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1) Is Darius supposed to counter Yasuo? and 2) how do I lane against Yasuo?

SzGamer227··5 votes·14,499 views
  1. I would like the opinions of big Darius and Yasuo players (it shouldn't be hard to find Yasuo mains lmao) about the matchup between Yasuo and Darius and who it favors (if one counters the other or if it's a skill match-up). The more the merrier... I just want to get a general consensus about what people think.

I had two games in Ranked Solo/Duo today where I lost lane by an avalanche to Yasuo because I try to treat him like other melee top laners, get punished in trades, die early on, lose lots of cs, feed on turret, and get flamed by my toxic teammates for being bottom barrel retarded because Darius is supposed to counter Yasuo. (Incidentally, both Yasuo players added me after the match, so shoutout to top lane Yasuos for being such nice guys!)

I would very much like to know whether Darius really does counter Yasuo, or if Yasuo doesn't take abuse like other top laners and in turn outtrades Darius, or if it's simply a skill matchup and most Yasuo players are Mastery 7, 500k mastery points, stomped-more-Darius-than-Darius-has-stomped-Nasus level of experience.

  1. I would like tips about how to lane with Yasuo better. I've found that Yasuo does a surprisingly large amount of damage with his auto attacks, making landing stacks of Hemorrhage with my own autos a bit more complicated, and he's always dashing around minions so I'm never sure when the best time to try to land skills is, what order to use skills in, and how to lock him down long enough to get a solid trade. Yasuo snowballs out of control faster than I've ever seen Riven do and when I lose lane it's usually before I hit 6, so tips about skill order and very early trading would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance to anyone who offers help! ^u^

17 Comments

Tychusfindlay9197 votes

Yasuo has a strong level 2 cheese.

You should win at level 1 and win at level 3 onwards.

Yasuo can't really utilize wind wall at all since nothing you do is projectile in nature.

If yasuo starts Q, don't start crippling strike, you'll get poked. Start decimate and tear his ass. If yasuo starts dash, then start crippling strike, and if he gets near you, hit him up with that AA > W and that'll force him back. At level 3 once you get apprehend (very very reliable hard cc that can pin yas down) you should heavily win trades.

If he's dashing around a lot then let him, and back off just a tiny bit (move a few feet away from minion wave but not too much). His dash has per target cooldowns. Eventually he'll have little to dash through, and you can go in on him and start going Ape Shit. If Yasuo saves his dashes, then try and utilize Q to poke him down (his dash is far from instant, it's actually a rather slow moving dash). If yasuo uses his dash to dodge your Q you can still fight him with auto attacks and crippling strike alone as you can usually stat check him pretty hard. Do not go onto yasuo or near yasuo when he has his third Q up, as he can dash into you, knock you up, and dash away with little retaliation.

DON'T BE AFRAID TO Q YASUO. HOWEVER, DO NOT BEGIN THE Q ANIMATION TO HARRASS YASUO IF THERE IS A FRIENDLY MINION BETWEEN HIM AND YOU, HE WILL DODGE IT. Make sure your front is clear of friendly minions. If you do that, the chance of him being able to dodge the Q drop dramatically. Remember that yasuo has a slow dash WHICH SCALES WITH HIS MOVEMENT SPEED. your Q animation may be .75 seconds, but that isn't really a lot of time if you think about it depending on how you activate the Q (the best way to do it is when yasuo is just out of Q range and you take a step forward while activating Q).

I've faced plenty of very skilled yasuos, and each time I scoffed at their "mechanix" with my sheer stat advantage and smart positioning. As a platinum 1 darius main, I've even had to deal with diamond yasuos, and you know, I got my ass kicked a few times by a yasuo, so even though this matchup is definitely in your favor, it's far from an instant win.

Smart positioning. That's a key phrase for juggernauts no matter your matchup. You're a slow durable damage machine, but you're slow. You need to position yourself for situations, because you have little engage and disengage (darius is one of the few juggernauts with a relatively reliable engage being his AoE pull). Against yasuo in particular, you don't want to be in the thick of a minion wave.

Yasuo typically loves to position himself in the thick of minion waves because he gains the most access to his mobility since he has a wide variety of potential dashes. You should position yourself to the sides of fighting minion waves, occasionally rotating through the wave to last hit (alternatively, you can play very safe and use Q to last hit a bunch of the frontline melee minions at once as they all get low). With positioning a tiny bit off to the side, yasuo doesn't really have the opportunity to dash onto you for a safe trade since he becomes more isolated from the thick of the minion wave. The key thing about fighting yasuo is always checking your location in relation to the location of your minions (not yasuo's minions since he can't dash through them of course). Now, the time to be careful for potential bad trades is when you rotate through your minion wave to last hit a minion who may be on the opposite side. Stay vigilant during these moments and be ready for a quick AA > W if he tries to go onto you to dissuade him or even turn the tide against him.

Alternatively, at any point post level 3 you can guarantee yourself a good trade with an E > AA > W > Q combo which yasuo really has no answer to (this is assuming you are fast enough to cancel the AA animation with W and cancel the W animation with your Q, lending to an incredibly fast triple stack with the first two stacks being applied before yasuo is even done being disabled and with the third potential stack being easier to apply with the 40% slow that yas has to deal with for 1 second after the disable). The only problem is that mana constraints limit you to doing this maybe once or twice, so try to refrain from spamming this combo.

TL;DR

Position yourself appropriately, try to stay away from being inside your minion wave as he can dash around you relentlessly. Condition him with Qs and if he dashes into you don't be afraid to fight him while kiting back a little bit (yasuo has higher natural AS). Worst case scenario you can utilize your E to completely disable yasuo even if he's right on top of you for either an easier get-away or a free two stacks and potential third stack which yasuo has NO WAY OF ANSWERING. Like in any yasuo matchup, be wary of his third Q as that is when he can pull of his "no counterplay" moves like dashing onto you, knocking you up, and dashing away.

Remember you have innate sustain and he doesn't, so if you two duel it out, any Qs you pull off will lend yourself net positive trades in the long run. When casting Q, be ready to move backwards during cast if he tries to dash towards you (remember he has a slow dash, it ain't instant) and make sure that when you start your Q there are no friendly minions in front of you that he can dash through for an easy dodge.

Sidenote: A neat trick is going out a little on a limb to stack yasuo at least once before his shield is up, the bleed will immediately activate his shield once it comes up even if you only stacked him once and didn't commit afterwards, it keeps him squishy.

Another neat post 6 trick is that if you pull yasuo right when you're about to get knocke dup by his third Q, he will be disabled long enough to prevent him from ulting you. This can tip trades heavily in your favor since he doesn't have his free armor pen.

SzGamer2273 votes

is in awe

Thank you very much for these insights. This gives me a much better sense of where I've been going wrong and why I've been finding Yas to hard to pin down. Suffice it to say I'll feel much better laning against Yasuo with these tips on my mind, and that this has been very helpful.

I appreciate that you took the time to make such a substantial comment for a random forum poster. Really, thanks a lot!

TequilaZombie1 votes

Hey, if I can abuse your goodwill a little more: which mastery do you think is better for Darius? I'm always torn between Grasp and CotC (or with Fervor (now that it increases AD) and DFT, if I'm feeling cocky enough).

Tychusfindlay9191 votes

{quoted}

Hey, if I can abuse your goodwill a little more: which mastery do you think is better for Darius? I'm always torn between Grasp and CotC (or with Fervor (now that it increases AD) and DFT, if I'm feeling cocky enough).

Although grasp is usually good in lanes that involve a good deal of trading (which yasuo lanes usually do), CoC is hilariously strong because yasuo is a melee champion that has to get into your apprehend range to do anything.

Every time yasuo duels you you can very safely and reliably pull him and proc the CoC (unlike ranged matchups where there is a chance to miss your apprehend since ranged champs skirt around the edges of apprehend range).

l Helios l4 votes

It's more of a skill match up, as is any champion with some form of dash vs Darius (think Fiora Riven Irelia Jax ). In every situation, if the champion dodges Darius Q, odds are high they can win the trade as long as he doesn't proc passive. Yasuo will almost always use your minions as his movement source, and separating yourself from your minions offers you a way to deal with his movement, since he can't dash around and dodge your Q. You also want to trade when he's just used his 3rd Q, the tornado, because his Q's CD is really long early and he has a 0.5 second freeze during the 3rd Q animation, so he can't move. If you E him in, you want to make sure he can't just dash away using your minions, so if you can manage your minion count well, then you can limit him rather well. He probably won't level his W, since you have no projectiles, so if you have a ranged JG like a Graves then they can get free damage since he can't W.

One nice trick is to let yourself get shoved under tower and when he goes to Q you under tower, you can E him during the Q, he will take aggro and he will take at least two shots because of E and W slows.

Tricks for beating Yasuo are pretty much universal. Anyone with really high burst can beat out a Yasuo, such as Jayce (beat cancer with cancer).

Yasuo scales better than almost any AD champion so once he hits late game, you can't really do much beyond try and distract him in full team fights. He should make easy reset fodder though if you're lucky.

Darius has, imo, way too much reliance on his Q for damage and sustain, making a failed Q almost mean a failed trade. I really wish they would invest power from his Q in other places so he isn't so reliant on it early.

Hope that helps. You can rush item 3047 , which will take away a lot of damage and grab a item 3143 . Run 12/0/18 with colossus, just because it's unlikely you'll be able to reliably proc grasp. Take 5% in your blues and 1 CDR quint, don't really need the mr since only his dash and shiv are magic damage. Flat armor yellows, 2 ad quints and ad reds. Abuse him early, but try to avoid straight fights after he has IE, as that spikes him damage massively and Darius damage falls off after item 3071 , unless you build item 3748 or something.

Good luck friend.

Tychusfindlay9191 votes

[{quoted}](name=l Helios l,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=F5hAPek0,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2016-11-29T03:47:25.598+0000)

It's more of a skill match up, as is any champion with some form of dash vs Darius (think Fiora Riven Irelia Jax ). In every situation, if the champion dodges Darius Q, odds are high they can win the trade as long as he doesn't proc passive. Yasuo will almost always use your minions as his movement source, and separating yourself from your minions offers you a way to deal with his movement, since he can't dash around and dodge your Q. You also want to trade when he's just used his 3rd Q, the tornado, because his Q's CD is really long early and he has a 0.5 second freeze during the 3rd Q animation, so he can't move. If you E him in, you want to make sure he can't just dash away using your minions, so if you can manage your minion count well, then you can limit him rather well. He probably won't level his W, since you have no projectiles, so if you have a ranged JG like a Graves then they can get free damage since he can't W.

One nice trick is to let yourself get shoved under tower and when he goes to Q you under tower, you can E him during the Q, he will take aggro and he will take at least two shots because of E and W slows.

Tricks for beating Yasuo are pretty much universal. Anyone with really high burst can beat out a Yasuo, such as Jayce (beat cancer with cancer).

Yasuo scales better than almost any AD champion so once he hits late game, you can't really do much beyond try and distract him in full team fights. He should make easy reset fodder though if you're lucky.

Darius has, imo, way too much reliance on his Q for damage and sustain, making a failed Q almost mean a failed trade. I really wish they would invest power from his Q in other places so he isn't so reliant on it early.

Hope that helps. You can rush item 3047 , which will take away a lot of damage and grab a item 3143 . Run 12/0/18 with colossus, just because it's unlikely you'll be able to reliably proc grasp. Take 5% in your blues and 1 CDR quint, don't really need the mr since only his dash and shiv are magic damage. Flat armor yellows, 2 ad quints and ad reds. Abuse him early, but try to avoid straight fights after he has IE, as that spikes him damage massively and Darius damage falls off after item 3071 , unless you build item 3748 or something.

Good luck friend.

Yasuo doesn't scale better than almost any AD champion. In open ground it is possible to duel yasuo as darius with extreme caution. In teamfights you are usually better than yasuo even in late game unless he can pull off a magical ult. Yasuo cannot reliably melt you fast enough in a teamfight before your carries get him low enough for you to dunk him.

If yasuo has IE then he should also have PD, meaning that lane phase is getting close to an end anyways. If he rushes IE before PD you can easily tear him up as darius with randuins.

In any case, skill matchup that's quite a bit more in darius's favor. With Courage of the colossus, it becomes quite a bit more of a stomp seeing as darius can very reliably proc it against a melee like yasuo who has a "slow dash"

l Helios l1 votes

Courage made virtually every champion stupid, I'm just glad I finally have options so I don't have to always take grasp.

Saying it's a skill match up doesn't denote favor in any sense. The match up does favor Darius for a while, but as time progresses it becomes more difficult.

Darius occupies a niche late game as a potential sweeper in a teamfight and as tank the rest of the time. Yasuo can do decent work due to range and mobility, both of which Darius lacks. I'm not saying Yasuo destroys Darius late, I'm just saying it's not opportune.

Tychusfindlay9192 votes

[{quoted}](name=l Helios l,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=F5hAPek0,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2016-11-29T17:44:40.273+0000)

Courage made virtually every champion stupid, I'm just glad I finally have options so I don't have to always take grasp.

Saying it's a skill match up doesn't denote favor in any sense. The match up does favor Darius for a while, but as time progresses it becomes more difficult.

Darius occupies a niche late game as a potential sweeper in a teamfight and as tank the rest of the time. Yasuo can do decent work due to range and mobility, both of which Darius lacks. I'm not saying Yasuo destroys Darius late, I'm just saying it's not opportune.

"due to range"

I must stop you there because nothing in Yasuo's kit has range except for his horrendously telegraphed third Q with a slow travel time that also requires two previous Qs (AKA getting near the danger zone of Darius's team) to activate in the first place.

Other than that, Darius's E outranges anything yasuo can pull out of his ass.

Darius has a much safer teamfight than yasuo, with about as much of a disgustingly high reward if he gets his opportune teamfight (like yasuo getting his multi man ult, darius can get his noxian might).

I will not ever say Yasuo is useless or inferior to darius, but against darius in particular, yasuo struggles. This has been a reality of league pretty much since the juggy update, and maybe even before (although before yasuo heavily outscaled old darius).

l Helios l2 votes

Other than that, Darius's E outranges anything yasuo can pull out of his ass.

You're right, but Darius E has a cooldown. Yasuo E does not, except on targets that he can dash to. By that virtue, Yasuo is able to keep Darius at arm's length and poke with all forms of Q. That's the virtue with basically every champion with a dash vs. Darius; Darius pulls first, you can dash away or dash into him to stay within his Q hilt range. It's also a factor of where this fight would occur and if minions or jungle creeps are around. Yasuo can't dash, Yasuo can't be slippery, YAsuo can't fight as well.

Darius has a much safer teamfight than yasuo,

True.

with about as much of a disgustingly high reward if he gets his opportune teamfight (like yasuo getting his multi man ult, darius can get his noxian might).

Also true, although I might would argue Darius getting Noxian Might might be more significant, depending on the status of his ult and at what point he gets it (high HP, low HP, etc.) It also depends on who the Yasuo multi-man ulted, all frontline wouldn't be as impactful as getting the mid and ADC.

My point is not that Darius has low potential, it's just that potential can be hard to obtain. By that I mean the Yasuo shouldn't be the only knock up on his team, and if he is, then he's silly for picking Yasuo as he puts a lot more weight on himself to make plays. It's really circumstantial when we bring this into a discussion of team fights, because where it, who is there, how many people are there, who is at what spike, etc. etc. are all pretty crucial details that would need to be taken into account.

It's whatever though. OP just wanted info on the match-up, I gave my opinion, you gave yours, NBD.

SzGamer2271 votes

Thanks a ton for the great advice! I'll try to keep it in mind when I find myself laning against Yasuo in the future. Unfortunately, I don't have enough IP to invest in both buying and learning new champions and buying slots for more specialized Rune pages (I use the same Runes for Darius as I use when I have to play adc, and I have one set of Runes for AP champions... why aren't Rune pages free like Mastery pages are? Rito pls).

I'm in the habit of buying Dead Man's as my armor-tankiness item, so thanks for suggesting Randuin's! I forgot that it had a passive as well as an active so I never really considered buying it before, and I'm glad you brought it up here! (I tend to avoid active items because I forget to use them half the time they would come in handy... >_>)

l Helios l1 votes

Place items in specific spots on your inventory. Makes you remember better.

Armored Yokai1 votes

Yasuo one of the strongest champs in the game late game in which only trynd and kayle can stop him in a direct 1v1 Darius counters yasuo early but gradually gets weaker in duels with yas so build up that hem passive and then use the cheese ult and you should win the fight also try to use frozen mallet to make things easier

Anonagon1 votes

yasuo isn't one of the strongest lategame 1v1 champs really - that's when the reduced crit damage on his passive actually begins to matter, and his lack of any other on-demand or persistent steroid makes him lose to a large amount of other melee duelists come lategame, especially since his W is mostly useless against melees

of course, lategame isn't what matters here at all, because the OP is having trouble with Yasuo before even level 6

ph1234k1 votes

You should be able to counter Ysa pretty well as Darius.

Yasuo's Wind Wall is 100% ineffective on you so he is already down a skill. Yas has a very difficult laning phase in which you can easily bully him. You need to dodge his 3rd Q regularly and hit him a lot to keep him bleeding and force his passive down. If you take intermittent trades be careful as you will need to watch for his passive.

If the Yasuo is tower hugging as he really should be in the matchup then it will play a bit differently but you won't lose lane.

Michael7021 votes

Personally, I would take 2 CDR quints over damage. You'll max CDR with those and item 3071 item 3065 .

Yasuo can be a PITA. Can't run away from him when he's trying to kill you. Can't catch him when you're trying to kill him. Kinda like Ekko . Your best bet is to freeze the lane and pray your jungler camps top lane until you get a lead. You might want to rush armor.

LiveYiOrDieHard1 votes

Depends on Yasuo's reaction speed. It's hard to deny him because he's basically a medium range champion, he can harass you as long as your Q is down, and as long as your creeps are nearby to dash to, if he has fast reactions or simply baits out your Q he will dominate the lane. So, it's easier to play Darius in the matchup because you can just roll your face on the keyboard and win if Yasuo isn't very good. But if Yasuo is good enough there's not much you can do to him.

JägerBombCuBere1 votes

LMAO I see all this comments of Darius mains and other ppl. Guys. Every matchup that includes Yasuo, is a skill matchup. If that Yasuo is a God, most probably you will lose. If that Yasuo is just good, you have a chance depending on how good you are at lol in general, cuz Darius's mechanics are nothing complicate. If that Yasuo is not at least good/very good, you should win if u know to right click w and hit a q

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