An Opinion on Yasuo and how/if he should be nerfed/rebalanced.

Arguably one of the best players in league of legends, Apdo, has stated that Yasuo is overpowered but Yasuo players tend to get over confident and make bad judgement plays. I wanted to explore this, so I brain stormed a bit and came to realise that every single instance I've played vs a Yasuo or every instance I've watched on youtube etc, whether one stomps Yasuo or he stomps you comes down to one factor, his mistakes. If the player has the mechanical requirement, the strategic understanding and enough discipline, they WILL win lane phase and scale hard unless very particularly counter picked.

An issue with alot of champions who are on the Over Powered/ Over loaded side of balance is that it most fans/mains of these champions prefer that their chosen champ has an edge to win once they have mastered a minimal criteria of skill on the champion. This si obvious, we all prefer our chosen champion to be better than the average but what concerns me is that we neglect to consider whether our exploit or exploit champion is healthy to the game as a whole. A reasonable factor that can be used to determine whether a champion is on the OP side of balance is the ban rate. Yasuo currently sits at 47.6% ban rate, a staggering near 1/2 of all games will ban Yasuo. Someone may argue that is win rate is barely above 40% but this stat is less tied to the champion than to the players playing the champion. Ban rates are about the champion while win rates are about the players who play that champion, this is important to think about. Yasuo players in general may not have enough experience to play the champion well when he's available and they are interested, or maybe in smarter drafts he is counter picked, or perhaps Apdo's reasoning that Yasuo players lack the discipline for good judgement calls because of how potent the champion can be and their over zeal/ confidence in making plays. Whatever the case is..., a champion's win rate is a poor indication of how good a champion truly is especially if that champion has a high learning curve. My main champion, Tristana had a near 60% win rate, highest of the ADCs with a 0.0% ban rate in patch 7.2. She's strong when played properly by by no means an exploit.

Many players find Yasuo fun not simply cuz he's difficult but because he's 'rewarding' and very exploitable. The problem with Yasuo is that to beat Yasuo isn't a matter of how good you are as a player but whether or not the Yasuo will mess up. While we can probably agree he has an overloaded kit, tbh it's not simply how much his kit allows him to do but how early he's effective for a champion obviously designed as a hyperscaling carry. The issue is less how often he gets his power windows (e.g CD of windwall, or CD of his Q slash) but rather how strong the power windows are (Windwall duration, range of the melee Q slash) early into the game.

NERFS/REBALANCES on his current kit I'd recommend.

1. -3.75 seconds of projectile negation is a hard counter to too many champions. Pre-emptively it's a nice window of cover from counter fire, and reflexively even tho the animation is slower, the cast of the actual spell is near instant. A proper nerf would not be 3.75 seconds less often cuz tbh it really just needed once in a fight. A popular use of the skill vs ranged champs is to negate their counter harass or counter push spells. Waves spawn ever 30 seconds, therefore any spell that is less CD than 30 seconds and is no resourse to cast.., is obviously exploitable every single wave and make no mistake, wind wall is a power lane control tool that can be used after you shove the wave into mages with weaker clearing power in early game and then negate them from last hitting. Such a simple exploit can add up to a massive cs differential even without there being any real trading interaction or any lapse of skill on a mages part. A real nerf would be that approximate 4 seconds becoming approximately 2 seconds. Even if to counter measure it's up more often. A quantitative nerf but if the counter measure is established, it's a qualitative nerf. This will make him outmuscle ranged champs less.
2. -His "basic attack" Q range is too high and makes him dominate melee match-ups by being a pseudo-ranged and melee champion.The range should be shortened so he can't effectively poke down melees and that every time he tries, he risks it being a true trade. I suggest that levels in Q give it extra range where it actually returns to it's original range when maxed. Gives him a choice of lvl'ing vs melee match-ups. A quantitative nerf but on essentially on his "basic" attack skill so has qualitative effect on his match-ups. This will stop him poking melees out of lane from too early where he's supposed to be at his weakest phase.
3. -His mobility means in lane phase, he's the one who chooses engages. Rather than his dashes being infinite, they should give it a reloading charges system where at lvl one he only has 3 charges available and maybe maxed he gets 6/7 or just infinite again. He currently has infinite conditional mobility without having to worry about the difficulty of resource management so early in the game gives him too much liberty. Limit the dashes for the early lane phase. Easy to see that this is a qualitative nerf. This nerf doens't lower the damage but it limits his choice in hearly trades, his dahses in lane need to be more calculated than just a free spam slight conditional engage disengage tool.
4. -With his current kit his shield value is way too high especially at the early stages of the game but if we're being honest.., it outclasses full tank malphs late game passive value. But it's designed that way because of how he's influenced to build. The reason it's too high balance wise is because he already has enough in his kit granting him choice of how and essentially when champs will actually trade with him. He can poke melees until he is ready to engage. He can poke range champs too, and negate completely their response onto him or their pushing power and can do this realistically every single wave. For this lvl of choice and then a lvl 1 100 shield to compensate for any dmg actually taken.., this is unhealthy interaction for the enemy. A suitable nerf would be a quantitative reduction or possibly (with bloodlust in the game) an out-right removal of the stat. Although I do not believe this is absolutely necessary if the previous qualitative nerfs are taken, in which case I suggest keeping the passive as is.

How will the end result look? Yasuo mains will have to relearn the champ's early game from the spam spam exploit playstyle of current to a more calculated and well timed decision style of play. Outplays will still be there but just more calculated. The occurence of a yasuo being outplayed would less be dependent on them simply misplaying and more on a smart enemy exploiting the skill interaction windows. Pre-emptively windwalling a minion wave will no longer cost 3-4 cs worth vs a good ranged last hitter per wave and therefore the 1st back buy strength disparity will no longer be as ridiculous. It'll make the champ harder to master, at lvl 1 he won't be able to poke bully a melee without response but by lvl 5 or 7 he can poke them again. Similarly with the dashes, he has to choose when and if it's safe to engage and whether if by him using 2 of his dashes in and the last to disengage if being out of gas would be a costly error. Or if he uses the dashes to help wave clear, whether he still has enough gas to slip by the jungler flanking him or of he should conserve 1 charge just in case. It gives him resource management without giving him that all my skills are attached to one depleting resource that most other champions feature, at least until he has enough levels in. The nerfs I suggest takes his power spike and forcibly places the quality in his kit accessible to him mid game rather than him being an 'I can easy snowball from early game machine'.
Of note, Mid Game yasuo will be very similar to current iteration and end game Yasuo would be identical utility and damage wise. The best part is the smarter Yasuos will survive almost unscathed by playing it safe an extra 2 levels but the simple minded exploit Yasuo players will hate it and feel he's garbage tier and probably go back to exploiting riven, teemo or some easy resource management ninja or sumn. Just anything not to be affected by the attrition of a mana based match-up. Maybe they'll darius if they want a challenge. (Last to lines a jest, even tho probably true)

P.S One of his weaknesses being vulnerable to ganks is sad to see stated because that's saying he's weak to being outnumbered early game like that's something unique in league (or like life) in the early stages. I'd prefer for this discussion, all references to 1 v 2 early not be discussed as a specialised/unique weakness.

P.S.S Yasuo is my top 10 favorite kits in the game in terms of the direction Riot intended, but I think in many ways his scaling is way too high for how easy his mastered early game is.

TL;DR Yasuo's kit is too exploitable early game for a hyperscaling champion. He can bully melee champs by poking them down with Q casts, he can bully ranged champs by destroying their projectiles at least once per minion wave (and potentially wave clear means) and he chooses engages and length of trades too liberally with his spammable combat mobility. SOme nerfs to his Q range, E spammability and projectile negation window should allow enemies better windows to fight back before he scales up. Read body for details, especially the nerfs paragraph.