Question for anyone that doesn't despise Yasuo with their soul.

Seenan·Nov 25, 2015·5 votes·866 views

Is there any a point I max Q first? 'Cause the only time I found that I got outdamaged or somewhat shat on is when it was a mirror match and he maxed Q first as opposed to E while I maxed E first. Maybe I just didn't utilize E's rising base damage% properly? Or...Mind you, he also had more farm at the time cause I was trying to play it safe (no one wants to feed a Yasuo that may know what he's doing).

He rotated between his 3 Qs faster than I did cause he often started before me or just found safer opportunity. He got a lucky crit(or 2?) on me in lane phase during a fight so he got essentially a free kill on me there.

22 Comments

DalaninNov 25, 20152 votes

E. If he maxed Q first he's a baddie, like it only rises on dmg by 20 (Has a nice ratio that scales from Total Ad and Scales with Attack speed), so you're better off maxing e first to do more damage and to have it avaible more often... But do not spam e though, just because "it's Free" doesn't mean you have to spam your only Scape/engage tool

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

E. If he maxed Q first he's a baddie, like it only rises on dmg by 20 (Has a nice ratio that scales from Total Ad and Scales with Attack speed), so you're better off maxing e first to do more damage and to have it avaible more often... But do not spam e though, just because "it's Free" doesn't mean you have to spam your only Scape/engage tool

I know about not-spamming it, but in a Yas vs Yas fight Idk. It feels awkward. Like, I know if I hop in, he'll Q me and I'll Q back but since he's leveling Q first, it'll do the slightest bit more damage unless I manage to charge E fully and hit him with that, which doesn't seem as consistent in a mirror match from that one game I played.

DivewingNov 25, 20152 votes

E vs mages Q vs melees W vs ADCs

That last one is a joke, please for the love of god dont do that

DububbyNov 25, 20151 votes

I always max Q. I don't really feel comfortable maxing E at all, but my logic is that you use your Q on champions more than you use your E. Therefore getting more damage.

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I always max Q. I don't really feel comfortable maxing E at all, but my logic is that you use your Q on champions more than you use your E. Therefore getting more damage.

Normally Yas' max E because it offers a ton more than Q. Q just gives +20 more damage. E reduces cooldown/static cooldown, the time before you can dash to the same target again, and ofc, the damage. But if you always max Q, I need someone to tell me when I should max Q.

DalaninNov 25, 20151 votes

Never lol, at the worst case you should be leveling them at the same time (i'd recomend maxing e tho)

PsyturkeyNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Normally Yas' max E because it offers a ton more than Q. Q just gives +20 more damage. E reduces cooldown/static cooldown, the time before you can dash to the same target again, and ofc, the damage. But if you always max Q, I need someone to tell me when I should max Q.

I max Q when I am against a melee champion who I don't want to full engage before 6.

For example, the other day I played against a Fiora and any time she went for CS I punished her by Qing her. I didn't want to just scrap her because that fight could go any which way and would have been risky. Basically it let's you punish them for farming and forcing them to come into your creep line (and take creep aggro) if they want to trade back.

TLDR: When you can Q them for free and don't want to straight up scrap them.

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I max Q when I am against a melee champion who I don't want to full engage before 6.

For example, the other day I played against a Fiora and any time she went for CS I punished her by Qing her. I didn't want to just scrap her because that fight could go any which way and would have been risky. Basically it let's you punish them for farming and forcing them to come into your creep line (and take creep aggro) if they want to trade back.

TLDR: When you can Q them for free and don't want to straight up scrap them.

I'm getting mixed signals in that case. Some people are saying E all the time, you're saying Q conditionally. :/

DububbyNov 25, 20151 votes

Well you shouldn't. It looks like maxing E is better judging by your statement. But then again, I wonder why you lost...

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Well you shouldn't. It looks like maxing E is better judging by your statement. But then again, I wonder why you lost...

I'm thinking he had better dueling power since his Q did...about 80 more damage than mine with a possible crit (and he did get lucky crits)? I'm thinking either I didn't utilize E to its fullest damage or Qs a better choice in a mirror match.

EDIT: What did happen is we were pretty even in lane, but he just had more items and I think he had a level up on me at one point. Kills-wise we were pretty close until his lead started snowballing outside of my lane and he got a ton more kills.

Joe DreddNov 25, 20151 votes

e is more fun (^:

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Nice Henz,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=0lKuic92,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2015-11-25T02:53:44.482+0000)

e is more fun (^:

Noted. Hoped for a Yas main or something to step in but I guess that's not happening, lol.

IronwallJacksonNov 25, 20151 votes

I'm a bronze scrub, but I've been maining Yasuo since the very day I started playing League 2 years ago, so I have a pretty good idea what's up with this champion.

your E and Q will both rise in power at about the same rate while you're in lane, with an extra 20 damage at each level. While you can cause E to do significantly more damage than your Q, you have to remember the timer that your E has and the fact that you'll cast it once per engagement at most, and will burn your escape route while trying to engage.

Q is, on the whole, a lot more reliable, especially after you return to base and buy your first offensive item. Whether you opt for AD, attack speed, or crit chance, the power of your Q will be that much better.

If you go for a maxed E first, you can't really go in for sustained fights. Your best bet is to adopt a hit and run style of harassment where you chunk your opponent with it and try to run away, because your unleveled Q is straight garbage and your autoattacks are about the same. In a mirror match, it might work, since Yasuo has no scaling MR, but it's not the most reliable thing and you'll have to go in with a charged E whenever the opposing Yas's shield is down.

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I'm a bronze scrub, but I've been maining Yasuo since the very day I started playing League 2 years ago, so I have a pretty good idea what's up with this champion.

your E and Q will both rise in power at about the same rate while you're in lane, with an extra 20 damage at each level. While you can cause E to do significantly more damage than your Q, you have to remember the timer that your E has and the fact that you'll cast it once per engagement at most, and will burn your escape route while trying to engage.

Q is, on the whole, a lot more reliable, especially after you return to base and buy your first offensive item. Whether you opt for AD, attack speed, or crit chance, the power of your Q will be that much better.

If you go for a maxed E first, you can't really go in for sustained fights. Your best bet is to adopt a hit and run style of harassment where you chunk your opponent with it and try to run away, because your unleveled Q is straight garbage and your autoattacks are about the same. In a mirror match, it might work, since Yasuo has no scaling MR, but it's not the most reliable thing and you'll have to go in with a charged E whenever the opposing Yas's shield is down.

Charged E is roughly..what is it...150+37.5% at max level? Which is 206 rounded. Q turns out to be 100+AD. E gives you a lot more per level, Q just makes it so you can duel somewhat better. But I think why people max E first is that during laning phase (which is roughly lv 1-8 or so) you'll prob use it a lot more than your Q to deal a higher amount of damage. E->E->charged E onto them, chunk them with Q ->E back to safety because your cd on E is 0.1 from 0.5 which means faster trades/engages/???.

Come midgame you'll start actually making damage (Shiv is first usually) and Q damage will come into play better.

IronwallJacksonNov 25, 20151 votes

What I meant is that Q goes 20>40>60>80>100 while E goes 70>90>110>130>150. Both abilities go up by 20 in power for each point that you invest in them.

Anyway, while you'll trade better during short bursts, but not by very much, given the growth rate of Yasuo's AD. The greatest difference in damage with 0 items will be about 50 or so damage from a fully charged E to a Q (level 9 5-point E v. level 9 5-point Q). That's nice, but for only 50 damage, I'd rather have more the more effective long range poke afforded to you by Q.

Not only that, but if you go into lane with any sort of life steal, such as from runes, the new mastery, or even a Doran's blade, your sustain will be much lower with your E than with your Q.

Ah, and here's another reason, off the top of my head. Last hitting. Last hitting with E is less safe than with Q. Potentially much more so. You can CS from a safer distance and don't run the risk of placing yourself in an unfavorable position.

EDIT: AND ANOTHER THING! If you're out of your lane after level 9, skirmishing and so on, you end up being a lot weaker for several levels because your main source of sustained damage hasn't been leveled.

Please take it from someone with a lot of games with Yasuo under his belt, maxing E over Q first is less than optimal.

SeenanNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

What I meant is that Q goes 20>40>60>80>100 while E goes 70>90>110>130>150. Both abilities go up by 20 in power for each point that you invest in them.

Anyway, while you'll trade better during short bursts, but not by very much, given the growth rate of Yasuo's AD. The greatest difference in damage with 0 items will be about 50 or so damage from a fully charged E to a Q (level 9 5-point E v. level 9 5-point Q). That's nice, but for only 50 damage, I'd rather have more the more effective long range poke afforded to you by Q.

Not only that, but if you go into lane with any sort of life steal, such as from runes, the new mastery, or even a Doran's blade, your sustain will be much lower with your E than with your Q.

Ah, and here's another reason, off the top of my head. Last hitting. Last hitting with E is less safe than with Q. Potentially much more so. You can CS from a safer distance and don't run the risk of placing yourself in an unfavorable position.

EDIT: AND ANOTHER THING! If you're out of your lane after level 9, skirmishing and so on, you end up being a lot weaker for several levels because your main source of sustained damage hasn't been leveled.

Please take it from someone with a lot of games with Yasuo under his belt, maxing E over Q first is less than optimal.

I'd take it from you but the guide I saw with people that are in Plat and Diamond and shit beg to differ.

EDIT: Aside from the guide, apparently people who take E first have a superior winrate in Plat and onward ranks

PsyturkeyNov 25, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I'm a bronze scrub, but I've been maining Yasuo since the very day I started playing League 2 years ago, so I have a pretty good idea what's up with this champion.

your E and Q will both rise in power at about the same rate while you're in lane, with an extra 20 damage at each level. While you can cause E to do significantly more damage than your Q, you have to remember the timer that your E has and the fact that you'll cast it once per engagement at most, and will burn your escape route while trying to engage.

Q is, on the whole, a lot more reliable, especially after you return to base and buy your first offensive item. Whether you opt for AD, attack speed, or crit chance, the power of your Q will be that much better.

If you go for a maxed E first, you can't really go in for sustained fights. Your best bet is to adopt a hit and run style of harassment where you chunk your opponent with it and try to run away, because your unleveled Q is straight garbage and your autoattacks are about the same. In a mirror match, it might work, since Yasuo has no scaling MR, but it's not the most reliable thing and you'll have to go in with a charged E whenever the opposing Yas's shield is down.

Now, I am actually a proponent of maxing Q vs. certain melee match ups where you don't want to just scrap it out but this post is very misguided and does not offer good advice.

Yasuo does plenty of damage on his own and the damage difference between the two skills is minimal. In a situation where you want to get into the wave and harass however, E max offers significantly more mobility and out play potential. It is also worth noting that frequent use of E charges your passive shield faster because the shield charges based upon movement. E max lowers the cool down on E significantly and is the appropriate response in most lanes where you can bully your opponent.

The only time I advocate a Q max ever is when you are unlikely to be able to engage on a melee range opponent. Take Renekton for example. If you engage on him, he -will- shit on you. I'd much rather sit behind my minion line and punish him for trying to CS from safety.

For a Q max to work the enemy must need to get into melee range to CS and they also must be threatening enough that you do not want to try to outplay them because you will likely die.

The idea is to poke them down enough when they try to CS that they don't want to engage on you while you farm up for your power spike (which used to be Shiv, although I'm hearing that may have changed this patch).

IronwallJacksonNov 25, 20151 votes

The difference between the cooldown between E's levels is low enough to be basically irrelevant and the internal timer, lowered as it might be, is not necessarily a big enough advantage to make up for running around with an unleveled Q.

Ultimately, the damage difference between your E and your Q is too low, in my opinion, to make up for all the trouble you bring yourself by using it as your main damage tool.

At most, you're able to cut your windows of engagement by 4 seconds, get an extra 50 or so damage if you trade with only a single Q, and might leave the laning phase in a far less effective state.

I, for one, do not want to try to bully my lane opponent marginally better in exchange for being weaker until level 13 or so and getting a smaller mid-game power spike.

Also, with the weaker Shiv, it might be worth looking into either getting a PD or a Trinity with around 10% extra crit from your runes. Personally, I don't like the Trinity Force on Yasuo so much because it doesn't jelly super well with his cooldown timers, nor is his base attack anything special. It's certainly not bad by any means, it's just that damage isn't something he's hurting for and it ends up interfering with your optimal aa/Q rotation so you can get the most out of it.

Midder ScrayNov 25, 20151 votes

I always max Q first too, but that's because I don't usually play aggressively with Yasuo. People like to max E because it gives you more control and options over your matchup and make laning phase hell for them

But I just sit back and Q some creeps

PsyturkeyNov 25, 20151 votes

An additional note for Q max first: If you are running Warlords and are able to use your Q to poke, a Q max will give you more sustain in lane.

rG ThundragNov 25, 20151 votes

E is superior cause the majority of people you're facing are ranged which lets you use your e more often as it ranks up and provides more up front burst early in the game.

Maxing q can be stronger vs melee champions however

Only AatroxNov 25, 20151 votes

never ever max Q bro. The damage u get from it is minimal. You max E for the mobility not teh damage. It becomes a 0.1 sec CD at max rank wich is sooo good in lane!