Yasou's Power

Hello,

As a main player, patch 4.17 said some changes are coming for Yasuo. I would like to say why I like him and what seems "OP" about him, so players and designers would -hopefully- share their ideas to reach a good solution that do no upset anyone !

I like Yasuo because of his style. His kit about controlling the wind is cool and coherent imo. I like dashing from an enemy to the other, and the CD is perfect to make it feel like riding the wind. I like unleashing wind hurricanes that knock people up. And I like jumping to slice them up in the air. The wall is pretty helpful in team fights and canceling some annoying ADC Ults and skills, and its CD is enough to reconsider when to use it. The passive armor is challenging to use and requires skill of when to jump for a hit and when to back off to recharge. So in general, Yasuo is one of the highest mobile champs in LoL. And that's I like!

What is OP about Yasuo is his Crit% combined with his mobility. let's see a lvl 18 with 100% Crit: 1- Chasing an enemy, with minions around: Yasuo can close the gap by dashing through minions. He can keep dashing around the enemy to make him hard to target while stealing a hit or two between dashes. Yasuo can use the wall to block a skill or two from the enemy (wasting a nice part of the enemy combo). His armor gives him an extra time for some hits or to run away. Few seconds later, Yasou usually got his 3 stacks and ready to unleash his ult. With the standard and , Yasuo has enough sustain to stay in the fight while inflicting tremendous damage with his Crit and fast attacks.

2- 1v1, both are equally fed: With no minions around, the dash is less effective, the armor may help him escape and the wall is not usually helpful against melee champs. He would usually retreat for the CD to finish and the E immunity to wear off his target and then come back to fight.

3- Team fights: Yasou shines in team fights, some champs can help him execute his ult by knocking up enemies for him. But they usually can knock up 1 enemy like or knock them up one after the other, like . Yasuo's Q can knock up multiple enemies at the same time, but he needs to charge it first, and that means he needs to get closer to enemies. His ult as well puts him in the middle of the enemy team, and he could be targeted during executing his R (unlike ). This also means he will have enough room to dash his way in the middle of the enemy team. And while the enemy is taking damage from Yasuo, who is hard to target now as well, and can W multiple enemy shots. His team can use some nice CC skills while Yasou is slicing in the air, and pick some squishy targets or weaken the enemy team and force them to retreat, making them an easy target for Yasou as well. Yasuo's Crit + + R makes his AoE damage while & after the R very high. Although, I think gathering around in a circle against Yasou is a noob choice for a team. Yasou may force the enemy team to split in order to avoid his QR combo.

Main aspects of Yasuo: 1- Snowball. This is usually the mother of all evils and balancing issues in LoL, imo. The ability for a champ to snowball faster than the rest. Yasou can chase enemies to pick more kills, he can cancel some champs attacks (specially mages in the mid lane or ADCs picking kills) denying them farm and gold. If a champ is feared in team fight, he will make the enemy less likely to get kills as well. 2- Critical Chance. I think it is the main source of Yasuo's OP. If the %Crit he get from items could scale with something it will reduce his threat while keeping him interesting to play. Maybe it should be balanced with Yasuo's armor and health, so while giving him 2x damage, it should also ensure he is 2x times weaker. 3- Ultimate. Yasuo could lose his armor and get increased CD on E after using his R. As if he loses a portion of his wind powers in order to execute the R. I think this is pretty logical. He will now think twice before jumping in the middle of a team, whether he needs the dash & armor vs the R. 4- Mobility. I don't want to change his E style, because this is what defines Yasuo for me. Maybe increase the immunity of the target against E depending on how many allied units around. But please, change the Crit & R before touching any thing related to E; since it is so important and crucial for what Yasou is (at least for me!)

Some suggestions: 1- Link the R and the Crit Passive to Yasuo's wind armor. Make his armor bar resemble "Wind Power"; the resource which allows him to reach his full potential. But he do not need the wind power as a cost for the skill, but rather, the skill damage depends on how much wind he has. 2- R damage could be changed to Base damage + Constant*Wind Power. Yasuo also loses all his Wind Power after casting R (converts the Wind to R damage). 3- If Yasuo is hit with a champ or large/epic monster attack, his wind power is used as armor. 4- Yasuo's Crits deal 10% less damage. This % increases depending of how much wind power is missing. Maybe make the Crit chance he gets from items depend also on the wind power, but I don't think this will be needed. 5- Make the wind power generating decrease and increase in certain situations. Since Yasuo will try to maximize his damage when the Wind bar is full, this will be an indication to the enemy. it will also offer more meaningful choices, and his enemies more counter play chances. 6- Maybe Yasuo could take slightly more damage or armor reduction if a large portion of his Wind Power is missing.

Also I want to mention that making OP champs in the first place then nerfing them will make many players stop playing them. Playing an OP champ is easy ( ), they snowball easily. They ruin the gameplay! and when you try to balance them, you lose a portion of the players who play these champs; because you are changing the first reason they are played for: Over Power. I don't know how the designers calculate the damage and stats of a champ, but I think there should be some sort of equation or condition to control a champ's powers relative to the other champs, map items, champ difficulty and his power curve (how he scales in power over the match, like Gnar being mobile then tanky then mobile again and so on). So please, if there is a champ that do not require skill to play, then make it scale slower than the more difficult champs. (Please do not discuss a specific OP champ here, rather, the idea of OP champs in general.)

Please share what you think about my ideas and, Yasuo :)

Thanks.