LoL Vayne In-Depth Guide

LoL Vayne In-Depth Guide by Boyenn

my op.gg = http://euw.op.gg/summoner/userName=koning+boyen

A few things you want to consider before reading this wall of text :

Read my other “guide” first because you might not understand some terms used here if you don’t.

I want to apologize for my English not being perfect, I’m a belgian guy and english is not my first language.

Most of the info here is aimed at players between high silver and low diamond. A lot of this info is useless if you’re in bronze because it’s not one of the first things you should be looking to fix. It might be a good read anyway so you can know what’s possible or what’s to come in higher ranks, but focus on fixing basic stuff first if you’re in bronze. (map awareness, csing, skill shots,dodging skill shots,builds,meta champs, etc…)

Most of the advice given in this guide is really black and white. You shouldn’t blindly follow this guide as the game is a lot more complex than it is displayed in this guide and there’s often a reason why you can’t just do what I tell you to. Take everything written here with a grain of salt and just have it in your head so you can notice your own mistakes and where to improve them.

Some of this info may sound obvious to you. But don’t expect that just because you know it that you actually apply it. Every gold player knows that caitlyn has to abuse her range vs vayne, but little to none actually do it.

I still recommend reading this even if you’re higher elo than me because there are some points in here that even master players barely apply.

I don’t go in-depth on enemy/friendly supports as it would make it way too long.

If you don’t agree with anything written here you can tell me in the comments and I’ll try to take your criticism positively and maybe adapt the guide for it.

I don’t go in-depth on runes/masteries (I just blindly take them from gosu) , I don’t go in-depth in item builds (blade – pd for lategame, blade – ghostblade for midgame/splitpushing/chasing are the best options)

This is not your everyday guide, I go in-depth on some topics other guides don’t even talk about. I recommend reading this even if you already main vayne/AD.

Do not only read the matchup section and think you’re fine for that next game against that graves, there are many matchupspecific tips in other parts of this guide!

ADC’s you want a synchronized last hitting scheme against :

• Ashe
• Cait untill your blade
• Draven
• Jinx 1-4
• Corki untill blade
• Kog whenever he has W
• Lucian 1-4
• mf untill blade
• quinn
• urgot
• varus.
• sivir on melee creeps

ADC’s you want an asynchronous last hitting scheme against :

• Cait after you have blade
• corki after blade
• ezreal
• graves
• jinx after 5
• kog when he doesn’t have W
• lucian after 5
• mf after you have blade
• sivir on ranged creeps
• trist

Notes:

Ashe

The new ashe is really difficult to lane against for vayne because of her guaranteed slow (no matter how small it is) making it harder to trade back + if you do trade back she’ll do amplified damage afterwards. It’s in my personal experience not worth trading with ashe at all so try avoiding this.

Get a synchronized last hitting state and hide behind minions to survive the lane until you get a good engage from your support/jungle.

You can look for the same errors pointed out in the average cait’s game below, but the problem is that unless its level 3 errors ashe will likely still out damage you for a long time. I myself have quite a bit of problems on laning versus ashe. I win it about half of the time which is still really decent, but after kog my worst record. The new ashe is in my opinion vayne’s most reliable counter.

Unlike cait ashe doesn’t have a reliable escape though, so fighting with a lockdown support can easily net you a kill.

Cait

Cait has for a long time been the stereotypical counter to vayne because she outranges you.

This however doesn’t mean that you should lose the lane ! in theory you have “won” the lane if you’re only behind under 15 cs by 10 minutes, but in everything below diamond 1 it’s actually really easy to straight up win the lane and kill her a couple of times/outfarm her!

In my upcoming cait guide (look forward to it in the upcoming 2 weeks), I will explain everything that a caitlyn has to do to win against vayne. After reading this you’ll notice that doing this actually requires the caitlyn to play really well in order to win the lane.

Unlike ashe/kog who also outrange you, caitlyn does not outdamage you! This means that whenever she makes a mechanical error you can punish her for it and easily survive the laning phase.

I have to give a small overview about what the cait should do in order to make you understand when she makes the mechanical errors. Cait has a 100 range advantage over vayne, I’m pretty sure you still have to deduct champion hitboxes from this, but for the sake of explanation lets not.

This range advantage creates a sweet spot of 100 range where cait can attack you but you cant attack her. BUT whenever cait attacks you she stands still for a second allowing you to get a little closer (not 100 units tho). This means that a really good caitlyn will stay at around 600 range from you and permanently attack you, and since you cant clear those 50 units in the time it takes for her to autoattack, you cant trade her back. HOWEVER What happens after every hit is really important. Right after autoattacking caitlyn has to mimic the exact movement you do in order to be able to hit you again without getting hit herself.

This means that if you move back scared, she has to move forward. If you move forward to trade back, she has to move backward. This is referred to as autospacing by doublelift and it’s just as important as it is dank. Whenever she fails this and you get in range she has to E-Q immediately to not lose the trade. However, caitlyn’s mana pool is only so big that she’s allowed to make this mistake only a few times.

Mechanical errors from caitlyn you should look for :

Level 3 : huge mistakes :

• Csing while in range of your auto’s. it’s worth missing a cs here just to AA-Q-AA punish her
• getting caught by your support(you win fights like these!)
• Getting tumble-stunned
• laning without her support

Level 2 : rather big mistakes :

• Getting pushed into tower. (you can harass her while she cs’es)
• a synchronized wave.(you get free farm)
• not E-Qing you when you get in range(keep trading until she does ,save tumble for her EQ)
• not punishing you for every cs you get in an asynchronous wave.
• Not trapping the bushes
• Moving forward after a successful hit on you(hit her back!)
• Randomly using Q to try harass without clearing minions (tumble it and be happy that she has no EQ pressure anymore)
• not planning her headshots.

Level 1 : mistakes even pro’s have difficulties with :

• not mimicking you exactly(this is extremely hard).
• not getting an auto attack in without moving forward at 650 range(this will be explained in the cait guide)

Any Caitlyn player under plat will make tons of level 3 mistakes, and caitlyn players under diamond 1 will make tons of level 2 mistakes. Punish them for it if you’re confident in yourself, or just thank them for the free laning phase. When beginning the lane , just scan her play at lvl 1-2, if you see she makes many of those level 2/3 errors you can just trade with her when she’s not close to headshot with AA-Q-AA-AA… Never just randomly tumble in to her just to get your first auto off ! This is a bad idea for multiple reasons :

• If she auto – E – Q – Auto’s you you’re fucked.
• if she moves backwards when you tumble then land 2 hits on you when you move backwards as well you’re fucked.
• tumble is a good way of dodging her Q
• tumble is useful for csing.
• you don’t deal more damage than her when you don’t maximize your damage output with AA-Q-AA.

After you have your blade you can force a fight easily onto her, its worth blowing a flash to stun her since you’ll have an almost guaranteed kill.

Corki

Corki’s passive out trades your auto’s early game, this is why you want an synchronized lane against him until you have your blade, Baiting out his skill shots with your auto-Qsideways-auto is usually a good way to trade early because of the cast time on his Q stopping him from trading you back effectively. After you have you blade you should destroy corki every time he goes in for a cs , this is why at this point you should be looking to have an asynchronous lane against him. You usually want the lane to be around the middle of the lane so you can threaten him with all in’s. corki out pushes you early and will probably go for the early level 2 , you need to be really careful of this since his level 2 is really strong if he plays well.

Ezreal

Easiest lane of your life, dodge his Q’s with your Q’s and out trade him whenever he comes in range. Asynchronous for this reason.

Draven

Draven is a really hard match up for you, his double axes will out trade you every time you go for a cs, this is why you want the wave to be synchronized so he has to focus on cs + pick up his axe at the time you cs. SYNCHRONIZING THE WAVE IS IMPORTANT IN MANY MATCH UPS BUT MOST IMPORTANT AGAINST DRAVEN if you don’t synchronize the scheme in this lane you will get destroyed so hard even deft imp rolling in the grass can’t make you happy anymore. If draven gets one kill on you early the lane is over and he will snowball hard, there will be nothing you can do. But if you manage to stay relevant in cs until level 6 without getting killed you actually can start building up pressure

How to all in draven as vayne :

When you’re level 6 you can actually all in draven as vayne if you play it well. You need to play it almost perfectly in order to win this trade though ! Draven’s damage relies on whether or not he can catch his axes, so when you want to all in him you need to .

1. Walk up to him and start autoattacking him
2. E him about 0.5s after his 2d autoattack (this cancels his 3rd autoattack, and makes him unable to catch the axes from his first 2 autoattacks)
3. tumble a little forward+ a little sideways to dodge a potential E from him while staying in range for your own autos.
4. Keep autoattacking him until he dies / blows summoners.

This is even easier if he

• only has one axe spinning when you start
• has his E on CD
• autoattacks a creep with spinning axe (perfect moment to start the all in)
• your support also has a lockdown
• his support cannot lock you down

if you tumbled forward and he will E you and you can’t dodge it you have to flash sideways to be able to keep the pressure up while not dying.

Kalista

Kalista does terrible in early trades against vayne if she can’t get enough stacks on her E or if her support can’t land the W proc. the reason she wasn’t mentioned yet is because you need a different mindset when playing against her, your biggest worry isn’t synchronising. Against kalista you want to be able to stop her from autoing you, then autoing a 30% health creep and getting the 20 mana E with cd reset off. If kalista is allowed to do this a couple times you will get destroyed in lane (been there :( ). The best way to avoid this is only trade with her when there is no friendly creep at 30% health. you win those trade easily with AA-Q-AA ! Kalista wins most all ins pre 6 unless she gets locked down. but she should lose small trades against you so be looking for AA-Q-AA trades often (because kalista doesn’t really have a skillshot (Q is neglible) you can use Q more often)

Twitch : I actually don’t have much experience in this matchup, and I’m not sure wether or not twitch’s E is strong enough in small trades to be scared of. if it isn’t -> asynchronous, if it is -> synchronized.

Sivir

It’s a rather easy lane for vayne, but there’s so much you can get out of this lane that people don’t do ! The synchronising decision is a little more complicated than in most lanes because you want to synchronise the lane when she hits ranged creeps, and asynchronous when she hits melee creeps. the reason for this is if you last hit asynchronous when she hits your ranged creeps your more likely to get hit by her W (because W takes a while to get to you). If you last hit synchronized her W wont reach you before you can already back off and you avoid the poke. While she’s hitting melee minions you want to trade her (so last hit asynchronous) because any decent sivir barely uses W against melee minions (because it hardly ever reaches the enemy adc). Always be aware of the position of the wave though, if the caster minions are in range of her W when she hits a melee minion you want to go synchronized again.

Trist

Trist just loves synchronized last hitting schemes against pretty much everyone, the reason is because she uses clearing to deal damage (trist E,trist E passive). If you’re in a synchronized state with trist you are really likely to get hit by a few E passives because you are close to the caster minions to cs. Trist’s E out trades you hard early but try baiting her to use it on you without getting any more autoattacks off, and then trade as soon as it explodes for effective trades.

When trist gets 6 she gets really annoying. you can’t all in her because she will ult you away, followup with E – auto’s and you’re death. Don’t underestimate how strong trists lvl 6 is. The only way you can win a 1v1 lvl 6 is if you come out of the bush and condemn her (she will probably still W ult and survive though). Janna is a really good support for this lane.

Jinx

Jinx wins early levels 1-4 easily by pushing and abusing her Q range. What matters here is how hard you get poked down, try to cs when she has to cs and avoid as much early poke as possible. Be careful of csing while standing next to a low health creep because she can Q you to trade + cs! if you’re not low health from lvl 5 on jinx and vayne do about equal damage in a 1v1 assuming you tumble her W so all that matters is how well you synergise with your supports. I often play vayne with janna in a duo queue and we use the shield uptime to trade 3 hits easily and start pressuring jinx like crazy. but this also works with other supports, kill pressure supports can go in on jinx because she has no dash, nami/sora/sona would have allowed you to trade earlier etc etc. So all you want to consider at lvl 5 is : is my support currently stronger in trades than their support and do I have enough health to trade? if so -> asynchronous, else -> synchronized.

Kog

keep in mind that its really easy to switch a synchronized lane into an asynchronous lane just by doing one extra hit ! Against kogmaw you want an asynchronous lane when he has his W down because you win trades then. But when his W is up he wins every trade so be careful and put the lane synchronized! If you get poked down with his W hard (you didnt back off right after he used it), you should never look to trade again untill you base.

a lot of the tips vs cait also apply versus kog, but just like ashe the problem is that he outdamages you anyway in lane. this is why you should only capitalize on level 3 mistakes and hope your jungler comes to grab that kog. You only win 1v1’s if you come out of a bush he didnt know you were in.

Lucian

A good lucian will be able to out trade you at many stages of the game, early game his Q + passive is really effective. Many lucian’s will be looking to Q you through the minions and then use the passive to out trade you hard. You can however dodge his Q easily if you practice your reflexes for it with your tumble. If you dodge lucian’s Q in the early game with tumble he will likely auto creeps with his passive instead, this is when you want to use the empowered auto from your Q on him and potentionally some extra hits to punish him for the missed Q. Overall you want a synchronized last hitting scheme against lucian 1-4 because your trades aren’t as effective, but when he’s trying to Q you through minions all the it’s better to have an asynchronous last hitting scheme because this allows you to dodge his Q’s better and make him run out of mana. After level 5 you can start trading with him because you have your 3 level’s in W, this is why you want to start having the last hitting scheme asynchronized.

Lucian has a good antivayne at level 6 when you all in him because he will ult you then E backwards leaving you unable to damage him while he rapes you. This is why you shouldnt go all in at lvl 6 unless he makes a positional error or you can stun him. However you can still win small AA-Q-AA-AA trades if you dodge his Q with yours and wear him down untill he has to base. I personally think vayne has a really good laning phase against lucian.

Graves

keep his passive in mind , if he has many stacks on it it becomes really hard to trade, this is why after getting blade it’s really usefull to freeze your lane against him because you can force trades whenever his passive is at 0 stacks. for this reason -> synchronized when full passive , asynchronous when no passive.

Keep in mind the trick posted below on baiting his Q with an auto and then tumbling backwards.

Tips/tricks on vayne :

• auto-Q-E combo. Three stacks of w, and no one can trade with that because of how instant it is plus it knocks you back.
• When trading early against lucian/graves/corki/… expect them to use a spell when you auto them. I like baiting this on purpose so I can tumble out of it (auto-Q backwards vs graves,auto -Q sideways vs lucian,corki)
• When you have finished one attackspeed item the fastest combo to get 3 hits for W is the relatively unknown AA-E-Q forward-AA. this way you cancel your E animation with Q , your auto with E and you get a quick auto reset after your Q. To pull this trick off you need to click your enemy accuratly while he’s being knocked back from your E. This trick is nearly impossible on low attackspeed (try it in custom before ever trying in game as it’s really hard.)
• When playing vs rengar(also works vs many other champions with gap closers) you can run away in the opposite direction to where they’re coming from, and E right behind you all the time (in thin air , if you E thin air vayne won’t start moving there) as soon as they use their gap closer it will get cancelled. This is really effective when you’re not attacking and just want to run away. when you are attacking you want to use my other method right under this one.
• Everyone know that vayne has a weak laning phase. Yet I win my lane almost every time, this is because the reason that everyone thinks vayne has a poor laning phase is because of how poorly she is in small trades when she cant get her 3 W’s off. This is true, but you’d be surprised how strong she is in early if you CAN get the 3 W’s off. Vayne has pretty low manacosts compared to her pool, so doing AA-Q-AA-E in lane a couple of times can force a great trade with little to no reply.
• if you know you will get jumped on in a team fight by someone with a gap closer. (lets say you’re fighting with their jungle shyvana, and you see an irelia coming in that you know will Q you). the best way to play this imo is right click shyvana, right click backwards, E irelia (EVEN THO SHE ISNT IN RANGE YET), right click shyv, right click backwards, E irelia right click shyv, infinitely. this makes it so that the moment irelia casts her Q to get in range she gets knocked back(doesn’t even do the Q damage, and can’t E you ! )
• You always want to keep track of the enemy support’s exhaust cd timer. But on vayne it’s even more important! Whenever the enemy support doesn’t have his exhaust up, but you have your ult, you should be able to win a 2v2 !
• Never forget that vayne wins about every 1v1, even when behind! Wait in brushes you know they have no vision in when you expect their adc to soloclear the lane and grab that free kill to pull you back into the game!
• Actively look if it’s possible to tumble and then stun the enemy as this gives you so much kill pressure.
• E is equal range of your auto, this means that to do the AA-Q-AA-E combo your last AA cannot be at max range because the windup will allow them to run out of your E range.
• If you have a support that’s good at doing gromp or golems (janna/naut/sora are in my experience the best at this), abuse this to get level 2 early (ask for solo xp from your support) and start trading in lane with AA-Q-AA-AA
• If your jungler wants botlane to pull red(not golems), let your support help him and solokite the small golem for a bit of exp before getting to lane.
• I have mentioned before that you usually want to not use your Q to maximise damage output when the enemy support still has his CC spell up. But if you are really confident you can actually still do it by baiting their skillshot. The best way to do this is auto-Q forward-auto, move perpendicular to the direction you Q’ed in. The enemy support will likely use his skillshotCC spell as soon as you tumble and use it exactly to where you tumbled to. But if you expected this before you even tumbled you should be able to move sideways right after your tumble to make them miss that spell
• If you’re kiting in a team fight and you’re getting focussed a bit it might be best to use ult+tumble and then wait untill your stealth expires before you auto (autoing in stealth reveals yourself again).This forces the enemies to guess where you are going and gives your teammates some more time to peel for you.
• You can press E and then flash afterwards to instantly redirect the direction your E pushes the enemy to.
• You can walk one direction then ult+tumble in the other to confuse the enemy.
• Look out for scrying orbs and wards because they might fuck up the 1v1’s your looking for bigtime!

Wave management on vayne :

If you’ve read my previous post. You might still be unsure a lot about where you actually want the lane to be positioned. I’ve thaught you all about creep wave asynchronisation, but the simple concept here is that you want to last hit when they do when you’re weaker, and last hit at different times when you’re stronger. This is a small concept of wave management, but we haven’t gone undepth on where we actually want the wave to be!

BEFORE READING THIS: I won’t go in-depth on how to manipulate the wave to where you want it to be.I’ll briefly explain some methods when I feel like it , but if you want an in-depth guide on how to achieve that look up SoloRenektonOnly’s guide. I will only go in-depth in how to decide where you want it in the first place.

There are many things to consider when deciding this. this is why I’ll sum up reasons to freeze, reasons to have the wave in the middle of the lane, and reasons to push. You should make the final decision based on your own experience.

Reasons to push :

To make sure they don’t get lvl 2 before you

You have a pretty strong level 2 spike with Q+W, if you get lvl 2 first you can abuse this by auto-Q-auto-autoing them when they’re still level 1 and can’t respond to this. This is a great scenario for you. However most ad’s outpush you at level 1 and will look to use their level 2 powerspike on you. This is why your level 1 is really important ! Auto-Q-Auto a creep as soon as you get to lane to start pushing early. and try to hit the creeps as often as you can to deny them from getting level 2 before you. If they get level 2 before you don’t go for cs and just stay in exp range untill you’re level 2 aswell or you will lose your lane right there.

To base

If you plan to be the first one to base : The best sequence of basing is explained in my previous post and I advice you to read up on that. The problem with vayne however is that vayne pushes really slowly, so on vayne you want to plan your base 2 waves before actually basing. You gain about 130 gold per wave (if you cs them all + taking in account the amount of gold you generate over time), so a good time to plan a base is at around 1200 gold (you’ll have enough 1500 gold after actually basing giving you cutlass+pots). The reason you want to plan your base 2 waves early is because you want to slowly build up a huge wave to go under their turret so you can still do the freeze thing explained in my previous post. If the enemy pushed out and will base before you : Push the wave out as fast as possible because you don’t want them to come back with extra items and you being unable to base because the wave isn’t under their turret. if they come back and you havent been 100% able to push the wave under their turret it’s worth to take some harrass to do it anyway granted that you don’t have to blow summoners or die for it.

To have a larger creep wave than they do.

This is most important against early graves,lucian, Kalista,thresh,naut,blitz,morg. If you have a smaller creepwave than they do they can usually all in you easily without having to be scared of your creeps. If you have a really small wave against blitz/thresh/morg/naut you’re in huge danger of getting hit by their skillshot CC. Try always having a big creepwave against them so you can hide behind it. Blitz is the worst support in the game to be pushed under your turret against!

To allow a lanegank from your jungler.

Ganking bottom is usually really hard for your jungler early because double trinket allows the enemy to keep the side warded permamently. However if you notice that they are doing this you should push out your wave a bit and tell your jungler to gank through lane, this nets an easy kill.

To get dragon

You always want to push out bottom before you go to dragon because else you will miss too much for the time it takes to kill dragon.

To siege other lanes(mostly mid)

After you have won your botlane you should decide that it’s time to extend that lead to other lanes. push out bottom, base, go mid , siege a bit, get scuttle, clear bot, siege mid, get red , clear bot, siege mid Keep rotating this so you don’t miss too much farm while putting pressure on the midlane. This tactic is a lot harder versus waveclear mids like ziggs though.

Reasons to freeze :

Because you have a stronger all in

Vayne usually has a strong all in post 6 against most champions, and even stronger when you have your blade. When you have a stronger all in you want to softfreeze or hardfreeze the lane (difference will be explained below). This allows you to abuse your threat of an all in to win trades. Threat is bolded out here because you don’t necessarily have to go all in to succesfully abuse your freeze. Going all in when you’re freezing is really predictable, so they could have their jungle/mid coming bot to bait out your all in. This is always something you need to be careful about!

A frozen lane is the easiest lane to force synchronized or asynchronous last hitting schemes in

When you freeze the lane you basically pick when you want to last hit yourself because many of their creeps will not be under attack. This means you have the decision on when you want to cs. If you want to force trades you can cs asynchronous, when you don’t you can cs synchronized.

To be safe from their jungle / mid /top tp

The only way their jungle/mid can gank bottom when you hardfreeze is through lane. A simple ward in the lanebush prevents even that!

To deny the enemy more creeps when they base

If you have no reason to base but the enemy does , you can hardfreeze the lane so that their minions kill yours before they come back and you deny them a lot more cs then you would’ve if you pushed it into turret (especially since vayne is a really slow pusher) Another advantage that you get out of this is that the enemy support usually has the habit of warding first before coming back to lane, and their ad will try to cs on his own , you can force a hard engage for this.

To full on zone them when you’re ahead

If you push your lane while you’re ahead and you have no other objectives to go for (their mid might be too good of a waveclear champ and dragon is down) you can freeze botlane and full on zone them whenever they come in

Reasons to have the minions around the middle of the lane

When you’re too scared to push because of jungle pressure, but you can’t freeze because their adcs wins all ins or can easily clear the wave.

Graves , sivir, corki early game are really hard champions to freeze against because if you do they will just clear your wave and then you have to cs under turret putting you under a lot of pressure, But you can’t always push against them either because they either push quicker than you or you’re scared of jungle pressure. The only thing you can do here is try to keep the wave in the middle of the lane as this is the safest option possible.

When you are unsure wether or not you win trades

If you’re not confident in your matchup you can have the minions in the middle of the lane so you can do some small checks to see who’s stronger and then later decide where you want the wave to be.

Reasons to want the wave to be under your turret :

None

You never want the wave to be under your turret because they can harrass you freely without you being able to harrass back + csing under turret is a lot harder than just csing in a normal lane. However there are just some moments where you have no choice but to cs under your turret and you have to accept this. Try to avoid it whenever possible!

Difference between hardfreezing and softfreezing:

Hardfreezing is keeping the minion wave right outside of your turret. This is most easily done by leaving 3 enemy caster minions extra up. it’s hard to force a hardfreeze, but since enemies will always be atleast last hitting but usually using spells aswell and slowpushing the wave you can usually hardfreeze the wave whenever you think it’s a good idea.

Softfreezing is grouping up the enemy wave a bit before allowing them to hit your minions, and then only last hit the minions, this will slowly push up the wave to your side, put the last hitting scheme asynchronous allowing you to get free harrass everytime the enemy goes in for a last hit, and doesn’t deny you all ins because their wave is actually not huge enough to matter.
High elo players softfreeze the wave almost all the time when ahead because of how much of an advantage it gives you (try it!)
Blade – PD vs Blade – ghostblade

Blade – PD is a better lategame build, better for small trades and better for really long team fights while blade-ghostblade is a better build for splitpushing, 1v1, chasing, short team fights, early game, and cheaper. I personally like the double blade build the most right now.

I hope this guide thaught you things you don’t learn from your everyday guide. You can always add me ingame (EUW – Koning Boyen) to have a talk with me or you can ask questions here in the comments.