Can we talk about Vayne

There's a bunch of hate on Vayne about her kit on the boards, but reality is Vayne hasn't been meta for a while and she usually never is with the exception of Patch 8.1. At the time, she was only meta due to failure of numbers during the Rune Rework - Runes Reforged. She coasted through the laning phase far too easily and did more damage than ADCs due to all to them being nerfed via the runes or from past patches in season 7.

Her issue was quickly fixed and she was hit hard.

I do have bias for Vayne as a Vayne main and hitting to Gold by one-tricking her has been a fun experience, but the reality is she is not going to be viable patch 8.11. We can wait and see, but Vayne is going to suffer immensely from the lack of lane presence.

Ironically, Vayne who should be a late-game queen, is actually in 5th place in winrate and has been more of a mid-game champion right now. She cannot assassinate squishies late as well as other ADCs anymore and her short range now disables her from properly targeting enemies in teamfights due to the large threat of CC which means instant death. In addition to the amount of shields given to teams, Vayne suffers to fulfill her niche of being a late-game assassin/tank buster because she can dish out as much DPS as other ADCs without compromising her position as much. She is not fulfilling her late-game fantasy.

She spikes mid-game at 2nd with Twitch at first who also falls off late-game now. (Yes, their winrates drop).

Patch 8.11 introduces a rougher laning phase which Vayne severely suffers right now due to assassins being meta and conqueror dealing true damage. To some, this may seem miniscule but the conqueror change really changed the gameplay for Vayne. Considering Vayne has to be in range of all melee champions to deal damage unlike other ADCs who can extend their range with their abilities, it's not hard to flash+stun and burst her through peel. Her ability to duel champions diminishes a lot since the amount of HP that would have been conserved is now easily gone with a simple flash. Her niche to duel enemies is no longer there due to the amount of damage in the game.

Next patch introduces lethality ADCs which Vayne will also be weaker against. Caitlyn, her biggest counter, can also still go lethality but her viability will diminish since her kit is crit-reliant. Despite ADCs gaining true damage, Vayne lacks the means necessary to be a successful threat to the backline or frontline as her DPS is not on par with her lack of safety.

"Buffing Vayne" is always a fear but with Fleet Footwork nerfs (which is the primary reason why she was so viable in Patch 8.1 and remained viable after the nerfs) coming in once more, ignite buffs, lethality+total armor pen coming back, and a rougher laning experience - I believe Vayne could use a love tap. At this point, Caitlyn is a better late-game champion than her and that's not supposed to be Caitlyn's strength against Vayne.

Now that crit is also being nerfed against squishies, Vayne's actual threat late-game is now going to be gone.

I think her late-game fantasy can be fixed by increasing her attack speed growth or making it parabolic or increasing her W by 2%.

BTW - Vayne is slippery enough to get through teamfights but can't pump out the DPS to shred/threaten the frontline without the team getting eliminated even faster.

(And before anyone says Hail of Blades is OP on Vayne - it's horrible on her. She loses DPS for the rest of the teamfight)