After some bad Vayne matches yesterday, I’ve decided to expand my ADC retinue. On the list so far is to practice a lot with Caitlyn, Kog’Maw, and Jinx. I may try out Lucian’s new playstyle (btw, Riot has failed utterly in nerfing him; they actually buffed him significantly in my opinion), but the rest of the ADCs don’t interest me. Riot has put Trist on their radar for nerfs, and her playstyle never interested me to begin with. The real issue is that Vayne is just too weak in the current meta, with her kit simply falling behind in terms of the rest of the ADCs in the game. Her laning phase is horrible for no real reason other than convention or tradition, while her much vaunted late game isn’t spectacular anymore compared to Trist or Kog’Maw, both of whom have significant range advantages.

Frankly, Vayne needs help. I was thinking about how to help her out, and I think some basic mechanic improvements would really put Vayne on much more solid ground. I think the larger problem, though, is that Vayne isn’t living up to her fantasy as a relentless hunter. She can’t really chase anything these days. Almost everyone outranges or outdamages her, even with full build.

The first and foremost thing I would do is to change Tumble so that, like every other cooldown in the game, it goes on cooldown immediately when you use it, not when you auto-attack afterwards. If this really buffs Vayne’s chasing potential too much–which I don’t see as an issue anyway, as she has to have something to close the gap on her increasingly more mobile enemies–then simply put a slightly longer cooldown gate on it, like 3 seconds or something. But right now, Tumble effectively has a base cooldown of six seconds no matter the rank, which really limits her mobility offensively and defensively. Tumble is Vayne’s bread and butter and what she relies on to outplay and outwit her opponents. You should be able to use it reliably.

The next thing I would do is modify Silver Bolts to give vision of the afflicted target. There was a topic on Reddit a few days ago about having Condemn give vision to Vayne, but I think this solves that problem much more elegantly. Ignoring the rabid legions who are opposed to any sort of buff to Vayne ever for some reason, I would see this as fitting well with Vayne’s character fantasy while giving her a boost at all levels of the game. If you’ve ever played Vayne, you know how many times you’ve lost a duel because you condemned your opponent into an unwarded bush.

Another thing I would consider would be to either nerf Condemn’s mana cost or to improve Vayne’s incredibly boring and lackluster passive. Make Vayne the ultimate duelist/chaser like she’s supposed to be.

From what I’ve gathered playing Vayne for hundreds and hundreds of games, the idea is that Vayne has one of the worst laning phases/early games to pay for late game damage output that surpasses all others. It’s not working right now, though. On the other hand, buffing Vayne carries with it significant risks, as her kit is incredibly powerful in the right hands. The solution seems to be what Riot’s been doing to other ADCs: making small mechanical improvements and buffs that carry into meta buffs later on. That’s the reason Tristana and Kog’Maw have suddenly become gods, even though very little about them was changed.

Without some significant help though, Vayne is likely to keep fading more and more from view as other ADCs surpass her for no good reason. A shame, as Vayne is such a fun and interesting character despite all the frustrations and pain she has to endure these days.