I'm not saying Yasuo didn't deserve that nerf. Or even if he DID deserve it. What I'm saying is that it was a wrong nerf to make, considering the fact that Yasuo's E should not have any damage, nonetheless magic damage, and neither should it be ramping up. Oh wow it ramps up once...so worth doing, right? The power budget here is not well spent and needs to be altered.
Most champions don't have 100% internal synergy with the way their kit scales.
That's actually a good thing - it prevents champions from exploiting a single advantage by sending their kit into hyper-scaling overdrive and just overpowering everyone after that fateful incident.
It also helps prevent the inverse to a certain extent, falling behind in your primary scaling can allow the off-damage to pierce through a bit of committed counter-builds and offer enough fighting spirit to make some plays.
While the goal of the player is clearly to send a kit as far into overdrive as possible so they can easily win, the goal of a designer is largely the opposite - to make winning a struggle, making the game engaging by removing shortcuts, and to demand frequently making good decisions leads to a win - rather than placing the win in a single, potentially accidental decision.
Placing some power in things like Flame Chompers, Yordle Snap Traps, Smokescrean, Rocket Jump, Subjugate, Enchanted Crystal Arrow, Riposte, Bloodlust, Meditate, Make It Rain, Blighted Quiver, etc. is certainly a way to do that.
Also - AP is the only stat that accomplishes absolutely nothing by default. AD, HP, HP/5, Armor, MR, MS, Armor Pen, Crit, AS, Life steal, spell vamp, CDR, generally mana and MP/5 all do something regardless of whether or not they have the best interaction with a champion's kit.
AP doesn't. AP needs AP ratios to accomplish anything at all.
There's only like, 8 champions that have no 0 AP ratios to speak of. Yasou has so much internal synergy I don't see him as a solid candidate for #9 (and honestly think most of those 8 should have an AP ratio somewhere).
- Increase the speed of dash
- Slightly increased windwall duration
- Increase base stats, such as reducing his base MR but allowing it to scale with levels. (This would sacrifice the extremely minor offensive capability of his dash's damage in exchange for slightly stronger defenses, which makes a lot of sense)
Every single champion in LoL starts with 30 MR, and most of the melee ones get 1.25 per level. It's a very universal stat that fallows 1 of 2 patterns on every champion - so, not ideal to change that just for Yasou.
To further expand on base stats - base stats among most champions are incredibly close. They tend to serve more as a place to put the remainders so abilities can be nice whole numbers and multiples of 5 over being a place to make meaningful differentiation between champions. If a champion has more armor, AD, MR, or HP than the next guy it's placed in an ability more often than not.
This is really handy for clarity, as it means Sion's 65 AD steroid translates into him having 65 more AD than the next guy, Leona's +60 armor/mr buff giving her +60 armor/mr over the next guy, and Shen's Feint causing him to have 220 more HP than the next guy.
As Runes and Masteries exist you still get to define a champion as a tank, fighter, mage, marksman, support, or assassin from level 1 with 0 items.
Throwing base stats off to compensate for skill power is all kinds of annoying though, it causes charts of base-stats to be cross-referenced to determine the actual value of a lot of +stat skills, and it can often lead to realizations such as Lissandra and Fiora's respective passives essentially not existing.
The former of which is bad for clarity, the latter of which is terrible for clarity, because it's not just confusing - it's misleading.
