in SoloQ because there people can be silly and walk around alone and stuff and Vayne is an amazing Duelist when she gets some items and have her ult (and running away is well easier said then done)

XeroKimoMay 12, 20158 votes

Not to mention compared to most adcs, she doesn't have a skill that helps on laning phase for poking/trading except to auto, and in fights, she has a tendency to be at a closer range than most adcs being farther back

Phoenix Kotori May 12, 20159 votes

Meanwhile Quinn has to be even closer and gets nothing remotely as design broken as flat+hp% true damage.

AnidanMay 12, 20155 votes

Quinn also duels ADCs better than Vayne due to the blind she'll use as soon as she closes the gap which means the enemy ADC can't even fight back for shit. Vayne is highly contested right now because she excels in the meta. If the meta changes, her strengths don't stand out as much and someone else will be picked instead. Nerfing her because she can fit in the meta is fucking horrible, and the boards tend to make suggestions along that vein a lot. "Burst ADCs are strong! NERF GRAVES, CORKI AND LUCIAN!" "long-range is strong! NERF TRISTANA AND JINX!" "Tank-busters are strong! NERF VAYNE!" If Kog'maw had even a little mobility, people would ask for his head too, no exception.

Everyone has something that makes them seem absurd. Vayne's true damage is great against tanks, allowing her to scale harder against tanks, and something decent against squishies. If squishies want to complain, I'd aim the complaints at her stun, NOT what lets her scale into a late-game tank-shredder. If you target that, then all you accomplish is making tanks even stronger for no real reason whatsoever.

The boards are seriously starting to look like a collaboration of "We hate anyone that does their job even remotely well! Unless they're underplayed, then they're safe."

Phoenix Kotori May 12, 20151 votes

As I said before I'd like to see vayne lose the flat true damage, and buff% a little or give her power else where.

I think hp% true damage is fine by itself but with flat it punishes squishy champions really hard when she's suppose to be a tank killer. Which is my issue since it turns her into an everything killer great against everyone.

AnidanMay 12, 20152 votes

Her only other AA damage increase outside of her passive bolts comes from her ult activation beyond the early game. If she doesn't have that, then people who already counter her (Graves, Draven, etc) counter her even harder. There's a line to be drawn, and making her even worse against them isn't necessary. They're squishy, so the %hp damage already isn't doing too much, so the flat damage is a good deal of what she has going for her. She doesn't need nerfs at the moment, and a power shift is unnecessary. Where would you even put it anyway? Her passive for more MS? Each 5 you put on her passive gives her an additional 15 for her ult, and reduces her overall damage (which hurts her against everyone for slightly more chasing power to continue hurting them less). More % damage? So you penalize squishies less to penalize tanks more? More damage on Condemn? That damage will primarily affect squishies. Power for her ult? More AD? Which, yet again, hurts squishies more?

You can't move that power around without making her punch through squishies even more unless you make her hurt tanks more or force her to do less damage altogether.

NarasimhaMay 12, 20152 votes

550 range is not awful with +30/ 90 (with ult) bonus ms. Her Q is 300 range. So she can snipe you from far with Q autoattack.

Just to clarify, thats how far she MOVES with Q. Her enhanced Q still has the same attack range as her autoattack. She's basically the only ADC who can't poke safely (kind of Draven as well).

Lauricella3May 12, 201529 votes

i used to think her % true damage was annoying but now i just really hate the knockback :(

DUDE BROMay 13, 20155 votes

I used to think the % true damage on every 3rd hit was annoying too, but then item 3110 item 3143 Malphite Nunu Nasus

Edit: Same reason I don't find kallista as much of a problem

IcyPepperMay 12, 201519 votes

It's unique to Vayne, and it's kind of her core identity. They're not going to radically change it, especially since she's nowhere near overpowered. Her winrate and pick rate are nowhere near overbearing. She's excelling in the tank meta, but nowhere near the likes of Jinx.

There's more factors to consider than one factor. Yes, health is what counter flat true damage, but you've got to use your head. If something will deal 10 damage no matter what and you want to reduce its impact, you build health so it deals less % of your hp. But that's not how you counter Vayne. You either use burst (Graves is considered one of her counters, and mages/assassins can delete her), crowd control (being a carry, she is a priority target for cc), or build thornmail if you're a tank or bruiser.

As for her ult, a pink ward or sweeper lens can aid against the invisibility. Her only cc is relatively easy to avoid if you stay away from walls, and her tumble is her only main damage spell outside her ultimate with mild mobility, so cc and burst is the way to go. If you're not a burst adc who can out-dps her, I don't recommend 1v1ing her late-game, but I do suggest crapping on her early game when she's weaker than a lot of other adc's.

BaughwsseryMay 12, 20155 votes

This topic needs to stop coming up, the pro's and con's of Vayne's damage have already been discussed countless times.

DaeonicMay 12, 20155 votes

Vayne isn't op lol. She needs no nerfs. She has a high skill floor and a high skill ceiling. I love Vayne but requires a really good laning phase which is my weakness. So I can't play her. Not without significant practice. Play her 10 games straight and let me know how it goes.

item 3070 Vayne

Edit: Looking at your lolking, I'm guessing you're mad about losing to a Vayne who went 10/3. You were the bot lane with Twitch. YOU lost lane. YOU failed to shut her down, YOU and Twitch fed her. That is not the champ. That is your inability to exploit inherent weaknesses in a champs gameplay. I'm not saying "git gud". I'm saying that before you cry "OP" try and understand why you are struggling against that Vayne and think about how that Vayne got to be so strong. She wasn't doing so much damage because she has %max HP damage. She was doing so much damage cause of how fed she was.

Edit2: Here's the lolking if anyone wants it. http://www.lolking.net/summoner/na/22660380 I would recommend looking at that game as your fault friend.

Edit3: Vayne has a 46% winrate in Silver Ranked Solo 5v5. That is considerably low. Your experience with Vayne was a rare one, as 46% of Vaynes win games. The other 54% lose.

Edit4: IM GOOD AT MATH I SWEAR

VerxintMay 12, 20156 votes

I agree with your post but.. 100-46=54.

DaeonicMay 14, 20151 votes

Shooooot, can you tell i love math? xD

AbsoluteSadmanMay 12, 20151 votes

If right clicking = high skill floor then yi also has a gigantic barrier to entry

DraazurMay 13, 20151 votes

Except Yi has an instant gap closer and doesn't really need to worry about positioning nearly much as Vayne does

AbsoluteSadmanMay 13, 20151 votes

Yi also dosent have a nearly 2 second stun that doubles as a disengage.

DraazurMay 13, 20151 votes

Except we're not talking about overall kits, we're talking about skill level of the champs, and Vayne's condemn is very clunky to use.

lB2kGRlc8yMay 12, 20154 votes

Its an oversight that makes her require less itemization than most adcs. Champions like gnar prove you can get by in ranged form with the % damage he deals against tanks, but vayne wouldn't be unique if she didn't have overkill when it comes to free, uncounterable damage. If she had legitimate weknesses to exploit, id be fine with her keeping the ability, but she has a 2 sec cd dash that resets her auto, and she essentially throws poppy at people with condemn. She has so much more safety than other ADCs at the cost of poke, and safety is much more important on an ADC.

junglerboy16May 12, 20152 votes

But she does have a weakness; her poor early laning.

Additionally, any sort of AS slow hurts her a lot ( Malphite Nasus Nunu item 3110 item 3143 for instance), because without attack speed, her standard build becomes much less effective.

AbsoluteSadmanMay 12, 20151 votes

Her early laning isint as bad as alot of people say, she can just launch away any support that engages on her.

As long as she plays moderatly safe it dosent matter.

junglerboy16May 13, 20151 votes

that's assuming you only play with a hard engage support. A poke support like Sona, Karma, or Zyra along with a lane bully like Caitlyn, Varus, or Ashe can bully her around in lane pretty well, while making it very hard for Vayne to actually be in range to counterattack. If Vayne does close in on you to trade, she has to be extremely aggressive, because it turns into a game of chicken; if you back off, she wins the trade, but if you force her to back off, you get several more AAs in her back as she retreats.

AbsoluteSadmanMay 13, 20151 votes

Fair enough.

AbyssphereMay 12, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Its an oversight that makes her require less itemization than most adcs. Champions like gnar prove you can get by in ranged form with the % damage he deals against tanks, but vayne wouldn't be unique if she didn't have overkill when it comes to free, uncounterable damage. If she had legitimate weknesses to exploit, id be fine with her keeping the ability, but she has a 2 sec cd dash that resets her auto, and she essentially throws poppy at people with condemn. She has so much more safety than other ADCs at the cost of poke, and safety is much more important on an ADC.

An oversight? Hardly. The ability is based on her shooting you with silver and she was designed to be a tank buster - it makes complete thematic and gameplay sense.

WarlockLawMay 12, 20151 votes

Her 2 second cd dash is the shortest range dash in the game and after shiv/PD the whole attack reset is meaningless as the animation takes longer than the next auto would anyway so it becomes nothing more than a positioning/incisability tool. Also she has the shortest attack range in the game excluding melee. She actually has less safety than the average adc because she can't even use her passive to run away. Her exploitable weaknesses are her trash laning phase and her low range. Pick a long range or high burst adc and a high burst/engage support against her and just kill her during laning phase as many times as you can so she can't afford the attack speed it takes for her to kill tanks

ArkenStormMay 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Also she has the shortest attack range in the game excluding melee.

Urgot

WarlockLawMay 12, 20151 votes

Could have sworn she had the lowest attack range o.0

ArkenStormMay 12, 20151 votes

nope, basically with urgot, you fight as if you were melee, its that bad

WarlockLawMay 12, 20151 votes

I mean he is basically a bruiser masquerading as an adc

ArkenStormMay 12, 20151 votes

well yeah, but hes still technically ranged :P he feels like a tanky ezreal to me almost.

Crushed lil kidMay 13, 20151 votes

May the Urgod bless thee poor soul who hath been caught by the noxian corrosive charge. Amen.

ArkenStormMay 13, 20151 votes

I was referring only to AA range. Vayne has 550, Urgot has 425.

JustMyBassCannonMay 12, 20154 votes

Vayne is a Marksman, the archetype whose job is to destroy tanks and objectives. Having a damage tool that tanks can't negate--one that only accounts for less than 20% of her overall DPS--is not bad design.
You still have tools that can weaken Vayne's DPS, most notable being Randuin's Omen. You get a huge chunk of Armor, which negates the rest of her kit's physical damage, and you get two AS slows and an MS slow, crushing her mobility and DPS. There are also the generic Marksman counters of Exhaust, CC and burst damage.
This has been asked a few hundred times, and it has been answered every time. Vayne's true damage has a design purpose, and it is not overpowered.

Phoenix Kotori May 12, 20151 votes

It still doesn't mean it was a **good **game design decision.

No it's shitty design if it's suppose to kill tanks and objectives, then get rid of the flat true damage, and buff% a little or give her power else where.

I am fine with her having flat true damage, or max hp% true damage having both is just poor game design and turns her from a tank buster to an everything killer.

JustMyBassCannonMay 12, 20151 votes

Let me just show you the scale of her true damage.

Vayne deals 60+8% HP every third hit on the same target. Unlike other stacking abilities, she can only have stacks on one target at a time, and unlike most %HP abilities, it doesn't apply every attack and it has no scaling.

Champions at level 18 have HP ranging from 1600-2300, with Cho'gath being a special case for 2800 HP. On average, without items, a champion will have 2000 HP. An HP-focused champion will have 3000-4000, depending on their base stats and such.

Just scaling from 1600-4000 for the hell of it, Vayne's W deals 188-380 true damage every 3 attacks.

Varus' Blighted Quiver deals 26 (+25% AP) damage and puts stacks of Blight on attack targets, stacking up to 3 times. Whenever he hits them with a spell, the Blight stacks detonate and deal 5% (+2% HP per 100 AP) of max HP per stack, capping at 15% (+6% HP per 100 AP) HP damage. Effectively, it's 78 (+75% AP) +15% (+6% HP per 100 AP) damage.

Against the same HP range, Varus deals 318 to 678 (171% AP) magic damage against the same range of targets. Assuming he buys no AP, a target needs 70-80 MR for Varus' procs to be equal to Vayne's procs. With just 60 AP, the target needs >120 MR.

Kog'maw's Bio-Arcane Barrage deals 6% (+1% AP) max HP per hit, or 18% (+3% AP) HP damage every 3 hits, giving him a range of 288 (+48% AP) to 720 (+120% AP) damage. The target needs >50 MR, assuming Kog'maw has no AP, ignoring the fact that Kog'maw has percentile MR reduction built into his kit. Oh, and he has ridiculously long range and extra burst damage that Vayne doesn't have.

Gnar's Hyper passive deals 50 (+100% AP) +14% max HP every 3rd stack. Against that same HP range, he deals 274-610 (+100% AP) damage. His targets need >50 MR for it to be equal to Vayne's %HP. He can apply it at a long range with his Boomerang.

Vi's Denting Blows passive deals 10% (+2.86% bonus AD) HP damage every 3rd hit or 160 (+46% bonus AD) to 400 (+114% bonus AD) damage. Her target doesn't need Armor to equalize it to Vayne's passive, as it's relatively close, but Vi applies Armor Shred with her W and gains an AS steroid, and it applies to all of her spells as well as her basic attacks.

Huh, it looks like everyone with %HP damage either has much more than Vayne, or they can apply it at longer range, or they have more utility, or all of the above.

Vayne pays for that %HP true damage in ways that other characters do not.

Phoenix Kotori May 12, 20151 votes

Varus has limited chance to proc it since he only has 3 spells.

Kog'maw has a CD on his.

Vayne has no limiter or CD on it besides her attack speed and that she can't item 3085 it.

And people hate gnar & vi for a reason.

JustMyBassCannonMay 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Varus has limited chance to proc it since he only has 3 spells.

All on separate cooldowns, which actually makes it very easy to get 5 procs in a row. Which tallies up to 75% (+30% HP per 100 AP) on top of the 390 (+375% AP) flat damage.

And he can proc it on multiple targets at the same time, because all of his spells are AoE.

Kog'maw has a CD on his.

Kog'maw also doesn't have to go balls-deep to fight.

Vayne has no limiter or CD on it besides her attack speed and that she can't it.

And people hate gnar & vi for a reason.

Because Gnar and Vi are bruisers that kick all flavors, shapes and sizes of ass.

AbsoluteSadmanMay 12, 20151 votes

It only costs your entire mana bar to proc varus w 5 times, plus the fact that youll die before you can proc it 5 times.

Vayne can easily proc her w 3-4 times before dying if she has attack speed.

JustMyBassCannonMay 12, 20151 votes

Actually, even if you max Q first--the only ability where mana cost goes up with rank--you're only going to spend your entire mana meter at level 6.

80 + 80 + 80 + 80 + 100 = 420 Mana Level 6, Varus' max mana is 453.

At level 18, his max mana is 922, more than double that.

And, more realistically, if you actually need 5 Blight procs in between the burst damage of his Q, E and R and 15 attacks, you might be trying to fight someone severely over-leveled.

But, please, keep trying to tell me that Varus' Blight isn't naturally twice as strong as Vayne's Silver Bolts, while ignoring the fact that it has fucking ridiculous AP scaling.

AbsoluteSadmanMay 12, 20152 votes

It takes spells to proc, thus costing mana. The spells can be misses, vayne aa's cant. And adc varus never builds ap, thats a niche mid lane thing.

JustMyBassCannonMay 12, 20151 votes

{quoted}

It takes spells to proc, thus costing mana.

"It costs mana, therefore it's weaker."

Except it's not, because it deals more damage. It kills things faster than Vayne's Silver Bolts.

The spells can be misses, vayne aa's cant.

Sure, if you're a bad Varus player, or if they flash out. In the former case, l2p; in the latter case, they expended a 5-minute summoner spell in comparison to your 80-100 mana.

And adc varus never builds ap, thats a niche mid lane thing.

That's not the point. Vayne's Silver Bolts doesn't scale period. It doesn't have an AD ratio, or an AP ratio, it has no ratio besides the target's HP.

Varus' %HP damage scales beyond 100% of AP in terms of damage. The fact that you can opt into some AP scaling items--even in an otherwise AD build, a Rageblade, Gunblade or Nashor's is very effective--means you have the option of making your %HP damage an actual threat, instead of an afterthought like Vayne's W.

AbsoluteSadmanMay 13, 20152 votes

It dosent kill things faster than vaynes w. after you use 2 full stacks (30% max hp) your pretty much done. Vayne dosent need to wait on absurdley long cd's to proc her % max health true damage , instead her only worry is making sure she can right click the enemy to death.

You try hitting a max range q or even r on a target thats remotley concious.

Vayne dosent need scaling, its % max hp true damage, thats enough in of itself.

JustMyBassCannonMay 13, 20151 votes

{quoted}

It doesn't kill things faster than vaynes w. after you use 2 full stacks (30% max hp) your pretty much done. Vayne doesn't need to wait on absurdly long cd's to proc her % max health true damage , instead her only worry is making sure she can right click the enemy to death.

If you're not yet level 6, yeah, you can only proc 2 rotations in a row. Meanwhile, after level 6, it's completely possible and not even hard to proc 5 rotations in a row. And at any point in the game, Varus' W is going to be dealing 150-187.5% the damage of Vayne's W, unless Vayne is mentally retarded and maxes W before Q (at which point, she's killing her own DPS).

Waiting for "absurdly long" 10-second CDs isn't important when the target is dead in 2-3 rotations.

You try hitting a max range q or even r on a target that's remotely conscious.

Aside from the fact that it's not actually hard to land either of those at their maximum ranges if you are remotely conscious, you're not going to be at maximum range if you're landing Blight procs. You're going to be within 600 range, which is near impossible to miss with both Q and R.

Vayne doesn't need scaling, its % max hp true damage, that's enough in and of itself.

I'm not saying Vayne needs scaling. I'm saying that the fact that she lacks scaling is a huge factor that you cannot overlook, unless the concept of balancing a see-saw, let alone a MOBA, is beyond your comprehension.

Slamurai JackMay 12, 20153 votes

Because not everything is supposed to have a direct counter. If you could directly counter Vayne's silver bolts, (and you kinda can with AS slow items), there would be absolutely no reason to play her. Vayne as a whole already has a shit ton of accessible counterplay, so who cares if her W does %max health true damage? Draven is still going to 2 shot her.

AkesgerothMay 12, 20152 votes

Because Vayne is a bitch.

Troy242621May 12, 20152 votes

Alright I always hear the "Vayne's 550 range isn't THAT bad," argument but it always overlooks something. She can't extend that range. She's stuck with it, and her skills won't reach past it. It IS relevant.

What's annoying to me is a reposition, stealth and self-peel in the same kit. Not OP but it IS Hella annoying.

Ulquiorra995May 13, 20152 votes

That's her thing. While numerically damage is much less impressive than Vi or Gnar, it compensates in it by ignoring defenses except for AS slows.

Also, Riot seems to really want to keep it this way - Silver Bolts are only Vayne's ability that hasn't been repeatedly nerfed. They want her as a skirmisher/tank shredder, and it's OK as it is.