Welcome to the League of Legends Champion Spotlight featuring Vayne, the Night Hunter
Vayne is a ranged DPS assassin. She’s big on mobility and surprise, pinning down single targets and severely weakening them before they can retaliate.
Vayne’s passive is Night Hunter. When running toward enemy champions, she gains bonus movement speed. Note that this bonus only works if she can actually see the enemy she’s hunting.
Tumble causes Vayne to roll toward your mouse cursor when you activate the ability. Immediately upon Tumbling, Vayne’s next attack will deal significant bonus damage.
Tumble also resets Vayne’s auto-attack timer, allowing you to hit a target, Tumble, and quickly hit him again.
With Silver Bolts, Vayne’s third consecutive attack and/or ability on an enemy will deal significant bonus true damage. Note that hitting an alternate target will start the combo over on the new foe.
Condemn damages and knocks back a single enemy. If the target is knocked into a wall, he gets stunned and takes bonus damage. Note that this spell applies one tick of Silver Bolts.
Vayne’s Ultimate is Final Hour, which buffs her for a few seconds.
While activated, Vayne gains significant bonus attack damage, Tumble will cause Vayne to stealth for a short time, and the movement speed gain from Night Hunter is greatly increased.
Early aggression is extremely powerful for Vayne. Sporting his new Ninja Rammus skin, I get a gank from my jungler.
I push in with Tumble, saving Comdemn until Katarina will be pushed into a wall. Together we kill her before she’s able to recover.
Vayne’s harass game is very strong. If you’re in range for one attack, you should shoot, Tumble, attack again, and then chase for the third hit to trigger Silver Bolts.
This damage is pretty much guaranteed since Night Hunter should allow you to catch anyone.
This damage will often catch opponents by surprise. Though I’m low on mana, I press into Katarina, using the shoot-Tumble-shoot combo. I have to Flash away from the turret to keep me from dying, though.
For those who are wondering why Katarina didn’t use her ultimate, she had used it just before this clip; that’s why I was at half health.
Because of your powerful early game, you can often push your opponents out of experience range. Here I tumble behind Katarina’s minions and stay there so she can’t gain any gold or experience.
It’s important to realize that you can’t always do this at level 1, but at this stage, I can fight Katarina and her minions and come out ahead.
We get into a teamfight in the river. I push back Udyr with Condemn and after Tumbling away from Katarina, I switch my focus to Jarvan.
Safely attacking from the brush, I take him down with Tumble and Sheen. After he falls, I switch to Udyr.
I position myself with Tumble and blast him into the wall with Condemn, serving up an easy kill as I follow with Tumble.
It’s almost impossible to chase down Vayne 1v1. Singed tries to attack me, but I simply Tumble out of range every time, finally using Condemn when I feel threatened.
Condemn doesn’t always have to hit a wall to ensure a kill. Here I keep running toward Udyr, knocking him back away from his turret with Condemn once Rammus’s taunt ends.
Vayne’s best fights are 1v1, especially once you have Trinity Force. Singed comes at me with nowhere to run so I turn and fight.
Tumble and Condemn keep me safe for the first half of the fight, until Jarvan shows up.
He tries to knock me up with Demacian Standard and Dragon Strike, but I Tumble out of the way just in time, landing the kill onto Singed.
As Jarvan jumps onto me with Cataclysm, I tumble aside and push him back with Condemn, also dealing massive damage with Silver Bolts.
Right as he tries to kill me with Dragon Strike I Tumble to the side, hitting him another three times, ticking Silver Bolts and picking up two kills by myself.
Somewhere in here is a joke involving The Matrix, Trinity, and dodging bullets. I leave it to you.
Vayne is great at cleaning up low health enemies because she deals exceptional burst. I find Udyr, knocking him down with attack-Tumble-attack-attack, triggering Silver Bolts.
I jump onto Katarina, hitting her with attack-Tumble-attack-Condemn which is the fastest way Vayne has to trigger Silver Bolts.
As a teamfight breaks out, I always want to isolate one target. Here Udyr chases me around but barely hits me more than twice.
I make the mistake of not hitting him into the wall when I had the chance, but I’m still able to deal enough damage to kill him before his team arrives.
As the fight continues, I push onto Singed, destroying him with just basic attacks, Tumble, and Silver Bolts.
A teamfight starts near the enemy base. I push Katarina into the wall with Condemn to stun her, switching focus to Alistar since the true damage from Silver Bolts and Lizard buff will cut through his ultimate.
Again I isolate myself from the rest of the fight, taking on Singed 1v1. As before, he’s an easy kill while my team picks up Katarina since Alistar and Singed are unable to support her.
I’m going to show her early laning while detailing the build I use on Vayne.
For runes I take armor penetration marks, attack speed seals, flat magic resist glyphs, and armor penetration quintessences.
This setup allows me a lot of presence in lane, increasing my damage and helping defend against mages, while giving me the tools to scale into late-game as well.
My masteries are 21/0/9 with Ghost and Flash. Most importantly I take attack speed and magic penetration in offense.
I max Tumble right away, with a point in Silver Bolts at level 4 and maxing Condemn immediately after.
For items, I open with Doran’s Blade. I rush into Sheen as soon as possible, taking Ionian Boots of Lucidity after.
From there, I rush up to Trinity Force and follow up with Madred’s Bloodrazor. At this point, I have tons of damage: Trinity Force synergizes with Tumble and Madred’s Bloodrazor combines well with Silver Bolts.
Afterwards I start building durability with Banshee’s Veil and Atma’s Impaler. Finally I build Last Whisper and elixirs to scale my damage into lategame.
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So, Vayne… Wanna do anything later tonight?
“Let us hunt those who have fallen to darkness!”
Oh. I was… never mind.