Yasuo Nerfs (Don't downvote it just because of the name)

As League evolves into making more advanced champion mechanics, splash arts, and miscellaneous, new things that are added for the sacred benefit of the player (or a source of money in the eyes of riot). With these amendments to the game, older parts of the game become untouched, many factors introduced in season one, two, or even three remain unchanged to this day. Although many smaller factors that make particular league games more difficult, we need to address the elephant (or disgraced swordsman) in the room. Yasuo. I personally do not per say "like yasuo", so I will attempt to keep this as unbiased as possible and try to learn heavily on logic other than personal emotions (I cannot say the same for people who are arguing on the "Don't nerf Yasuo" side).

Yasuo from a cosmetic perspective is adequate, it provides a new theme to the ever changing world of League of Legends as a disgraced swordsman (which we did not have before his release). From a win rate perspective, Yasuo recently has been holding a steady 50% win rate, this is mainly because I large portion of Yasuo players focus more on kills rather than securing objectives, this is also coming from the factor that Yasuo is the most played attack damage based mid laner in the game currently, so there are bound to be a plentiful amount of Yasuo players who ruin the KDA for other "more skilled" Yasuo players------ but there isn't, the average KDA as of now for Yasuo is 7/7/6. "Skilled" Yasuos have substantial KDA's, while "Unskilled" Yasuos supposedly have poor KDA's, but that is false, skilled summoners who play Yasuo get kills and objectives easily, whereas an unskilled summoner focuses more on kills than on actually winning the game. That is why a Yasuo in bronze has a lower win rate than a Yasuo in a much higher elo on average.

The "Yas is only good right now because people who are godlike at him carry their teams" argument is a myth, to become "godlike" at a champion, you need to have played them at least 50 games, although Yasuo players who have played him 0-10 times before hand have relatively low KDA's and win rates, but the numbers spike at players who have 11-20 games with Yasuo. (And there really isn't much improvement from their, after all that's why the win rate difference from a Yasuo with 20 games and one with 50 games is 1%!) This proves my point that a skilled Yasuo has very little different with a Yasuo that's gotten used to his complex kit.

Speaking of his kit, let's analyze it and compare his mechanics to other champions with similar mechanics.

First off his passive (or passives), his passive is Way of The Wanderer: It has two parts.

1. Intent: Yasuo gains double critical strike chance, however deals 90% crit damage (which translates to 180% of his current attack damage) and his Q deals 75% of it's overall damage. This passive is relatively unique, one champion with a similar passive is Tryndamere, with it being his only passive. Tryndamere's critical strikes don't deal reduced damage, but Tryndamere has no abilities that can critically strike and it is inherently hard to get all 35% critical strike chance, and if you do------then a Yasuo can beat your critical strike chance with no items and only with runes. People still complain about Tryndamere being broken. What I propose as a fix is very similar to what Riot did about Azir's double passive, put this on his W and make it scale; at rank one it could have 120% critical strike chance, at rank two it could have 140% critical strike chance, and so on.
2. Resolve: Yasuo "wanders" around generating flow (It usually takes 8 - 12 seconds for Yasuo to reach maximum flow), once Yasuo does have maximum flow, he gets a shield that activates when he takes damage. The shield protects him from 100 - 510 damage, because of this Yasuo becomes nearly immune during this time if he is a 1v1, or even a 1v2! This sounds very familiar, take a look at Malzahar who had his one passive nerfed to the ground to a new balanced state---------not like "Resolve" though, let's compare them. Yasuo takes about 14 seconds to reach maximum flow at level 1, Malzahar takes 30 seconds to get his passive active, at max level it would take a Malzahar 12 seconds to get his passive and it would take a Yasuo about 6 seconds. Malzahar takes 10% of the damage recieved for a quarter of a second with his passive, Yasuo takes anywhere between at least a fifth of a champion's burst or absolutely 0% of the damage from a few auto attacks from an adc that isn't fed, due to his shield lasting four times longer than Malzahar's shield. I suggest either making the flow cap higher or making the shield health lower, but not both; because although Malzahar has both, he also takes 90% damage from everything (except for true damage) in that time frame, and becomes immune to crowd control.

Moving on to the next ability, his Q is Steel Tempest, during it he thrusts his sword and deals damage in a straight line , this ability counts as an auto attack and an auto attack reset, it deals base damage to 20/40/60/80/100 in addition to Yasuo's current attack damage. This ability can critically strike. That description alone already brings up red flags (I'll talk about his tornado in a bit). Let's compare his Q to one of similar caliber--------Wukong's Q, it's also an auto attack reset and an auto attack, but the base damage is 30/60/90/120/150 in addition to 10% of your bonus attack damage, that may seem stronger but it isn't. If both Yasuo and Wukong were level one with no runes or masteries, all they each had was a long sword; then Wukong would deal 91 damage with his Q while Yasuo deals 75 with his Q---------but Wukong's Q has a 9 second cooldown, while Yasuo's has a 4 second cooldown. So Yasuo would be able to exert 150 damage in the same time frame Wukong can deal 91 damage and that does not even account for Yasuo's third Q becoming a ranged skillshot and it critically striking, which then becomes Wukong dealing 182 damage in the same time frame Yasuo could possibly deal 450 damage! I propose that Yasuo's tornado should not be able to critically strike (that's just common sense) and should deal less damage. If those suggestions don't sound fit for Yasuo, then maybe his tornado should only be allowed to damage and knockup the first champion hit.

Furthermore we have the infamous Windwall, in it Yasuo casts a wall of wind that blocks all enemy projectiles (thank god for Lux lasers, am I right?). This bare's heavy resemblance to an ability given to a tank, Braum: Braum's Unbreakable is similar to Windwall, except Unbreakable is breakable while Windwall isn't. Braum's E has to be right infront of him at all times, while Yasuo's Windwall is completely versatile, it can be placed close to him or far away, nevertheless it has a much larger range. Still, Braum's E stops blocking abilities after it's hit by its first ability, while Yasuo's Windwall blocks all abilities for almost four seconds (to put that in perspective, that's longer than a Morgana root) while Braum's E only lasts longer than windwall when it is at max rank. I propose that Windwall should have its own health bar, when it runs out, the Windwall dissipates. If this was the case, then Yasuo's W and Braum's E wouldn't be as similar, plus adding diversity and interesting mechanics to the game.

Moreover, Yasuo's E is Sweeping Blade: It lets Yasuo dash to an enemy and possibly deal area of effect damage in a circle when he uses his Q (that description makes this ability sound very underpowered) the niche thing about this is---------it can have a 0.1 second cooldown! There's no need to compare this ability to another champion's ability, because Yasuo is the only champion that has a low range, low cooldown dash. It is evident that a Yasuo cannot dash through the same target in 10/9/8/7/6 seconds and that is why many Yasuo players save their dashes on champions when they need it (It still is impossible to land a skill shot on a Yasuo in the middle of a minion wave). I suggest that Yasuo's static cooldown should be raised to 3.50/2.75/2/1.25/0.5 seconds, and the on-target cooldown should be lowered to 7/6/5/4/3. This would change the nature of his dash to keep him basic attacking the minions instead of Q'ing them with a 0.1 second cooldown.

Last but not least, we have Last Breath, Yasuo blinks to an airborne target thus stunning them midair for 1 second and deal heavy amounts of damage. It is a great and unique ultimate, the use of Yasuo being placed on top of an enemy provides a great advantage. My only suggestions are that you remove the mechanic that Yasuo can ult a target under tower without being in the tower's range (If you're not touching the enemy, then how are you hitting them with your sword?). The second suggestion to change for Yasuo is the things that count as a knock up, these are a list of things that shouldn't be able to activate Yasuo's ultimate ability. (All of these abilities currently do activate it)

1. Anivia's Crystallize (Only if she uses it on an ally, as if that ability didn't have enough potential to troll)
2. Darius' Apprehend
3. Draven's Stand Aside
4. Poppy's Heroic Charge
5. Quinn's Vault
6. Singed's Fling
7. Syndra's Scatter the Weak
8. Trundle's Pillar (Same scenario with Anivia's wall)
9. Vayne's Condemn
10. Volibear's Rolling Thunder
11. Xin Zhao's Cresent Sweep

In conclusion, it's arguable whether Yasuo is overpowered or not, but isn't it arguable for any champion? In this memoir, we looked at the circumstances for why Riot hasn't nerfed Yasuo yet, explanations for his peculiar play rate and win rate, we debunked a myth that many Yasuo mains take to heart, and we even went in depth on Yasuo's whole skill set (or lack of skill set) and compared it to other champions's skill sets with similar abilities.. If anyone from Riot is reading this, I ask that you do not apply every nerf mentioned in this memoir (If you do then Yasuo will become underpowered), I just ask that at least one thing mentioned here today makes an impact on at least one person.

So, Yasuo main? Do you still think he's balanced?

SOURCES

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Yasuo

http://champion.gg/champion/Yasuo/Middle

http://www.leagueofgraphs.com/champions/stats/yasuo/all

http://www.lolking.net/champions/yasuo#statistics

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Wukong

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Tryndamere

http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Malzahar

http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/braum/