(Salt Warning) Is Yi strong?

Mael Jade·Apr 13, 2018·6 votes·5,318 views

A few patches ago was so weak that Riot decided to buff him to make him stronger before the fighter keystone Conqueror went to live servers. With reworked and Conqueror I question the need of those buffs. Between passive (double on hit effects), (double on hit effect) combined with his E and Conquerors bonus true damage I dare to say that the amounts of true damage he can deal are just way to high.

At level 13 with , and his E does an additional 75 true damage on hit at 1.98% Attack speed. With all stacks on that makes for over 200 true damage vs training dummies (and I know that this is buffed up by against 10k hp targets but it is still way to much for me).

Please tell me if you think that he is balanced, weak or strong and if such high amounts of true damage are fine and healthy for the game. [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

22 Comments

JustaNewbApr 13, 20184 votes

Yi is an All In Fighter... once he is in, he stays that way, until his team manages to peel him out or he dies. He has no built in CC, nor hard escape mechanism. If the enemy manages to focus him, he splatters on all the walls.

However. If he gets fed, or your team lacks the ability to lock him down... he is going to kill all of you, one by one.

He has always been this way, and honestly it is the basis of his design. Unlike a Hypercarry he is easily shut down.

NyarlathοtepApr 13, 20181 votes

You know you contradict yourself right? At one hand you say that he can be easily shut down. And on the other you say that unless you can lock him down, you are all going to die.

JustaNewbApr 13, 20181 votes

Not... really. Most teams with half a brain have 2-4 forms of hard CC spread amongst them, and even more soft CC. Slows don't work on him, but if you manage to stop his onslaught for even a few moments he splatters.

NyarlathοtepApr 13, 2018

Well here's the sweet thing. You dont get to choose your team's pick. There have been many cases where i had to fight a yi when my team had minimal hard cc (i was the one that had respectable hard cc) . Oh you forgot to mention that you need reliable hard cc. A mao's snare is going to be almost always better than lets say velkoz's knock up against yi.

JustaNewbApr 13, 20181 votes

This is true, and entirely the fault of whoever had the chance to get reliable CC... and refused.

SpecterVonBarenApr 13, 20181 votes

The current issue is that he's dealing too much upfront damage in the first second of him going in. And not even CC is enough to deal with him, you also need to be able to burst him down before he W's or Q's and nukes someone and then gets resets. Ok, I'm rambling but another problem is that so much CC now has counterplay to it that Yi's can Q past your CC ability, ignore your attack speed and movespeed slows, and heal and wait while his team follows up behind him.

iPooUnicornsApr 13, 20183 votes

Yi is a massive pain to deal with if you don't have point click CC. Additionally you should wait to CC him before he alphas, or CC him before he gets in range to alpha.

JustaNewbApr 13, 20182 votes

Actually best to time his alpha, and CC him AFTER. Yes, you take some damage, but he is now in the middle of your team with no way out.

iPooUnicornsApr 13, 20181 votes

It is situational, if you're alone or just in general in a bad spot, it doesn't hurt to CC him to give you time to get to a better position. But yes, ideally you CC him after his alpha.

Troll for TrumpApr 13, 20182 votes

He does more dmg.

But that wasn't ever a problem, he already did enough dmg.

The game's too gank-based and early power-oriented for a lategame powerfarmer to generally be good

Big LincolnApr 13, 20182 votes

yi is still garbage lol

AirKingNeoApr 14, 20182 votes

"Is Yi strong?"

Looks at statistics

"No."

DraehlApr 13, 20181 votes

Very strong, but very susceptible to CC. Frustrating as a Bard main since CCing him is positioning contingent and you're often dead before you can get him between you and a wall/structure/minion.

Only problem is how easily he can solo Baron/Drakes, even when not fed. I'm fine with him being such a great diver, but a great diver AND so good at taking objectives solo? WW has the same problem. Nunu doing it is a better example of balance though since that's his niche.

SasogwaApr 13, 20181 votes

Honestly that's not a whole lot more from previous patches. Yi's strength has always been pretty much insane melting and DPS, probably even literally the best in the game. The reason you pick Yi is to melt everything basically. Your R kinda has a shit QOL since the highlander nerfs, your W is fine I guess but easily interruptible, your base defensive stats are terrible, your earlygame ganking is trash. If you're laning him you have kind of a huge powerhole between around lvl 4 to "2 items spike". He's in a weird spot. He's a pretty insane lategame carry, but he's melee so he can get fucked hardcore by CC unlike most ranged carries. He gets substantially stronger if paired with some shit like Lulu, Morgana (black shield), Kayle but at the same time you rarely get the picks you want on your team. And jungle/supp duo is meh. Toplane supp is meh. Anyway the nature of the pick is this hard winning or losing scenarios where you pretty much either pentakill or just die without doing anything. But that's in the essence of his kit, with the very limited highlander where you absolutely have to kill someone fast, get reset and rageblade stacked and then melt anything, or get CCed/kited/bursted or highlander expires and you're suddenly an old man in a wheelchair. Is it problematic? I don't think so. Yi's identity is pretty much all in duellist. He's got his hardcounters, his play patterns can be abused but when they aren't he pops off like absolute crazy. Imho, that's healthy. Like he gets to be insanely huge if he doesn't get denied, but at the same time he has to either play well (dodge a bunch of crap and meditate bursts, position and engage at the right time) or his opponents to play bad (splitpush randomly, overextend, burn every CC on something not necessary) to get to that state. As opposed to metapicks that are pretty much good in every scenario and have no real weakness, I think that's better. At least it doesn't feel like you can't do anything against him (unless you have 0 CC and mobility I guess) and it doesn't feel like if he gets ahead he's better than you in literally all domains like a polyvalent meta pick would. He's still susceptible to CC, burst and doesnt bring any utility whatsoever.

32150Apr 13, 20181 votes

So, the buffs didn't do a whole lot for his state. The indirect buffs afterwards drastically improved his state. rageblade rework, cinderhulk nerfs, tank junglers got nerfed, etc. conquerer didn't do that much as not that many use it and it isn't that great, as you need to set up for it, but if you proc it, it definitely is strong.

Imo he is in a decent spot right now, even at higher elos like plat and low dia. the problem with yi is that he either shits on the enemy team or is useless most of the times, which makes him feel so oppressive. he still has clear and many weaknesses you can abuse.

TyroneWatermelonApr 13, 20181 votes

Bad feast or famine design

kaironenApr 13, 20181 votes

Yi isn't op, although I have a friend who thinks it is, it's just a really frustrating champion to deal with and it makes you say he is broken just when he gets picked. Imo, he just needs a full rework. His main ability that he is, I believe, designed around technically has no counterplay. I'm talking about his Q. That ability is instant, is able to dodge 90% of cc abilities, and can be used as a gap closer. The only true counterplay to him is to melee cc him or to out range him with something like an elise cocoon. Either way, he's not broken or anything and he's not impossible to deal with since all he can do in a teamfight is do damage. I know a lot of champions are like that but if you see him coming, you can just pile on him. Champions who are similar like jax at least has a stun.

FunkyMonkey3696Apr 13, 20181 votes

Also there i a major difference on how people use q, it has a significant skill curve. You need to know a lot of timing to dodge cc successfully. Also Conquerer isn't necessarily best rune on him, LT works better often. Especially if ur jungling and can't stack it like jax can.

SpecterVonBarenApr 13, 20181 votes

I think he could at least do to lose his immunity to attack speed slows when he's using ult. If he's going to be able to do a lot of true damage with his E then I think it's fair enough that you should at least be able to slow down his attacks if you have the feature in your kit or bought an item for it.

Sire HippingtonApr 14, 20181 votes

I don't think conqueror makes a big difference, Yi always had massive truedamage with guinsoo's and lethal tempo gives more dps to shred tanks while PTA gives more damage vs squishys. Infact, his winrate didn't really change in 8.6, and it dropped compared to 8.5 with the last patch beacuase of the guinsoo's nerfs. He's the usuall pain in the ass if you have a low cc comp or an uncoordinated team(so nearly every solo Q match) that he's always been and still easily handled with CC and coordination.

Yi has the same issue as other high mobillity, high dps melees. IF he get's going, he utterly destroys his opponents, and if he doesn't he is rather usless. On the big picture, he's pretty balanced, for high elo even a bit on the weak side, but that doesn't help you if you are against one of those that get going. Katarina would be another such champion.