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Yasuo Rework Concept

PyroPls·12/17/2016, 9:47:47 PM·2 votes·834 views

I want to start this off by saying that i am a 380K Platinum Yasuo main. I love Yas, I was getting bored of league after a 5 or so month of playing, but as soon as i played this champion (who at the time wasn't aesthetically pleasing to me at all which is why i had never played him) i had so much fun. Very few champions are as fun and feel as strong as Yas. The sweet dodging you can do with his E and windwall, being able to completely change the outcome of a game with a well timed Q and ultimate, hes truly a unique experience, but i would be lying if i said that he didn't have any issues.

Whilst Yas is extremely satisfying to play and do well as, he can be extremely annoying to play against. This was specially true recently with the powerful item 3046, item 3022 and fervor build that made him extremely tanky and do tonnes of damage, whilst also allwing him to keep up with you through His E, Mallet Slow and the Speed From PD. But I think Yas has been an issue much longer than the last few months, the problem is i dont think you can pin his unhealthy gameplay to 1 ability or his passive. His High damage can sometime leaving you feeling like there's not even a point trying to fight him (Especially when fed) and his mobility can sometimes feel unpredictable, especially when trying to hit him with projectiles that have small hitboxes. His Windwall is where i feel allot of issues arise. Its a cool ability for use, and really satisfying to use, but you get these moments where you can just feel helpless for like,a solid 3 seconds, especially if your a ranged champion, he just walks around it slicing you to pieces and there's really nothing you can do. it feels absolutely horrible to have your whole ultimate blocked by a 22s cooldown basic ability. Finally his ult and Q, i feel like these two abilities are actually pretty cool, besides the 50% bonus armor pen after using the ult, i think both these abilities are actually pretty reasonable and don't need much change at all.

So lets begin, starting with the passive:

Way of the Wanderer (P) Current: RESOLVE: Yasuo generates 1% of his maximum Flow for every 59 / 52 / 46 units he travels by any means, requiring a total of 5900 / 5200 / 4600 units traveled to obtain maximum Flow. At maximum Flow, the next instance of champion or monster damage against Yasuo consumes all of his Flow and shields him for 100 - 510 (based on level) damage for up to 1 second. What I would change: Nerf the shields base values, but make it scale with offensive stats (such as crit, AD, Attack speed etc.) Possibly the shiled passive entirely, and place it on his W (Will go into this when i talk about windwall further down) Double Critical strike could be altered (Although i don't personally see it as necessary). Perhaps make the bonus scale so that you gain 5% for every 10% crit you have. Should make his early game and powerspike more consistent, but would allow him to still attain those high crit numbers (75% with item 3046 and item 3031, very similarly to how Yas was before the marksmen update. Another change would be to have the damage penalty scale with level (Like 60% at lvl 6, 90% at 18) to stop some of those frustrating moments when you lose fight early because of a random crit because of a brawlers glove. Could compensate this with some slight base damage adjustments throughout the res of the kit.

Steel Tempest (Q) Current: ACTIVE: Yasuo thrusts his sword forward, dealing physical damage to all enemies in a line. Steel Tempest can critically strike and will apply on-hit effects to the first enemy hit. What I would change: I actually think this is a very well made ability, it allows you to see when Yasuo has the potential to go in. it also limits his CC (not so much late game) during skirmishes and punishes you really hard if you miss your Tornado or fail to hit an enemy to gain a stack. But i still think there is room for improvement. Hitbox feels sorta bigger than the actual animation. Q + E removes the whole "Skillshot" element from this ability when using it to knock up enemies for your ult, maybe add a damage penalty, or reduce the knock-up duration. Other than those two very minor thing i think this ability is fine, and is one of the things that is core to his gameplay.

WindWall (W) Current: ACTIVE: Yasuo creates a gust of wind that travels forward to form a wall in front of him. The wall slowly drifts forward 50 units over 3.75 seconds, blocking all enemy projectiles with the exception of turret attacks. What I would change: This ability is where i think most of yasuo gameplay issues stem from. People often complain that Yasuo has very little counter play, i think this is mostly due to this ability coupled with his high damage and his mobility. This ability is where i'm probably going to make the most drastic changes. Yasuo no longer summon a Windwall In front of him, but instead slashes out in front of him for 1.5 seconds dealing a small amount of damage and destroying enemy projectiles. yasuo can move whilst casting this ability, but the direction is set once the ability is activated. Can cancel at any point during it. Potentially grants a small shield based on how much damage was blocked (up to a cap, wont grant a shield of no damage was taken from large monsters/champions). Make it More clear what windwall will/will not block (Mainly Velkoz E is what confuses me most) Could potentially refund a small amount of its cooldown when successfully blocking an ability (but increase base cooldwon to compensate, further punishing bad use of W) I think this change fixes allot of issues with the ability, it has a shorter duration, meaning you will now have to think more about when you are going to use the ability. You will also no longer be able to play around/attack enemies without any counter play, as you'll now have to choose whether you want to deal damage or if you want to play defensively.

Sweeping Blade (E) Current: ACTIVE: Yasuo dashes a fixed distance in the direction of the target enemy, dealing magic damage and marking them briefly. The speed of the dash scales with Yasuo's bonus movement speed. Each cast increases the next dash's base damage by 25% for 5 seconds, up to 50% bonus damage. What I would change: Sweeping Blade is one of the abilities that i also feels is not only unique to yasuo, but also a core part of his gameplay and where most of his depth comes from. His E is his gap-closer, escape tool, and damage tool early on, but you have to be smart when to use it. Does the enemy has a minion wave? what minion you should dash to, how to time it correctly to evade damage etc. The only real problem with this ability is how damn often your able to use it. I don't think it should have a cooldwon, but i think something should be added to punish player who use this ability way to frequently. Sweeping Blade now consumes 7-5% of Yasuo's current flow on use (But Will still grant a small amount on cast as usual, but you are still losing flow, unless you choose to walk around between casts) Now scales with bonus AD rather than AP Damage no longer increase with each consecutive cast. I think this will make Sweeping blade feel more like an impactful ability, rather than a mobility tool that deals a load of damage early game. Not really sure why this ever dealt magic damage in the first place. The reason i want his E to consume flow is because it forces you to decide if you want to catch up the enemy/juke or if you want that guaranteed shield to block some incoming damage. overall i think a decent change to make Yasuo players think more carefully about how they use his dash.

Last Breath (R) Current: ACTIVE: Yasuo blinks to the nearest visible Airborne icon airborne enemy champion to the cursor, instantly generating maximum Flow. Upon arriving, he suspends all nearby Airborne icon airborne enemies for 1 second and deals them physical damage. For the next 15 seconds, Yasuo's critical strikes ignores 50% of his targets' bonus armor. Casting Last Breath clears all stacks of Gathering Storm. What I would change: Remove the 50% Bonus Armour Penetration. Make last breath deal reduced damage when cast on a single airborne unit, but more when cast on multiple enemy units. Other than these two minor things i think Yasou's Ult is pretty cool. Its definitely annoying being suspended mid air for an eternity when you get malphite ulted, but i don't think you could remove that without changing how this ability functions entirely.

These are all the changes i would make to Yasuo to keep him his gameplay relatively the same and keep him fun to play, but to make it easier for enemies to play against him. Hopefully this will reach a rioter and they can potentially draw from this if they ever get round to doing some Shyvanna style work on him. Thanks for reading, hope you like my changes!

3 Comments

Dabrick0112/17/2016, 10:08:02 PM2 votes

The reason Yasuo sucks to balance stems from the general player base sucking at the game. If the general player base would just take a second to learn how to deal with him, he wouldn't need to be worked on apart from general balancing.

What you seem to be doing here is make him more powerful in team fights, which he isn't necessarily supposed to be, and killing his ability to 1v1 which is his play style and thematic.

If he loses flow, he wont have a shield while going in to mitigate a bit of burst. If his E takes flow, he loses his only reliable way to engage with a shield. His passive becomes useless (besides the crit) that wouldn't make him choose to walk a bit, he would juts have to sacrifice the passive. And holy fuck, putting an AD scaling on that shit will fucking overload the boards with all the gut Yasuo stuff.

I like the new W, but it should be about the size of the wind-wall now. I would sacrifice damage for functionality as it would be another source of hate for the player base and would also adversely affect the rest of his kit if he dealt damage with his W. It would be neat is he slashed, did no damage, but blocked projectiles with a shorter delay. That way, to block projectiles, he would have to sacrifice a bit of time and damage rather than tanking the whole thing.

He needs to have the same 1v1 potential and team fight presence as he does now to keep the same feel for him.

So basically, I like the W idea, but nothing else. It does not seem to fit together and it would just be bad. Considering that people want him to be gutted anyway, it does not matter to them. You kind of made his kit even more overloaded with damage than it already is.