Why Yasuo mains should NOT be worried about this update:

TLDR- After rereading through the "Ask Riot" article about Yasuo's ban rate, I have concluded that Yasuo mains should probably not be worried about the upcoming update to Yasuo.

I would like to take some time to simply highlight some of the things they said in the article and give my thoughts as I read them. Here it goes.

Honestly? Yasuo is badass. He’s a lethal Ronin-esque character that can pull off slick moves in game, dashing and slashing everywhere, leaving chaos and death behind him…at least when he’s on the enemy team. We’re thrilled that we created a character that people love to play as much as him, but we’re also** sad that he’s effectively removed from play because of his popularity**.

So a few things that stuck out to me. RIOT, in what I think is actually somewhat of a humorous jab, recognizes the memory bias people have with Yasuo. Strong/OP on enemy team, feeder of the year on my team. RIOT hears the community loud and clear, this shows that they do hear us, but what follows also suggests that this is not their actual stance. I think this is good as RIOT as a company should definitely be able to recognize bad logic like this, since the feeding Yasuo AND the Killer of all Yasuo are always on SOMEONE's team and also on SOMEONE's enemy team. But even still, they take the time to recognize that this is a common emotion/feeling to a lot of players.

With the second highlighted statement, RIOT basically pats themselves on the back, because they NAILED IT! They hit Yasuo's thematic really well, and a LOT of people like him. They then point out that they feel Yasuo's popularity is one of the primary reasons he is so banned.

Think of it this way: Yasuo's kit is frustrating to play against, especially in certain non-favorable matchups and when he gets ahead. But do you really think the community at large would be so loudly protesting a champion, who is statistically pretty meh (2nd most or 1st most deaths per game, less than 50% winrate in intended role, barely 50% in side roll) if he was only as poplular as say, Urgot? Probably not. Yasuo being so popular means that people are having to deal with what they find frustrating about him a LOT. Does that mean he doesn't have other potential problems? No, but it is an interesting point.

We want you to be able to play Yasuo. The moments when he dashes from minion to minion narrowly escaping death, or lands that 5 man ult getting the pentakill, are **super satisfying and exciting **— we just need to make sure that the way you do it also provides your opponents with the feeling like they could have made meaningful decisions during the engagement.

RIOT wants this popular champion to be played. A LOT of people like him. This paragraph in my mind points out what RIOT feels are the core gameplay fantasies of playing Yasuo- Dashing around, looking for 5 man ults, getting penta kills :P. They recognize that these are the things most Yasuo players enjoy about the champion. The latter part then goes back to addressing what RIOT hears is the main problem, and that is what I have heard referred to as "agency". Players playing against Yasuo need to feel like they have options when engaging/being engaged on by Yasuo. Players will rarely feel "outplayed" while locked out of a fight in a jungle corridor for nearly 4 seconds because Yasuo threw up a windwall while his team gangs up on the one poor tank that tried to start a fight there. #feelsbadman. RIOT hears and recognizes this.

Now, we could easily get his ban rate down by focusing on his raw power,** but** doing so would probably also mean that he’d have to be so weak that picking him was actually putting Yasuo players at a MAJOR disadvantage, let alone putting his promised fantasy at risk.** Yasuo already struggles with being a viable champion the higher you climb**, and** instead has a lot of his playrate derived from players who devote themselves to mastering him** (and** even then aren’t rewarded with the typical winrate growth you would expect**). A decent indicator of this is his presence in pro play: 2016: 19 picks, 1 ban (Nidalee for reference was 404 picks and 930 bans) 2017: 1 pick, 1 ban

BUT- the all important word in this paragraph. They don't want to make Yasuo any weaker than he already is. To all the Yasuo mains, this should be a huge relief to you, RIOT has no plans to make this champion weaker, whatever it is they are going to do. Everything that follows is support for this stance: Yasuo is less and less viable the higher you climb unless you are a one trick. (one tricking to learn this fun champ accounts for a lot of his play rate) But even among one tricks, Yasuo is one of the least rewarded when it comes to increased win rates for spending the time to master a champion. The LCS stats are also evidence supporting this stance that Yasuo is not ACTUALLY a powerful champion, hes just "badass!" or "cool". Obviously, if Yasuo was as powerful as some people talked him up to be, he would probably see more LCS play.

While** these numbers certainly aren’t conclusive, nor necessarily indicative of a problem**, it’s an interesting note that in the most competitive environment Yasuo actually struggles to find his place on the Rift.

RIOT shows that these stats are not what motivate them to do this change (it was established earlier that they have heard the outcry of the community, which bumped him up on priority) but it does show that Yasuo was in fact, as they stated previously, already on the radar for work.

Our belief is that if we want to get him into a state where he is both viable and also not a must-ban, we need to tweak more than numbers. He was already pretty high on our list of champions that we wanted to look at on the scope of a potential ability update (think Rek’sai, Kindred, Heimer etc.), and with the release of 10 bans he’s moved right up alongside some fellow counterparts in Leblanc and Azir.

RIOT wants Yasuo to be a viable champion who is not also a must-ban. We have their goal. Their conclusion? Tweak more than just numbers. This is pretty obvious, but RIOT is pointing out that some things will have to change. To what extent? We don't really know. They haven't told us, not exactly, anyway :)

I want to stress that we haven’t begun investigation yet as we iterate on some other projects, but** we’ll be taking a look at him in the next few weeks.** I’d expect that when we’re done Yasuo will look and feel very similar to now, but with power shifted around on his kit to provide more windows of engaging decision making for his opponents, while maintaining a lot of the agile swordmaster experience he provides today. Again, we’re thrilled that Yasuo is a champion that gives people who play him something to love, now we just need to find a fair way to have his opponents accept their fate as he steals their last breath with his blade.

As of this post, RIOT hasn't yet begun to investigate into Yasuo, but they will be soon. These are a few of the most important parts of this article as to why Yasuo mains need not worry. He will look and feel similar to now, meaning his overall gameplay patterns will change little if at all. He will of course hopefully have more opportunities for his opponents, but will maintain the fantasy of the agile swordsman.

We would love to hear your thoughts on this, actually! What is it that you love about playing as Yasuo? What is it that you hate when playing against him? Tell us in the comments!

RIOT begins their research immediately after this post. I am more than sure there is a RIOTer or two who have been combing through these comments and all of the threads that have popped up since.

So, thoughts and Predictions:

-SLASHY-SLASHY! DASHY-DASHY!

I am fairly certain based on the above that RIOT will not be making ANY significant changes (if any at all) to Yasuo's Q (Slashy-Slashy) or E (Dashy-Dashy). I believe these two abilities to be key to fulfilling the agile swordsman fantasy that has captured the fans of Yasuo. E+Q will still be a thing, and Yasuo will still charge up and throw tornadoes.

What MIGHT happen to Q and E?- My guess, is that if they make changes to Yasuo Q, they will revert the hold time on his stacks to 10 seconds, but then will also increase the cooldown of his Q at early levels. It will still scale down with attack speed, but having a higher base cooldown means fewer tornadoes in the lane phase. If needed, they could also make a distinction between having 1 or 2 stacks of gathering storm, being able to hold the 1st charge for 10 seconds, but once a tornado is ready, only being able to hold it for 6-8 seconds. Either way, a possible cooldown increase on Q early ranks could happen. This change alone could easily reduce his lane pressure, as it means less early tornadoes, and less opportunities for Yasuo to just dash in, knock up, dash out. I also suspect that a minor damage buff (perhaps in removing the -crit damage multiplier) could happen.

As far as his Dash is concerned, the only thing I can currently see RIOT doing is removing the stacking damage, and move that power elsewhere. I don't see any buffs as necessary to Yasuo's fantasy. This skill does what it is supposed to do and the bonus damage is just extra uneeded and unfelt power. Power that can easily be moved elswhere. Also, I could see them adding clarity to opponents by letting them see the cooldowns on Yasuo's dash targets.

-Melee Skirmishers need defensive tools

Yasuo's passive shield, I feel, is only really complained about AFTER everything else. However, it is easily played around, as it only lasts briefly when popped, and is not dictated by Yasuo in its use. Skirmishers need defensive tools to survive in melee and do damage. It has visibility so opponents can see when its about to be up, its personal (only affects Yasuo), and is there for, in my opinion, ok as is.

What MIGHT happen to passive shield?- Its generation rate, at low levels, could become reduced to offer larger windows during the lane phase. I assume it would likely scale back to where it is now in the later part of the game, since I don't think his shield is a problem for anyone outside of lane phase. This extra power could be then moved to something else, like base stats, to make Yasuo an overall stronger champion. Obviously, he is still going to be squishy melee man, but a small buff to his base stats would go a long way to keeping him viable I think.

Windwall... So much can be said about the frustration level of this one skill. Now, although I WILL say that the wall has CLEAR counterplay, to say that the counter play presented is easily accessible is highly unlikely. This is the skill that I think will be the crux of this updates change. I can see it happening in one of 2 ways:

A) The wall size is fixed (current rank 2 or 3?) and the duration will be MASSIVELY reduced. 3.75 seconds is a HUGE amount of time, especially in a team fight. The duration will likely get reduced and scale. Maybe something like 1.75/2/2.25/2.5/2.75. At max rank, its a great deal smaller and a full second shorter. Being as its also his last skill maxed, this would be a considerable boost to his opponents, especially in lane phase, to having opportunity to attack him and making his disengages with it slightly less frustrating. Also, to make it less forgiving, have it form in front of him at his melee range (ya know, where he swings his sword?). This power will likely get moved elsewhere in his Kit.

B) A whole new ability. To which end, there is no way to predict what RIOT would have in store. But chances are it will be Wind themed, and be a defensive tool. A slightly less cool option would be to take his passive shield, buff its utility and make it his W. Call it wind barrier or something and make it like Morgana black shield (cc immune) but for physical damage, completely negating ranged Autos (not skills) for the duration or until broken.

Melee Skirmishers (carries in general) NEED a damage steroid of some kind

Passive double crit- I think critical strikes are part of the master swordsman fantasy that Yasuo brings. This will likely stay as it not only fits thematically, but also is part of why full-tank Bruiser Yasuo won't be a thing. His first two items will NEED to be critical strike items. This keeps him squishy. A possible buff could happen though if these windows prove sufficient, and he could gain the rest of his critical strike damage back. aka no more -10% crit. Of course, a better way to do that would be to scale it down, so as to gate some of his early damage from crits, -30/15/0% crit damage at levels 1/6/11, or something like that.

What MIGHT happen to passive double crit? If this does get changed, I imagine he would gain some kind of critical strike damage bonus, or some kind of regular garanteed critical strike. This would, however present an entire different kind of balance battle that would have to be solved in patches to come, and could lead to more Bruiser Yasuo builds.

Ultimate Armor Shred- As a sustained damage carry, he needs to be able to deal with tanks eventually, and this is a good way to do it, because honestly, if he is ulting in for big team fights on multiple target knock ups, he is likely not focusing the tank for the majority of its duration anyway.

IMPORTANT NOTE I think it is important to note here that Yasuo's 2 "damage steroids" are both indirect sources of damage increase. On live, he currently gains 100% crit faster than anyone else, which is nice, but it still does less critical damage per strike than any other champion. This is especially evident, and in my mind, a problem late game when you have ranged adc's attacking just as fast if not faster than Yasuo from much farther away, for much more damage per hit. His ult gives armor shred, which is largely ineffective against squishy targets since they don't build armor (typically) and only a really big increase against tanky opponents. Other champions in this category (Riven and Fiora for example) have direct damage increases: Riven gets on hit bonus damage to her autos after using skills, and an AD buff when she ults, making her steroid much more effective against squishy targets, albeit maybe slightly less effective against tankier ones. Fiora has true damage, which... ok, the fact that its true damage that scales with X%MAX HP still kind of bothers me personally, but you get the idea. Direct damage buffs vs indirect. Just some food for thought as to why Yasuo is much less effective at higher tiers of play.

I don't predict any big changes to his ultimate. Perhaps some of the power will get moved there to make the base damage stronger, or give it a different affect after landing.

If you took the time to read all of this, thank you. I hope this was helpful and constructive. The winds of change are blowing, and I think its for the best.