User blog:StrategicMagic/Vayne - Carry? Yes. AD? No.

This has been bugging me for a while. I'm gonna throw this out there. I'm gonna get a lot of hate for this, but I don't care. Screw the haters, I say! Schrewwww dem!

In my recent attempts to learn AD carry to the point where I don't lose 90% of matches I play in that role, I've been spending the past week or so focusing on PBE. My logic was as follows: "Vayne is known for being a late-game hyper carry. However, she is also known for being the hardest AD carry to play AND is notorious for having a really bad early game. If I screw up, I will know because I won't be hyper carrying late game. If I do things right, I will know because I will be hypercarrying late game. Therefore, it's easier to pick out the good from the bad. Also, if I can play the hardest in any given role well, then I can pick up the others much easier than before or if I had not learned the hardest." There's obviously speculation on the difficulty of champions, but I'll ignore all that. Anyway, I chose to learn to play AD carry by playing Vayne.

Now, since buying her, I've played ~40 games as Vayne. I can say I've definitely improved. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Vayne herself. Primarily her true damage on Silver Bolts. I understand that the AD carry role should go for IE, PD, Zerk's Greaves, BT etc. I understand that Vayne's skills do scale on AD. However, I totally disagree with this approach to playing her. Personally, I get very, very little AD on Vayne at all. Instead, I focus attack speed. Here's my reasoning: It's the above reasoning that led me to conclude that building AD like other AD carries is fairly useless. Her main damage tool is her W, building AD doesn't do anything to that at all. Hence, it's better to focus AS in order to maximise the damage output from said skill. Also, other than being a carry, Vayne is listed by Riot as an assasin. I find this to be very accurate. That true damage can allow you to tear apart pretty much anyone. Really quickly. Just like a Nocturne, Poppy or Diana can burst you down remarkably quickly, Vayne can too.
 * 1) Vayne's passive increases her movement speed when chasing enemy champions. That's good. I like that passive. However, she has the lowest base movement speed in the game at 300. Even with that, she will be slower than other AD carries because you will both have the same boots and a PD or two. The only way to be faster is to either CC or to use Final Hour, which only lasts 12 secs at most, or to have an ally help out.
 * 2) Vayne's Q is excellent for repositioning yourself. It isn't worth it for the damage however, because the animation will take up enough time to make the increased damage kinda insignificant to her DPS due to the loss in attack speed, no matter the rank of the skill or how much AD you have.
 * 3) Vayne's W really interests me. That 3rd hit deals true damage as a % of the target's max health. It's not a huge %, but it's significant. It doesn't directly scale on anything unlike Q and E, but it does  indirectly   scale on attack speed. The more attacks you get in, the more damage this will do. Simple. This is the basis of my idea.
 * 4) Vayne's E is more about displacement than damage. Sure, it can hurt, but the utility of a knockback and potentially a stun which is fairly long outweighs that damage. Even if it does add a stack of Silver Bolts. Like Q, it should be focused more on utility than damage output.
 * 5) Vayne's R is a huge steroid to AD and movement speed. Then, she's faster than pretty much anyone else. I think only Zilean's E, Hecarim's E and a couple of other movement steroids can really allow someone to outrun a Vayne with this active. Like W, it doesn't have any scalings at all.

Now, I have another logic list for you to follow. It's this logic pattern that leads me to believe that Silver Bolts' true damage does in fact have the highest damage output Vayne can provide. It's also why any comments like "VAYNE IS AD CARRY NOOB BUY AD!" will be totally ignored, because you clearly can't understand my train of thought, making your comment meaningless. So: Well, that was my thought process behind my build of stacking AS. I'll actualy delve into the items a little later on. I'm pretty confident in my reasoning. I'm a philosophy student after all. Logical thinking like above should be my strong point. It's also why pointing out holes in my thinking is appreciated, and enjoyed.
 * 1) Vayne is considered an AD carry. As a result, it is expected to build AD on her to increase the damage of her autoattacks.
 * 2) Armor counters physical damage from autoattacks. A smart person will buy armor to take less damage from the AD carry, regardless of their role.
 * 3) True damage counters armor because it ignores that stat. The same applies to magic resist.
 * 4) Stacking HP counters true damage because it reduces the overall % of health dealt to you by said true damage skill. (This is under the assumption people make about true damage being flat. Think Cho, Darius.)
 * 5) If someone counters the rest of my team by stacking armor/magic resist, I will do more damage to them because of my true damage, meaning I will still output masses of damage because I ignore those defensive stats.
 * 6) If someone stacks HP to counter me, the rest of my team will do more damage and melt them because they are lacking in armor and magic resist.
 * 7) Therefore, it is a lose-lose situation for them because unless they balance out their HP and AR/MR it will be medicore for all stats and kinda weak in all three areas. (Think like, 2.3k hp, 100 AR and 90 MR)
 * 8) Silver Bolts deals true damage and scales indirectly with attack speed. As a result, I should build AS to deal as much true damage as possible, causing #7 to happen.

Now, my runes. As you can expect, I have a special Vayne rune page, seperate from my other AD carry page. It's fairly simple and only uses two types of runes. You can expect to see MORE logic to follow in a moment. I use:

Attack speed reds - Obvious. Primary focus of reds is physical attack, so I want there. Ar pen is useless as I'm focusing on true damage. As is AD.

Gold generation yellows - Wait, what? Gold generation on a carry? Yup. You read that right. The reason for this is below. Just bear with my for now.

Attack speed blues - Same reason as reds. Yes, secondary. I experimented with flat mana, AD, magic resist, armor and mana regen. I still like these best.

Gold generation quints - Exact same reasoning as yellows, which you are about to read.
 * 1) Vayne has a really bad early game. Smart players will take advantage of this.
 * 2) I'm bad at the carry role, I will fall behind in cs and therefore, gold. Smart players will take advantage of this.
 * 3) If I am behind in gold, I will lose my lane, and therefore, the game.
 * 4) Losing is bad. I want to avoid that.
 * 5) Gold generation lets me at least, keep up with my opponent if not too far behind.
 * 6) If I am ahead of my opponent, gold generation will allow me to be even further ahead, letting me snowball harder and hypercarry earlier and harder.
 * 7) If I am equal with my opponent, gold generation will let me take an advantage I can make use of, increaseing my chances of carrying late game.
 * 8) If I am behind my opponent by a little, then gold generation will bring us to being equal. It is entirely possible I can come back due to not being behind.
 * 9) If I am really behind, I won't be as far behind as I look because I have more gold that it appears I have earned. Though the chances are small, I might be able to come back.
 * 10) Therefore, gold generation is beneficial to making up for Vayne's early game. As a result, I should use it.

Well, that's that. With the 5.3 gold / 10 from runes alone, it's like having a Philo Stone or Avarice Blade for free. Though I don't take the mastery, I could increase that if I want to. You won't be seeing any more long lists. At least I think. Other than the build, there won't be any more complicated logic for you to follow anyway. Moving on, my build!

As you can probably guess by now, I focus attack speed.

At level 1, I take a Dagger. It helps get those Silver Bolts stacks on quicker. I also take Silver Bolts at level 1 too. I take Tumble at level 2 and Condemn at 3, 4 or 5, depending on if I feel if I will need to soon or not. When I first go back to base, I obviously buy boots. I only get boots 1 at this stage though. I max Silver Bolts as fast as I can. Depending on gold, I may get a Zeal here. If not, that's fine. This is where my build order slightly varies. On my 3rd time back, if I have at least 1050 gold, I get a Recurve Bow. If I have enough left over and haven't already, I finish Zeal with that Dagger from earlier. I may take Boots of Swiftness (now boots 3 from this point on) if I have the gold. The rest is mid game, so I can't say too much. It depends on teams and stuff. My core items are:

Boots 3 - Why? Because you will hit the 2.5 AS cap without the 25% from Zerk's Greaves. Also, Vayne is sloooooow. The extra flat 20 movespeed does make more of a difference than it sounds. Think Singed.

Phantom Dancer - 55% AS. Kinda obvious. The movespeed is also very welcome.

Ionic Spark - Wait, what? Why? A little health can't hurt, can it? Besides, 50% AS is very nice indeed. This also helps with two other things; farming and teamfights. If not doing well with farming, or just need to take out a huge wave of minions really quick, this can work wonders. It also scales with AS due to the 4th hit proc, making this build all the more potent. It kinda scales with itself, if you know what I mean. In teamfights, you'll be putting out sustained, quick aoe magic damage to the whole enemy team. It won't be much, but it can really hurt a lot in longer fights. And on top of that, even if you don't get every kill in a fight, the damage from this will give you assists on kills you didn't directly assist in due to the lightning chain, leading to even more gold late-game.

Madred's Bloodrazer - You're Vayne, slayer of evil. What's better at slaying evil than one of these. A tad of AD can't hurt. 40% AS will be absolutely amazing. 25 armor is meh, but it can only help you. The % health magic damage is what this is all about. Think about it, 4% if the target's max health in magic damage. EVERY HIT. Every 3rd hit, you also deal % health damage as true damage. These two together are gonne hurt like hell. Especially on that 3rd hit. You'll be doing ~15% of the target's max health every 3 hits. You can fairly easily reach that 2.5 AS cap with my build. That's 15% of someone's health every 1.2 seconds or so. Now imagine you manage to hit someone against a wall with Condemn and stun them. That's a lot of free damage. It also synergises with my logic of true damage. They can't stack health because of this item. If they do, they take more damage from this and your W. They can get a little MR, but your true damage counteracts it. So matter what, they're screwed. You cover all 3 damage types. There's no way to defend from a Vayne with this item.

What you get after these is up to you. Zeke's Herald works. A bit more durability, some CDR works well with Tumble. Lifesteal can't hurt either. I'll also experiment with Spell Vamp at some point to see if the heal from Silver Bolts is significant. Probably won't be though. Black Cleaver is also a nice pick. The armor shred can only be a good thing. 30% AS isn't bad either. If you really need it, something like Guardian Angel is also a good choice. Just remember that due to focusing on true damage, Last Whisper is useless. Don't buy it in this build.

The last thing I want to tell you is this: Don't forget elixirs. Have you got 250 gold to spare after finishing that Zeal early game? Buy a green elixir. The AS and crit will help out a hell of a lot. You'll also be using them late-game too. My runes and masteries should have you end at ~2.3 AS with the final build. A green elixir will let you reach that 2.5 cap. Red elixirs will also give you welcome durability. Zeke's, Ionic Spark and red elixir can add up to a decent amount of health. If you happen to have a support Lulu that will also be nice in terms of health. Don't ignore the blue one either! 10% CDR can be the difference between dodging that Morg Binding and not dodging it because Tumble was on cooldown. If you take Zeke's that's a 25% total. Not half bad if you ask me. Get a Soul Shroud thrown in there from your support and that's almost maxed out.

I mentioned on my AD Taric blog that I tried him out against bots. I did. It worked there. I had success with it both in pvp and vs AI. Though in pvp it was hit-and miss. I have done about 5 games vs AI using this build and about 25 or so in pvp. I have had lots of success. I've managed to carry hard. Heck, I even killed a Mundo stacking Warmogs THROUGH hit ult. The true damage was just too much for him to regen. So that's me done for now. I have a feeling I forgot something, if I have I'll add it in later. Add your thoughts down below. I like to read them.