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Tackling the Master Yi problem

Kadexe·5/15/2019, 8:57:07 PM·16 votes·11,270 views
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Following 9.10, Master Yi's winrate has gotten higher in low elo and lower in high elo. This is not what the changes intended.

We want to increase the satisfaction on key parts of Master Yi's kit while nerfing him in ways that'll help out those who don't know how to counter him. Those with more experience won't find Master Yi significantly better or worse, but he won't continue to dominate in average play.

Stats are from u.gg

There are many possible reasons why Master Yi became better in low elo.

  • Alpha Strike changes have counterplay (stand near a minion wave to reduce the single target damage, walk towards your turret when Master Yi alpha strikes you) that high elo players take advantage of and low elo players don't.

  • Alpha Strike also became much easier to use. 1 second of untargetability is very generous for following dashes, and dodging spells. Playing Yi vs Jax is very easy now, for example, because you'll almost always dodge his stun.

I have a few ideas of how Master Yi can be brought into line with other champions.

Risky idea - Make Alpha Strike shorter

If Alpha Strike has a faster animation, then he spends less time untargetable and needs to time his spellcast more carefully. This should also make Master Yi able to gank more effectively, because he won't have to worry as much about being dragged into turret range. Lastly, making Master Yi untargetable less might be the perfect nerf to make Master Yi less annoying to play against so he gets banned less.

Boring idea - Give Master Yi meaningful mana costs

I have never run oom on Master Yi in the last 2 years, no matter how carelessly I spammed Alpha Strike. Alpha Strike has a modest mana cost (50-70 mana) and Wuju Style costs nothing at all. Alpha Strike used to cost 110 mana, which was too much, but at least it meant players had to budget their mana. Planning how to use mana is a skill that can be used to separate low level and high level players. Look at Ryze for example, mana is his only early game weakness and it does very little to limit the power of great Ryze players. And he's straight up useless in normal play by average players. Master Yi could be a lot weaker in low elo if Alpha Strike cost 60-90 mana and Wuju Style cost 50 mana to use.

Simple idea - Revert a bad nerf

Alpha Strike deals bonus damage to monsters. It used to do bonus damage to minions as well. This was an unnecessary nerf to lane Master Yi, but it was also a significant nerf to jungle Master Yi in high elo. One of the differences between good and bad junglers is that good junglers help laners push the lane after a successful gank, or just to help their laners recall. Giving Master Yi his waveclear back would make him a little better in high elo.

Simple nerf - Lower isolated Q damage

Master Yi is not Kha'Zix. He shouldn't be relying so much on his opponents being isolated for him to deal damage. Right now you deal 25% bonus damage for extra hits on the same target (up to 175% damage total), perhaps it could be lowered to 20% or less.

Shift power from late game to the early game

Simply change Highlander's attack speed from 30-80% attack speed to something more reasonable like 40-60%. Early game power is more valuable than lategame scaling in high elo.

I'm tossing away this suggestion. A lot of Yi players feel that losing the AD from E was already more than enough of a nerf to his scaling, and to go further would erode his identity as a champion. And honestly, I have to agree.

More Ambitious change - New Q function

If Master Yi's target dies while he is in Alpha Strike, then he returns to his starting position. This is annoying, but situationally useful, such as when you want to waveclear safely or poke during a siege. So my suggestion has two parts: First, make it so Alpha Strike always blinks to the target selected, even if it dies. Second, add a new function to Q: Holding Q during Alpha Strike returns Master Yi to his starting position. This solves a number of problems with Master Yi's design that make him unviable in high elo.

  • Master Yi can only interact with opponents by going all-in.

  • Master Yi cannot interact with opponents when it's too dangerous to blink on them.

  • Master Yi has nothing to fall back on if he's too weak to all-in and kill all enemies in the vicinity.

Massive change #2 - Wuju Style rework A

Lots of different possibilities here:

  • Make it a short range, short cooldown true damage skillshot similar to Yasuo's Q.

  • Make it a skillshot projectile that activates Wuju Style if Master Yi hits a target.

  • Make the spell a short cooldown, short distance dash that deals true damage to enemies Master Yi dashes through. If Yi does not dash through an enemy, then he instantly dashes back to his starting position.

Simple change to Alpha Strike

Instead of Master Yi blinking on top of his target of Alpha Strike, he blinks 100 units or so in the direction of his mouse. Make his positioning a little less predictable like Kayn R.

Massive change - Wuju Style rework B

New E passive: Master Yi deals true damage on-hit for 5 seconds after attacking an enemy champion. Wuju Style then goes on cooldown until Master Yi has stopped attacking for 4 seconds, or gotten a kill/assist.

New E active: For 3 seconds, Master Yi has sight of all non-invisible units within 800 units of himself. He can see through walls and into bushes. Invisible champions appear as shadows (like when you use red trinket).

  • New passive fulfills the original purpose of Wuju Style.

  • New active helps Master Yi scout fog of war for Alpha Strike targets.

  • In theory, vision is more useful for high elo players than average players.

  • Puts the goggles to use.

Consider making Master Yi an Energy champion.

This champion is already effectively manaless, with no significant mana gating. Maybe energy would make more sense for this champion. Alpha Strike and Wuju Style could cost energy, while Meditating recovers energy. This would considerably raise the difficulty of the champion without changing his outputs.

17 Comments

yes senpai5/16/2019, 1:54:30 AM2 votes

Well the patch came out only 2 days ago but as a high elo Yi main I'm sure the winrate in diamond+ will get lower and lower

jw20175/23/2019, 12:29:34 AM2 votes

This Yi "Nerf " is just a buff the q does so much more damage than it used to and the e damage is not considered a Nerf riot how about you do damage analysis before you release a patch and then maybe the community won't get pissed at you guys

Glaricion5/16/2019, 8:55:38 AM1 votes

Looking at Lolalytics, there's been only about 1.5 days of this Yi. - 40.5k games and counting, generally agrees with the u.gg numbers.

Can't we wait, like a week, to see how people adjust to the changes and where he ends up at different divisions, and get the data to try and suss out why?

Never know, might be +ATS +Sustain spam is still the build, but people in high ELO went back to a (somehow) less effective crit build and tanked their winrates because they actually read the patch and adjusted their builds and play to reflect it.

(though guessing removing AD passive from E is hurting high elo's farm more than low elo, and other such consequences)

Volkh5/16/2019, 9:15:41 AM1 votes

Revert the Q changes,thanks.

sF2o3CtghR5/15/2019, 9:31:20 PM1 votes

Lmfao I like it but the yasuo q would be the most useless thing I feel like

Kushal5/16/2019, 12:53:17 PM1 votes

here's my input on your suggestions :

q having a shorter duration : while this makes yi's critical q timings even more precise and reflex requiring, its also a nerf as most cc you want to dodge you generally need to be in alpha for a while, and while it increases his dps, most yi's dont q except as a finisher/dash follow or to dodge something, like how caitlyn only qs for a combo with her net, so i dont think doing this will change/solve much

give yi meaningful mana costs: possible, but it'll get in the way of his resets and alpha spam, and just upon understanding his mana costs he'll be back to being what he is, wont change much on the long term, and reminder q used to cost 110 mana, more than ult, and it didnt help yi's case at all.

revert q bonus damage on minons nerf: while i agree this is possibly impactful on high elo, and your points about shoving lane post gank is valid, yet in low elo i notice yi is played in lane, and taxes a lot randomly, so i think the benefit it brings in low elo will be bigger than high elo. it also may re-promote yi funneling which was the intention behind the nerf. dont think its of any use to go with this

lower isolated q damage: yes, this one i support. you couldnt have worded it better by saying yi is not kha'zix and i agree. master yi's q is very defensive while kha'zix uses it aggressively and i think this should stay a key point in differenciating them. however, maybe buff its damage on monsters to compensate the 10 second loss on clear after e passive removal.

shift power from late game to early: y e s. yessss. vayne got this treatement, if yall remember, and its exactly how she rose in viability and became the monster that posed a problem to the game as whole. and who's to say shes not good late? yi could definitly use such a tweak. for those saying "yi's identity resides in his great scaling" , i assure you yi will still be hyper strong in late, as this is kind of an auto attack champion package bonus, and truthfully its e and double strike that'll preserve this aspect just by existing. im very down for the attack speed on ult change, and possibly higher starting numbers on his kit but lower ones at the end, he will still do a lot of damage fear not.

new q function: (also applies to the other q change ideas) as tempting as this is, i personally do think giving yi any extra mobility than what he currently has will make him way too strong, as it opens many invade paths, new gank options, and will just make him pivot across the map so effectively his early game could legit become strong. for the q to put you back in place by choice, i think this removes the high risk high reward factor that defines yi, and removes part of his counterplay as when he screws up, he's stuck in a bad situation and heavily punished for it. it also rewards poor descision making by just having a restart button ready in case you realise your mistake mid q, lowering his skill expression, removing any intelligence requirement.

wuju style rework: as much as i like his current e, i do agree its the least skill requiring ability possibly in the whole game, and if yi is to be made less abusable in low elo it could be by chaning this. however im heavily against changing its function from being a self buff. wuju style is yi channeling energy into his sword and should remain true to that purpose. i feel making it a projectile, mark, or even yasuo q just removes "wuju" out of yi and makes it some mere weapon rather than a technique yi's sword is imbued by. the only way i approve changing e to is by making it something of the sort hit something and be rewarded by a self buff if were taking a skill shot orientation. its still an empower, just not aquired by a simple button click, preserving yi while making him more difficult. as for the goggles idea , i like how it increases q's range on those targets, and makes e's current effect a passive, but im afraid thats just a huge buff to the champion.

changing yi's passive: double strike by itself is fine and i think no further changing to it is required, maybe make it every 3 autos to match new guinsoo, but make the second strike not count towards the counter of generating the next dstrike. you could also make it a double passive like yasuo, with e's active being there and making e a more skill expressive spell.

GodlyBane5/16/2019, 3:03:10 PM1 votes

I was thinking making wuju style a constant OT damage affect that damages in a half circle (similar to xins first W hit) dealing true damage based off AD and has an animation of a blue sword swinging left to right constantly. Maybe gets its duration increased by like 0.1/0.15/0.20/0.25/0.30 every auto or something like that. It would still keep his identity

BabbaWabba5/19/2019, 6:03:26 PM1 votes

Interesting and thought provoking suggestions. However, they will take time. Let's keep it simple for now, everyone ask Riot for Wuju Style passive back.

Riot, you claimed that Master Yi was "slightly above the OP threshold", and this was only due to Conqueror and Rageblade on Yi as his core. You nerfed Conq by 20%, and nerfed Phantom hit by 33%, so....SUCCESS! Congrats, you effectively nerfed Master Yi. Now that on-hit Yi took a hard hit, AD Yi is supposed to be a back-up option. But NO. You permanently removed 10% of Yi's AD which DIRECTLY hits AD Yi. On-hit Yi received no real benefit from his AD, so removing E passive doesn't address the "OP version" of Yi. Do I need to point out that AD Yi never WAS or never WILL BE over the OP threshold? You senselessly nerfed a non-OP version which Yi players are trying to make work now.

If you really want to address his E Riot, maybe you can give it less base scaling and more AD scaling-per-level. Give the passive back.

Gojisunsin5/16/2019, 11:47:28 AM1 votes

A bunch of good ideas. Honestly agreeing over the possible q changes : Adding the possibility to chose where you are going to reappear out of q (ie in the direction of your cursor). Adding a toggle if you want to blink back : opens up a lot of possibilities, even more when laning as yi.

EATARI5/16/2019, 12:28:33 AM1 votes

I don’t have much to comment on, besides this being an excellent and clear explanation on Master Yi’s current situation with good solutions.