Can anything be done about Master Yi?

Carnicore·Sep 17, 2017·4 votes·1,141 views

In Bronze, Master Yi is picked in 20% of games, and wins 50.7% of those games.

In Gold, Master Yi is picked in 13% of games, and wins 49.5% of those games.

In Diamond, Master Yi is picked in 5% of games, and wins 47% of those games.

Assuming these stats are accurate, there is only one logical conclusion - Master Yi is a noobstomper that just doesn't work at Diamond+ elo. It's especially glaring when he's one of the only champions that hasn't seen any professional play after the rework to the pick/ban system. But he menaces low elo.

21 Comments

KhristophorosSep 17, 20172 votes

Make meditate uninterruptable
Increase CC cooldowns across the board

Tenth LeperSep 17, 20171 votes

That is a very very good idea

Critmaster GarenSep 17, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Make meditate uninterruptable

that sounds like a terrible idea. i think his w needs to be replaced with something else entirely tbh.

as an outplay tool its kinda meh. not comparable to riposte or windwall.

KhristophorosSep 17, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Critmaster Garen,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=NoE9557X,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2017-09-17T05:29:34.429+0000)

that sounds like a terrible idea. i think his w needs to be replaced with something else entirely tbh.

as an outplay tool its kinda meh. not comparable to riposte or windwall.

What's wrong with my idea? It gives him a built in Hourglass. You can still counterplay him, but you have to save your hard CC to stop his attacks rather than interrupting meditate.

Critmaster GarenSep 17, 20171 votes

{quoted}

What's wrong with my idea? It gives him a built in Hourglass. You can still counterplay him, but you have to save your hard CC to stop his attacks rather than interrupting meditate.

would give him 4 second invulnerability with a massive heal attached. thats pretty much on the same level as a tryndamere ult or a kayle ult.

nah, there wouldnt be any counterplay to that.

thats not to say he wouldnt need changes to make him more effective at higher divisions still. but this would probably make him even more of a stomper in lower divisions against people who would just unload all their burst and cc on the meditating yi, while in higher divisions people would save their abilities for when meditate ends, switch target for the duration, or use that window to disengage from him.

the self cc is too crippling to make the ability good without broken imo. the only thing meditate was ever really good for was to be used as an auto attack reset, and split second activation/deactivation to dodge certain abilities like lux laser, or as a complete cheese ability when ap yi was a thing.

HellpyreSep 17, 20172 votes

He's meant primarily for new players to be able to pick up, so he has a low ceiling and high floor. Having mastery over him is mostly just displayed in the form of proper use of Q and W to evade large amounts of damage.

And that's just fine - he doesn't need to be good across the board. It's important to have champions that a newer player can feel comfortable playing as, and part of that is having relatively simple mechanics. If he had that same level of mechanical simplicity but was viable in high-level play, he'd be an even worse monster at lower levels. If he had high complexity, the introductory experience for players degrades because there are fewer options that can be easily picked up while the player tries to fin what they like to play as.

He doesn't seem to need anything done about him. Being the polar opposite of a champion like Ryze is fine.

SEKAISep 17, 20172 votes

{quoted}

He's meant primarily for new players to be able to pick up, so he has a low ceiling and high floor. Having mastery over him is mostly just displayed in the form of proper use of Q and W to evade large amounts of damage.

And that's just fine - he doesn't need to be good across the board. It's important to have champions that a newer player can feel comfortable playing as, and part of that is having relatively simple mechanics. If he had that same level of mechanical simplicity but was viable in high-level play, he'd be an even worse monster at lower levels. If he had high complexity, the introductory experience for players degrades because there are fewer options that can be easily picked up while the player tries to fin what they like to play as.

He doesn't seem to need anything done about him. Being the polar opposite of a champion like Ryze is fine.

Mechanical complexity isn't the only thing complex or significant in proper play, nor should it be.

HellpyreSep 17, 20171 votes

It's not, but it's one of the best ways to improve a champion in higher-level play without impacting them at low levels. System mastery and other champion-agnostic skills aren't usually a huge lever on specific champions.

Mostly, my point was that there isn't much that can be done to improve him at high levels without changing up his kit, and that causes damage to one of the most attractive things to him as a champion. He moves in simple lines of play, and he gets hit hard by organized teams or focused CC. These things are byproducts of his kit as it stands.

Making him more versatile while still being easy to pick up is possible, certainly, but is it worth the time? He does what he is meant to do well. It's simply that he doesn't bring the things that higher-level players generally want to the table. He doesn't provide any innate CC, and he doesn't have great bi-directional mobility in a lot of situations.

I'd say that keeping him in line with where he sits now is probably the best option, because he has an important niche that he fills well, and he provides a way for players who like dealing a lot of damage to get introduced to the game, without throwing too many decisions at them right away.

A veteran player will know they can jump a wall by dropping a ward and Alpha Striking to a monster, but that decision doesn't have to appear to less-experienced players.

Plus, he provides a great object lesson in when to fight and when to avoid ramming yourself into the enemy team :P

SEKAISep 17, 20171 votes

{quoted}

It's not, but it's one of the best ways to improve a champion in higher-level play without impacting them at low levels. System mastery and other champion-agnostic skills aren't usually a huge lever on specific champions.

Mostly, my point was that there isn't much that can be done to improve him at high levels without changing up his kit, and that causes damage to one of the most attractive things to him as a champion. He moves in simple lines of play, and he gets hit hard by organized teams or focused CC. These things are byproducts of his kit as it stands.

Making him more versatile while still being easy to pick up is possible, certainly, but is it worth the time? He does what he is meant to do well. It's simply that he doesn't bring the things that higher-level players generally want to the table. He doesn't provide any innate CC, and he doesn't have great bi-directional mobility in a lot of situations.

I'd say that keeping him in line with where he sits now is probably the best option, because he has an important niche that he fills well, and he provides a way for players who like dealing a lot of damage to get introduced to the game, without throwing too many decisions at them right away.

A veteran player will know they can jump a wall by dropping a ward and Alpha Striking to a monster, but that decision doesn't have to appear to less-experienced players.

Plus, he provides a great object lesson in when to fight and when to avoid ramming yourself into the enemy team :P

Tbh, I don't really feel there is any need to care about balancing in lower levels of play beyond the basics, and by "basics" I don't mean the balance of the specific champs themselves but rather the general design of the game that applies to all levels such as factors like feast-and-famine and champion kit clarity. Balance however, should not be influenced because someone in low elo cried about some champ, this is the exact same kind of logic to why we oppose things like "worlds buff" or whatever happened to mages who were played in bot lane in pro games the other day.

I don't feel comfortable with approaches where they basically say "this guy is a ""noob champ"", and so we expect only noobs play them" or "this guy is a noobstomper and will be balanced as and remain as a noobstomper" is a good approach at all. Because it means champs are not balanced according to their own merits but rather a perceive "role", not just within the meta of the game, but their actual position on the ladder; it's tier based balancing, and it's highly not ideal for roster based game especially when you intentionally balance towards the notion.

Balance with high reliance on superficial qualification do NOT produce fair balance, or good results in general.

Also Yi being not particularly favoured by any serious play is also a small part of a much bigger problem that has been mentioned by another, unchecked utility-creeping, either mobility and CC, which needs to be universally addressed as well.

420 gramsSep 17, 20171 votes

"50.7% win rate" "Noobstomper"

If it's win rate is just barely above halt then he's not stomping anybody, he's just getting by.

SpaghettiVaseSep 17, 20172 votes

at a 20% playrate?? People complain about Lee Sin and he barely breaks 50% WR half the time. He's a popular low elo champ with with very high damage and very few counters, it's not hard for him to stomp.

BananaSlayerAMOSep 17, 20171 votes

Master Yi is meant to be a starting champion for noobs. Are you expecting a champ to be relevant in all elos? Or just converted into a "high-elo" champion, hence neglecting new and low-level players?

SEKAISep 17, 20174 votes

{quoted}

Master Yi is meant to be a starting champion for noobs. Are you expecting a champ to be relevant in all elos? Or just converted into a "high-elo" champion, hence neglecting new and low-level players?

This is a terrible design and balance point for roster based games. The point of roster is that all of them should be relevant, otherwise why have a roster when it's tiered and that there are better and worse picks?

Balance can not be pitch perfect so it may be better and worse picks as a result of non-perfect balance, BUT if you actually use imbalance as an actual approach then it's just really, really, bad.

BananaSlayerAMOSep 17, 20171 votes

It is unreasonable to expect a champion to be relevant everywhere. Do you expect a frequent pick in eSports, typically a mechanically demanding champion, to be a favourite amongst new players? A champion can be considered "balanced" in low elo but useless in high elo, so there is an inherent imbalance in the game.

SEKAISep 17, 20171 votes

{quoted}

It is unreasonable to expect a champion to be relevant everywhere. Do you expect a frequent pick in eSports, typically a mechanically demanding champion, to be a favourite amongst new players? A champion can be considered "balanced" in low elo but useless in high elo, so there is an inherent imbalance in the game.

League's balance is as it is, is due to the failure in compensating the power budget difference between champs of different kit sizes and mechanical intensity.

Lesser mechanically demanding champs will be almost equally appealing as their more demanding counterparts even in the higher level of play (I'm not saying all champs need to be tournament approved, but the fact the vast majority of champs don't see tournament play at all, with most champs barely high elo viable and many simply unviable, it signifies a balance problem) if they have the power, such as raw stats, to back it.

A common attempt at trying to refute that notion is along the lines of "more mechanically intensive champs should be rewarded more". What they didn't realise is that, they by nature already is rewarded more. Because they are more flexible with more "answers" should "problems" arise, less prone to counterpicks and fit into more team comps without issues, nor is there generally need to specialise team comp around them. They are already costed and rewarded accordingly by default, they do not need extra goodies for no reason; which leads to the meat of the whole deal, that less mechanically demanding champs are simply batted down due to arbitrary prejudices rather than actual legitimate reasons. And that's where we're at.

League is not the first game to have a roster where some characters are more mechanically demanding than another, but it is one of the most high profile case where it utterly fails to make the 2 distinct groups remotely balanced and the more mechanical champs is usually simply an upgrade of the other.

CarnicoreSep 18, 20171 votes

Most champions are reasonably effective at high elo while being accessible to new players. I think it does a disservice to players who master Yi (heh) when there's a limit to how high up the ladder they can climb with him.

FireDrizzleSep 17, 20171 votes

Bronze and pre 30 players need to learn not to flash when Yi is in alpha ready to re-ermerge on them. And not to shove lots without warding. And to not 1v1 him without a big gold lead or being Jax Tryndamere Fiora . Some of this you can see in plat Eune actually....

Also don't draft shitty teamcomps he exploits like Varus Zed Riven Khazix Thresh .

I don't think it is Yi himself.

VeraskaSep 17, 20171 votes

Good games need noobtubes my dude yi does it well, its not a bad thing

CarnicoreSep 18, 20171 votes

I don't think the game needs noobtubes. Most of the champions in this game are easy to learn if you just play them a few matches. I think it's bad that he's so oppressive in low elo, and it's sad that he can barely be called a champion if you're Diamond or above.

Leaf on BushSep 17, 20171 votes

He is simple but very effective in what he does. The fact that his design is fairly simple doesn't really matter. He definetly is a "noobstomper", because he is just very good at running people down that are in overextended positions and out of cooldowns. The more risks your enemies take and the less coordinated they are, the easier it is for YI to find opportunities to get fed.

I don't think it would be unfair to buff him so he becomes more of a threat in higher divisions but then again this is a difficult decision because he would absolutely destroy games in bronze and of course there is going to be some kind of shit storm. xD