Why doesn't Yasuo have mana?

Blåbæret·Jul 23, 2016·29 votes·6,341 views

Anyone?

89 Comments

VoidStaresBackJul 23, 201610 votes

Because of how his kit was originally designed.

Riot has stated in the past that he was created as a melee botlaner, much in the same way as reworked Mordekaiser but much less forceful. He has his Q to poke, E for dodging skillshots and probably farming under tower if he gets pushed back that far, and W for blocking important projectile attacks since he doesn't have any way to respond at the ranges in question without having an empowered Q and getting poked too much would force him out of lane and make him unviable. His two-part passive serves to give him a little extra wiggle room around taking damage and performing all ins while also encouraging him to build like an autoattack-heavy ADC, and his ultimate, while it can be set up by himself, can also be set up by teammates. His resourceless nature is likely because Yasuo was going to be using his abilities far more than any ADC in order to return poke, farm, and dodge, so his abilities are gated behind long cooldowns (wind wall, and yes, it is on a long cooldown relative to a lot of basic abilities) low cooldowns but long on-target cooldowns (sweeping blade) and the need to stack it up before it becomes relatively long range (Steel Tempest).

Of course, people found that his kit was far stronger in the mid and top lane and moved him there, where his kit can cause more problems for his opponents, but I'd assume that's the origin of his resourceless nature.

LordGeovanniJul 24, 20161 votes

no way to respond to range without empowered Q 0.5 cd e

VoidStaresBackJul 24, 20161 votes

Using e to engage in a duo lane where the target is ranged is a lot harder than in a solo lane, due to facing two enemies worth of damage and the potential exhaust headed your way.

LordGeovanniJul 24, 20161 votes

wind wall and your ally if anything the extra target to e off of makes it easier to engage. now what you said effects surviveing not engageing which is more effected by if you can play with your allies and how you use your skills seeing how 1 of not both of them will be ranged and susceptible to complete damage nullification

The Bearded BardJul 24, 20161 votes

Show me one official thing stating Yasuo was meant to be a bot lane carry.

Hinagiku33Jul 24, 20162 votes

This sounds about right from what I remember of when Yasuo was released.

Riot has wanted to make melee botlaners work for a while now but it has never stuck because Ranged Carry + Support is just too powerful. This is because melee champs have been weaker than ranged champs since LoL was in Beta and they need to have all kinds of special buffs and overpowered numbers/overloaded kits to make them even worth playing. Literally, at the start you were hurting your team if you didn't pick a 5 Ranged Champs comp. So over time melee champs have been buffed to ludicrous degrees to make them even viable - naturally Riot sometimes overdoes it and creates monstrously overpowered Tanky DPS champs.

This has been dubbed "the Irelia Problem" even by Riot themselves since Season 2.

Manaless champs are almost all melee, and it's usually done because melee champs just cannot use their melee basic attacks without getting poked to hell and back if they have to lane against ranged champs. Since ranged champs can poke from a very safe distance for no resource, melee champs get forced out of lane and starved for CS since they have to use their abilities to do anything at all. Since ranged top laners like Ryze and Quinn basically make melee top laners useless, Riot has made a lot of melee champs with no mana bar so they can have a chance in lane phase to spam their abilities to farm up.

Thus Yasuo, and a lot of other historically problematic melee champs, is just a symptom of the great "Melee vs Ranged Laning Problem" that Riot has been trying to solve since Beta.

Swiftstrike4Jul 23, 20169 votes

He is one of the few champions I think that needs either an energy or mana based pool for his abilities. Energy I think would make a lot more sense for his kit. I get very tired of him spamming his abilities in early laning and windwall is absolutely infuriating and is up too frequently.

I am OK with his abilities, I just think there should be some type of cost for using them besides cooldown.

LankPantsJul 24, 20165 votes

I think his flow should be revamped into a resource. He should have to pay flow to use his W and Q and his E should have a cost when it starts to stack up.

That way if he gets caught in a fight with CC he'd be unable to recharge his flow and run out of casts.

ƒoesJul 24, 20161 votes

Would be neato if the Windwall generated flow for every projectile blocked.

SpecterVonBarenJul 25, 20161 votes

I think it would be better if they weakened his q w and e a little bit and made it so flow empowered his next ability. Like... make it so his q doesn't need three uses to ramp up but instead flow, make his windwall be a super short duration normally but become a level 3 windwall with flow and his e could make him dash to his target from a father distance.

This would obviously need other changes like significantly reducing the cd of his w since it would usually be much weaker than it is now and making it so his shield doesn't require flow but it would also make him more interesting.

67chromeJul 23, 20168 votes

Why doesn't Yasuo have mana?

Auto-attacks are manaless.

All passive auto-attack and on-hit steroids are manaless, even on mana-using champions.

Yasou mostly auto-attacks things to death.

Steel Tempest is basically an AA steroid that's more interesting than just an AS or AD buff. Same thing applies to Riven, Tryndamere, and Aatrox. To a larger extent: a lot of manaless champions tend to lean heavily in the direction of auto-attacking with spells. Garen's Judgement, Rumble's Flame-Spitter, Nidalee's Swipe, Vladimir's tides of blood, etc.

The HeraIdJul 23, 20164 votes

{quoted}

Auto-attacks are manaless.

All passive auto-attack and on-hit steroids are manaless, even on mana-using champions.

Yasou mostly auto-attacks things to death.

Steel Tempest is basically an AA steroid that's more interesting than just an AS or AD buff. Same thing applies to Riven, Tryndamere, and Aatrox. To a larger extent: a lot of manaless champions tend to lean heavily in the direction of auto-attacking with spells. Garen's Judgement, Rumble's Flame-Spitter, Nidalee's Swipe, Vladimir's tides of blood, etc.

Trundle 's Q has mana on it, Darius W, not arguing for against Mana on yas, just pointing those out

67chromeJul 23, 20162 votes

When I wrote passive auto-attack and on-hit steroids, I intended "passive" to apply to both.

Orianna's clockwork windup, Teemo's Toxic Shot, Cho'Gath's Vorpal Spines, Jax's Grandmaster's Might, Darius's Hemorrhage. No passive aa steroid or on-hit steroid costs any mana.

Also: the AA steroid part of Darius's E doesn't cost any mana to access. It's active 100% of the time.

SouL1essJul 24, 20167 votes

{quoted}

When I wrote passive auto-attack and on-hit steroids, I intended "passive" to apply to both.

Orianna's clockwork windup, Teemo's Toxic Shot, Cho'Gath's Vorpal Spines, Jax's Grandmaster's Might, Darius's Hemorrhage. No passive aa steroid or on-hit steroid costs any mana.

Also: the AA steroid part of Darius's E doesn't cost any mana to access. It's active 100% of the time.

This is the most strict version of double standard in League I have ever seen. Even worse than Riot's balancing lmao.

Steel tempest is an active ability, but it should be considered "an AS/AD steroid that is more interesting than other AS/AD steroids" because apparently, doing AoE damage and having a conditional stun isn't enough to justify it being more than a "simple AS/AD steroid".

I don't know what to say about Talon's Noxian Diplomacy costing up to 60 mana at rank 5. It does more single-target damage and reveals the target's location for 6 seconds, making it much more like an AS/AD steroid skill. That skill should have been manaless to cast because it is an AS/AD steroid that is more interesting than other AS/AD steroids.

LankPantsJul 24, 20165 votes

No passive aa steroid or on-hit steroid costs any mana.

Jinx Q, passive on-hit with a mana cost.

Past that there are a lot of active on-hits for multiple attacks with mana costs, Ashe , Azir , Draven (kinda), Fizz , Irelia , Jayce , Kayle , KogMaw , Malphite , MasterYi , Shen (energy), Sivir , Twitch , Volibear & XinZhao . I probably missed a couple too.

Honourable mention to Aatrox W, which is a passive on-hit with a HP cost.

Critmaster GarenJul 24, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Q, passive on-hit with a mana cost.

which she can switch to a manaless auto attack that has its own free steroid attached.

all the other guys pay mana for an auto attack steroid, but theyre still able to deal a load of damage even when that steroid isnt active. and theyre not paying mana for each auto attack while tha steroid is active.

in yasuos case, he uses his q as a normal auto attack. and if he payed mana for his e, he would run out in like 30 seconds.

ranged adc arent paying mana for being able to auto attack at range. yasuo doesnt pay mana for his mobility tool, which is compensation for being melee ranged as a carry.

LankPantsJul 24, 20163 votes

all the other guys pay mana for an auto attack steroid, but theyre still able to deal a load of damage even when that steroid isnt active. and theyre not paying mana for each auto attack while tha steroid is active.

I dare you to walk up to someone as Irelia or Malphite and start AAing someone without your steroid, say they deal good damage without their steroids after that.

Past that let's get the blindingly obvious out of the way, Yas's Q isn't an auto attack or a steroid. It's a spell that acts like an auto attack. The fairest spells to compare it to would be things like Ravage, Bladesurge, Mystic Shot, Lunge and Parrrlay. In every other case of abilities in this family they do have mana costs.

in yasuos case, he uses his q as a normal auto attack. and if he payed mana for his e, he would run out in like 30 seconds.

Most champs OOM if they spam as hard as Yas does. If you spam your Q off CD on Fiora or Irelia to clear a wave quickly in the same Yas spams his E you'll end up OOM in a few waves, even though their costs aren't gigantic. That's why most champs last hit and push out mostly with AAs and only use spells when they need to, it's called resource management and the lack of it in Yasou's kit often makes him excruciating to play against when you're trying to reserve mana and he's just spamming spells onto the wave and shoving like a monkey.

Critmaster GarenJul 24, 20162 votes

{quoted}

I dare you to walk up to someone as Irelia or Malphite and start AAing someone without your steroid, say they deal good damage without their steroids after that.

Past that let's get the blindingly obvious out of the way, Yas's Q isn't an auto attack or a steroid. It's a spell that acts like an auto attack. The fairest spells to compare it to would be things like Ravage, Bladesurge, Mystic Shot, Lunge and Parrrlay. In every other case of abilities in this family they do have mana costs.

Most champs OOM if they spam as hard as Yas does. If you spam your Q off CD on Fiora or Irelia to clear a wave quickly in the same Yas spams his E you'll end up OOM in a few waves, even though their costs aren't gigantic. That's why most champs last hit and push out mostly with AAs and only use spells when they need to, it's called resource management and the lack of it in Yasou's kit often makes him excruciating to play against when you're trying to reserve mana and he's just spamming spells onto the wave and shoving like a monkey.

most champions arent as squishy as yasuo is.

he is a melee adc who is as squishy as a ranged adc. so there is a significant gap in power that somehow has to be compensated. his "free" mobility is compensation for being melee as a squishy carry.

and his q is basically just a very slightly improved auto attack.

if you want to give him a mana bar then i want to have every ranged champ pay mana for auto attacking at range.

LankPantsJul 24, 20163 votes

he is a melee adc who is as squishy as a ranged adc.

No he isn't. He has a shield, potentially two, significantly higher base stats and Windwall, which can deny a lot of damage.

his "free" mobility is compensation for being melee as a squishy carry.

Yi and Fiora still both pay for their mobility. The majority of assassins pay something for their mobility. I really don't see how this argument holds any weight, there are many squishy melees, some of whom are AA based champs who pay a resource for mobility.

and his q is basically just a very slightly improved auto attack.

I direct your attention to Ravage, Double Up and Mystic Shot. Maybe even Parrrlay to an extent.

if you want to give him a mana bar then i want to have every ranged champ pay mana for auto attacking at range.

In what world is that reasonable? Any champ in the game can AA without mana, most cannot cast abilities. Yas doesn't suffer from the second restriction and tends to be incredibly frustrating because of it. Giving him mana would force him to think about when he uses his abilities, like the vast majority of other champs in the game.

Critmaster GarenJul 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

No he isn't. He has a shield, potentially two, significantly higher base stats and Windwall, which can deny a lot of damage.

implying ranged adc dont have mechanics to avoid or negate damage

Yi and Fiora still both pay for their mobility. The majority of assassins pay something for their mobility. I really don't see how this argument holds any weight, there are many squishy melees, some of whom are AA based champs who pay a resource for mobility.

i already said fiora should have been manaless as much as yasuo. as yi goes, he isnt very viable on a full glass cannon build is he? the only thing he can do really is clean up fights on a crit build.

othrwise he has to run a bruiser/attack speed build in which case he relies on his free extra auto attacks from his passive and a consistent attack speed steroid from his ult.

yi activates his ult once and then gets attack and movement speed. yasuo has to repeatedly spam his e to be able to work.

I direct your attention to Ravage, Double Up and Mystic Shot. Maybe even Parrrlay to an extent.

those champions dont rely on these abilities to carry. theyre merely poke tools. especially the ranged champs dont rely almost entirely on these empowered auto attacks like yasuo does.

In what world is that reasonable? Any champ in the game can AA without mana, most cannot cast abilities. Yas doesn't suffer from the second restriction and tends to be incredibly frustrating because of it. Giving him mana would force him to think about when he uses his abilities, like the vast majority of other champs in the game.

every champ can auto attack. but only certain champs can auto attack at range.

this is a gigantic advantage over melee champs as it increases their general threat range and allows them to deal damage without taking damage with proper positioning. something that melee carries cant do.

if you want to give yasuo a mana bar, then yes its reasonable to give ranged carries a mana cost for ranged auto attacks.

LankPantsJul 24, 20162 votes

implying ranged adc dont have mechanics to avoid or negate damage

With the exeption of Graves, who has his own slew of problems no ranged ADC has a mechanic as reliable as Yas's sheild. Windwall is possibly the most powerful defensive ability in the game, few champions can rival it, the only ones that spring to my mind are Cosmic Radiance and Vengeful Maelstrom. I'm not implying that ADCs have no methods of avoiding or mitigating damage, just that Yas's are far stronger.

i already said fiora should have been manaless as much as yasuo.

Hell no. Fiora's mana limits her laning phase and stops her from being as bullshit and oppressive as Yasou.

those champions dont rely on these abilities to carry.

Ezreal doesn't rely on Mystic Shot and GP doesn't rely on Parrrlay? What ever you say buddy.

Legacy HydralphaJul 24, 20166 votes

Or... we can just make some parts of his abilities require Flow.

I mean, he generates wind. And he uses wind for his abilities.

TheI3igDaddyJul 24, 20165 votes

Because his design was a mistake from the beginning.

BlåbæretJul 24, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Because his design was a mistake from the beginning.

True words, my brother.

SpecterVonBarenJul 25, 20161 votes

Nah, that award goes to Kalista but both were made by CertainlyT so...

Maximum MordeJul 23, 20164 votes

Because he isn't a man.

warpenguin555Jul 23, 20163 votes

idk. i feel like it could work on him too, unlike some of the manaless champs like riven or garen

BlåbæretJul 23, 20166 votes

It would definitely reduce his oppressive kit as well as making sure he can't just spam his abilities every time they're up.

CerealBoxOfDoomJul 24, 20163 votes

because mana champs don't have to hit their minions 3 times to sortof-shove a lane

if you really want yasuo to be a great splitpusher just give him mana

VallalanJul 24, 20163 votes

he wouldn't function with mana costs. if you make his dash have a mana cost he will go oom trying to trade within a couple waves even if the mana costs were super low.

he is a champion who relies on being able to spam his abilities to function. look at all the resourceless champions for the most part. they all have good reason to be resourceless. Riven would go OOM in a few rotations, Rengar's needs ferocity to function as that is where his strength comes from. katarina might go oom while attempting to do her resets so that would ruin her entire reset mechanic/passive. energy based champs like zed/akali are gated by cooldowns to prevent them from spamming abilities in an all in on cooldown. they are assassins designed to go in and go out rather than just get on your face and spam abilities. same with lee sin.

Yasuo's problem is not that he is resourceless (even if it as annoying as a mana user) is that its extremely hard to trade with yasuo properly and control the wave. between his flow shield and windwall a lot of your abilities will be negated so its hard to pick a good time. once he gets level 2 you can't just blindly try to auto down the shield as his ability to close the gap on you is huge.

that said, I hate yasuo. in lane he is cancer to play against, but he is balanced outside of lane. if he builds bruiser he does good carry damage, but isn't cutting through you like butter. full damage yasuo can ult and destroy everyone in a team fight quickly, but also will get locked down and explode in no time.

i think if they removed the flow shield passive altogether that would be fine. thats really all he needs to feel less oppressive in lane phase and it wouldn't affect him much in team fights as his flow shield does hardly anything for him there.

KingnewgameplusJul 24, 20163 votes

Because Muramana crit q's from yasuo would give me night terrors.

nymtheravenJul 23, 20162 votes

I have often wondered this.

Nice FellowJul 24, 20162 votes

Because it would ruin the flow of things on him

Pika FoxJul 24, 20162 votes

His abilities are meant to be able to be spammed. If you gave him a mana bar, his abilities would cost so little that it would be pointless (AD champs dont have access to many mana items, and it would ruin his already meh early game), or his Q and E would likely see range buffs or something to compensate for no longer being spam able.

Really, theres more issues with why Katarina is manaless than Yasuo.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20162 votes

No attack damage mana items? Look around the item page. item 3508 item 3004 item 3078

Pika FoxJul 24, 20161 votes

You would do well to actually read, i stated that options were limited, not non existent.

Trinity doesnt give much mana, and is a ton of gold into CDR Essense Reaver sacrifices IE, and is a ton of gold into CDR Manamune would run him OOM extremely fast with his Q spam, and its added damage wouldnt be that great. It also doesnt really go well with crit items.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20161 votes

What marksmen replaces infinity edge with essence reaver? I've frequently seen them take both for a bunch of cooldown and negligible mana costs. Both would synergize even more on yasou if he had mana, and outdo the cost of manamune, due to his double critical bandaid. Read the exact descriptions of the items; then look at how high his criticals tend to hit.

Pika FoxJul 24, 20161 votes

You should never be taking both. They only give straight AD and Crit as their primary stats. You still need AS items, lifesteal/surivability items, penetration items etc.

6 item slots

1 boots 1 lifesteal 1 pen 2 AS (youmuus typically included in this as an AS substitute) essence or IE

(not necessarily in that order)

Youd need to sacrifice something to take both. Dont take lifesteal, youll die. Dont take penetration, youll do no damage. Dont take boots you have no mobility. Dont take 2 AS items and youll lose more DPS than youd gain.

If talking about yas in particular, than he especially never wants to buy essence reaver specifically because it wastes gold. He cant use CDR for Q or E, his primary spells, and youre paying for 30% CDR.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20161 votes

Oh really? Then how do you intend to spam without any cooldown reduction? You're also acting like the stats are mutually exclusive; again learn to be flexible and to actually try out item combinations. Blade of the ruined king has attack speed, lifesteal, and attack damage; mercurial scimitar has lifesteal, attack damage, and magic resist (maw of malmortius being similar); berserker's greaves are both boots & attack speed. Also you can get plenty of sustain from the 'warlords bloodlust' mastery, because of yasou's auto-critical hits, so you don't even need a lifesteal item (in theory).

He has global cooldowns to his Q & E similar to sona? Then why spam anyway if he can't do it any faster? That would've been more important to bring up.

Pika FoxJul 24, 20161 votes

......

Yas's Q literally states unaffected by CDR. AS reduces its CD.

His E has an unreducable CD per target. CDR wont change how long you need to wait before you can E to the same target.

I dont even play yas and i know this.

BotRK doesnt have enough lifesteal to really be its own lifesteal item, it falls moreso under the AS line than lifesteal.

Zerker boots still want you to get 2 other AS items. You arent going to hit max AS.

Warlords isnt reliable solo, since it gets better as you have less HP. Its high risk.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20161 votes

Facepalm; better late than never.

It still has more lifesteal than the doran's blade. Has anyone actually tried max attack speed on him? Oh no, possible danger for a naturally safe assassin! Please, that's where the 'skill' comes in doesn't it? Timing when to use abilities to outperform your enemy instead of just right clicking them to death; or am I expecting too much?

Pika FoxJul 24, 20161 votes

No, youre just not comprehending the maths involved for gold cost/DPS.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20161 votes

But you're not going to elaborate either . . . "If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough" - Einstein

Pika FoxJul 24, 20161 votes

I only listed why in an earlier post. The only other thing i can do is post maths, which would take far too long to do.

Essentially IE + ER is too much AD/Crit and not enough AS, your DPS will suffer, or youll need to sacrifice utility/defense. Neither of which are options for an ADC, especially a melee ADC/Assassin.

ZT XperimentorJul 24, 20161 votes

I don't mind an intellectual read, though given the forum's bothersome formatting, it'd be better at the beginning of the chain of comments. So? The stubbornness to build the same way every time is boring; and the fact that it works constantly too well, shows he has too much already going for him. Changing your build path to be more effective for the given situation is often better in the long run, regardless of what champion you're playing.

Pika FoxJul 25, 20161 votes

.... the format ive given you does allow build diversity...

Lifesteal or defensive, so you can get death dance, bloodthirster, or GA.

2 AS items, so you have options between wits end, youmuus, phantom dancer, shiv or rfc, and even BotRK

Boots, any number of boots

IE, ER, or trinity for your big ticket items

And penetration, so cleaver, dominiks, mortal reminder.

Theres a lot of variance within these, but in general this is the format that gives you the most options for what you need to be effective, while maximizing DPS/Gold cost.

I Go Pew Pew PewJul 24, 20162 votes

Because that guy that likes to make OP champs made him.

BlåbæretAug 4, 20161 votes

This makes sense.

ApexInTheCircleJul 24, 20162 votes

I have a few gripes with him that I'd like to see changed.

Don't let him hold onto his tornado for as long as he does. They changed TF along time ago because he could hold onto his gold card and basically zone you off of minion waves forever, Yasuo can pretty much do the same thing with his tornado which he can hold onto for what seems like an eternity.
Make his windwall consume his flow. Let him make the choice of either using windwall as an engage or letting his shield soak up damage, a good yasuo will be able to let his shield proc then fire off his windwall so the change wouldn't be to much of a nerf.
Make his dash AD damage instead of magic damage but keep the magic scaling, this helps itemize against him in the early game instead of getting hit for around 250-300 magic damage that you can't itemize against as a mid laner since you're focused on his main form of damage which is AD.

LuggJul 24, 20161 votes

Awesome post. Those ideas would make him a much healthier champion overall. Hell, I would even be happy if they did this and gave him some small compensation buffs in return.