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I see a lot of issues with Yi's design in this game.

chipndip1··4 votes·704 views

Either Devourer's gotta go, Guinsoo's needs a nerf, or Yi needs a rework. Maybe all three.

Devourer's item synergy gimmick just makes certain items and champions a nightmare to deal with balance-wise. It's either they feast and run through EVERYTHING, or they don't and they're useless. That's not exactly healthy game play. I should be able to feel like I have a chance to stop the bleeding and the snowballing unless I royally screwed up, not feel trapped in a death roll cause the enemy has devourer and a few kills to work with. I should be able to feel like my jungler can swing back into relevance if they play right, not feel like they're hopeless in an investment they won't get any return from. The item is just an item of extremes.

That's where Guinsoo's comes in. Basically any AA-based melee champ can grab this thing and wreak complete havoc. Guinsoo's is its own problem, but Devourer makes that problem significantly worse. This thing just adds a too much 1-dimensional power to rather 1-dimensional champs.

Now with all that said, and onto Yi, Yi is an ASSASSIN. Last I checked, assassins pick a weakened or squishy target, swing in, kill it, and peel out while bypassing as much counter-play as possible. Yi, on the other hand, will ram his "influence" into ANYONE'S ass and usually come out on top if he's sitting on a few items, and it doesn't matter if that ass is a pirate Gangplank, a ghost Kalista, Ionian leader Karma, a ninja Akali, a bad ninja Shen, a Demacian bird whisperer Quinn, or a rock Malphite. The only way to deal with this is to postpone it long enough to end the match before he gets the items to auto-win the game almost solo. This sort of design is ridiculous for an assassin champion. This sort of design is pretty ridiculous period. And the worst part is that Xin Zhao plays almost the exact same way, so there's practically two of the guy in the game.

Something's gotta give.

27 Comments

TehNACHO2 votes

Honestly, I never understood Yi's Assassin tag. He's a DPS Fighter at heart and his burst is either incredibly low (Alpha Strike is incredibly weak damage wise as the game goes on), gimmicky (Meditate double/triple strike), or just a side effect of having a lot of DPS (Crit Yi).

I mean I've even (casually) played Mid Lane Assassin for the longest time and even calculated a one shot build with him (hint: he's really bad at one shotting in the same way say, Talon could), he's just not an Assassin gameplay wise.

LilxPaprika1 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, I never understood Yi's Assassin tag. He's a DPS Fighter at heart and his burst is either incredibly low (Alpha Strike is incredibly weak damage wise as the game goes on), gimmicky (Meditate double/triple strike), or just a side effect of having a lot of DPS (Crit Yi).

I mean I've even (casually) played Mid Lane Assassin for the longest time and even calculated a one shot build with him (hint: he's really bad at one shotting in the same way say, Talon could), he's just not an Assassin gameplay wise.

alpha strike isn't weak get crit and ad. it hurts. your building items that don't scale with it thats why. try this build it hurts: http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2104803399/38492205?tab=builds

TehNACHO2 votes

Bro I just said I was a Mid Yi player, I HAD to build crit and AD at the time, and even then, the best use of Alpha Strike was for an Alpha dodge, not the damage.

LilxPaprika1 votes

{quoted}

Bro I just said I was a Mid Yi player, I HAD to build crit and AD at the time, and even then, the best use of Alpha Strike was for an Alpha dodge, not the damage.

oh ya didn't read half of it. his ult is all about attacking he's an assassin if people let you auto attack. not in the sense of pressing your spells dropping a pay load and walking away. Which is also why he's played bruiser a lot to use the time he needs to auto. which is what assasins should do when facing strong cc. if they don't then you'll likely snowball. thats why he's a champ you should tend to pick into less cc heavy comps to punish them for it. the utility of alpha though is a worthwhile tradeoff imo.

TehNACHO1 votes

You need to press enter one extra time between a quote and what you want to say.

Auto Attacking is a DPS trait for Fighters and Marksman. Assassins are primarily Burst based. What's weird is a champion lacking in Burst and having a titanic excess in DPS but being called an Assassin.

chipndip12 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, I never understood Yi's Assassin tag. He's a DPS Fighter at heart and his burst is either incredibly low (Alpha Strike is incredibly weak damage wise as the game goes on), gimmicky (Meditate double/triple strike), or just a side effect of having a lot of DPS (Crit Yi).

I mean I've even (casually) played Mid Lane Assassin for the longest time and even calculated a one shot build with him (hint: he's really bad at one shotting in the same way say, Talon could), he's just not an Assassin gameplay wise.

They need to rework champs like Yi, Xin, Kayle, Annie, and basically anyone else that's almost entirely defined by a singular play pattern. They're the ones with the biggest balancing concerns.

TehNACHO4 votes

And the vast majority of carries in general (^ ^')

The ironic thing is that Yi's probably got the most mechanics out of all of them if you understand Alpha Dodge and Meditate reset. There's a reason why Yi mains like Cowsep can get Diamond in the Korea servers long before Devourer or even Feral Flare existed.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

And the vast majority of carries in general (^ ^')

The ironic thing is that Yi's probably got the most mechanics out of all of them if you understand Alpha Dodge and Meditate reset. There's a reason why Yi mains like Cowsep can get Diamond in the Korea servers long before Devourer or even Feral Flare existed.

But the core of his game play is still right-clicking people to death. He's entirely based around that, and as things are now, he's less of an assassin and more of a melee-form adc. With that said, though, his ability to take on multiple opponents is straight up ridiculous. He almost literally can become unstoppable, and most of what he does is right click. That's kind of my issue.

Yi's design is almost entirely dependent on abusing numbers, hence why Devourer and Guinsoo's are making him a nightmare right now. He can reach those numbers and then just build a ton of defense stats, giving him the numbers to allow him to abuse his numbers longer.

TehNACHO1 votes

But the core of his game play is still right-clicking people to death. He's entirely based around that, and as things are now, he's less of an assassin and more of a melee-form adc.

And do you not realize where my satire towards the majority of carries was going?

If you think Yi's broken entirely because of this, you have an entire game mechanic to rework to fit your rather arbitrary line of "good design". You don't need to make every champion some bullshit mage ability caster assassin hybrid like Zed, you simply need to polish what's good about a champion above all else. You can't be this shortsighted and talk about champion design like that.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Xin is fine, his entire thing is engage and disrupt an enemy team

Kayle is fine as well as an Supportive Dps champs

Annie is another mage, fine but needs itemization fixes.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Xin is fine, his entire thing is engage and disrupt an enemy team

Kayle is fine as well as an Supportive Dps champs

Annie is another mage, fine but needs itemization fixes.

The point is that Xin, Kayle, Annie, Yi, and others become extreme cases of balance where they're either not very strong or out-right ridiculous to deal with because they're balanced around one singular play style and number abusing, rather than mechanics.

Like, where's the counter-play to any of these champs, and I mean REALLY, where's the counter-play? Hard cc counters anyone in the game, so that's not a good answer alone. You can't really dodge what they do. You can't really bait much of any of it either. They're just unhealthy for the game as a whole in the long run, being either too strong to have fun or too weak to please their fan base. There's others that fall in this category from what I see, but this is just naming a few.

BluePolarizer1 votes

So have them be in a state where they're not very strong.

Know what "counterplay" looks like?

Fiora.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

So have them be in a state where they're not very strong.

Know what "counterplay" looks like?

Fiora.

I'm fine with Fio's design. She has clear high points and low points. She CAN get strong, but she needs to be fed by a moderate margin before she can even think of taking on more than one person at a time. She doesn't just swing back into being a huge threat out of nowhere by completing one or two items and landing a kill or two. She can split push, but she can't take on 3 guys on a relatively equal playing field solo.

Fiora's design is way less toxic to the game experience. Her aoe heal thing is weird...but that's my only gripe.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Xin. Kayle, and annie are easily fixable through buffs/nerfs since their kit's power budget is obvious and playstyle are as well.

Xin has to all-in to do anything but he is a great disrupter and engager. CC and kiting/poke destroys him but if played still feels rewarding and still counterable. He was just overbearing because riot chose to give him a hyper buff outta nowhere without any compensation nerfs.

Kayle is a case of CC and kill yes she has her ulti but with kiting/poke she will be forced to blow it. I do love that she can go anti-assassin supportive like if needed which is cool.

Annie I kinda lean on a fence when I say she doesn't need a rework but flash tibbers is a bit overbearing if she can one-shot and there's better AoE cc burst if it can't one-shot, and 1 QSS used correctly can get out before she finishes her burst. I am kinda leaning toward reworking her.

Yi actually needs a rework because his kit just doesn't need AD/AP to function, He loves AS/On-hits due to his kit's nature of Free AAs, AS, True damage on-hits, all with a skill based untargetable move and free tank stats heal. Not to mention for some reason he has highest MS in the game meaning any MS benefits him more than any champ (except udyr)

Xin/Kayle aren't singular play and don't abuse numbers, annie doesn't abuse numbers really but does have a playstyle done better by others. While yi is a case of both. Again xin and kayle definitely don't need reworks. Annie is an iffy case but might. While yi needs it.

Edit: Only reason annie I would go for a rework thinking back on it is she's useless if you were to only rework her stun on passive, but with it and flash her AoE cc and damage with good items is scary.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Xin. Kayle, and annie are easily fixable through buffs/nerfs since their kit's power budget is obvious and playstyle are as well.

Xin has to all-in to do anything but he is a great disrupter and engager. CC and kiting/poke destroys him but if played still feels rewarding and still counterable. He was just overbearing because riot chose to give him a hyper buff outta nowhere without any compensation nerfs.

Xin's problem isn't his diving. His problem is that his game play is too linear. If he can't jump in and stab someone dead, that's it for him, and he becomes as useless as this simile in a metaphor convention. Too much of Xin's power is in stacking items and stabbing someone with them to a very similar result to Yi.

Kayle is a case of CC and kill yes she has her ulti but with kiting/poke she will be forced to blow it. I do love that she can go anti-assassin supportive like if needed which is cool.

  1. You don't really kite Kayle. She's just as ranged as most people trying to kite her + she can build Rylai's + she has a speed up and a slow in her kit.

  2. Kayle's another example of "How many items do I have?". Does she have a lot of items? Chances are she's gonna run your whole team through. Does she not? Now she's useless. There isn't much of an in-between with her because there's not much else she does that's influential, period. Her ult's a thing, but chances are it's dropping on her so she can finish up wiping out 3/5 of your team spamming E.

Annie I kinda lean on a fence when I say she doesn't need a rework but flash tibbers is a bit overbearing if she can one-shot and there's better AoE cc burst if it can't one-shot, and 1 QSS used correctly can get out before she finishes her burst. I am kinda leaning toward reworking her.

Annie, unlike the others, isn't an AA-bot. She's an R bot. All her kit has is damage and a stun. Her Q is just damage. Her W is just damage. Her E is hardly noticeable. Her R is just damage. Her passive gives her a stun. That's it. Either she's deleting people with an aoe you can't even react to or she's not and there's nothing else she brings to the table outside of damage and that one stun. Due to her nature, they can't really do much about the frustrating game play with her since she'd be completely unusable if she didn't do at least as much as she's doing right now, yet what she does right now is pretty frustrating. You don't get hit by an Annie ult thinking "Man, I could have played that better". Once that stun's up, if you don't have the stats to live through the move, you quite literally cannot be within 675 range her.

Xin/Kayle aren't singular play and don't abuse numbers, annie doesn't abuse numbers really but does have a playstyle done better by others.

You're serious...aren't you...

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Xin can change to bodyguard type playstyle if he can't dive, he's always had that to fall back on. Not all of his power is on items, he has great disruption power.

Kayle can still be affected by CC and harass, and she has great supportive power even without farming up items. She's by no means items one and done.

Yea annie's only problem isn't damage, her damage is fine. Her issue is her AoE CC with that damage when she's strong. If anything riot could rework Annie's passive to remove the CC but we'd have to see what they'd replace it with cause Annie is just known for her damage with CC like how riot removed silence from assassins because doing 100-0 burst while giving their enemy no way of fighting back was unfair. Elise does still have a heavy CC stun which could use a nerf so it does 1 damage but it's really easy to dodge and more predictable due to it's high projectile speed.

Annie all she could use is a passive change. They could do a passive to help tibbers come out more often and do conditional CC while out instead of a stun when summoned.

And I'm very serious about kayle and xin, They have varying play styles and aren't just numbers abuse while having counterplay.

chipndip11 votes

{quoted}

Xin can change to bodyguard type playstyle if he can't dive, he's always had that to fall back on. Not all of his power is on items, he has great disruption power.

Except not really. The dude isn't a tank, and if you need to peel for allies, you don't use Xin. We don't use Pantheon for that gibberish either.

Kayle can still be affected by CC and harass, and she has great supportive power even without farming up items. She's by no means items one and done.

If Kayle had great supportive power like her secondary tag implies, she'd actually be a useful support on top of being a solo-laner. All Kayle is truly useful for is spamming E. That's her one defining play pattern.

Yea annie's only problem isn't damage, her damage is fine. Her issue is her AoE CC with that damage when she's strong. If anything riot could rework Annie's passive to remove the CC but we'd have to see what they'd replace it with cause Annie is just known for her damage with CC like how riot removed silence from assassins because doing 100-0 burst while giving their enemy no way of fighting back was unfair.

Annie's problem isn't the damage or stun alone. It's that the damage and the stun IS ANNIE. She as a champ is defined too much by too few variables based on what could possibly be in a kit. So balancing her when she only has 2 things to work with makes her either too good or too bad, similar to the others in discussion and more others I didn't bring up.

Elise does still have a heavy CC stun which could use a nerf so it does 1 damage but it's really easy to dodge and more predictable due to it's high projectile speed.

What does Elise have to do with any of the champs being discussed here?

Annie all she could use is a passive change. They could do a passive to help tibbers come out more often and do conditional CC while out instead of a stun when summoned.

You can't change her only hard cc without putting it somewhere in her kit. If you change her passive, you change her whole kit. No one's gonna run into Tibbers after he's out.

And I'm very serious about kayle and xin, They have varying play styles and aren't just numbers abuse while having counterplay.

I mean, maybe that's so in your bot games, but in actual matches...

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

Xin is a disruptive bruiser he can turn bodyguard if needed.

Kayle is a useful support if you actually played her, great heals, and assassination denial to aid her team is powerful.

Annie's issue is her stun. If they removed it she'd be too weak that's why I said she should have her passive reworked into something that helps keeps tibbers out more and change her abilities so if triggered and tibbers does "x" it's a conditional stun instead of a flash AoE stun with 100-0 damage if ahead.

Elise is one of the few assassins with heavy CC and non-gated burst however her CC isn't instant and is dodgeable hence why I was further saying Annie's passive should be reworked and make any CC she's given conditional with Tibbers.

It's not that hard to do at all.

I have multiple accounts to play and obviously if you only look at one part of xin/kayle you don't know them.

EcchiOtakuTM1 votes

It's because he's a Carry (Someone who scales heavily off crit to deal damage) but since that was removed and ranged ADCs were changed to marksmen they slapped that onto him.

LilxPaprika2 votes

yi is really strong even without devourer tho. warrior yi is really strong too tbh.

Leanus Crain2 votes

First off having playing Xin and Yi I can say they play the same way as Yi and an ADC play, by right clicking. second he's a really viable pick right now because of the tank meta coming back and the fact that he laughs at that. Being a Yi player I can safely say that he is stoppable you just have to know how to. He's an Assassin because his play is to look for picks kill them and then the next and the next. I can give you a list of champions that could counter Yi but the main problem is in low elo almost no one cares enough to stop him.

chipndip11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Leanus Crain,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=A0gZmLBc,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-03-02T02:08:29.253+0000)

First off having playing Xin and Yi I can say they play the same way as Yi and an ADC play, by right clicking. second he's a really viable pick right now because of the tank meta coming back and the fact that he laughs at that. Being a Yi player I can safely say that he is stoppable you just have to know how to. He's an Assassin because his play is to look for picks kill them and then the next and the next. I can give you a list of champions that could counter Yi but the main problem is in low elo almost no one cares enough to stop him.

He isn't stoppable. You can STALL him, and hopefully long enough to close out, but he'll eventually become that same old death ball, and at that point you might as well surrender since there's relatively few ways to deal with him being 2-3 champions worth of damage as well as the rest of his team being 4 champions worth of trouble.

I'm not saying it's impossible to deal with entirely, but his design is insanely toxic. Even Janna's not as toxic. She's easily more broken, but she's not as toxic at least.

chipndip11 votes

[{quoted}](name=Leanus Crain,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=A0gZmLBc,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2016-03-02T02:08:29.253+0000)

First off having playing Xin and Yi I can say they play the same way as Yi and an ADC play, by right clicking. second he's a really viable pick right now because of the tank meta coming back and the fact that he laughs at that. Being a Yi player I can safely say that he is stoppable you just have to know how to. He's an Assassin because his play is to look for picks kill them and then the next and the next. I can give you a list of champions that could counter Yi but the main problem is in low elo almost no one cares enough to stop him.

The main difference is that adcs don't synergize with items like Guinsoo's, Devourer, Titanic Hydra, and a ton of other random bull that'd otherwise break them entirely. Adcs are tied down by:

  1. Lack-luster self peel.

  2. Extremely squishy build paths for efficiency (save Sterak's...).

  3. Inability to melt half a team single-handed in record times, including the tanks, save Kog'Maw, who's obviously broken since Riot decided to put too much of his kits power in solely right clicking, hence them shaving off power there and putting it back in his Q and R.

Because Yi's melee, he needs more damage for his trouble. However, all he does is right click, so it creates problems that marksmen don't have to deal with (normally): How much is too much, since there's nothing else he does? How much damage dealing potential is fair to Yi, seeing how there's really only one way to play the champ? Not enough and he's immediately replaced by other low-counterplay, AA-spamming melees like Jax or Xin, and if none of them are good enough, they all just become irrelevant. Too much and Yi...well...he's what he is right now.

Think of it this way: If an adc is caught out by someone like Darius or Garen, they'll be pissing their pants unless the adc has a huge advantage. Once Yi's on a few items, it'll take the majority of the team to deal with him alone.

Jezebelle1 votes

{quoted}

Either Devourer's gotta go, Guinsoo's needs a nerf, or Yi needs a rework. Maybe all three.

Devourer's item synergy gimmick just makes certain items and champions a nightmare to deal with balance-wise. It's either they feast and run through EVERYTHING, or they don't and they're useless. That's not exactly healthy game play. I should be able to feel like I have a chance to stop the bleeding and the snowballing unless I royally screwed up, not feel trapped in a death roll cause the enemy has devourer and a few kills to work with. I should be able to feel like my jungler can swing back into relevance if they play right, not feel like they're hopeless in an investment they won't get any return from. The item is just an item of extremes.

That's where Guinsoo's comes in. Basically any AA-based melee champ can grab this thing and wreak complete havoc. Guinsoo's is its own problem, but Devourer makes that problem significantly worse. This thing just adds a too much 1-dimensional power to rather 1-dimensional champs.

Now with all that said, and onto Yi, Yi is an ASSASSIN. Last I checked, assassins pick a weakened or squishy target, swing in, kill it, and peel out while bypassing as much counter-play as possible. Yi, on the other hand, will ram his "influence" into ANYONE'S ass and usually come out on top if he's sitting on a few items, and it doesn't matter if that ass is a pirate Gangplank, a ghost Kalista, Ionian leader Karma, a ninja Akali, a bad ninja Shen, a Demacian bird whisperer Quinn, or a rock Malphite. The only way to deal with this is to postpone it long enough to end the match before he gets the items to auto-win the game almost solo. This sort of design is ridiculous for an assassin champion. This sort of design is pretty ridiculous period. And the worst part is that Xin Zhao plays almost the exact same way, so there's practically two of the guy in the game.

Something's gotta give.

I agree with this, minus the "Yi isn't an assassin" philosophy thing

LilxPaprika1 votes

i made this suggestion for devourer:

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/r02oNn2R-change-devourer-rather-than-nerf-it Having a mordekaiser W like passive would be cool. A low target would have a small ring indicator around them. If you enter it as you close in on them you gain movement speed. Once you enter it, it stays for 3 seconds. There could be like a 10 second cool down per target like udyr stun/ekko passive.

Id change devourer all together, pain to balance around. Plus this item change would offer an attack speed jungle item for non on hit champs which there are a lot of. Like VI, shen, irelia, tryndamere, aatrox, xin etc... especially now that triforce gives less attack speed. irelia jungle would work with a plain attack speed item with triforce.

the cool thing about magic damage attack speed on hit item. is that it can deal more dmg but is typically hard to get penetration for it and can't sustain from bonus magic damage. its a tradeoff but can offer strong early game. isn't that enough.

Desiderium1 votes

Completely agreed. Master Yi is a piece of shit annoying champion that is too easy to be successful with and has a lot of gameplay health issues.

BluePolarizer1 votes

just remember: last season Yi was at a 45-49% win rate all the way until November 2015. Then his win rate shot up to 52%+.

Why?

Fervor of Battle and Rageblade.

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