Bruiser yi is broken
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Broken is the wrong word. Overpowered? Sure, maybe. But there's nothing Bruiser Yi is necessarily doing that isn't mechanically 'breaking' the rules of the game.
Given though, it's not S4 anymore. Maybe we should celebrate that the median player in League knows not to build their carries full glass cannon like Bruiser Melee Carries or Sterak's on Marksmen. Being smart with the system Riot gave us shouldn't be treated as a wrong thing to do, methinks.
Actually Yi is broken, his design is amazing but he's in no need of AD/AP and hyper synergizes with AS thus on-hits. Yi was designed too well about AA'ing targets so he only builds 2 AS items then goes full tank and outperforms what his Full damage counterpart could dream of.
Personally I feel yi might be balanceable without a rework if they remove the innate tank stats from his self-heal by making it only apply for 1 hit instead of the full duration, that in itself would fix alot of the issues.
The problem with a lot of your reasons is:
And finally I'd like to point out your Meditate change fixes almost none of the problems you previously mentioned except for the Meditate AP Ratio that I stretched myself to talk about (given you were complaining with his AP Interactions with his offense, not his defense). If you want to promote a more offensive build, you must lower a champion's base offense and (if necessary) raise their scaling. These changes can include:
AP on-hits alone isn't a problem on yi, it's the fact he only wants AS and on-hits then full tank which is the issue. He's literally at a 52% win rate which grows to 57% if experienced. Again he's a champ who doesn't care about AD/AP he just wants AS and on-hits to do anything, scalings are just icing on his cake. Current yi outperforms damage yi because of how much he synergizes with AS due to his passive double hit and ulti with sated, his Q and W are just defense abilities while his E is just another on-hit to add to the equation.
Noone cares much about yi's Q damage as you said it's just defense lowering base damage/raising ratios wouldn't encourage changing since again it's not used for damage.
Reworking E could work.
and the ulti change seems interesting.
Although I'm not sure if that's enough to fix him without a rework.
But none of that says he is breaking the rules of the game. All you are reiterating is that something either in Yi or interacting with Yi is overtuned, but nothing seems entirely broken.
Also to be entirely clear, broken is AP Yi. Like, actual AP Yi. A Burst Champion that also melts Tanks breaks the rules of the game (Burst's traditional weakness to melting Tanks). If Yi was going full glass cannon and not dying, that would be broken. But Bruiser Yi sacrificing some damage for some tankiness is still playing by the rules of the game.
Since we're bringing statistics into this, I'd like to point out Yi does not actually Tank very well (rank 24 out of 46, literally just below the midpoint). And again, Being champion 12 in terms of damage dealt certainly proves he is in fact giving up something for that average defense.
Everybody who faces Yi's Q damage will care. The only ones who don't care are Yi players themselves. A nerf that makes less people complain about a champ while also not harshly affecting the Champ's player base would be great. Ultimately, the issue is just to mess with Yi's tuning above all else. Nothing in his kit is breaking the rules of the game like AP Yi used to.
Current yi outperforms damage yi because of how much he synergizes with AS...
not really, its just bruiser is alot easier to play.