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@Riot What happened to the potential yasuo changes from 2017?

TheSingularity··47 votes·17,133 views
Ask Riot: Yasuo Gets Banned - Nexus

Yasuo is a pain in the ass of anyone who has to deal with him. That's old news and has been consistently true from the moment he was released. Rocking the 11th highest pick rate at 17.56%, it's clear people are fond of this insane cyclone samurai. But it also means he's in a fair few of the games we're all in. And for those of us unfortunate enough to not have normal draft available, we simply have to be forced to gouge our eyes out in the loading screen. But at the same time, he has the second highest ban rate in the game at 55.68%, and his ban rate has been obscenely high since his release. But why? Khazix Leblanc Camille Zed Darius are generally stronger and all have lower ban rates. Surely if you wanted to win, you'd ban these champions more than yasuo.

But generally, banning yasuo's effect on your win comes from your team not tilting the moment they see him picked. And apart from that it's purely because "I really can't be bothered dealing with this obnoxious, annoying brat of a champion". I certainly don't ban him because he might carry a game, I ban him because I'd rather not become clinically depressed and a drug addict within the space of champion select. I hate yasuo, more than any champion in the game. But at the same time I don't want him to be garbage. I JUST WANT HIM TO BE FAIR! To be an enjoyable opponent like Vel'koz or kled. Some may say "git gud", because pros don't use him. Sorry, but if I have to throw my career away to get that good, just so I don't have to suffer though any game with a yasuo in it, then what's the point? Not everyone can do that. So the 99% who can't just have to, suck it up? accept this parasite?

Last year, with 10 bans implemented, you, Riot, said "we’ll be taking a look at him in the next few weeks" in order to "get him into a state where he is both viable and also not a must-ban". But this never happened. He is still a must ban if people want to keep their sanity. So riot, what's your next move? Because it's been 5 years since you released him, and players are well beyond done with this champion.

79 Comments

Stars Shaper30 votes

I fear that nomatter what, Yasuo will always be banned simply because he is Yasuo.

Any attempt at keeping his core design will trigger any player.

TheSingularity10 votes
  • Remove the shield reset on r
  • Make his ult place him on the enemy when they under tower.
  • allow enemies to see the minion dash indicator
  • make dash cost flow
  • Nerf crit passive
  • make shield cost more flow
  • nerf Q AS scaling on
  • if yasuo misses tornado, q is disabled for 10 seconds.
  • make windwall one directional
  • while windwall is active yasuo cant dash
  • Delete phantom dancer passive "lament"

and reduce the stupid obnoxious sounds of hid fken e and q spam. Omfg I've never wanted a champion muted more in my life

Not all of these should b implimented obvs. But allot of these target annoyances in yasuo. He had too much freedom with too many get out of jail free cards. These crush this

Flawless Fetus13 votes

He doesn't need nerfs. He needs changes. Even when he is in a terrible spot, he is a frequent ban. He's not overbearing now. All of these ideas, without changes elsewhere, are stupid. They, originally, wanted to rework him because even though he was a garbage tier champ, he was a common ban. He's not to strong, he's just "unfun".

TheSingularity4 votes

I agree. Should've been more clear.

However some (as I said not all) of these changes will alleviate the issues until they fix him wiith some compensation mixed in

The experience of the many outweighs the experience of the few. We saw this with 95% ban rate kassadin, teemo and feral flare. We should see it again here.

If the yas babes make their voices heard in a theoretical post change. Riot will eventually fix him. But it is beyond silly to have him how he is with no changes on the horizon

Flawless Fetus3 votes

Kass was strong. Feral flare was strong. Yas is already at a sub 50% winrate. Why would you want to nerf him, when he is already weak. His winrate, like every other champ's, goes up with experience, but even then he's on the bottom of the list. He is unfun to play against, but he is by no means strong. He needs overall buffs, not nerfs. Lol.

TheCodeisCupCake2 votes

Teemo was annoying, 0 changes were brought to him. He is still considered annoying. Why should Yas be a special case?

VICHEL CHAOS5 votes

Half of these suggestions are extremely flawed in their conception (apart from the fact that they are huge nerfs that would reduce him to near useless). Let me explain myself.

-Not dashing with windwall active would make him extremely clunky and feel terrible to play. Locking him out of his main gapcloser and mobility tool for such a long time leaves him a way worse melee fighter. Sure, he's safe from projectiles but he would not be able to do anything to anyone in return. It is not a good design to remove the core identity of a champion and completely change his play pattern because of such a lockout. -Q needs to have attack speed scaling because if not once you have a couple of items you lose dps by casting it instead of autoing simply, because it already has a reduced crit damage, even if it is a reset its cast time would conflict with next attacks. Hence, you are sacrificing more and more dps as the game goes on for a chance at landing a mediocre cc ability that actually enables you to use your ultimate. On that note, locking him out of his main dps enhancing ability for 10 seconds if he misses a tornado is also terrible design, because he'd have to choose between enabling his ultimate as a chance or have his main damage ability removed. Imagine that in 90% of other champions, idk Ezreal for example. If you don't hit q not only you cannot fire another in 10 seconds but also you cannot use your ultimate. -Shield reset on R is a completely fair outplay mechanic in a duel, necessary to function in a teamfight and much more conditional than other forms of outplay mechanics, so you are telling me him landing a tornado that is probably the most scripted ability in the game to get a shield if you have your ultimate up if less fair than say dying to a teemo/quinn because he blinded you when he had a bit of hp left or dying to a Vayne that had 3hp but used invisibility to attack first? Oh, and if he doesn't have that shield if he uses ult in a teamfight he dies instantly. -Making dash cost flow basically introduces negative synergy in his kit. His dash is already limited in that it is one of the few that can be completely interrupted while ongoing by cc (maybe the only one, not sure) and that it has a lockout period. If you wanted to make dash cost flow then he should get a timed shield and his dash lockout mechanics should be removed, if not it would be simply worse than the majority of dashes in the game. -You can already keep track of what minions he dashed through. Seeing the indicator is simply you being too lazy to make a note of them. -If his ult can place him under tower, he should be able to actually position it wherever he wants in the vicinity of the flying target. Hence it would be a skill check, but also it would be better for him positioning in teamfights. -Nerfing crit passive is only you crying that he is overpowered. -Phantom dancer passive is an item that other champions use to similar dueling effectiveness and is not a problem. Removing it completely from the item would make it garbage and ocmpletely outclassed by the other zeal upgrades.

I do agree that Windwall should be one sided and toying with the shield flow requirements is not a bad lever to balance, but the rest of the changes are you just whining about the unique things that make the champion. I also don't like that Karthus ult can kill me once I won a fight, but im not gonna cry fot it to not be global anymore. Or make Malzahar e not spread. Or that teemo's darts should no longer blind because its frustrating. Or that fizz e should not make him untargetable.

Before you post some ridiculous changes of that nature you should take a good think, because all you are doing is making the champion a terrible design, clunky in function and sapping a huge amount of power away from Yasuo when he is already not doing too hot winrate wise.

TheSingularity2 votes

Phantom dancer passive is an item that other champions use to similar dueling effectiveness and is not a problem.

Made a post about this item. One other champion buys this often, GP, and he can always go statik. PD instantly wins yas lanes vs the few ppl who can out duel him.

Plenty of people bought this item before it's lament was added, for the ghost passive. This passive alone makes it a good buy, Yas bought shyv til they added lament and reduced the cost, wonder what changed?

VICHEL CHAOS1 votes

Bruisers still destroy him in lane after he gets pd. Fiora, Aatrox, Nasus, Irelia, Camille, Jax, Tryndamere to name a few champions. Few people can outduel him? If you try to duel him with mages or adcs then sure...

Only Yasuo and GP buys PD often? Then you made another terribly misinformed post which should be disregarded, like the balance suggestions you listed before. Laughable. Graves does not exist? Tryndamere doesn't want it? Some adcs take it situationally to reduce damage from assassins or to duel, some Aatrox players buy it, and the list goes on. But yeah, only GP and Yasuo. "Rito I don't like this item on this champion so I want it out!"

Good god, try informing yourself before you post nonsense.

TheSingularity2 votes

My statement was based on item pickrates. check op.gg

Only 3 champions buy PD over every other zeal item. GP, sivir and yasuo. That doesn't mean no one else buys it but no where near as often as statik or runaans.

And those duelists are less than optimal mid lane. I specify Kled because he wins until yasuo buys PD. If yasuo buys any other item I actually have a chance

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

Only 3 champions buy PD over every other zeal item. GP, sivir and yasuo.

And Tryndamere.

And Dr. Mundo.

And Graves.

TheSingularity2 votes

over every other zeal item

trynd builds statik Will admit wasn't aware of mundo Graves rapidfire cannnon

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

trynd builds statik

No he doesn't.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Tryndamere/

Graves rapidfire cannnon

No he doesn't.

https://lolalytics.com/ranked/worldwide/platinum/plus/champion/Graves/Jungle/

TheSingularity2 votes

check op.gg

Dont grab a different fken source and try and act smart.

Spicy Rice1 votes

He's using a different source because it's a better source than op.gg

NineTailedMystic1 votes

And Dr. Mundo.

what

NemeBro1 votes

{quoted}

what

Dr. Mundo is meant to run down and kill the enemy carries. Phantom Dancer facilitates this very well.

Aptest4 votes

Clunkyness is the principle tool that all games, specifically fighting games, use to make characters fair. The reason being, that Animation locking of characters and "internal cool-downs" and all of those other "clunky" elements have another name: "telegraphing".

Stars Shaper6 votes

This is not a rework, this is throwing him in the trashcan.

This is the issue with the community, you don't want yasuo to have any chance, he is already struggling whenever he puts a foot in the battlefield but sinc eyou find him annoying he should be a free kill with no chance at reitalation by default.

Karunamon2 votes

Oddly enough, people don't want to put up with annoyance in a game they play for fun.

Stars Shaper1 votes

This doesn't allow ppl to hide behind the mindless hate to propose changes calling them "rework" when actaully is just making him a glorified minion that gives 100+ golds on kill and leaves the allied team 4vs5.

Getting killed and losing a match is annoying, should we just let both teams win and feel good?

Votable Jester1 votes

The issue is his windwall over everything else in his kit. It shifts the balance of champions around him so dramatically it's just stupid imo. If it was like Braum's shield and simply diminished the effects that would be one thing, but completely deleting every single enemy projectile to go through it is insane.

It makes it so champions like Kayle, with little to no projectiles practically ignore it while champions like Lux have nearly their entire kit neutered by it.

Stars Shaper1 votes

I think you guys are overestimating that skill a lot.

First of all any melee character can simply ignore it. Riven, Wukong, Darius, Morde and a lot of other ppl can simply dash/cast through that. Lux and Vel'Koz are also not entirely countered by Yasuo exactly because they can bait out the Windwall with whatever spell they want. It's not going to be an easy matchup ofc but it usually comes down to a skill fight.

The ones that seem to get more triggered are ADCs that can't simply turret it down and it blocks their AAs. This isn't such of an issue either because Windwall is a static defense, if you think you can duel Yasuo in Turret mode you desreve what's coming to it, the CD of Windwall is massive at the begin and it's usually the last skill he levels up. Any other Yasuo classmate (Tryndamere, Fiora and Yi) have personal and more effective invulnerability windows, Yasuo trades this effectiveness in order to have a 50% invulnerability window teamwide (more like positionwide because it's not like Taric's ultimate which affects the team mates).

Votable Jester1 votes

That's my issue with it. It's incredibly powerful against some champions and literally useless against others.

Yes it's possible to bait it, but that's basically saying he has to use it on something that isn't quite so important.

Also Lux's ult is the only part of her kit that isn't blocked by windwall, meaning in a teamfight she can't do anything about what occurs on the other side of it.

Lord Phazanor 1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Stars Shaper,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=HuauPWN0,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2018-05-11T08:34:05.830+0000)

I fear that nomatter what, Yasuo will always be banned simply because he is Yasuo.

Any attempt at keeping his core design will trigger any player.

I mean, CT gladly destroyed Mordekaiser. I wouldn't mind him having a taste of his own medicine.

Stars Shaper1 votes

By Malicious Metal own admition, Mordekaiser has been hidden OP for months since the rework.

Puppet33r13 votes

Guess those changes were considered a projectile.

Blakiepug11 votes

I'm pretty sure like a month after they announced the mini Yasuo "rework" Meddler mentioned in one of his quick gameplay threads that they no longer thought those changes were necessary/worthwhile. They were very quiet about cancelling the Yasuo work but I'm positive that I remember seeing them say it was no longer in the works.

Dope Solo8 votes

And they would be wrong about that.

BeatzBoyFTW9 votes

They forgot:

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/2aEVxZcz-all-those-nerfs-to-galio-ryze-taliyah-for-the-sake-of-competitive?comment=00140002000000000000

And they think the only thing Yasuo needed from the "update" was the Q nerf, and that's it. The ideas I provided for him was either ignored as usual, or just thrown to the bin.

"high on our list for potential ability update", my ass.

ModAcademy Kayn2 votes

People seem to not remember what "Potential" means.

BeatzBoyFTW1 votes

Meanwhile, they forget what "permanent" means, for those "pls gimme one more chance for permabanning me" threads. Pretty sure mine doesn't level up to that.

Karunamon1 votes

I'm pretty sure Riot doesn't even know what "permanent" means, given that there's literally no effort taken to stop those people from coming back.

BeatzBoyFTW1 votes

"Permanent" for that account itself, not his IP address.

Karunamon1 votes

What makes you think IP address is the only piece of information that identifies a player? More effort goes into detecting when competitive players have boosted.

ExcessiveProtest1 votes

Called it day one that they were only saying that so we'd complain less, with no intention of doing anything significant. I did figure they'd keep saying they were "exploring possible directions" until we forgot, though.

Bisaknosp6 votes

yasuo needs a major rework mainly changes to his w e and passive imo

ChaddyFantome1 votes

{quoted}

yasuo needs a major rework mainly changes to his w e and passive imo

personally, I'd be fine if they just removed his training wheel mechanics and Passive.

  • Make his Ult ONLY proc off of people being knocked airborne as opposed to all displacements, like it was ORIGINALLY intended.
  • Remove the dumb tower placement thing when he ults.
  • Stop making WindWall make a hitbox on top of himself, so bad Yasuo players are actually punished for timing it badly.
  • Stop letting it block attacks it really shouldn't, like attacks that clearly fly over it or go underneath it.
Azadethe5 votes

It's not his wind wall, damage, or knockup that actually annoys people. It's his shields (They just don't know it because they don't see it in dynamic play).

His shield has a perfect Synergy with item 3072 which uniquely allows him to always either be charging his passive shield (which has no cooldown, charges faster in champion encounters, and scales from 100 damage to 510 damage shield) or his BT shield while his Passive shield is active.

And since item 3046 drastically reduces his damage received, he generally is hard to chip through on those shields.

And he can add 2-3 more layers of shields with Nullifying Orb, item 3156 (Which also heals him with Life steal), and I've even seen a Yasuo take item 3190.

His shields are so powerful that he can literally stand in front of a Baron, Point Blank, and just spam Q to kill it, and not take a SINGLE point of damage, because his Shields are constantly soaking it all. And vs a Baron, Yasuo's damage is only about 200 per hit, so he's receiving less life steal/damage to convert to shields than he is versus champions, which he does 3 times as much damage to.

^ Should give you an idea of how significant the shields actually are to a fight. (You just don't see it in a fight as much because you are constantly chipping at Yasuo's barrier which makes it appear tiny; But Qing a group of 3-4 minions gives him about 600 points of shielding). I've actually tried something vs a MissFortune : I literally stood in her Ult, and took 0 damage while I killed her, just Qing away. Didn't even have to wind wall or anything.

If Riot nerfed item 3072 's shield or reduced Yasuo's own scaling (to say 100-310), You'd see him being a lot less frustrating and more about actual skill. His counters would stay counters the entire game, rather than getting butchered post level ~ 11.

P.S. The reason Yasuo generally has a low win rate is because people play him like Talon: The incessantly try to 1v5 over and over, when in reality their champ is godly in a team fight. When you 1v5, You're always giving 1 death and 4 assists to the opponent, even if you do kill 1-2 people. Over the course of the game, that adds up, and is why many Talons/Yasuo's lose games... because they're constantly feeding entire teams gold enough to have power to take opportunities and push turrets and end games. If they played him like he had a risk of dying, and worked more as a team, he'd go up 10% and rival Khazix as one of the most broken stats champs in game.

P.P.S: Camille and Darius are not stronger than Yasuo. They both have direct counters. LB is situational. Zed is mitigateable.

GayFluffyUnicorn3 votes

Camille literally dumpsters yasuo it isn't even funny.

ChaddyFantome2 votes

{quoted}

Camille literally dumpsters yasuo it isn't even funny.

Camille is also busted as all hell from a design standpoint, so that doesn't say much.

Naymliss1 votes

And riot buffs her whenever she's balanced so she can be picked in pro play

Sasogwa2 votes

Wasn't Yasuo a big pick in competitive at the time? I don't remember. If that is it, they succeeded in making him viable but not competitive. In any case, if you want him to be "fun and fair to play against", he's gonna have 35% winrate instantly.

BeatzBoyFTW11 votes

Viability wasn't Yasuo's problem. It's the frustration of having to fight against him in-lane, especially if you're playing someone squishy & immobile like Veigar, or someone who can't keep in tabs of Yasuo's dash-spammings and lacks counter-pokes like Sion.

Sasogwa2 votes

{quoted}

Viability wasn't Yasuo's problem. It's the frustration of having to fight against him in-lane, especially if you're playing someone squishy & immobile like Veigar, or someone who can't keep in tabs of Yasuo's dash-spammings and lacks counter-pokes like Sion.

Myeah. I think it would have been fine if Yasuo didn't shit on tankiness, but AD itemization destroys anti-AD itemization for some reason, and Conquerors, and lulz 50% bonus armor pen on ult. I feel like back in the days, you could just pick a tank and bully him (especially since his lack of scaling mr/lvl allowed pretty much true damage from magic sources), now he just shits on you all game long.

Glory972 votes

From a business viewpoint yasuo is the best designed champion of all time. Because there are so many players dedicating themself to only play yasuo. If riot changed how his kit works, there is a possebility that the current yasuo players won't like the changes and won't buy new yasuo skins and maybe even end up quitting the game. (And this possebility is very likely because from my perspective people enjoy yasuo because of how overloaded his kit is.)

I don't think riot will ever bring through changes regarding yasuo. Some small little tweak at best, but they will not change anything major of his kit and any of the things that make him so frustrating to go up against.

Mordepool3 votes

Fuck em. We don't need the S3 we can't nerf Lee sin Horse shit again. Hit him in the kneecaps with a chainsaw.

Teridax682 votes

The very first paragraph I think is a good explanation of why "Yasuo is the most popular champion in the game" is a pretty vacuous argument that falls apart completely in context. At the end of the day, Yasuo is only "the most popular" champion, if by "most popular" one exclusively looks at his pick rate and games played. If one were to look at his sky-high ban rate, and general negative reputation for being so unfun to play against, one would draw the exact opposite conclusion. Effectively, Yasuo is both the most and least popular champion in the game depending on the metric one chooses, and focusing exclusively on the positives I feel demonstrates a very narrow understanding of League's pillars of game design: a champion should definitely be fun to play, but it is just as important for them to be fun to play against. If they fail hard at one of these pillars, they are simply not well-designed, and it's this wilful ignorance that I feel has caused Riot to design a whole bunch of champions that have harmed the game overall, including Yasuo but also Kalista and Zoe, among several others.

With these same champions, I think another serious problem with them, and with a lot of Riot's more recent design in general, is that their design seems to rely exclusively on power and more options as their sole source of fun. Power on its own does not always constitute gameplay, and a playstyle is frequently defined just as much by its limitations as it is by its strengths. This is also why quite a few kits now tend to do many of the same things, because trying to make a champion fun purely by just giving them more mobility, CC, damage, etc. inevitably pushes them towards this singularity where they all have a bit of everything. Yasuo is a prime example of this, and while he definitely feels fun due to how few limitations exist in his kit, all of this has also forced him to receive many nerfs over time, because each strength given to him, and each limitation removed, comes at a cost in his overall power budget. While he certainly deserves to feel unrestricted in certain aspects, giving him agency over practically any given situation in the game is both the source of the frustration he causes, and the reason why he will never be allowed to become amazingly strong in his current state. Yasuo's design needs to learn to share the fun with his opponents, and give some measure of control over to them, which could ultimately also allow him much more depth of play if he had more situations to bounce off of.

ChaddyFantome3 votes

a playstyle is frequently defined just as much by its limitations as it is by its strengths.

I couldn't agree more. One of the things I love about New Talon compared to Old is how his passive requires you get an auto attack off after having stacked it 3 times o pop it. It creates a concrete condition for you to play around and make syou as a player have to work towards something to reach a success case.

Had Talon's Passive Popped on any Source of damage from him on his 3rd stack, his gameplay would be incredibly braindead.

I know its an unpopular opinion, but i feel the same about the Leblanc revert... New Leblanc had a mechanic to play around in order to achieve a success case. Old Leb is just a question of pressing buttons in the correct sequence at your opponent by comparison.... :/

Usernamehere12351 votes

I personally believe that this mentality is primarily a lower elo mentality. And that's not a bad thing, but you should temper your expectations for change with the understanding that you might lack some tools necessary to stopping the Yasuo terror from occurring (low elo players held the same beliefs for champions like Master Yi only 4 years ago, and still might to this day).

I suppose I would appreciate some context. Why, specifically, do you not enjoy Yasuo as a champion? What about him is fundamentally wrong in your eyes? In what ways is he not fair, in your mind?

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