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The current state of yi in high elo right now

Fr Yi Lo··18 votes·4,228 views

So this post doesent really metter for most players but it really does for those players like me who main yi at hart.

A lot of bronze-low plat players complain about yi being too strong if ahead and unstoppable after getting ahead.And yes yi really stomp plat- players really hard source https://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=instakiii i did a smurf just to test this out,

But a lot of high elo Yi mains now complain about yi being too hard,unplayable and really not a good pick in higher elos...just a few are those who could reach master with yi and with few i mean 3-4 players and no one got chall with him source-> (league of graphs,lolskill)

The problem with Yi in high elo is that the game right now is like chess You win games by outsmarting the enemy mechanicaly and generaly.Its all about the macro its not how hard you win lane or how good of a player you are if you dont outsmart at least 60% of the enemy team you are going to lose or get carried

He is only usefull when his ultimate is up, if its not and your team fights or gets caught ur screwed you cant go in or you will die...waiting for that ult to be usefull is a pain and not only that but even when ult is up you HAVE to get a kill or you will still be useless and there is a high probability that they will stun,kite,burst you and your highlander duration will end and ofc ur still screwed , if you do 1 mistake by that i mean just 1 single mistake literally one bad q and with bad q i mean every q you need to dodge the enemy skillshots or follow their flash dashes ur still screwed basiclly you need a perfect engage timing,perfect q timing and the perfect moment to be there(all that in soloQ) 1 chance win it all or lose it and in most of the cases you will lose it ofc...its just a yi

while other junglers like the meta picks zac,lee,kha,elise,ivern etc etc can go in make mistakes and still be good they can just wait 5-10 sec for their next ability and use it they dont need to wait a certain time to engage they can gank whenever they want where they want how they want they are not afraid of doing one bad combo because it will make them useless for 1 minute nooo they are not yi they are the meta junglers who everyone plays.

Dont make yi entirely based on his R ability because it sucks thats the problem with yi he will be more uselss than usefull in most of the game he cant gank whenever he wants because he rly needs his R to kill or not fail a gank. Also fun fact most of champions outrun yi with just their w,e abilitys smth that should not be a thing his r is all about movement speed and champions like lucian,kha etc can outrun him? not only they are faster but they have a dash or stun too like legit playing yi is so anoying sometimes just knowing that

Other junglers can so well and its actually frustating because all my champ does is kills people, best case scenario takes towers,splits but this is not good in this meta...Not only jungle is bad now thats why junglers like elise,lee,ivern are a thing cuz they dont need to powerfarm to be strong they can just jerk off in bushes spamgank and still be higher in xp than the enemy jungler this the xp is so broken right now it needs to be fixed this way junglers can focus on their camps more this will make meta junglers and off meta junglers kindaaa go even in xp but still not enough i dont wanna go into deep shit so lets just stay to the yi

What riot needs to do with yi is make him more usefull by giving him some freedom he should not be relied entirely on his ultimate and resets and his clears are a bit of a pain because of his mana... his q uses a lot of mana (120) and his mana pool is low so lowering his q mana would be really good for his jungle clears and wave clears late game all it takes to ruin my mana is 3-4 qs when i split after that i only have mana for q or r and thats pretty dumb

there are a lot of other things that are wrong with yi but what i mentioned are core...Buffing jungle xp given by jungle camps would be really game changing too because thats why jungle sucks in general right now and by that i dont mean junglers(the champions) but the jungle(camps) they are not worth doing it mos of the time because ganking is way more worth u can just sit 1 minute in a bush wait for a good moment gank and you can make all your time even more worth than you would with camps.

buffing the xp given by camps would be great and im not the only one who says so.

I hope this reaches to riot and if you did read this all thanks!

(sorry for typos if i did any its just 5am here and eng is not my main language have a good day ^^)

47 Comments

SEKAI6 votes

That's because Yi is played like a chess game as you've mentioned, his 1 dimensional kit means he has to "out-smart" the opponent and not "out-press" them. But many people do not see skill unless you're mashing buttons, and not just all mashing, because they somehow differentiate between Garen mashing and Riven mashing, where one is 'no-skill' and the other 'high-skill'.

Which this then plays into a fallacy where they believe 'no-skill' should be weak because "you're not putting in enough effort". The fallacy is that many people believe that having more options and flexibility is a con rather than a plus, and a limited kit means it's easier hence somehow "better".

Remember the age-old motto where people believe that Supp should be a literal ward bot because they say support champs is just sitting there warding and getting carried by their lane partner? This is a bit like that, in a sense if you can see the connection (cbf to draw out the post with the explanation of my line of thought here...).

Can you even follow this logic? I don't expect you can, because that's not how rationality works. But that's how they conclude why Yi shouldn't be strong.

Because apparently, balance isn't equal. "Every champ is made equal, but some are more equal than others" - some parts of the League community.

Fr Yi Lo3 votes

Which this then plays into a fallacy where they believe 'no-skill' should be weak because "you're not putting in enough effort". The fallacy is that many people believe that having more options and flexibility is a con rather than a plus, and a limited kit means it's easier hence somehow "better".

Thats perfect. Thats what i say to everyone everyday but didnt said it here cuz ppl would start a social war so ye but what u said is just true.

DoktorKaiser4 votes

That is connected with the fact that in low elo people hate playing tanks who are usually the ones with hard targeted CC so he can roflstomp them, while in higher elo people have enough of a brain to dont pick a teamcomp with 0 CC. He might be easier to grasp than lee sin, but he is much harder to actually play than him vs a competent team, but fucktards will always flame you for playing yi...

Sir Yamazuki3 votes

He doesn't even need buffs, his performance in Diamond isn't even bad and there's several one trick yi mains across multiple regions in Diamond~Challenger.

Fr Yi Lo4 votes

Tell me a challenger yi player please

NineTailedMystic3 votes

Highest I found was a Masters player

https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=vstarzzz

Fr Yi Lo4 votes

does he look like challenger to you? a 110 lp master? i said there a few 2-3 master tier players that play yi but no challs and i know vs he didnt get master with yi btw but malphite d2-master with him last year he was hardstuck d5 playing yi only this year he switched a bit and whola but see no chall yi players not even high masters

AmazoX1 votes

Cowsep? Kappa

PiVoRx1 votes

Cowsep is not even trying to climb past D5 anymore since he agreed that YI sucks ass at that level.

vStarzzz1 votes

Wait, wait, wait. I wasn't hardstuck d5. I was legit playing from a laptop in the hospital during the last months of the season. I've hit Master's every season, but just lose it on my main. My other account finishes at d1 every season with about a 60%-65% winrate with Yi only.

PiVoRx3 votes

2mln points Yi main here with 2 D5 accounts I stop playing this game (one game per month) just cause how Riot threats Yi and keeps him garbage cause Bronzies cant handle him.

I made shitload of posts how this champion sucks and everything Riot did was nerfing him hard as fuck when Devourer got removed, so i stop caring and i dont belive theres anything to convice that Master Yi needs strong buffs.

He has too many easy to exploit weaknesess with no real strong sides at all beside "damage" that only equals to Lee Sin after 20+ min of farming assuming you didnt died too much already. He cant do shit whole early game beside farming and cant even defend himself in case of counter jungling and is too dependand on Highlander as mentioned.

Master Yi used to be known as champion with very fast jungle clear that he trade for weak ganks, but since jungle got reworked, every jungler is now a power farmer while also meta ones are can gank but Yi cant do shit. In previous seassons it was about getting 2 Core items to become effective and know you also need some tanky items to survive bursts to deal any damage.

I think his Cooldowns are kinda insane, 85 on ult that allows him to do anything and 35 on W that acts only as aa reset is just bullshit, since Highlander lasts 7 seconds it often ends before you can get any resets. Q deals no damage at all, E scales with nothing (cause Yi items have no AD at all).

Everyone says that hes champion with very good damage, but its the Lee Sin who one shots him.

Fr Yi Lo1 votes

exactly as you said at least yi was a fine pick cuz his clears were fast and he traded that for weak ganks but this seasson 7 jungle which sucks so hard that it made me play just 1-2 games every 2 days or so not only its booring af but its a god dam struggle

and ye most of ppl who dont know how to face yi say he is bullshit but when u see other opinions of other players in r/elisemanins,lee,kha,shaco etc etc they all say that yi is the easiest jungle to counter and kill and honestly i can never 1v1 a shaco he can do plenty of dmg and run away or he can just kill me especially early game and even if i manage to escape ill be behind

if riot gave yi some sort of better clear power and buffed his r mov speed+lower the cd a bit when u get more than 2 kills for example

jungle rly sucks to clear right now and ganking with yi is not fun at all.everyone that one tricks him to diamond doesent hope for higher elos they just desperatly play him because they like the character but as a pick he is one of the shittiest junglers out there

PiVoRx2 votes

IMO core issue with YI is that people and Riot dont take into account that its harder to make trash champ like YI useful against meta picks than playing meta picks themselfs.

Its like a bringing knife into a gun fight, yes its easier to use knife than gun, but try to make anything happen with it..

Moooose22 votes

yi is a situational pick. Don't pick him against high single target cc teams. Simple as that. If you one trick a niche pick, you're gonna have a bad time.

Fr Yi Lo3 votes

well yeah im talking about one tricks i love playing him so do other people thats why just a small buff that doesent make him anoying to play in thise meta would be nice.Other otps like trynda,kha,ivern,elise,heca,lee ones for example and many more never had a bad time this seasson so whats wrong with giving yi a bit of a lead

PiVoRx1 votes

1st: every team comp is high single target cc 2nd: Champions like Lee, Elise or Zac are picked no matter what kind of comp are against.

So your point is invalid.

Moooose21 votes

  1. No they're not

  2. The champs you said aren't anything like yi so the comparison is just useless.

Braindead

The Deckowner2 votes

I am not even a Yi main, just a casual Yi player that play him sometimes in normal wth friends. The problem wth Yi is that a late game glass cannon melee adc really doesn't fit the meta, with all the lifesteal/damage reduction/heal/shield/exhaust, Yi don't have a lot of chance to dive backlines. In suituations where Yi can work any other diver jungler can work just as well, in situations where Yi doesn't work other jungler works better, so there is little to no reason to pick him. I think he is up for a rework, along with Tryn and Xin.

Also why haven't Rito fix alpha strike's bugs yet? Especially those that occur often like the one where jungle camps' no longer have attack animation but still damage you after you alpha strike.

Fr Yi Lo2 votes

Because no one ever complained about the bugs well they did but not enough

its pretty anoying getting hit when ur still in alpha happens 30% of the time especially with abilities like gp r,e anivia q,r and a lot more.

The Deckowner2 votes

I had once J4 EQ hit me before Alpha, somehow Alpha still went off, and somehow I am still knocked up after alpha and Yasuo could R me.

Also when you ward at the edge of the wall and gets vision of 1 raptor, Q that raptor, and none of the other raptors take any damage from your alpha.

Not to mention spells like Syndra R killing you mid alpha.

SEKAI1 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Deckowner,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WmJEfEgz,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2017-06-24T05:19:30.927+0000)

I had once J4 EQ hit me before Alpha, somehow Alpha still went off, and somehow I am still knocked up after alpha and Yasuo could R me.

Also when you ward at the edge of the wall and gets vision of 1 raptor, Q that raptor, and none of the other raptors take any damage from your alpha.

Not to mention spells like Syndra R killing you mid alpha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LimM9a2ajE4

"I WAS IN ALPHA!!!11!!"

Yi's Q is so buggy and you could die randomly during it for no reason so often, you can make a meme montage out of it. You know that's really, really bad.

In fact it's so bad, people don't even realise how Yi's Q is even supposed to work anymore, as evident by the fact the comment section is much filled with responses claiming that being "untargetable" only means you can't be right-clicked or some random stuff (when it is and has always been a form of invulnerability in the game that the only thing it isn't immune to is DoT ticks).

PiVoRx1 votes

In order to make Yi viable at all, you cant build him glass cannon cause you will dissapear before you can do any damage.

The Deckowner1 votes

building him brusier makes him disappear 1 second slower and still don't do any damage.

Tobias Brackner2 votes

I feel a lot of the problems you describe can be fixed by the proper team comp.

I feel Yi is pretty perfect, even with R reliance. The cooldown on his ult is tiny and can easily be up between teamfights.

If you pick Yi into a comp that has AoE CC in one or two of the other lanes, he will be able to dominate with proper timing and claim all the resets that he wants. Alternatively, you can be in a team that is good at keeping up pressure in multiple lanes. This allows him to pick off smaller targets so his Alpha Strike dodge whatever hard CC they have.

SweedishGunner3 votes

He's probably a bit like Kata in that sense? Quite dependant on both team comps.

Wildstyle1 votes

There are so many junglers and champions in general that NEED their ultimate to engage and/or join in on the fight...

Fr Yi Lo6 votes

Yi is the worst champion without his R tho

Wildstyle1 votes

I disagree, I think nocturne is a lot worse without his R... Yi at least has alpha and if he gets the resets going he's better off than nocturne.

Fr Yi Lo2 votes

noc's pressence in tf and his ganks are way better he can engage and cant be kited at the time he ults his team can cover him up + his spellshield helps him from direct hits nocturne r is a great ability and noc is the kind of champion that needs to be relied on his r because its already a strong ability

i dont want them to completly rework yi or whatsoever just buff yis base stats more example mov speed on r and lower mana on q im not asking for the sated guinsso yi

z63XnLCMwX1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fr Yi Lo,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WmJEfEgz,comment-id=00000000,timestamp=2017-06-24T03:30:30.139+0000)

Yi is the worst champion without his R tho

Tryndamere

Fr Yi Lo2 votes

I wanna facepalm so hard but instead i will just say no

Trynda doesent need his r to do his job he is not a teamfighter god dammit but a split pusher have u ever seen boxer pete? Prime gom? Honestly he already has a dash sustain in lane and wave clear he doesent need r to be usefull homie pushing is his job this is how he works you dont have r? You dont dive you push and take objectives you have r? You do the same thing but this time you can overextend a bit more

God dammit ppl why is it so hard to think before commenting it triggers my ocd so hard that i have to explain..

z63XnLCMwX1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fr Yi Lo,realm=EUNE,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=WmJEfEgz,comment-id=0000000000010000,timestamp=2017-06-24T09:41:48.268+0000)

I wanna facepalm so hard but instead i will just say no

Trynda doesent need his r to do his job he is not a teamfighter god dammit but a split pusher have u ever seen boxer pete? Prime gom? Honestly he already has a dash sustain in lane and wave clear he doesent need r to be usefull homie pushing is his job this is how he works you dont have r? You dont dive you push and take objectives you have r? You do the same thing but this time you can overextend a bit more

God dammit ppl why is it so hard to think before commenting it triggers my ocd so hard that i have to explain..

So tryn can split push but yi can't. Ok. (✿◡‿◡)

SEKAI1 votes

{quoted}

So tryn can split push but yi can't. Ok. (✿◡‿◡)

The point is that Trynd isn't as reliant as Yi on the R.

Also, Yi a lot of times use R to push down turrets and/or to escape, Trynd normally just use it to help escaping since he has passive crit enhancer that helps the rushing down part.

Commando Yi1 votes

{quoted}

Tryndamere

i play both and can confirm trynd is far less reliant on his ult to do his job which is split pushing

his spin is his most important ability

nargnargnarg1 votes

Instead of buffing the jungle why not change Yi himself? Give him more utlity but lessen his damage.

Maybe give his Q a slow if he hits one Champion and his passive applies a slow too (10% + 1% pr level) for 2 seconds.

If his Q included minions it would be basically impossible to get it ganking a lane.

This would make his early game a bit better b/c he could at least gank early, but make his passive up to 5 basic attacks.

SEKAI1 votes

{quoted}

Instead of buffing the jungle why not change Yi himself? Give him more utlity but lessen his damage.

Maybe give his Q a slow if he hits one Champion and his passive applies a slow too (10% + 1% pr level) for 2 seconds.

If his Q included minions it would be basically impossible to get it ganking a lane.

This would make his early game a bit better b/c he could at least gank early, but make his passive up to 5 basic attacks.

Whatever the change may be, that is the worst you can give to Yi. That's like Malz rework tbh. You don't fix a champ by destroying their core identity determinant entirely; even Galio has kept his signature AoE taunt, wind blast and MR scaling with his radical rework (though unfortunately not his on-hit regen, too), you can't just up and give Alpha or passive a slow effect when it has always have the "clear-cut" theme.

If you want to give something as an excuse to take away the AA damage, at least give it something that makes sense to Yi. Idk, maybe something alongside the knock-side effect like Draven's E on the Alpha. Or something.

Though really, 0 CC is kinda Yi's personal brand at this stage.

Kazema Jin1 votes

I think Yi really does have an "early game" problem. I studied a lot of junglepaths to early gang as effective as possible and the biggest advice I can give is to wait for the enemy jungler for an counter gang of you. I lost a lot of Lee Sin vs Yi games because I focused on "outfarming" but you are totally right with the fact that kills bring way to much exp then doing camps. [I had games where the enemy twitch jgl had 6 more kills then me 100 farm less, but 3 levels more.] So I started to predict the gangs so I can countergang. And if you have confidence and patience, also trust in your knowledge about Yi, you can definitely win those games.

And I don't know if you allready know but smite gets more Manareg. on the PBE. Thanks

Fr Yi Lo1 votes

i won 60% out of 170 games with yi with a good kda too and im happy for that

but i didnt enjoy a single game simply because its a struggle playing him in this elo

you are besiclly a mad runner for around 25 min completly relied on your team untill you get your core items to be a bit usefull untill then a lot of stuff will happen such us enemy jungle ganking lanes,team dying/suicidng happens cuz is soloq etc etc and u cant do anything because you a weak ass jungler that is completly relied on did they use their cc? do i have r? yi needs to wait for the enemy to use their cc or he will die 100% in a fight while others can engage do shit ton of dmg to you and disengage

ye ik about the change i tested it on pbe but i didnt really feel the change with yi i did with eve and other spam junglers like nunu,heca tho but no difference for junglers like yi tho

Casual Dude1 votes

[deleted]

Kazema Jin1 votes

I really think thats to much. If I could choose only 1 of them it would be probably the ult buff. The 70% resets are pretty ok. Yi is not like katarina, he ain't related to spells only. He gets the reset q for each AA and I think that is pretty balanced. In my opinion is the e nerf not a big deal. Last but not least his meditate against turrets... the only time you use his w under turret is when you dived and got turret aggro, BUT we there is a cool mechanic with his q to dodge or avoid turret aggro. Come on it would be tooo easy if you can towerdive people and get away with q or survive w. I think there wouldn't be any markable difference between a decent and a certain yi player.

Omnem Occido1 votes

The thing is that he is simple. Not to say mastering him doesn't require skill, but his style is very straightforward. Q when you need to catch/dodge. W to survive burst. Basic Attack. That's largely Yi's gameplay. If they gave him more damage or utility without increasing his learning curve or making him harder to handle, it would make him thoroughly busted in all ELOs.

He might need a rework on an ability or two. Probably his E. Keep the passive if you want, but give his active a little more action, rather than being a boring auto attack buff.

Fr Yi Lo1 votes

i will note what sekai said

That's because Yi is played like a chess game as you've mentioned, his 1 dimensional kit means he has to "out-smart" the opponent and not "out-press" them. But many people do not see skill unless you're mashing buttons, and not just all mashing, because they somehow differentiate between Garen mashing and Riven mashing, where one is 'no-skill' and the other 'high-skill'.

Which this then plays into a fallacy where they believe 'no-skill' should be weak because "you're not putting in enough effort". The fallacy is that many people believe that having more options and flexibility is a con rather than a plus, and a limited kit means it's easier hence somehow "better".

Omnem Occido1 votes

When Yi is overtuned, he's a dominant force in low ELO games, capable of hyper carrying all by himself more often than not, and above average in high ELO. When undertuned, he's practically useless in high ELO and fairly useless in low ELO. We have yet to see Yi in that "healthy everywhere" state, at least as he is now. That is the definition of a gimped champion. He needs a rework to make it when he's strong, he's still capable of making mistakes harsh enough that he can lose his position, but when he's weak, he still can make a sweet play and win an important objective/teamfight, changing the outcome of the game.

Hyperiön1 votes

Want to know why he is like that? Because of his R and E.

His R allows him to clean up every single fight. No restraints because all of the cc would have been used by then.

And his E allows him to go onhit/tanky because of the true damage.

Remember back a few months ago? Yi was sitting at like a 55% WR in diamond+

Fr Yi Lo1 votes

that wasnt a few months ago that was in seasson 6 when devourer was a thing and also before the yi nerfs that came patch by patch

now yi is grounded idk how but im still winning games with him but playing him the nunu way running all over the map and thinking dive or lane gank drg or counter jungle ward here or there

playing yi this way sucks because his ganking and clearing sucks i would be happy if they fixed his clears at least + r mov speed buff that would make him not that shitty but not that good either but the possibiliy of them doing that is low because no one wants to see the smallest buff on yi or they will start crying all over because of it so they would rather keep him at this state and leave fiora dominate the top lane for another seasson

they reworked fiora in a way that she had some counter play right? really ironic. New champ can walk through walls for 5 seconds btw hahaa

riot things

Hyperiön1 votes

Kayn will be busted on release. They need to nerf his "tank" transformation a lot.

But with yi, in my experience anyways. is to just farm when your ult is down. and then go bot when it is up.

And then I just go like a bruiser build. item 3748 item 3742 item 1419 being the core items.

Sure, you don't nuke people in 3 autos, but you survive long enough to clean up a fight.

Never FF Boy1 votes

You said pretty much everything, i did a post not so long ago while saying pretty much the same.

But Yi is specially bad at high for many other reason :

  • The meta right now in jungle is early presence, and Yi is not good AT ALL for that. Because now, if you gank early, you have many objectives that will snowball hard the game compare to before. So champ like Lee, Elise ...ect Will always be better at high elo, because they how to snowball early.

  • He is super team reliant, if he is against team with CC/Burst, you can't pick him, unless you're ahead and you can split, if you're force to teamfight against theses comp, you're fucked most of the times because you can't teamfight.

  • People will always wait you to be out of alpha and CC you, even if you dodge something before that, so if their team is coordinate, you can be really good on Yi, you still can't teamfight.

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