I actually want Vayne to be nerfed, but...

YumaS2Astral·Sep 28, 2015·74 votes·25,421 views

...I am getting tired of the boards being spammed with "Nerf Vayne" threads.

I mean, is she so stupidly OP, Pre-Rework Kassadin/v4.20 Warwick/pre-hotfix Skarner level of brokeness? If she was that powerful she would already been hotfixed a long time ago, you don't need to create numerous "Nerf Vayne" threads, this is getting extremely boring because I actually want to see discussions of other champions that need to be discussed. For example, I always go to the boards expecting a thread about Kha'Zix changes, as he desperately need them, and then I get disappointed as I run into "Nerf Vayne" threads.

Does she needs nerfs? On my opinion yes. She gets her powerspike too early and it is impossible to out-trade her currently.

Does that mean Riot doesn't already acknowledge that? No. They are probably waiting for the Marksman update before doing any changes to her.

Does that mean you should spam the boards with "Nerf Vayne" threads? Hell, no!

131 Comments

RiotMeddlerSep 29, 201542 votes

We're currently testing a small reduction to Vayne's starting AD, our belief being that Vayne's currently got too strong a lane for how powerful her late game is (with the strong late game a defining feature of hers and a strong lane not intended). That nerf's deliberately being kept small given the changes to a number of marksmen and marksmen items in the coming preseason and the belief that we're currently seeing a solo queue meta that's very favorable to Vayne (lot of tanky dudes to fight). Post preseason disruption we'll then assess both Vayne and marksmen in general, see where changes are or aren't needed.

TehNACHOSep 29, 20155 votes

When you guys are doing that assessment, could you guys also specifically look at all the flat numbers in her kit, specifically the flat true damage on her W and the rather large AD Steroid on her ultimate?

I have no qualms with Vayne being penultimate single target tank killer, but I do find it odd that she has a lot of flat numbers that are good for killing squishies as well.

FiveofswordsSep 29, 20155 votes

i have qualms with vayne being the best tank killer i feel that this realyl should be kogmaw

YumaS2AstralSep 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

i have qualms with vayne being the best tank killer i feel that this realyl should be kogmaw

In terms of mobility she is the best tank killer but I wouldn't say that she is overall the best tank killer.

That title goes better to Kog'Maw. He has higher range, hybridized damage and his W can actually potentially outdamage Vayne's Silver Bolts.

Also, there are a number of other tank busters here, each with different features and functions, for example: Malzahar is a good mage that has decent teamfighting potential and is really good for peeling. Trundle is very tanky himself and has decent crowd control. MasterYi is a very mobile skirmisher. Fizz is an assassin. There are some others too.

dawkinstationSep 29, 20152 votes

Kog'Maw actually gets wrecked by Vayne late game in a 1v1. He only kills her cause of his passive. The numbers are annoying to calculate but with the same rough build they have similar levels of damage but Vayne should have merc scimitar or qss and that will give resistance to kog'maw's W damage, making Vayne's W rip through him

TransgressorSep 29, 20155 votes

Koggy doesn't build the same as Vayne. Koggy is not supposed to 1v1 any ADC. Don't compare different things plesae.

Kitten of EvilSep 29, 20154 votes

Koggy shouldn't be 1v1ing anyone, really. He should have teammates around him to protect and peel for him. Also he should be played more, he's easily the cutest voidspawn.

TransgressorSep 29, 20152 votes

Even cuter in his battlecast skin. Yeah, his hypercarry AoE potential are off the charts. The problem is, there are almost no players out there willing to help, or learn, how to make koggy relevant in a teamfight. So, you're stuck after what's mostly a bad laning phase(he's on a bad spot I think personally), and since you have no self peel, you don't get to do much in teamfights. That, and the fact that his damage takes gold, items and cs to scale, makes Koggy hard to make shine.

Dare I say, he's as item dependant as Jax? Dare I say, he's a ranged Jax?

Champion SkinSep 29, 20152 votes

I don't really think of Malzahar as a tank killer... I think of him more like... if he has his ult anyone who gets close to him without a friend or QSS is dead

HorrowSep 29, 20151 votes

{quoted}

In terms of mobility she is the best tank killer but I wouldn't say that she is overall the best tank killer.

That title goes better to Kog'Maw. He has higher range,** hybridized damage and his W can actually potentially outdamage Vayne's Silver Bolts. **

See, this is where I have to disagree with you. Vayne is hybridized damage herself. But unlike Koggles who is Physical and Magical, Vayne gets the arguably better Physical and true damage hybridization. How does this become even better? Her true damage is based on the targets maximum health. Meaning that building to counter it just causes it to hit even harder.

If Koggles built to make his W hit harder, all the tank has to do is stack up magic resist. What can a tank do to save themselves from Vayne's silver bolt? They have to kamikaze her and die killing her or have one of their carries snipe her off.

I would love Koggles to be the tank killer, but that isn't him. He's the immobile artillery. Akin to a howitzer.

DokiDokiTodorokiSep 29, 20152 votes

Kogmaw also has dramatically higher range. They both also deal percentage of max health, but Kog's q also allows him to lower the resistances of his target, something that Vayne cannot do. You counter percent max health damage by building more resistances than health. This goes for both champions. Kog is a tank killer, much safer but much more vulnerable than Vayne. He also deals hybrid damage vs ad/true damage. It's harder to itemize against the entirety of his kit because it requires both resistances, but Vayne's is unavoidable if you can get 3rd procs without dying from 550 range.

HorrowSep 29, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Squishy BunBun,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Z2cXn12Q,comment-id=000e00000000000000020000,timestamp=2015-09-29T18:09:19.055+0000)

Kogmaw also has dramatically higher range. They both also deal percentage of max health, but Kog's q also allows him to lower the resistances of his target, something that Vayne cannot do. You counter percent max health damage by building more resistances than health. This goes for both champions. Kog is a tank killer, much safer but much more vulnerable than Vayne. He also deals hybrid damage vs ad/true damage. It's harder to itemize against the entirety of his kit because it requires both resistances, but Vayne's is unavoidable if you can get 3rd procs without dying from 550 range.

I don't get what you're trying to say. What you just said doesn't change the fact that Vayne is a better tank-buster than Kog is.

Lowering resistances? Vayne doesn't need that, LOL. You do understand what TRUE damage is right? Its damage that BYPASSES Armor AND Magic Resist. What counters true damage? Health does. But guess what? Vayne's true damage is a % of the target's MAXIMUM health. So the more health they build, the harder it hits.

Also...what do you mean by " He deals hybrid damage vs AD/true damage"? What? Do you understand what you're saying? Because it looks like you don't. AD/True damage is still hybrid damage. Its hard to itemize against Vayne because you need two resistances as well. Instead of Armor and Magic resist, you need Armor and Health, but vayne punishes you for building health.

DokiDokiTodorokiSep 29, 20152 votes

Yes I realize what true damage is. I also realize that Vayne ONLY gets it every third auto, meaning that the rest of her damage is still lowered by resistances. Incidentally, Vayne is also one of the few adcs who builds mostly attack speed, which means that her normal autos do even less damage. In a sustained fight, her silver bolts start to pay off, but especially when it comes to poking tanks out, Kogmaw does it significantly better.

Again, items like frozen heart make it incredibly difficult for Vayne because it slows down her procs AND has resistances against her normal damage. That same item vs a Kogmaw isn't nearly as effective, because of his hybrid damage that doesn't need a certain amount of autos to proc. If you're counting health as a resistance, then for Kogmaw you need 3, AND he's a much safer ADC than Vayne because of superior range. He deals more damage in a shorter time because he doesn't have to wait for procs.

Chromatic EagleSep 29, 20152 votes

Why can't they both be this but with different strengths?

RiotMeddlerSep 29, 201513 votes

Our belief is that there's room in the tank killer space for both Vayne and Kog, since they offer pretty different takes on it. While both are really effective against high health targets, and have at least some capacity to shred or ignore mitigation, they're pretty different otherwise. Kog's got a decent amount of poke, even with an AD build, has much greater average attack range come late game and offers some team utility (shred, slow, vision). He needs to be protected pretty carefully though, getting a lot of value from speed boosts and peel in particular, so places demands on his team's comp. Vayne by contrast's got high sustained mobility and functions well independently (she's got a number of duelist traits). She brings very little team utility however, and lacks both AOE and ability to affect enemies outside of her auto attack range.

Whether or not the two are are appropriately balanced, relative to each other and other marksmen, gets a lot of debate, we're pretty confident there's enough room within the space of 'tank killing marksmen' for both Kog and Vayne though.

IMayBackstabSep 29, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Our belief is that there's room in the tank killer space for both Vayne and Kog, since they offer pretty different takes on it. While both are really effective against high health targets, and have at least some capacity to shred or ignore mitigation, they're pretty different otherwise. Kog's got a decent amount of poke, even with an AD build, has much greater average attack range come late game and offers some team utility (shred, slow, vision). He needs to be protected pretty carefully though, getting a lot of value from speed boosts and peel in particular, so places demands on his team's comp. Vayne by contrast's got high sustained mobility and functions well independently (she's got a number of duelist traits). She brings very little team utility however, and lacks both AOE and ability to affect enemies outside of her auto attack range.

Whether or not the two are are appropriately balanced, relative to each other and other marksmen, gets a lot of debate, we're pretty confident there's enough room within the space of 'tank killing marksmen' for both Kog and Vayne though.

I think what makes and has made vayne much stronger in 1v1 situations vs other adc's in the game (bar draven) is her itemization. Almost every adc is forced to build IE, phantom/shyv because that's the quickest road to the highest dps most of the time and vayne outdamages them with botrk + phantom/shyv due to her true damage steroid (while also having a decent amount of lifesteal mixed into her strengths)

This is only around 32 bonus ad including BOTRK and doran's blade built by her and she's getting the max benefit of her silver bolts at a very early stage of the game.

I think a possible way to fix and delay her power spike is to add an AD ratio to the silver bolts % max health while also lowering the base damage (both the flat and the % max health). My reasoning for this is so that late game, once she has IE, BOTRK, LW etc, she will put out around similar numbers in regards to % max health on silver bolts and not have quite such a strong power spike once she gets her BOTRK.

I probably didnt'edit my post enough but lemme know what you guys think. I'm sorry if I'm rambling like an idiot.

SwordGruntSep 29, 20155 votes

{quoted}

We're currently testing a small reduction to Vayne's starting AD, our belief being that Vayne's currently got too strong a lane for how powerful her late game is (with the strong late game a defining feature of hers and a strong lane not intended). That nerf's deliberately being kept small given the changes to a number of marksmen and marksmen items in the coming preseason and the belief that we're currently seeing a solo queue meta that's very favorable to Vayne (lot of tanky dudes to fight). Post preseason disruption we'll then assess both Vayne and marksmen in general, see where changes are or aren't needed.

Actually this is a surprisingly good way to reduce Vayne's early game. She has the 2nd highest level 1 AD of all Marksmen, after Graves, despite having the 30% AD bonus damage on tumble-empowered auto-attacks which are spammable in lane, and also a huge AD steroid at level 6. There's no reason for her base AD to be the 2nd highest of ADCs.

StephenizgodSep 29, 20152 votes

My issue with nerfing Vayne (and i do want her nerfed) is that you weaken her laning so much she can no longer win as easily when outplayed. Then she falls behind and the enemy Marksmen is getting fed. Now there is a fed Marksmen and Vayne is giving up because "f*ck Rito balance gg". Of course this is an extreme example (maybe...) but i do see this as a serious issue.

The reason i have issue with this is if that Vayne player is smart they will be able to come back and come back hard, but a bad Vayne player (and there are a lot of them) will give up and automatically assume the game is over. Then the boards will be spammed with "Buff Vayne" (and probably GG Riot, Fire Balance Team, etc...) and then she will get buffed again. Which will make it meaningless to have nerfed her in the first place. I know champions are generally buffed or nerfed based on how they are played at higher levels of play but still i think it could end up being an issue for her balance. The opposite would be this nerf doesn't do anything to her laning phase or she can go even with any ADC. This is still a problem because in first one she is still overbearing and in the second one the enemy is struggling meanwhile Vayne hits her spike and its no longer even.

I would suggest, if possible, to look for a solution that doesn't just straight weaken her laning phase but makes it more difficult to perform at the same levels she is performing at currently. Probably easier said then done, but all those "nerf Vayne" fanatics need to realize they will have Vayne's on their team. You do not want a crappy weak Vayne on your team who is then going to quit because she was "nerfed too hard".

Champion SkinSep 29, 20153 votes

Yeah because the boards are flooded with "buff azir" threads by all of the people failing at Azir and giving him such a abysmall win rate

When one champion is knocked down most people just jump ship to the next FotM

ABlueQuakerSep 29, 201521 votes

Or...

Make her a 500 Range ADC like actual informed players have been asking for the last 3 patches.

With all the mobility and self-peel she has in the mid-to-late game, having reduced Range would barely touch her overall power outside of laning.

THE RlVER KlNGSep 29, 20159 votes

I've always found it strange that Twitch, the ADC with the larger and much more mechanically complex crossbow, has much less range than Vayne's little wrist one.

QuortSep 29, 20155 votes

I always felt like Quinn had the best crossbow. Demacian Standard!

EndlessSorcererSep 29, 20158 votes

Twitch and Vayne both have an autoattack range of 550.

If anything, Twitch's gives more range since his ultimate extends his autoattack range and makes the bolts pierce targets.

THE RlVER KlNGSep 30, 20152 votes

Oh, my bad then, I totally though she was 600. My apologies! XD

YourSh4dowSep 29, 20152 votes

maybe give her the extra range only during ult?? since she equips larger crossbow → bigger range.

Silents429Sep 29, 20153 votes

What informed players lol?

500 range for a champion that already has jackshit for range is going to gut her.

SlashStrikerSep 29, 20155 votes

{quoted}

We're currently testing a small reduction to Vayne's starting AD, our belief being that Vayne's currently got too strong a lane for how powerful her late game is (with the strong late game a defining feature of hers and a strong lane not intended). That nerf's deliberately being kept small given the changes to a number of marksmen and marksmen items in the coming preseason and the belief that we're currently seeing a solo queue meta that's very favorable to Vayne (lot of tanky dudes to fight). Post preseason disruption we'll then assess both Vayne and marksmen in general, see where changes are or aren't needed.

kappa nerf :D

i think vayne problem is that she deals TRUE DAMAGE based on target MAX HEALTH

AbyssphereSep 29, 20154 votes

{quoted}

kappa nerf :D

i think vayne problem is that she deals TRUE DAMAGE based on target MAX HEALTH

She's been in the game for years with % HP true damage and has only been considered a problem for the last few months. The mechanic is not impossible to balance.

KoldheartedjspSep 29, 20154 votes

how much ad are we talking...

it sounds like this will barely accomplish much of anything

Remlap1223Sep 29, 20152 votes

Did you not just hear that they're doing a huge retooling of marksmen preseason?

I know boards have a major hardon for seeing Vayne become completely unplayable, but it's not Riot's intention for her to become completely useless next season just because she's really strong right now.

CoolKnightSTSep 29, 20153 votes

Well she has the highest lategame attackspeed in the entire game.

XxxLumberJackxxXSep 29, 20153 votes

{quoted}

We're currently testing a small reduction to Vayne's starting AD, our belief being that Vayne's currently got too strong a lane for how powerful her late game is (with the strong late game a defining feature of hers and a strong lane not intended). That nerf's deliberately being kept small given the changes to a number of marksmen and marksmen items in the coming preseason and the belief that we're currently seeing a solo queue meta that's very favorable to Vayne (lot of tanky dudes to fight). Post preseason disruption we'll then assess both Vayne and marksmen in general, see where changes are or aren't needed.

You realize that assassins are also good metas forv ayne? She's a dueler...

DokiDokiTodorokiSep 29, 20152 votes

She's a good dueler vs adcs, but against assassins she can usually be blown up before she gets into range. Late game, unless your position sucks, the likes of Jinx and Caitlyn get to poke out an assassin before they approach, but Vayne is forced by her 550 range to wait for them to come and hope she lands a condemn.

Goldenwolf14Sep 30, 20153 votes

I just saw what you guys are doing to her on the PBE all I can say is, why buff her late game at all by increasing her AD growth stat when she already has a great late game and you are only knocking off 3 base AD from her kit? I mean come on she does not need any kind of compensation for taking off 3 AD especially when Kayle had 5 AD taken off not to long ago and did not receive any kind of compensation for it because she did not need it, just take that 3 AD from Vayne and see what that does. Do not start giving her late game compensation for 3 AD that just seems illogical.

EndlessSorcererSep 28, 201541 votes

Even if she is deserving of nerfs, most of the spammed threads just try to outright gut her by targetting her self-peel or Silver Bolts when there are so many other areas which could be altered. Some possibilities are:

Lower base attack speed
Lower attack speed per level
Lower base damage on E
E doesn't reapply damage if the target hits terrain
E doesn't apply a stack of Silver Bolts
Higher cooldown on her ultimate
Lower base AD
Lower AD per level
Lower bonus AD on her ultimate (reduce by 5/10/15 at ranks 1/2/3) by reverting a previous buff.

Instead, a lot of people suggest removing her ability to duel champions, her percent health true damage, her passive movement speed, or her stealth. They are all core components of Vayne's identity; there are plenty of other areas which may be targeted to reduce her strength.

BoulderoxSep 28, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Even if she is deserving of nerfs, most of the spammed threads just try to outright gut her by targetting her self-peel or Silver Bolts when there are so many other areas which could be altered. Some possibilities are:

Lower base attack speed

Lower attack speed per level

Lower base damage on E

E doesn't reapply damage if the target hits terrain

E doesn't apply a stack of Silver Bolts

Higher cooldown on her ultimate

Lower base AD

Lower AD per level

Lower bonus AD on her ultimate (reduce by 5/10/15 at ranks 1/2/3) by reverting a previous buff.

Instead, a lot of people suggest removing her ability to duel champions, her percent health true damage, her passive movement speed, or her stealth. They are all core components of Vayne's identity; there are plenty of other areas which may be targeted to reduce her strength.

to be fair, her q needs to NOT be on a 2 second cooldown @ max rank, which is maxed @ lvl 13ish, and that is not counting cdr.... i mean c'mon people.... and her passive needs to not triple on ult, double would do the justice just fine, her ult is one of those steroids that give her a little too much for an adc. Her silver bolts are annoying but her ability to cloak every 4 seconds and chase you down to the slow and inevitable death is crap.

I do think her attack speed needs a hit, that would hurt her w without gutting the damage it still could do, i would even say hit it as much as to make item 3142 a core item on her, short burst for fights. because she sits at +4% AS per level, where sivir is at +1.6, and the average is around 2.7-3% per level up for adc champs, having Caitlyn and Vayne as the BEST AS per level gain, with twitch in third with 3.38, which is a reasonably large gap of .64 AS.

JustMyBassCannonSep 29, 20159 votes

Regarding her true damage, she should definitely keep the %HP part, but they could actually remove the flat damage and increase the percentage to 6/7/8/9/10%, and she'd only start dealing more damage if her target had over 3000 HP. Thus keeping her as a tank buster.

Or they could just remove the flat damage, because she could probably still do pretty well with just 8% every 3 hits (even if it is one of the weakest %HP DPS abilities in the game).

EndlessSorcererSep 29, 20157 votes

Either option would be a reasonable nerf.

I generally just have issues when people suggest changing it to physical damage, magical damage, or percent bonus health. Many of them don't really think the changes through very well.

YumaS2AstralSep 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Either option would be a reasonable nerf.

I generally just have issues when people suggest changing it to physical damage, magical damage, or percent bonus health. Many of them don't really think the changes through very well.

I wouldn't say that it is one of the weakest %HP DPS abilities. It technically deals low damage, but it's TRUE damage... You must take that into consideration because almost every %HP DPS is physical or magical and not all of them are backed by penetration.

EndlessSorcererSep 29, 20153 votes

I never called Silver Bolts a weak %HP damage ability. My main complaint was that some people don't actually understand the ramifications of the changes they suggest.

If you change it to physical or magic damage without adjusting the ratio, then the ability becomes extremely weak.

If you adjust the ratio after changing the damage type, then it will deal more damage to squishy targets (which ADCs don't need help killing) and less to tanky targets (since they have the resistences to reduce it).

Changing it to percent bonus health damage would gut the ability since she wouldn't actually be able to trade during laning phase. Vayne is already outranged by many ADCs with a poke ability (i.e. Buckshot, Piercing Light, Double Up, Mystic Shot, Phosphorous Bomb) and ADCs don't typically build health. The ability wouldn't be relevant until much later in the game and it wouldn't be useful if the enemy team stacked primarily resistances (since they wouldn't have very much bonus health).

Tails DollSep 29, 201510 votes

I would honeslty be happy if riot just nerfed her by 5 ad.

xFrostKnightxSep 29, 20155 votes

I see what you did there..,

Remlap1223Sep 29, 20154 votes

3 AD.

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/09/929-pbe-update.html#more

LordBahamutXVISep 29, 20156 votes

Does everyone forget about the enormous steroid her ult gives her? With cutlass and ult she has 50 ad up on your base, and if you don't have BF you can bend over and lube up.

NegaflameSep 28, 20154 votes

Riot confirmed that she will be looked at. Not to mention she is also a problem in solo Q AND into the pro lcs portion.

The reason why she is so op is that she dosent need to build dmg because of her 3 hit combo. its true dmg and true dmg can only be countered with more health.

Suprize! Irony is that vayne true dmg is a small cap PLUS %health to her target.

True dmg %health offer no counter play except the fack that you need to kill her. killing a champion should not be your only way to counter or play around a champion.

YumaS2AstralSep 28, 20156 votes

{quoted}

Riot confirmed that she will be looked at. Not to mention she is also a problem in solo Q AND into the pro lcs portion.

The reason why she is so op is that she dosent need to build dmg because of her 3 hit combo. its true dmg and true dmg can only be countered with more health.

Suprize! Irony is that vayne true dmg is a small cap PLUS %health to her target.

True dmg %health offer no counter play except the fack that you need to kill her. killing a champion should not be your only way to counter or play around a champion.

She needs to build damage. She just doesn't need to build damage that early, unlike other ADCs she can just build Blade of the Ruined King and rely on her ult to be her main source of AD until she finishes a Phantom Dancer.

But sooner or latter, she will need to start building big AD items like Infinity Edge or Bloodthisther. Otherwise her damage will not actually be that big late. I say that because once I've been against a Vayne top that, after building Blade of the Ruined King and Frozen Mallet, started to build tanky. Starting late game she was dealing very little damage even factoring in the Silver Bolts. The fact that she was building tanky was not a problem since I was using Malzahar and he is a tank buster (btw, she didn't had QSS)

Also, true damage based on a percentage of max health can in fact have counterplay. However, the counterplay isn't based on itemization. The counterplay can be based on other factors, for example, Vayne needs to hit a target three times; this can be countered by reducing Vayne's attack speed. Also, it must be the same target otherwise stacks are removed, this can be countered by going as a group against her and forcing Vayne to constantly switch targets.

WolfBVSep 29, 20154 votes

Well, a reasonable nerf I've seen talked about is removing the flat true damage on her w so it affects tanks more than squishes.

Daedalus871Sep 28, 20152 votes

What changes to Kha'zix would you like to see?

YumaS2AstralSep 29, 20157 votes

{quoted}

What changes to Kha'zix would you like to see?

Allowing the isolation radius to decrease with levels. Currently it is 425 and it could go down to 300 at level 18, or 350 (which is the old isolation radius before it was nerfed to 500).
"At level 11, towers no longer count as allies for the purposes of denying isolation (I suggested this on another thread)"
Evolving Void Spikes now allow the heal to scale with X% of Kha'Zix's AD/bonus AD/mana (either that or double the base heal)
Evolving Void Assault now reduces the cooldown between casts to 1 second, like it used to be before the nerfs.

ScorpionexSep 29, 20152 votes

{quoted}

Allowing the isolation radius to decrease with levels. Currently it is 425 and it could go down to 300 at level 18, or 350 (which is the old isolation radius before it was nerfed to 500).

"At level 11, towers no longer count as allies for the purposes of denying isolation (I suggested this on another thread)"

Evolving Void Spikes now allow the heal to scale with X% of Kha'Zix's AD/bonus AD/mana (either that or double the base heal)

Evolving Void Assault now reduces the cooldown between casts to 1 second, like it used to be before the nerfs.

I would actually be for a steroid on his q like zed's w that adds ad if a target is below a current health...375 for isolation radius would prob due just fine if the tower thing went through...the heal would be way to powerful at that point tho with all the ad he builds and he would then become what he was when there was the what 30% dmg reduction on his r?.... void assault could actually be good with the buff though