Serious Yasuo thread

He is way to risky. Im not talking about ranked games where you build a team around him. I mean in solo que it feels very punishing to pick him. I do think he's still a very viable pick for premade team and that this is very much a "casuals" problem. Nonetheless here goes:

All of these champions can be melee carries. They do what he is supposed to do, except they do it quicker most of the time, more safely, and more reliably. Honestly the old idea that he becomes a God when he has SS and IE is just not true anymore. Maybe it's the half dozen direct nerfs or the half dozen INDIRECT nerfs like most recently and before that the -5% Crit from IE that make him into the punching bag he is today, but all I'm left with is a character that delivers in fantasy but not in gameplay.

Yasuo's biggest problem is that he is way to vulnerable to burst. Even in those rare games games when you get fed and have SS and IE by mid game you still get deleted by that random who also happens to be 2/5. It just feels like he pays too high a price in survivability for the sake of dealing 400-500 on every AA mid game in the rare occassion that he gets fed. On just about all the champions that I listed above, if you go 3 kills above the enemy laner, the lane is over, they have no chance and in some cases (*cough Riven) the game is just over from there. Yasuo is the only carry that can win lane, but still die in late game 1v1s because he is so easy to catch with his pants down. No Q charges? No minions? No chance...

On the flip side of the same coin you have Yasuo the bully. The one that ults on top of Wukong/Vi's ult EVERYTIME and gets a cheesy ADC kill. Or Yasuo the "I make Ezreal's existance meaningless in team fights" kind of guy. Or the "can't be near my minions cuz he has a charged Q" Yasuo.

It seems that all of his strengths and weaknesses feel very exaggerated and a result he never excels reliably and when he does it feels absolutely shitty to be in the receiving end of it. I know Riot's current design is to intensify the things that make a champion's strengths and weaknesses, but honestly this design fails for Yasuo specifically because he's already at the extremes of each spectrum. My sugestion would be to pull back from his strength and patch up a few weaknesses. Here are some ideas:

Passive: (Shield) Make shield more difficult to charge. Maybe it charges at half speed when in combat, but give it a threshold of dmg does before it breaks and increase its duration back to 2 seconds. If you don't reach the breaking threshold, then the shield recharges. Jumping into combat with a Yasuo with a charged shield currently is a no brainer. It's not ideal, but it happens a lot anyway. Honestly the shield feels like a small perk rather than a defensive tool. (Intent) Make it scale over the course of a game (in level) in terms of both crit chance and crit penalty. This way Yasuo scales more naturally instead of spiking like mad. It also doesn't make you feel shitty for diverging from the very rigid item path he currently has.

Q: Fix the bug where if you are CC'd at the same moment that you steel tempest the ability is cast for no dmg and goes on CD. Seriously, this is infuriating and it happens at least once a game. Also his Q should never deal less dmg than his autos no matter how much AD he has. Landing your Q should always feel important. Right now the -25% crit dmg on Q means that after 300 AD or so you AA is flat out stronger than your Q…

W: Half the duration and the CD. 2 seconds is plenty to block something important. Right now the best use is to put it right on top of an ADC and to sit inside dealing dmg like an immortal God. It's stupid. I think wind wall should act like a mini Azir ult in that it should bounce enemy champions back EXCEPT it additionally doesn't let friendly champions to cross it either. This allows Yasuo to self peel sticky melee opponents which is a current weakness, but he can't abuse the effect by sitting inside. The wall should still block all the range attacks that it currently does except for Nami's TSUNAMI, it makes no sense that it can block her ult, but not Xerath's Q.... :/

E: Add charges instead of infinite dashes, but allow Yasuo to E to friendly minions and champions.

R: Double the CD penalty in utling from another champion's displacement if the distance traveled to target is greater than his tornado range. Give him lifesteal for 15 seconds instead of armor penetration so he can better survive team fights. R doesn’t not refresh shield, but instead Yasuo is untargetable during its cast. That way the whole enemy team can’t just premtively click on Yasuo and blow him up during the suspension or immediately after.

Anyway. Feel free to post your suggestions, but please refrain from reposting: “get rid of damn double crit” or “overloaded kit” or “mobility creep” or “CertainlyT sucks” or whatever other buzz statements are popular these days. These things just don’t help.