Master Yi Needs a Rework. Like... Now.

Tiniest Turtle·Jul 25, 2018·34 votes·9,867 views

Now I'm not gonna say Master Yi is underpowered or overpowered because I understand that if he's behind he can be useless and that hard cc destroys him. On the flipside, he can literally Q auto someone to death while being strictly too fast for them to run away from and all the while having a skill on a very low cooldown that allows him to go completely untargetable. I don't care if he's too strong or too weak, he's stupidly designed. If he's either a low to zero counterplay oneshot bot for entire teams that does so in just auto attacks and targeted abilities or simply just not a champion at all then there's obviously something wrong with him.

35 Comments

Teridax68Jul 25, 201813 votes

I think the problem with Yi is that he has the design of a really old melee carry, in which champions were basically just empty vessels to put items into, and watch as they scaled out of control. He has a hint of slayer-like defenses, but they're not implemented in a manner that allows for the greatest skill expression, and don't do a good job of protecting him. His Q in particular is so notoriously buggy and inconsistent that even dedicated Yi one-tricks struggle to dodge properly with it. On top of all this, most of his power is dependent upon on-demand steroids which all boost his autoattacks, which leads to him offering few to no options for his opponents to outplay his damage (especially since he gets enough movement speed to outrun most champions as well). Because of this, I think he'd need some of the following:

His steroids should be conditional and interactive, in exchange for giving him more catchup potential. There should be ways of outplaying Yi, and so there should also be ways for Yi to recover from behind.
His defenses need to be cleaned up and made crisper, so that they can legitimately protect Master Yi. Alpha Strike should work as a proper dodge, and Meditate should be valuable at higher levels for more than just the hidden auto reset. With this, he should be able to fight without having to either blow everyone up in a couple of seconds, or get blown up himself.
He should probably lose the slow immunity on his ult in exchange for some other defense. Slow immunity simply reduces what little counterplay exists against Yi, and it would help if he had access to other, more active (and hopefully interactive) means of avoiding getting stopped in his tracks.

LeftyRaydyJul 25, 20181 votes

Well I agree with this that he is an old champion that was built that way for a reason. I mean older champions had Targeted stuns which a lot of newer champions do not which makes sense since there is counter play now to stuns. My main champ Ekko has to be increadilbly lucky or my timing has to be perfect to land a stun against YI (cause he can Q during it and avoid it UGH!). So back in the day this was ok targeted stuns were easy to CC him and now not so much.

SugeMinPikkJul 25, 20182 votes

{quoted}

His Q in particular is so notoriously buggy and inconsistent that even dedicated Yi one-tricks struggle to dodge properly with it.

It's actually mostly fine.. "I was in alpha" clips are usually him dying to something that hit him during the cast time, or a DoT, or something that doesn't care about whether or not you're untargetable, like electrocute. It's very rare to get hit by something that shouldn't hit you. The only way to know for certain, though, is in replays.

######In the most recent Synapse video, he gets killed "in alpha" by Ezreal r.. Ezreal r has a massive hitbox (not just the front of the r) and he came out of alpha right in the middle of that hitbox.

BisaknospJul 25, 20187 votes

'hard cc destroys him'

^who wont get destroyed by hard cc???????? wtf

HalcyonDwellerJul 25, 20184 votes

Well supposedly that is Yi's counterplay. Don't blame the OP, blame the people who insist that that is balanced.

pika pika achuJul 25, 20181 votes

{quoted}

'hard cc destroys him'

^who wont get destroyed by hard cc???????? wtf

go into a team fight try having your entire team blow all cc on their thresh, then try having your entire team cc their katarina, which would probably win you the fight?

PopcornBunniJul 25, 20183 votes

{quoted}

'hard cc destroys him'

^who wont get destroyed by hard cc???????? wtf

yi point clicks to become immune to any targetted spell, and it's back off cooldown in 1.5 seconds

So much for cc detroying him.

AwesomeWarrior94Jul 25, 20181 votes

{quoted}

'hard cc destroys him'

^who wont get destroyed by hard cc???????? wtf

technically, fiora?

BlueBilberryJul 25, 20186 votes

This probably won't be popular amongst the junglers (and Yi mains out there). But I think you may be onto something here.

TheSingularityJul 26, 20182 votes

Trust, it is only the yi players who'll be upset. Junglers in general will rejoice as we won't have to deal with this cancerous monstrosity who afk farms then comes out of no where stronger than everyone else

Wolfalisk318Jul 25, 20185 votes

Reworked Yi is honestly just AP Yi with effective autoattacks. Which is absolutely insanely broken given that AP Yi himself wasn't so balanced.

Alpha Strike scales on AD now so you have this nuke ability that can crit, which probably gives it parity to AP Yi's ratios on Alpha Strike in terms of damage, it's just Physical now.

The difference is, AP Yi's autoattacks were pretty useless beyond the Lichbane proc. Basically the reworked Yi is AP Yi where every autoattack is a Lichbane proc. He's literally just a better AP Yi.

Also he's still putting out two types of damage, it's just Physical + True now instead of Magic + Physical. Which again makes the reworked Yi worse (as in more broken) than AP Yi.

pika pika achuJul 25, 20182 votes

{quoted}

Reworked Yi is honestly just AP Yi with effective autoattacks. Which is absolutely insanely broken given that AP Yi himself wasn't so balanced.

Alpha Strike scales on AD now so you have this nuke ability that can crit, which probably gives it parity to AP Yi's ratios on Alpha Strike in terms of damage, it's just Physical now.

The difference is, AP Yi's autoattacks were pretty useless beyond the Lichbane proc. Basically the reworked Yi is AP Yi where every autoattack is a Lichbane proc. He's literally just a better AP Yi.

Also he's still putting out two types of damage, it's just Physical + True now instead of Magic + Physical. Which again makes the reworked Yi worse (as in more broken) than AP Yi.

the difference is back then ap yi had a 100% reset on R instead of 70% so he LITERALLY had 0 windows of vulnerability if he kept killing

SlashStrikerJul 25, 20181 votes

There is tons of difference

AP Alpha Strike did way more damage than AD Alpha Strike will ever do. Armor is way higher than MR therefor phys damage is less effective than Magic Damage. Also Alpha Strike does not apply True Damage to targets which makes it weaker than a basic attack. All the damage come Yi's basic attacks along side with true damage and double strike being proced very often

So currently Alpha Strike is way better to use it as dodge tool rather than damage tool. Zed is pretty much a caster so can really burst you down with his abilities. Yi cannot burst people down since his kit is based on his basic attacks. Alpha Strike either does same damage as basic attacks do or lower. For instance Alpha Strike does not apply true damage from Wuju Style and Wuju Style is a DPS ability and not a Burst ability

Need Gold 4 TentJul 26, 20182 votes

Crit Yi's entire burst combo is flash-aa-q-aa-w-aa where 1/2 of the damage came from a crit q + shiv proc. It is a damage tool.

SlashStrikerJul 26, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Need Gold 4 Tent,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ZdH5ruHE,comment-id=000800010000,timestamp=2018-07-26T11:31:25.306+0000)

Crit Yi's entire burst combo is flash-aa-q-aa-w-aa where 1/2 of the damage came from a crit q + shiv proc. It is a damage tool.

aa Q aa E aa E aa Titanic aa R aa

every champions can do it

TrikzterzArmaJul 25, 20184 votes

Wasn't this exactly why Aatrox got a rework? Either he were completely useless, or he erased all enemies with Q + autos

Chumpzi11aJul 25, 20182 votes

No. Aatrox got reworked because no one played him or bought him or his skins despite a healthy win rate. But lots of people bought Riven stuff, so, Riven 2.0.

BaldBritneyJul 25, 20183 votes

Yeet boy, i dont think u do theyll probably just slap 5 dashes onto him if they remove his q

IkNeukJeMoederJul 25, 20182 votes

Just an idea:

New Q: hitting a champion marks them. You can press Q when you marked 1 or more champions. When you press Q it will siphoning strike all champions marked.

FilDaFunkJul 25, 20182 votes

He's a carry champion. You need your team to coordinate cc, there is counterplay.

TheSingularityJul 26, 20182 votes

That is technically a counter pick. And CC in general, counters everything that isn't Olaf. If I have the team comp DrMundo Kindred Azir Draven Lux . What hope do we have of killing yi when our only hard CC spell is an easily dogeable skill shot?

This team comp has tonnes of CC, at least one on each champion however yi makes almost all of the useless.

Switch the team to Ornn Nautilus Malzahar Ashe Leona and he won't do anything.

Counter picks should never be the only solution to a champion. If it is, that champion is a problem

FilDaFunkJul 26, 20181 votes

Why should Yi be blamed for the team's mistake of having one cc spell. If that is your teamcomp without banning yi, then I don't see why you should win.

This is a strategic game, if your comp has an obvious weakness, the other team deserves to take advantage of that.

TheSingularityJul 26, 20182 votes

What other champion requires this kind of special treatment? Where an entire team comp is required to shut down this one champion?

That low hard CC comp can deal with assassins, it can deal with splitpush, siege, teamfights, objective control, waveclear, picking off enemies. Everything BUT! killing a yi.

What other champion, can only be countered by an entire dam team composition?

FilDaFunkJul 26, 20181 votes

In your post, you used 2 extremes, a team with no hard cc and a team loaded with it. You only really need one or two spells fro the yi, such as Lulu's polymorph, xerath e, victor w etc.

What you can't do is complain when a champ takes advantage of your team's glaring weakness. Especially in a meta where yi is strong, you should certainly look at either banning him or having some countermeasures within your comp so he can't just roll over you.

Poppy Kindred Azir Draven Lulu is already a much better comp.

TheSingularityJul 26, 20181 votes

I understand your point. But answer the question.

What other champion requires this kind of special treatment?

FilDaFunkJul 26, 20181 votes

KogMaw Kayle Tryndamere ? Perhaps you can be more specific with what you mean by special treatment. Champs have, and should have, niches.

TheSingularityJul 26, 20181 votes

Pretty much that you lose based on team composition. As for those 3, any team comp can deal with them.

MalakJul 26, 20182 votes

lol no yi is fine

he has a lot of weaknesses

Tiniest TurtleJul 26, 20183 votes

{quoted}

lol no yi is fine

he has a lot of weaknesses

Did you read anything other than the title? I don't care if he has a lot of weaknesses. His design and kit are stupid. The only counterplay you have to him is to not let him get fed or hard cc but even then he can go untargetable every like 3 seconds so good luck hitting him with it. So either he can just wipe teams without breaking a sweat or he's useless vs someone like Amumu. He needs a rework.

Master of BlightJul 26, 20181 votes

Like every assassin if they get fed and u don't stop him with cc they will run u over. Zed, talon, Khazix. Two of them have invis and the other has a major engage/escapability its what assassins do. Alpha strike doesn't protect against AoE damage and Yi is incredibly squishy with no escape once he engages or "all ins" If he gets anything he needs a change to his w and ult to allow for more intuitive play both for yi players and ppl playing against yi. His kit is fine but could be changed to modernize it. I play yi a lot and with access to stopwatch and every kind of champion having access to a GA or zhonyas I don't see how players can complain about yi or assassins when fighters have been hypertuned lately.

OnandagaJul 26, 20182 votes

I'm confident any rework from Riot would neuter his idenity as the ultimate high-risk high-reward champion and turn him into yet another boring generalist with a dozen dashes, so no, I don't want him be to reworked.

RainXBladeJul 26, 20183 votes

So you want him to be an inconsistently powerful carry that's not fun to play against if ahead, or play as when behind?

Summonah12369Jul 25, 20181 votes

Can we make any one of this abilities a skillshot then?

Jerry SeinfeIdJul 25, 20181 votes

while having a skill on a very low cooldown that allows him to go completely untargetable.

"while having a skill that offers you to the RNG gods who will then roll the die as to wether or not you're gonna get hit or not"

he really doesn't need a rework, just a small scale update like xin got.

LIQA MADIQQJul 26, 20181 votes

these are my ppl i agree 1mil % with this post master yi is that one champ that is called assasin but you dont play like one you run in and just click and q thats master yi press r and e spam q and free wins an assasin like fiss lb i can say yeah still op but not brainless like yi and ekko the best cause as ekko a real assasin you outplay ppl for kills as yi click on them and free kill the champ is boring to play is no skill all reward and jsut needs a whole change