Summary and some commentary on Trinimmortal's serious Yasuo vid

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6Un6dFhh4M&feature=youtu.be

The biggest weeb in the League youtuber community went and made a serious video on the weeb bait champion, his and my main Yasuo. He promised this a few weeks ago in an AMA video, but for some reason I forgot to bring it up here when he announced it. Well now I bring up the subject when the video is out. He has made some valid points, points that I have mentioned in the past, and some other points the I would like to expand on. I will attempt to do both of these while, like Trin, trying to stay as neutral as possible.

The talk about the Circlejerk: Trin particularly focuses on the Shaco syndrome moving on to effect Yasuo's image nowadays. The Yasuos on your team suck ass and the Yasuos on the enemy team are fucking gods, and how ridiculous this notion is, especially when teammates start flaming a Yasuo because they're on the losing side and it's somehow Yasuo's fault, let alone ban Yasuo when a teammate hovers over him due to paranoia of getting stuck with a trashsuo or due to "morals" and how you don't want to subject the enemy team to a godsuo's wrath. He didn't touch on the circlejerk out of the Shaco-syndrome-now-Yasuo-syndrome, i.e. those who bitch about Yasuo's abilities 24/7, and nor am I... much. All I am going to do is say that Yasuo's designed as he is for a reason, even if you don't want to accept it. Stop focusing on the negatives and start focusing on the positives and you will see the manner of how to carry yourself when facing a Yasuo.

Ghostcrawler post: Again, pretty simple. People have been prematurely celebrating a Yasuo rework when all Ghostcrawler stated is that some "surgical pruning" MAY be needed (i.e. Class-updateesque rework vs a full Yorick-like VGU). Get your heads out of the fucking clouds and learn to read. Honestly, I think a Skirmisher update being next would have been fucking gold, especially if Yasuo could get some touching up, but apparently Riot wants to touch on Divers and Tanks first. Who am I to argue against this?

Yasuo needs a rework?: Trin says no... I say... maybe. Some small changes would be very much well received on my end. Focus on SMALL. A full rework I see as stupid, because Yasuo doesn't warrant it just because the masses are QQing about "overloaded kit, ermahgawd" (I know I said impartial, but just give me this), and when so many other champions need full reworks like Aatrox, Urgot, etc.

Kit, play, and style: This portion was probably the most interesting. I particularly want to focus on the talk about his abilities and why they're all pretty much needed AS HE IS NOW. Passive x2 Crit: This. was... something I have been wanting to say for a while, but didn't due to lack of eloquence or simple fear of the circlejerk on the boards. "The double crit chance is the best part on Yasuo's kit. Why? Because it dictates his build." It forces (or attempts to force) Yasuo to build crit "building crit is the best thing for you" is what Riot wants to say to anyone who plays Yasuo. It closes off two slots for use on offensive-focused items. Of course, that doesn't stop shit from happening, as Frozen Force Yasuo reared its head (I still place most of the blame on Tri Force). The claims that "Yasuo would be balanced with just this being removed" are dumb, because then Yasuo would start building into a face-tanky bruiser like Riven, Fiora, Irelia, etc. No body wants that, especially after the scar tissue that Frozen Force Yasuo left.

"BUT TRIN/ENEMY, WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE ONLY HAS TO HAVE TWO ITEMS FOR FULL CRIT AND THE FACT THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO WASTE SLOTS ON MORE CRIT LIKE ALL THE ADCS DO?!"

Yasuo isn't a ranged ADC. ADC's have the inherent safety of being ranged, of being able to do damage from a distance while being protected by huge meat shields and/or having a support as their personal bitch. Yasuo has to be in your face to do damage AND stay in your face to keep on doing damage. Assassins don't as they have top tier burst. They can kill someone of and then generally need to leave less they get killed. A full AD Yasuo diving into your team should be a free kill because Yasuo has no impressive amounts of escape mobility, and the very little escape potential he has should be mitigated by some competent gameplay on your/your team's part. Yasuo needs to have some survivability, something that has stayed the same since near the end of Season 5 (seeing as Trin himself suggested building some tank on Yasuo if you're not stomping hard).

Mark my and Trin's words, removing the crit passive will open the door to face-tanking bruiser Yasuo, even if Riot tries to encourage the building of crit or AD. Yasuo is melee. He NEEDS to be able to take hits. Not as much as other bruisers, and not nearly as much as tanks do, but he needs to be able to due to the fact that his damage is sustained.

Passive "Flow" shield: Particularly works well with his "wandering swordsman" theme, as he needs to constantly be on the move to make the most of the passive. The thing is... Yasuo doesn't hold control over it. You, as the enemy laner, need to create your own opportunities. Autoattack that shield when you can, and then you have a window where you can hit him with your main damage if you're skilled enough to do so. Yasuo does indeed pay for having his shield; he's one of two melees in the game without MR growth (the other being Kassadin). And his base defensive stats are nothing special.

You control his shield way more than he controls it himself. Use this as much as possible.

Q: He said nothing much on it besides it being the main source of damage aside from auto attacks, I will probably later.

W: The infamous windwall. Again, this comes down to Yasuo being melee and the people who are screwed over by it are usually ranged. Melee damage dealers that are not assassins need their own tools to be able to survive the onslaught by both ranged ADCs and Mages, as well the very likely assault by the enemy frontline. Yasuo just happens to screw ranged over more than he does melee. Riven has her shield. Fiora her parry and ult heal. Jax his dodge and ult. Yi his heal and Q. Tryn his heal and ult. Yasuo's wall indeed has counterplay; you either reposition to continue doing damage, or disengage and look for the window of time to reengage.

Furthermore, Yasuo's windwall is on a cooldown higher than most other normal abilities in the game. He uses it? See when you can abuse that window of time.

E: Yasuo's calling card is his mobility. Is it high? Probably the highest in the game... when the situation is perfect. The highest mobility in the game is held back by being tied to the presence of targets. A Yasuo that pushed up and that has no enemy minions behind him and does not have ghost? That's probably a dead Yasuo even if Flash is used.

As high as his mobility is, it is still greatly tied. He can rarely use it to escape (I'm not saying escaping with E is impossible... just difficult). It is a fixed short distance, making it completely predictable for those who have an idea of the distance, and, something Trin glossed over, it is the only dash in the game that is completely canceled by all hard movement CC. While all others are only canceled by airborne effects. Fed Yasuo chasing you through lane? Run into the jungle, cutting off most of his mobility, and hopefully lead him into the rest of your team. Or get good (or get someone with targeted CC like Ryze) and CC him while he's mid dash, tearing him off of his tracks. He can't dash to teammates, much less dash without a target. It's short ranged. It's fixed distance. It's canceled by all CC. Honestly, his dash is good the way it is, and people just focus on the negatives more than they do on the positives.

R: Not much said about it other than people complaining about the armor pen buff it gives for 15 seconds. He says it, I've been saying it non-stop: even with his passive (assuming Trin is talking about the crit), he's still going to take time to shred tanks. Skirmishers are defined by their ability to deal high sustained damage to all in their paths. Yasuo's crit passive is not enough to do so. Yasuo can't really have his hands tied to building a Last Whisper like all people say he should do because again, he usually needs to build defensively in order to simply survive to be of use. Riven has her passive. Fiora has her passive and ult. Jax is Jax. Tryn is Tryn. Ekko has his passive. Yi has his true damage, passive, and ult. You're not going to have any of these removed and tell their players "hey, just fucking build a Last Whisper." Hell, Yasuo's tank shredding power is the one that is held back the most from all of these, since it's tied to an ultimate ability and only lasts a few seconds. There are also items that are still going to handicap this with Frozen Heart, Thornmail, and/or Randuin's.

Nerfs?: Yes they're needed, specifically targeted towards his early game. The few Trin suggested, I will only list them with maybe some small commentary. Windwall duration to 3 Seconds (I personally say 2.75 or 2.5 seconds). Size of wall nerf? Q no longer applies on-hit effects (fuck Fervor of Battle and Frozen Mallet). Something he has mentioned a few times: Make crit damage reduction scale with Ult rank, up to current 90%/75% at Ult rank 3. Downside may be making a Yasuo that's behind even more useless than he would be now without this change, but it would gimp his snowballing. Changing Q CD back to scaling of rank and CDR. The idea is to either force a choice: Q max first for more damage and CC or E max first for more mobility (currently, E max first is nigh universal). Clarity on E on-target cooldown. Might be some clutter on the game for the enemy, but hey, Yasuo can see it, why can't enemies? Base Stat nerfs. Particularly to early AS, Health Regen.

Some of my ideas? Nerf to Q stack holding. Make it down to 5 or 6 seconds. Zoning with third Q is a bit too much Again, I say Windwall duration down to 2.75 or 2.5 second duration. Shield durability down a bit in the early levels, while staying the way it is by mid/late game. Additionally, hit the unit distance needed to have it max charge. Up the CD floor on Q due to AS to 2 seconds, instead of the current 1.33 Up the on-target CD on E a few seconds at all ranks. Up CD of Ult at rank 3. 30 seconds is too low. Remove the safety on Ult. No not the Flow shield recharge, but the part that places Yasuo out of turret range if the range is close enough to allow him to do so.

Rework? Again, he states that it's not needed, big or small. His idea for a big rework, however, would be moving the Flow shield to W as a controlled shield, and some weeb-ish ult that I honestly saw as kinda ridiculous. Too wordy, and honestly my eyes glazed over when I was hearing and reading it.

My own personal idea is changing Yasuo's W alone in a Class update (maybe go with some people's ideas of E working on a charge system). Change it to something like Fiora's Parry. Riot apparently want something like a slash of wind that destroyed all projectiles when making Yasuo, but apparently that was impossible with the technology then. I raise the question, is it currently impossible? And if it is, can other things be done? If specifically destroying projectiles is impossible, then make it a parry like Fiora's with a bonus for negating projectiles instead of a bonus for negating CC like Fiora. This can be any number of things, and kit could be adjusted to whatever the bonus may be. Maybe a MS and AS boost? A small shield?

Of course, if strictly negating projectiles is possible, then this route would be great and personally favored by me, just make the CD lower to fit the small window of time, without any bonus unlike the parry route.

There was one thing Trinimmortal did not cover: the lack of resource costs on Yasuo's part. Honestly, as Yasuo is right now, having a resource would be dumb, be it mana (lol @ people who suggests mana when Essence Reaver exists), energy, or anything else. Yasuo has plenty windows even without his lack of resources. Shield down? Window. 3rd Q just wasted? Window. Windwall down? Window. Yasuo positioned out of reach of an enemy target? Window. Yasuo currently relies on a highly aggressive playstyle. Having a resource would gimp this extremely hard.

K, I'm done, bye.