[Rework Concept] Vayne, the Monster Hunter

SSmotzer··1 votes·939 views

Passive - Bloodletting: When Vayne takes damage, half of the damage taken is turned into grey health

  • Blood for Blood: Damaging an enemy champion or large/epic, monsters, in melee range, will restore some of Vayne's grey health. When Vayne deals true damage she can heal beyond her grey health.

Q - Condemn: Vayne fires a large bolt in a target direction, dealing physical damage, and knocking back the first enemy in it's path. If they are knocked back into a structure, they are dealt bonus physical damage and are stunned briefly.

  • Feed the Beast: If Vayne is within melee range, she will dash in the target direction instead, and knock back the first enemy unit, traveling with them, and dealing true damage instead. This ability is treated like a melee basic attack.

W - Night Seeker - Toggle: Vayne consumes mana while this ability is active. Vayne targets an enemy champion or large/epic monster, gaining bonus movement speed when moving towards them. While Vayne has them targeted, she will target them over any other unit when given a simple attack command. While this ability is active her other abilities will automatically target them as well.

  • Feed the Beast: Vayne gains double the bonus movement speed. Vayne's melee range basic attack against the target will deal true damage.

E - Creeping Shadows - Passive: Vayne builds stacks of Creeping Shadows, up to 1/2/3/4/5. While Vayne is in combat and she becomes camouflaged or invisible, half the cooldown of this ability is refreshed.

  • Daring Shadows - Active: Vayne consumes all the stacks of Creeping Shadows and dashes in a target direction. The distance of the dash is determined by the amount of stacks consumed.

  • Feed the Beast: Vayne consumes a single stack of Creeping Shadows and performs a short dash, dealing true damage to the nearest enemy unit. This ability is treated as a melee basic attack.

R - Feed the Beast - Passive: Vayne's basic attacks are treated as melee attacks while in melee range of enemy champions, and they deal bonus true damage. Vayne's basic abilities gain bonus effects when casted in melee range of an enemy champion.

  • Unleash the Beast: Vayne gains bonus true damage to all of her damage sources, and all of her damage sources are treated as if they were melee basic attacks, which can crit, regardless of their actual range, or source of the damage. (eg. damage from items like item 3077 item 3068 item 3075 item 3153 are treated like melee basic attacks, and their damage can crit.)

15 Comments

midnight oil244 votes

I'm confused with what you want for Vayne. First you're giving her a lot of abilities that put her, a squishy mid-range champion, into melee range. How does that fit thematically? She uses a crossbow, not a sword or anything. Plus, having to account for both ranged and melee attack types would be a nightmare for the balance team.

Thinking of nightmares for the balance team, Vayne's new kit would be a mess. She's generally supposed to burst people down, but that passive makes her seem like a sustain, which doesn't fit with the rest of her kit. Why does she need to go melee? Especially since that passive is useless until you have your w. Her tons of true damage on her ultimate active would also consume most of her power budget, making her have to give up her passive, especially since she'd have to have incredibly low damage just so that her enemy doesn't automatically lose if she gets in melee range during her ultimate since she heals past her passive. She'd be a balance nightmare, and would never be able to have a healthy spot in the game. Why does this seem like a good idea?

SSmotzer1 votes

Well Kai'Sa is a squishy mid-range champion who gets up lose and personal with her attacks.

Well, in this rework she would be a monster.... get it a monster hunter. She hunts monsters and is a monster who hunts. Word play.

How doesn't it fit with the rest of her kit? This kit is all about dancing around the enemy while being dangerously close to them. Getting some big heals from putting yourself in harms way to deal big damage seems like it goes hand in hand.

Vayne's current power budget is already consumed, almost entirely, by her W passive. It makes the rest of her abilities way too simple, outside of her Q, which actually can help the enemy, if it is used poorly. Like out of her 3 active abilities, she has 1 useful ability, the worst dash in the game, and a basic damage buff, which is irrelevant on Vayne because all she needs is attack speed and movement speed. Like, she can literally kill any champion in the game in 24(18 with rageblade) basic attacks, there is literally no amount of health or armor that can stop Vayne.

Vayne is already a balance nightmare. Things can only get easier for the balance team.

ModWulf Helhammer4 votes

Well, in this rework she would be a monster.... get it a monster hunter. She hunts monsters and is a monster who hunts. Word play.

Which is entirely against what she is supposed to be in lore. She hates monsters.

SSmotzer1 votes

Yeah but... she is one, kinda. She goes out of her way to kill innocent monsters. If Amumu were to stumble across her path, she would literally rip him to shreds. She is not a good person. Like have you ever seen Death Wish? She is basically Charles Bronson, but instead of gunning down people in hard times who have to resort to stealing, she hunts down sapient creatures that happened to be born the wrong creature.

"I don't kill creatures like you because it's the right thing to do. I kill you because I enjoy it."

Wouldn't a good part of her lore that she finally tracked down Eve, went in way too over her head and Eve put a drop of her blood in Vayne, making Vayne suffer living as a monster?

ModWulf Helhammer3 votes

Wouldn't a good part of her lore that she finally tracked down Eve, went in way too over her head and Eve put a drop of her blood in Vayne, making Vayne suffer living as a monster?

No. No it wouldn't (besides the point that Eve is a demon who feeds off of lust. She wouldn't turn someone into a monster is she had to fight them, she'd just kill them).

And yeah, she isn't necessarily a good person. That's a good thing. Grey characters are more engaging then pure black and white ones.

SSmotzer1 votes

And here I though Eve was a sadist who would rather slowly torture her victims than just kill them. You know, aim for all the non-vital areas so she can slowly watch the life drain from them, instead of just decapitating them. Wouldn't having the person who most despises you be transformed and tortured for all eternity be something Eve would be into? I mean her lore does say some of her torture sessions do last from sun set to sun rise. So... this is in her character.

Yeah but, wouldn't exploring Vayne's monstrous tendencies on a more literal level be more entertaining? Like when Van Helsing, the titular monster hunter, turning into a werewolf to kill Dracula... you know, the old saying, "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."

But that could just be me, reading too many books.

ModWulf Helhammer3 votes

And here I though Eve was a sadist

Not if she had to fight them. She does her whole succubus thing when they are unsuspecting, and she gets to set the terms. If there's someone who tracks her down and attacks, she has to fight them or run (think the difference between ganking with Eve, and getting invaded in your own jungle. When she's the huntress, Eve is a maestro, undetected and a killer. When she gets invaded, she's just a squishy blue monster with no out and nowhere to hide).

Yeah but, wouldn't exploring Vayne's monstrous tendencies on a more literal level be more entertaining? Like when Van Helsing, the titular monster hunter, turning into a werewolf to kill Dracula... you know, the old saying, "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster."

I don't believe so, no, as that does a disservice to her lore. Vayne's thing is that she hunts monsters, but she does so indiscriminately. The monstrous side of her is that she doesn't look at the humanity of her targets (for instance, murdering her teacher and foster mother as soon as she discovered she wasn't human).

You are misrepresenting the quote. It's not meant to be "monster hunters literally turn into a kind of monster", it's that in their pursuit, vengeance, etc., they lose their humanity, i.e., their compassion.

SSmotzer1 votes

Yes, in the game, but in the lore isn't she an immortal? Besides, Vayne gives her something that no one else could, a challenge. Like how Joker never just kills Batman, because Batman gives the Joker something no one else could. I think if Eve had it her way, she would play cat and mouse with Vayne forever.

But from a entertainment purpose, it's kind of the best way to go about showing that. Have a character's inner self be expressed through their outward appearance. Vayne didn't start as a cold heartless monster, her relentless pursuit of vengeance made her a monster, and Eve made her outsides look like her insides. Then for kicks Eve could let her loose, have Vayne kill a bunch of helpless people, realize what she has become, both mentally and physically, and try and better herself. You know, character development.

Unless it's too much too ask for character growth in a MOBA.

midnight oil245 votes

First off, as Krol said below, you're already betraying her entire identity by making her a monster.

Second, there's a difference between how Kai'sa works and how your fifth or sixth iteration of Vayne works. Kai'sa is supposed to dance around the enemy team, but she has tools to help with that: q for while she's moving, E to help her catch up or make some distance before attacking quickly, and W to catch a fleeing enemy. Her kit is about getting around in a fight. Your Vayne, on the other hand, has to switch between melee and ranged attacks, gets insane healing with her ult and passive, and just feels like she's doing too much. You say that her power budget gets eaten up by her W now, but I fail to see how making her R+Passive turn her into another unkillable character makes her any better. This isn't a balanced kit. It never could be. Change does not mean better. I'm an advocate for change, but change for the sake of change helps nothing. Here it would just make things worse.

SSmotzer1 votes

Have you ever heard the adage "He who fights monsters should see to it that he himself does not become a monster." That is literally the crux of nearly every monster hunter story. Like Van Helsing, the titular monster hunter, becoming a werewolf to kill Dracula.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr60kvuKw3w

But this isn't for change sake. Vayne has problems. Her kit lacks creativity and counterplay. Right now, the only thing that makes Vayne unique and powerful is that she has the largest damage number of any marksmen, able to literally kill any champion in the game in as little as 12 auto attacks. One of her abilities is purely a passive, and her ultimate is a damage buff.

midnight oil244 votes

You're being pretty literal there. People like Idi Amin or Genghis Khan were monsters, but they weren't things that go bump in the night. Vayne is a monster to monsters, but she's entirely human. Making her give up her humanity and making her turn into an actual monster would get rid of one of her big things: she killed her teacher for using dark magic, she becomes as brutal as the things she hunts, but she's still human. Do you think the woman who killed her teacher for using the wrong power to save her life would willingly turn herself into a monster? She can be a terrifying example of the trope without going super literal.

I'm not saying her kit doesn't have problems. I'm just saying your kit has more problems and would be impossible to balance. Change is necessary, but your change isn't a good one. It would just replace one problematic kit with another one with little counterplay other than "kill her before she gets to you." Is that really counterplay when that can be applied to every champ in the game?

SSmotzer1 votes

No, I think Eve, the sadist demon who feeds off of lust and torture would find it the most suiting punishment for the girl who dedicated her life to fighting monsters. Knowing Vayne is forced into an immortal life of endless self loathing would be right up Eve's ally. I mean, they are bound to run into each other eventually right? I mean, it's not like Eve, I don't know, killed Vayne's parents or anything.

Yeah, you're right, but I haven't really heard much on how to better Vayne's kit. All I usually hear is people saying Vayne is fine, which she isn't.

midnight oil244 votes

Eve doesn't want people to have self-loathing, though, she wants them to suffer. And she doesn't give a crap about Vayne, her parents were just another meal. Eve might remember Vayne, but it's not like this one person is a major priority to her, especially since Vayne's family doesn't even get mentioned in Evelynn's lore. Evelynn wants people to be happy so that their pain is more extreme, I don't think self-loathing would be a particularly good thing for her.

It's not fine, but you're not bettering it. You keep saying you're making it better but you're just making it a flashier and harder to play around kit. Why do you not get this? Just because something's bad doesn't mean anything else is better.

SSmotzer1 votes

Well the reason why they haven't confronted each other yet is because Vayne hasn't had her update where she has confronted Eve.... if that makes sense.

Eve has never had a rival before, no one to challenge her. Like Joker and Batman. No one challenges the Joker like Batman, and the reason why Joker doesn't just kill Batman is because he craves the challenge.

midnight oil244 votes

You're making a bad comparison. Evelynn is not the joker. The Joker is insane, and does much more than what you describe. Hell, he was perfectly willing to kill batman in the Arkham games, which are one particular batman canon. Evelynn isn't about personal relationships, she's a hunter. She left Vayne alive because Vayne was not her target. Vayne was also a small child. I doubt Evelynn thought to herself "I should leave this child alive so I can have a proper challenge later." Evelynn is about getting her next meal. Vayne could be a threat if they ever crossed ways, but Vayne seems pretty tied to Demacia while Evelynn is everywhere, though WW's relation to Vayne could lead to her coming to Zaun. But Eve isn't some diabolical mastermind looking for a worthy foe, she's basically pure instincts given shape and sapience.

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