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The problem with Yasuo is that he completely owns the lane.

Laraso·11/22/2015, 4:36:12 AM·239 votes·10,627 views

Everything that happens in the lane is completely in his control. He can clear waves extremely fast with his E + Q for no cost (resourceless), but can freeze just as easily. He can get to almost any location in the lane nearly instantly because of his dash that has basically no cooldown, if you're not under your tower or in the side bush then regardless of where you are you're basically in melee range as far as Yasuo is concerned. He automatically wins short trades with his passive shield + windwall, and wins long trades with his short cooldowns and sustained damage. It's extremely hard to poke him since he's zooming around left and right constantly, and even if you do manage to hit him his passive shield will negate all the damage, and it recharges very quickly. Once he gets his ult you can't be aggressive in lane, you have to sit like a little bitch under your tower because if you get anywhere near your minions then he's just going to dash up into your face, ult you, and then crit you a few hundred thousand times. His abilities have extremely short cooldowns, so he can spam all of his abilities as much as he wants and you can't exploit that because he's resourceless and his abilities are always up.

The part that bothers me most is that for the overwhelming majority of matchups, if you ever kill Yasuo in lane, it's because he fucked up, not because you outplayed him.

267 Comments

Craft Zeppelin11/22/2015, 5:46:35 AM82 votes

Malzahar (definition of fuck you yasuo)

TyroneWatermelon11/22/2015, 6:07:13 AM25 votes

Hypercarry with strong early game gj riot. He takes no skill in lane,and even less if he has AOE knockup in his team

Veraska11/22/2015, 12:54:32 PM21 votes

Some thoughts on yasuo from a yasuo main

  1. yasuo is really good against mages or champions who are really projectile heavy, but he gets crushed by other melee champs with higher base stats like zed or pantheon, also champs like riven or darius, mundo, anyone who can just flex on him, that's because yasuo is tuned around his windwall and Es power to dodge and deflect projectiles, so if you're playing a champ who doesn't rely on them he'll be significantly weaker

  2. while counterpicks are nice not everyone plays draft mode and I believe hard counters are a bad thing and a truly balanced champion is one everyone has a chance to play with.

  3. yasuo has 2 problems right now regarding balance, the 1st is obvious, 100% crit chance at 2 items (shiv and cloak) which I do think needs to be addressed

  4. yasuo has a conflict of identity that he shares with vayne, jax, and kassadin, they're all champions who are designated as "powerful late game carries" while also either being strong duelists or counterpicks, this leads to then just feeling strong at all stages in the game. This is the 2nd issue and much harder to address.

  5. I think the best solution, although site is 3 changes that doesn't make yasuo feel any less fun to play (which is important to me) but makes him much more manageable

-a change to his passive, he should get 100% crit after 3 big items, not 2.

-a change to his Q make the duration for his knockup charge 5 seconds (down from 10) they did a similar change to twisted fates gold card awhile back to tone down his lane pressure, and considering yasuos Q is on a 4ish second cooldown, it gives yasuo a 1 second window to trade with his knockup (where his opponent will trade poorly)

-a change to windwall, this is honestly I think the biggest nerf here but one I feel is necessary for yasuo to not feel so bs, make windwall start outside of yasuo and not inside of him, windwall starts inside yasuo and doesn't actually appear until it's a few units past him, this is how yasuos block spells last second, sometimes without even casting it in the right direction

These will tone down his early game power significantly without feeling as awful as say a 5 second cooldown on E, yasuo is a fun champ and I do believe he should be strong late game But he's currently pretty overbearing in lane right now.

EndlessSorcerer11/22/2015, 5:34:41 AM11 votes

If you really have that much trouble with him, try to take a bruiser or tank into the lane against him. Many of them can just beat him outright due to base stats and base damages and they don't really have anything that he can dodge or block with his dashes or windwall.

If you insist on playing an AP mage, then there are several capable of crushing him when played correctly. The simplest options are Chogath Malzahar Annie Kayle

Kaokentake11/22/2015, 5:31:43 AM8 votes

you beat yasuo in lane by sacrificing farm

yes hes a lane bully. but you beat him by letting him be a bully

lasthit only. take damage. drink potions. farm what you can

when your low. simply back and lose a minion wave. let him damage half of your tower. it doesnt matter

i like backing after every cannon wave. so i never die. yasuo farms more than me. he kills my tower. BUT WHO CARES

as long as you dont die to yasuo. by the time 20 minutes comes he is useless. you are a aoe teamfight mage. he is yasuo. he is a yasuo you never died to. he may have 40 more CS who cares. once that 5v5 happens, your team will merk him

DarkSunSovereign11/22/2015, 3:26:02 PM7 votes

Just get rid of his EQ. Make it always be a skillshot. Imo that's his real problem, that his damage is extremely reliable.

Slamurai Jack11/22/2015, 7:37:11 AM6 votes

It's not true, but go ahead and keep farming upvotes. It's in my best interest as a Yasuo player for people to believe there's nothing they can do against me.

KMS Bismarck11/22/2015, 1:58:12 PM6 votes

Yasuo in game = all champion in URF game.

ThePurpleKnight11/23/2015, 1:55:10 PM4 votes

Been saying this forever but Yasuo is the counter to mages, all they'd need to do is take away the shield passive and make his passive "This champion has double critical strike chance" and he would finally be able to be poked which would allow a win condition for mages, but instead he has that shield every couple steps that just guarantees a lane win unless he gets ganked mid all in, or fucks up really bad. Any one with knowledge of how to freeze can abuse this champion to gain easy wins, and best of all, due to his weak base damages a decent number of bad players still lose with him keeping him at a relatively decent win rate, which just makes it easier for people who understand the game to abuse this broken piece of shit. Fuck CertainlyT

I wasn't on board when people shit talked him for Thresh and all, but Yasuo and Kalista are just so infuriating, especially Yasuo. No counter play and no win condition for over half of his match ups.

NapaIm11/22/2015, 7:39:15 AM4 votes

See, I play a lot of LeBlanc. That tends to shut his ass down.

Only Play Darius11/22/2015, 8:53:09 AM4 votes

Tell that to Diana

Also his supposed lane dominance comes at the cost of him being EXTREMELY vulnerable to ganks.