On Yasuo, Defensive Tools, and "Bad Design"

Lots of you hate Yasuo. You guys hate him a lot. Its rather intimidating.

And while part of me gets it, I don't get the specifics. Somehow when people complain about Yasuo, they always manage to complain about the things about Yasuo that are actually good design, and not the stuff that actually makes him a problem. Wind Wall gets the biggest cut of the hate towards Yasuo, but its not a inherently bad ability. Its not overpowered, it doesn't "invalidate" other champions, it doesn't need to be removed. His passive shield is similar. It doesn't "invalidate poke champions" as many would often claim it does. Its just a flat-value shield that you can get rid of with a single autoattack.

These abilities aren't where hate toward this champion should be directed. A melee DPS champion needs these kind of powerful defensive tools to survive in melee ranged to deal damage. Fiora has Riposte and her ultimate heal. Yi has Alpha Strike and Meditate. Graves and Jayce have the option to not be in melee range all the time. GP has his oranges. Kled has health resets. Yasuo has Wind Wall and his shield. Wind Wall shouldn't be derided - it should be celebrated as a primary defensive tool that isn't as brute-force broken as the defensive tools of older melee carries. Remember Old Poppy being immune to damage and CC from everyone but your Soraka for 8 seconds? Remember Old Fiora going untargetable for a couple of seconds, dealing massive damage to your entire team, and healing back to full health in the process? Remember Tryndamere being immune to death for five seconds? He can still do that ohmygodriotwhyhaven'tyoureworkedthatworthlesspieceofshitchampionyet.

If you genuinely think that Yasuo is overpowered or badly designed, there's stuff in his kit you can complain about that's actually badly designed. Complain about his double crit chance passive that warps his power curve and allows him to circumvent the traditional weaknesses of full crit builds. Complain about his E, which makes laning against him obnoxious, which gives him complete control over the timing and nature of fights, and which removes the skill expression from landing his Q. Complain about the "training-wheel" feature on his ult that makes it so he won't take tower aggro if he ults someone under their turret. These things are actually genuinely bad design choices Riot has made with this champion. Don't complain about his much needed defensive tools that allow him to function as a melee DPS champion.