Please explain how to counter Yasuo as Galio or Swain

Dehitay··2 votes·3,982 views

I've read a few times on the forum that Galio and Swain are Yasuo counters, but my personal experiences haven't matched those statments. Sadly, Galio and Swain are the champions from my mid champion pool that are listed as Yasuo counters, so I'm hoping I've just been trying wrong and somebody can explain to me the correct way to fight against Yasuo as one of these two champions. I'm going to briefly explain what I do as each champion, and if anybody can tell me how to improve, please do.

Galio: Galio is actually my main champion for mid lane, so this would ideally be my best bet against Yasuo. My build path for Galio is RoA > boots > Glacial Shroud > Spirit Visage > Frozen Heart > Merc Treads

My problem with Galio is that both his Q and E are skill shots and both are blockable by windwall. I can kill a crappy Yasuo, but I can do that with any champion I'm decent with. A skilled Yasuo will just walk up and start harassing me and last hitting minions, and if I do anything even remotely resembling a cast animation, dash through a minion to avoid it. In the rare cases, I manage to hit him, it only pops his shield and he walks around to regen it and come back. If I ult, my R enough won't do enough damage to kill him and he'll just dash through me or the nearest minion to avoid my follow up. The only way I can actually get kills is if my jungler comes while my R is up, but this isn't countering him; this is just what happens when your jungler ganks any enemy. Fortunately, I'm good enough with Galio that I can use my W to avoid getting killed, but I can't really get kills own my own against Yasuo. From my experiences, Galio doesn't counter Yasuo; he just goes even with him.

Swain: I was actually very excited when I read that Swain was a counter cause I love Swain, but he only really seems to do good against a small set of champions. But to think one of those champions would be the one who I have the most problems with got me excited. My build path for Swain is RoA > Zhonya's > Sorc Shoes > Rylai's > Abyssal

I've only gone up against Yasuo as Swain once and I didn't really know what to do so here's what happened. At level 1, I had my E and he had his Q and I managed to win trade offs by E'ing and AA'ing. The fact that I was winning at level 1 got me excited and I figured I was going to do good. So level 2 came and I got my Q and he got his dash. I figured that if I was winning trades with E and AA, then my Q would just do more damage on top of that. So I went in for the E and Q. While I did land it, I sure as hell didn't win the trade. Now that Yasuo had his dash, he just dashed through a minion, AA'ed me in the face, Q'ed, and started chasing me as a ran. When I got out of range, of his autos, he just dashed through me and started wailing on me again. I went from full life to about 1/5 of my life and while I did take off some of his life, his lifesteal managed to negate hafl that damage just by the damage he did to me. I had to go back and when I came back, he was already at full life from his lifesteal and ready to go again. I spend the rest of the time trying to avoid any path he could dash through and jump on to me, but that meant I was unable to do any damage to him. And unlike Galio, Swain has sub par wave clear so I was just falling behind the entire time. Once I got to level 6, I decided to just try the full Swain all-in combo and see what happens. My E and Q hit, but obvious my W missed cause it's Yasuo. but my E, Q, and R weren't enough to outdamage him, and he just killed me. There was absolutely not coming back at that point. I have absolutely no clue how Swain is a counter to Yasuo.

So if anybody can point out any flaws in what I'm doing, I would appreciate it. I'm almost sure there's something wrong with how I played Swain. Maybe build Zhonya's before RoA and just risk running out of mana for damage. I don't know. That's why I'm honestly asking for help.

13 Comments

Zero Skill Tank3 votes

As Swain :

  • All your laning rune pages have per-level armor seals, no wonder Yasuo wins trades. Try flat armour seals.

  • If ROA rush is not working for you against Yasuo(or Zed) , try item 1056 item 1056 ->item 1029->item 3020 -> item 3157 . You will need to be a bit more conservative about ulting though without mana.

  • Avoid trading pre-6 in the first place, you should be able to avoid most of his damage with your ranges. It is hard, but doable, if he tries to zone you from minions just abuse him with autos and E+Q+AA+AA when his shield is down. Even if he tries to jump on you, flat seals should win you the trade easily.

  • Post-6 just don't get ulted when your ult is not active and you're set.

Dehitay2 votes

{quoted}

As Swain :

  • All your laning rune pages have per-level armor seals, no wonder Yasuo wins trades. Try flat armour seals.

This is something that skipped my mind entirely. I'm glad you brought it up.

PDE5 Inhibitors2 votes

Ban phase.

1st Movement2 votes

For Gallo make use of his shield if Yasuo attacks u and same as before wait out windwall before spamming spells

Posui Gart1 votes

As a Swain-you have a bit of advantage at lvl1 with your E, but after that just throw your EQ and back off. If he runs for you-he takes full Q damage, if not-you just freely harrased him. Don't let him AA you as he will win in AA trade because of his Q. Anyway your focus is to farm and spam your EQ. After lvl6 once he wastes his charged Q-throw EQ and go in with ult. If he runs away-catch him with W, he will have no targets to dash. If he tries to fight-kite him(move a bit away from him and your minions while your spells damage him), and when he dashes on you-W under yourself, then either finish him with ignite or back off while he is rooted. The key to winning against Yasuo is to not allowing him to freely hit you, and after lvl6 you can rip half his HP off if he gets close. After ROA+Zhonyas you can just kill him with EQR, especially if he has nothing to dash. Be careful, however, as he can block your E with windwall, if he does this while you aren't overfed-better back off as it is your main damage tool

Dehitay1 votes

Are you supposed to wait till he takes out a wave before going in to EQ him? The Yasuo I went against used minions to jump on me and then used me to either keep me from running or dodge my W. Or are you supposed to run around to the side and do it where he can't use minions, but you risk a gank if you don't have enough wards in place?

Also, is there any strategy to farming once he gets to level 2? By using my minions as a dash path, he kept me pretty zoned from farming. I could manuever around to get melee minions and run before any relatiation, but even if I tried to W and run on casters, he could catch me. And Swain doesn't have enough autoattack damage to farm under turret.

Boulderox1 votes

The only thought process I can think for galio is building hardcore tank, getting passive ap along the way, and focusing on using your w and e defensively on your squishies, while using ult to both lock down and tank any abuse in fights. I think it goes by saying that his ult stops yasuos insane mobility. Idk if his shield mixes with galios qs high damage, I don't believe it negates it ?damage for shield hp that is

Dehitay1 votes

His W does increase the damage of his Q and E if that's what you're unsure of. My Galio build is tanky, but that alone doesn't counter Yasuo. With people saying Galio is one of Yasuo's counters, I was hoping that I would have a natural advantage against even a skilled Yasuo cause I'm good with Galio. But I've only gone even with them so far, so I'm hoping there's a trick I'm missing.

Salron1 votes

Galio isn't a Yasuo counter what clown told you that?

EcchiOtakuTM2 votes

He, and every other mage (not sure about assassin since only one I play is talon) is but people waste their stuff to let yasuo win.

Zerolera1 votes

Swain counters yasuo just fine Galio not so much. A super easy counter pick to yasuo if you see him mid though is Kayle.

"I see you wanted to windwall my attacks? Funny they'll just go right through."

1st Movement1 votes

Swain can use w So what you wanna do is bait out his wind before going aggro with e q

xSleepy1 votes

honestly i think there's something to be said about being able to play into any matchup skill wise, but sometimes the champ just isn't suited to a matchup. i think with galio your best bet might be to just farm passively and get yourself to the teamfight phase with enough items to get some damage and a good ult with swain (and i'm not exactly an experienced swain myself) i imagine the key to the matchup must be landing the w. i wonder if you could try timing your w on top of yourself for when he dashes towards you? just a thought. if that's not gonna work i think your best bet might be to, again, just try to farm and make it to a point where it's not just 1v1

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