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I am so disappointed by Vayne's design (A somewhat constructive thread)

SaltyToplaneGoat··9 votes·1,083 views

And that is not because I don't like here theme. In a world full of magical creatures and weird spirits running wild it's not surprising that there is at least one character that says "Ya know... all these black magics, it needs some serious kick in the ass, I'LL TELL YA WAT!". To be honest I kind of like that theme, but the way it was executed just makes me cringe - and causes some complications with game health and balancing, issues that could probably have been avoided if someone had sat down and done the theme-to-gameplay-execution right.

Also she was not included in the marksmen changes btw... kind of weird considering that she was sometimes one of the most picked champions in that role.

But before I can get started we need to figure out just WHO this Vayne person is - and for that we have to dig into the lore as her gameplay just gives of zero personality apart from "that specific marksman character". Just look it up, I'm not going to repeat it here.

Lore Tl,dr: she's Batman. Rich family? Check. Parents dead? Check. Parents were killed by "evil"? Check. Swore to take revenge against the "evil"? Check. Has no super powers? Check. Dark and gritty personality? Check. Utilitiy belt with Bat-Shark-repellant? Uhhh... I don't think we need that... Bat-Helicpoter with Bat-stepladder? Uhm... let's just stop here ok? Some things should remain in the 60s...

But as we all know, Batman is awesome. I think that's what we can all agree on. And Vayne is... not. Theoretically she should be on the same level of awesomeness - heck, she even has a stylish cape and runs around at night while being dark and gritty. But there is one key difference: Batman is a material artist that can kick some serious ass. Vayne is that too, but in the game that just does not show. Tumble is a good step in the right direction, but sadly not enough.

Right now her kit ingame is just too straightforward on basic attacking - don't get me wrong, as a markswoman she's kind of supposed to do that, but as it is done right now... There is only one thing in her kit that is not for basic attacking and that is her E. Now compare that to other carries who have to make smart use of the different tools they have. Compared to that she just feels kind of... bland. Boring. Unimaginative - and that with a character that is the Batman of Demacia!

I think the main question is: How can we make Vayne kick some serious butt ingame as a ranged character? And at the same time: how can we give her kit more depth and make it more engaging and unique for her personality?

Maybe if we go small steps we can find a solution to the problem:

First of all, move silver bolts to where it belongs: the passive slot. I'm not sure if this champion even really needs the free stats from nighthunter - ingame a constant movement buff just doesn't really feel impactful (although it surely is, no debate on that). Maybe give her bonus speed in some condition to an active ability so it feels like a tool you actually use, and not something that is "just there".

The Tumble: As I said before this is what I like most about her kit and this is also what the rest of the kit should build up upon. Later in the thread I will say that her current ultimate will have to go, so I put the stealth right on this spell, scaling with level: 0/0,5/1/1,5/2 (numbers not final, maybe even 0/0/1/1/1,5 just see what works better with balance).

Now we have a new free slot on the W. Now, what to put in here? It should be something that should synergize with her Q obviously. My idea, to get back on the "serious butt kicking" I was talking about before, was the following: "Vayne's next basic attack is melee and deals increased damage, deals even more damage when the enemy is hit from behind. Also gains movement speed towards enemies when activating this ability"

This gives Vayne players some decision room: Do I use my tumble defensively? Or do I try to roll in for some sweet damage? It encourages risky playing and so automatically adds counterplay, as this can go terribly wrong if you judge the situation incorrectly.

The E: Also a rather iconic ability, but could use some more "OMPFH!" if you'd ask me. You shoot something so massive it can knock a grown man several meters back? That's nothing you just pull from your pocket and shoot from the waist (the recoil would probably screw you up.). Better would be a short channel skillshot like a Jinx W - and since it's now not point&click anymore you could put some more power into the move (Such as: more damage the closer the enemy is when you shoot it). Also as a possible neat addition: the channel time is reduced when using it right after tumble or the new W.

And now, the ultimate. With now three damaging basic abilites AND a damaging passive I doubt she needs any more damage in the kit - that's what the current problem is right now. Instead, how about some utility? Hard cc is out of the question as that is already on her E - so let's do the most reasonable thing and ask ourselves a simple question: "What would Batman do?".

Ok, my first idea for that would be "run them over with the batmobile". But while I think that Vayne has some nice ride (a demacian aristocratic horse carriage probably) I doubt that is something you can bring into the game easily. After doing some more thinking another idea came up: a smoke bomb. Not just something as small as the Graves W, but the bigger and meaner version of it.

Something among the lines of "Vayne throws a smoke bomb somewhere close to her that explodes after a short delay. Enemies inside the smoke have their vision reduced. Enemies that enter the smoke area after the detonation also have their vison reduced, but not as drastically as those hit by the initial blast. Inside the smoke Vayne has bonus movement speed."

"Why the delay?" you surely ask yourselves now? Well, for one part I wanted to make it feel different from that ability Graves has, for the other I want enemies to have that feeling of "OH FU-" in that second before the bomb goes off.

Oh and also another thing that came to my mind: now that Vayne has three active damage abilities Silver bolts should work like this:

  • % max health PHYSICAL damage when triggered with normal basic attacks
  • % max health true damage when triggered by an ability.

Just a change to rise the skillcap a little and maybe end the whining about the "OP TRUE DAMAGE" on the boards ^^

I'm not saying that my idea of how her kit could work is the best - but I have seen not a single other idea on the boards apart from "MUH OP GUT HER!", which is not really helpful... I'll be glad to get some feedback so I can modify this kit properly.

Also, if there are any Vayne mains here that are not toxic tryhards (with tryhard meaning "if I can't 1vs5 my team is worthless garbage and so I flame it") I'd be happy to get some input ^^

12 Comments

Tavish4 votes

Some things I like about this, others I do not. putting the stealth on Q seems a bit much, and not a fan of your idea for W. R/E sounds good though and I like the reasoning behind the kit. +1

Bonipherus1 votes

Yeah don't want her to become Quinn who's kit makes her go melee range. I agree with the identity update because she's kind of like white female blade with a crossbow... Arm... Thing.

On a personal preference note I'd really like it if they borrowed from the Monster Hunter franchise to update her look and possibly some of her kit.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Well, to be honest, Quinn does not really go into "melee range". She jumps from range, kicks your face in and is back on range within less than a second.

Vayne with this kit would have to come close, then kick your teeth in and THEN find a way to bring some distance between herself and the enemy (preferably using her E on point blank range). This is an entirely different pattern from how Quinn operates.

As someone who has never played Monster Hunter... could you please explain me what exactly they should borrow?

Bonipherus1 votes

To be honest going into melee range counts as going into melee range. Doesn't matter if she automatically hops back out or not cuz you're putting yourself in danger and will be cc'd.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

The difference is that "being melee" for Quinn is only a temporary state from less than a second - a rather short tiem window to apply hard cc don't you think?

Now compare that to actually coming close and STAYING close. The difference should be obvious.

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

That was a major concern too for me, but then again I had no idea how to put on the mini-stealth, also something that pretty much defines her currently, in her kit without tagging it on her Q. Sure, if it is that problematic one can debate if removing it wouldn't be better of course.

I thought about putting it into the ult, but enemies inside the smoke already have reduced vision, it just doesn't make any sense there.

As for the W... Vayne is usually defined as a "low range adc", mostly because she has the smallest range of influence in the class (not saying attack range here). I thought that shifting the focus to "close combat" might be a way to make her more unique in her gameplay pattern as well as a way to build a certain degree of weakness into the kit that does not feel like a restriction - after all getting close and personal with an enemy champ can be dangerous if you are a marksman...

Skelenth2 votes

This could actually make me like Vayne. Great job

SaltyToplaneGoat1 votes

Glad you like it [slayer-jinx-wink]

yarana1 votes

This is really well thought out. i agree that Vayne's abilities are rather boring and your idea of the tumble being able to be used both offensively and defensively sounds very promising.

Singing Lark1 votes

Warning: Long post.

The new W feels weird and counter-intuitive mostly due to the fact that as an ADC you shouldn't ever be in melee range of another champion since your main advantage over other champions is your ranged auto-attack. Also her new ult sounds pretty damn OP for teamfights. It would probably give the team that she's on a pretty huge edge over the other team. I think Vayne's kit is pretty interactive as is. If auto-ing and kiting is uninteractive then ADC is probably not the role for you.

I think Vayne's main issue is that she has mobility, self-peel, invisibility and %max health true damage all in one kit meaning she has the potential to outplay anyone. For what she has in her kit, she lacks ranged poke and waveclear. The problem is that it's a lot harder to exploit those weaknesses on Vayne due to the nature of her kit. (Mobility to dodge poke. Waveclear isn't really solved, but Shiv helps a lot.) Killing a Vayne twice in lane means a lot less than killing any other ADC in lane twice simply due to the fact that %max health true damage just doesn't fall off. A Vayne technically never falls off. As long as the rest of her team is doing ok or peeling for her, she can still dish out stupid amounts of damage even when behind, which is why people get so frustrated playing against her.

And that's just the nature of her silver bolts. Really the frustration just comes out of the fact that true damage can't be set behind.

As someone who's been recently playing a bit of Vayne just to see how the champion feels (been doing pretty bad tbh, lol) I think here are some of my thoughts on her atm:

  1. She needs to be punished more for being behind. Yes Vayne has a crappy early game. It's hard not to give up 1 or 2 kills in lane. Maybe you'll trade kills. Maybe you'll just farm under turret the whole game. It's no doubt though that having only 525 range and being reliant heavily on attack speed to be tough in lane. (Also depends on the support.) However getting killed twice in lane as Vayne is a lot less meaningful than probably all other ADCs and that's not how it should be. As a lategame hypercarry, the main source of counterplay is to prevent lategame from happening. And because of true damage, it takes twice of much effort to keep the Vayne at bay. If the Vayne is smart, she'll play safe (or at least try to) and farm it out.

  2. Vayne is supposed to be "bad in teamfights" due to her extreme single target nature and lack of any AoE whatsoever. But it's hard to catch her with her mobility and ult invis, so she's actually not that bad in teamfights. As long as Vayne focuses 1 target and keep procing her silver bolts, she's just as strong as other ADCs in teamfights.

Ways to fix this:

  1. Her silver bolts need to change. Whether it's %current health, flat true damage, %haalth physical, the skill needs to change. I actually think your idea is pretty cool, though it'll definitely be a huge nerf to her damage. Another idea I had was to change it so that her bolts scaled off of bonus AD and decrease the amount of scaling per point in the bolts (something like +1% per 100 ad or something for 5/6/7/8. IDK what the acutal numbers would be, but you get what I mean.).

  2. Give her silver bolts a cooldown if she switches targets. Just like how Kalista rend works, if she kills a unit/champion she can keep using her silver bolts, but if she switches targets the bolts goes on cooldown (now here is where I'm not sure where to go. Should the actual skill go on cooldown, or should it just be on cooldown for that particular target, like Ekko passive? Not quite sure.). I think it'll definitely force Vayne to think twice about who to auto. Not a perfect solution (I can already think of things that could be an issue with this change) but a step forward.

tl;dr - Vayne's silver bolts need to change to something other than %max health true damage every 3 autos. If that changes honestly she will be a lot less frustrating to play against.

And that's just my 2 cents on Vayne as a recent player of Vayne. By no means a main, so feel free to take my arguments with a grain of salt.

Ormylar1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Livia the Rose,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QNAQE4dE,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-12-07T05:37:51.788+0000)

Warning: Long post.

The new W feels weird and counter-intuitive mostly due to the fact that as an ADC you shouldn't ever be in melee range of another champion since your main advantage over other champions is your ranged auto-attack. Also her new ult sounds pretty damn OP for teamfights. It would probably give the team that she's on a pretty huge edge over the other team. I think Vayne's kit is pretty interactive as is. If auto-ing and kiting is uninteractive then ADC is probably not the role for you.

I think Vayne's main issue is that she has mobility, self-peel, invisibility and %max health true damage all in one kit meaning she has the potential to outplay anyone. For what she has in her kit, she lacks ranged poke and waveclear. The problem is that it's a lot harder to exploit those weaknesses on Vayne due to the nature of her kit. (Mobility to dodge poke. Waveclear isn't really solved, but Shiv helps a lot.) Killing a Vayne twice in lane means a lot less than killing any other ADC in lane twice simply due to the fact that %max health true damage just doesn't fall off. A Vayne technically never falls off. As long as the rest of her team is doing ok or peeling for her, she can still dish out stupid amounts of damage even when behind, which is why people get so frustrated playing against her.

And that's just the nature of her silver bolts. Really the frustration just comes out of the fact that true damage can't be set behind.

As someone who's been recently playing a bit of Vayne just to see how the champion feels (been doing pretty bad tbh, lol) I think here are some of my thoughts on her atm:

  1. She needs to be punished more for being behind. Yes Vayne has a crappy early game. It's hard not to give up 1 or 2 kills in lane. Maybe you'll trade kills. Maybe you'll just farm under turret the whole game. It's no doubt though that having only 525 range and being reliant heavily on attack speed to be tough in lane. (Also depends on the support.) However getting killed twice in lane as Vayne is a lot less meaningful than probably all other ADCs and that's not how it should be. As a lategame hypercarry, the main source of counterplay is to prevent lategame from happening. And because of true damage, it takes twice of much effort to keep the Vayne at bay. If the Vayne is smart, she'll play safe (or at least try to) and farm it out.

  2. Vayne is supposed to be "bad in teamfights" due to her extreme single target nature and lack of any AoE whatsoever. But it's hard to catch her with her mobility and ult invis, so she's actually not that bad in teamfights. As long as Vayne focuses 1 target and keep procing her silver bolts, she's just as strong as other ADCs in teamfights.

Ways to fix this:

  1. Her silver bolts need to change. Whether it's %current health, flat true damage, %haalth physical, the skill needs to change. I actually think your idea is pretty cool, though it'll definitely be a huge nerf to her damage. Another idea I had was to change it so that her bolts scaled off of bonus AD and decrease the amount of scaling per point in the bolts (something like +1% per 100 ad or something for 5/6/7/8. IDK what the acutal numbers would be, but you get what I mean.).

  2. Give her silver bolts a cooldown if she switches targets. Just like how Kalista rend works, if she kills a unit/champion she can keep using her silver bolts, but if she switches targets the bolts goes on cooldown (now here is where I'm not sure where to go. Should the actual skill go on cooldown, or should it just be on cooldown for that particular target, like Ekko passive? Not quite sure.). I think it'll definitely force Vayne to think twice about who to auto. Not a perfect solution (I can already think of things that could be an issue with this change) but a step forward.

tl;dr - Vayne's silver bolts need to change to something other than %max health true damage every 3 autos. If that changes honestly she will be a lot less frustrating to play against.

And that's just my 2 cents on Vayne as a recent player of Vayne. By no means a main, so feel free to take my arguments with a grain of salt.

I agree that her W is pretty oppressive and there is not much counter to it. In fact, the only way to counter it right now is get to attack speed reduction or hard CC her. However, considering a few patches ago with the juggernaut/tank meta, I personally feel that it's necessary to have her W scale off max health since they are so tanky and have a lot of health (I'm looking at you Garen).

The one main exploit to her in my opinion is actually her stealth when she ults. Her stealth is her strength and her weakness since she relies on it so much during teamfights and dueling. Before the preseason, one can easily upgrade yellow trinket to pink ward trinket and just drop it on the ground. It makes her very passive (or she dies a lot easier if she doesn't realize). However, since preseason started, the pink ward removal from trinket was a buff for her since we now have to have 1 player dedicated to keeping one item slot open for pink wards if the enemy Vayne is too obnoxious to deal with.

Mind you, in patch 5.22, they change her W so it only scales off max hp now and doesn't have the flat damage included which I believe is a good change. She's still a tank buster but squishies aren't punished as much. Blade of the Ruined King got nerfed and crit got hella buffed (Viva la League of Crit!) and we now have Lord Dominick's Regard for dealing with high health champions. Main problem with that is that the popular high health champions also have a lot of health regen/self healing (Mundo, Swain, Vladimir) that I would rather get Mortal Reminder instead. Since Bork is weaker, this gives me more incentive to play Vayne so that at least I have a way to deal with the immortal tanks.

Count Buffon1 votes

I had some thoughts about what she would actually look like as an assassin, mostly with some cooldown and damage shuffling to make perma-Tumble a non-thing (except maybe during Final Hour), and by making Silver Bolts require a Q or E to activate (which are both substantial cooldowns in this scheme).

By tying her TONS OF DAMAGE to long-cooldown skills she would otherwise use just to be untargetable 4dayz, she would actually have to make decisions and there would be some room for damage increases and counterplay. Her base AS would probably have to go down a little, and Silver Bolts would need to do more damage:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/b2HrT7H3-vayne-rework-ideas

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