Master Yi's recommended items

Slamurai Jack·Aug 31, 2015·5 votes·895 views

Master Yi has had Stalkers with Warrior as his recommended jungle item the entire season and I think I've seen like 2-3 Yi's out of hundreds actually build it. Can we just change it to Skirmishers+Devourer now?

10 Comments

windwolf777Aug 31, 20151 votes

Actually since the change from it being on hit I don't really like item 3931 on him and instead like item 3930 since the change

Slamurai JackAug 31, 20152 votes

I still prefer item 3931 just because of the 20% damage reduction which allows you to duel burstier champions and the true damage is no slouch against armor stackers either. item 3930 just seems like overkill to me although I don't think it's a bad idea if you plan to gank more early.

BluePolarizerAug 31, 20151 votes

exactly why you get blue smite. You deal so much damage it doesn't matter. All you need to do is to get rolling in the first place.

Slamurai JackAug 31, 20151 votes

Blue smite isn't going to save you from the Riven who 100-0's you or the Shyvana who outduels you or the Kha who blows 70% of your health in 1 isolated Q. Yi already kills people extremely quickly, but he needs to live long enough to do it. And having a mini exhaust is extremely useful for that. Blue smite is for catching people so you can kill them but Yi already does that quite well. Red smite is for making sure you win once you get there, and I can't imagine going without it on a squishy dueling jungler.

BluePolarizerAug 31, 20151 votes

Red smite won't save you from any of that. Not dueling the Riven and defensive items will. Don't try to fight their strongest, fight the weakest so you can get rolling. I get blue smite to get better ganks so that I can get items faster and to help lanes out. I avoid the enemy jungler unless they are weaker or its a countergank. Yi is not sticky until cutlass. You cannot afford to wait until cutlass to start ganking effectively. Even at 6, without blue smite, Yi can literally be walked away from.

I have 200+ games on Yi with a 60% win rate in plat. I've thought this through and I just don't see the advantage to red smite. The only thing I'd use it for is the 20% damage reduce very late game but at very late game, your survivability comes from your damage and items, so it isn't worth giving up a better early game. You should be trying to snowball the mid-game and winning around the 30-35 minute mark. If it goes to ultra late game where everyone is 6 slotted Yi actually falls off.

Slamurai JackAug 31, 20151 votes

All I know is that red smite consistently turns duels against champs like Udyr, Shyvana, Xin Zhao, etc. That to me is extremely valuable. If I have red smite as Yi and their Xin has blue smite, I am going to win the 1v1 assuming similar gold and health. I get red smite on Shyvana for the same reason even though most prefer blue smite. Being near guaranteed to win 1v1's changes the way you get to play the map in a massively positive way and the MS steal from blue smite pales in comparison when you consider that Yi isn't exactly known for his ganking prowess. I think blue smite is great on champions like Rek'sai or Udyr who can use that MS steal to supplement their natural CC but I highly dislike it on champions that are all about exploiting 1v1's like Yi is. Red smite allows you to pick fights with champs like Riven, Jax, or Irelia when you would normally need to avoid them, which is a big deal since those are the champions you typically need to split against.

BluePolarizerAug 31, 20151 votes

I prefer to farm, gank their squishies/immobiles and teamfight/skirmish, rather than solo split. I find this way wins more games more often. Solo splitting is just not that easy against a good duelist that defends under tower. If the Riven comes out of the turret, sure, you can beat her with red smite. But if the lane pushes to the turret and you aren't massively ahead, you have to either back off or try to dive. In this case, red smite only reduces the amount you have to be ahead by; it doesn't change the fact that you have to be ahead. Being ahead of a laner as a jungler isn't easy.

Slamurai JackAug 31, 20151 votes

I haven't found it that hard. I'm consistently stronger than everyone else in the game at 20+ minutes if I'm playing a jungler with a fast clear and I keep up an efficient jungle path. I've found myself able to 1v1 dive pretty much anyone under tower as soon as I get Sated+Botrk, even champions like Riven. Time your Q well and you can very easily 100-0 Riven under her tower no problem. If you watch Cowsep, he does dives like that on a regular basis even against some of the strongest and slipperiest 1v1 champions in the game. And that is an absolutely enormous problem for the enemy team. Whether or not your team will actually capitalize on this is a whole other issue that says far more about Solo Q than it does about Yi's viability as a split pusher.

But I will say this; getting ahead of other people in the game is extremely easy as a jungler even in diamond. I play jungle Shyvana pretty much every time its available and it's extremely common for me to be 2-3k or more gold above everyone else in the game by 25 minutes. Yi is slightly slower but similar. A consistent, efficient jungle path and a couple kills can easily snag you Sated, Botrk, and IE by 25 minutes, and then you're basically unstoppable. You can use that power to group and teamfight if you so choose but that requires your team to actually pick initiation and follow up, something you blatantly cannot rely on Solo Q players to do. Or, you can just shove a side lane then dive whoever comes to stop you, over and over until you win the game. I personally prefer the latter and red smite helps with that immensely.

windwolf777Sep 1, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Slamurai Jack,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=EPfkFE8j,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2015-08-31T07:46:44.665+0000)

I still prefer just because of the 20% damage reduction which allows you to duel burstier champions and the true damage is no slouch against armor stackers either. just seems like overkill to me although I don't think it's a bad idea if you plan to gank more early.

Yeah I can see your side of it too.

EDIT: And I do gank with him pre enchantment which is why I do like the blue over the red.

Jungle Lux GodAug 31, 20151 votes

Devourer is definitely better on Yi than Warrior, but Stalker's I think is better than Skirmisher's.

The difference between the two is Skirmisher's 20% damage reduction and Stalker's slow.

Stalker's allows Master Yi to have a much greater impact in the early game, as it allows him to get out of the jungle before 20 minutes and have half-decent ganks. Skirmisher's doesn't allow him to do that.

And it's not like you can't go out and impact the map as jungle Yi before you sate your Devourer. You are going to clear camps fairly quickly, and are going to have some downtime when you can continue stacking your devourer while your camps are dead. Ganking once or twice before the laning phase ends, assuming the lanes are gankable, is therefor not a bad idea every once in a while.