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On the Master Yi Buffs

Carnicore·1/24/2018, 12:20:01 AM·37 votes·8,992 views

The lower mana cost on Alpha Strike is nice. Doesn't really affect his viability in any way, it's just nice and I'll appreciate it when I'm splitpushing or have just enough mana to cast one more Q in a teamfight.

The Meditate changes are lame though. The buff you get after channeling is very minor, promotes terrible use of Alpha Strike (because you don't get to lower the cooldown with basic attacks unless you put it on cooldown at the start of the fight), and in exchange you nerfed the healing too much to channel Meditate in combat anymore.

In Patch 6.8, Master Yi received a nerf that he never recovered from.

Highlander

  • Cooldown increased to 85 from 75

  • Duration reduced to 7 seconds from 10

  • On-kill/on-assist duration extension increased to 7 seconds from 4

Why was this nerf so devastating?

Highlander serves a central role in Master Yi's kit. It's not just a basic "super mode" ultimate like Nasus' or Aatrox's ults, it's also a gapcloser and a means to avoid getting kited. It's difficult or impossible for Master Yi to fight without it, it's just too easy for enemies to kite him. This is because he doesn't have any CC, all of his damage comes from 125 range basic attacks, and Alpha Strike has a long cooldown if he's not constantly attacking. Without Highlander, he's dead in the water.

Now, before, the nerf, Highlander was very reliable. You could use it at the start of a fight and trust that the duration would last until the fight was over. But when the base duration was lowered from 10 seconds to 7, this wasn't true anymore. Now, any engagement with your opponents is a panicked race against death to kill somebody before your time ran out. There are many ways enemies can waste time on your Highlander:

  • Aatrox - Revive (3 seconds), lifesteal

  • Zhonya's Hourglass (2.5 seconds) (every mage buys this)

  • Ahri - Charm (1-2 seconds) and ult (you will usually waste your entire Highlander duration trying to chase an Ahri when she uses 3 dashes, even if you use Alpha Strike perfectly)

  • Akali - Stealth (8 seconds), spellvamp

  • Alistar - Pulverize (1 second), Headbutt (1 second or longer depending where he throws you), Trample (1 second), Unbreakable (even with true damage you'll need a lot of time to kill him)

  • Stopwatch (2.5 seconds) (This item is everywhere by the way)

  • Amumu - Bandage Toss (1 second) and ult (2 seconds), also he's really tanky

  • Anivia - Egg (up to 6 seconds), Ice Wall (this can waste a couple seconds depending on where it is), and her Q (1-1.5 seconds), she also usually has Rod of Ages and Seraph's Embrace making her really tanky

  • Annie - Stun (1.25-1.75 seconds)

  • Ashe - Ult (1-3.5 seconds)

  • Aurelion Sol - Ult (knockback)

  • Guardian Angel (4 seconds) (every ADC has this after 30 minutes unless they're greedy)

That's just every champion starting with the letter "A", and a few common items. You'll also be stalled by shields, heals, anything that keeps people alive.

You can try to buy up to 4 seconds of extra time on Highlander by Meditating, but it'll usually be interrupted by a stun, silence, knockup, suppression, fear, charm, sleep, polymorph, taunt, whatever. It'll even be counterproductive if your target is running away.

You see, enemies don't need to CC Master Yi to kill him. It's actually much simpler than that - enemies just have to survive long enough for the team to kill him. His whole kit depends on kills/assists to keep up momentum; denying kills means he's not using Alpha Strike as much, and he's as good as dead if Highlander runs out before the fight is finished. Players get better and better at this as you go up the ranked ladder.

And let's talk about enemy champions outrunning Highlander. Highlander grants 25/35/45% extra movement speed, and thanks to mobility creep, that's not enough anymore. Any champion that isn't running at a normal speed will waste a significant amount of Highlander duration simply by running away from you.

  • Phase Rush - 15-40% MS

  • Heimerdinger - 20% MS when near his turrets

  • Zoe - 10-70% MS just by using W or a summoner spell

  • Fiora - Between her low Q cooldown and 20-50% MS from her passive, she will almost always run faster than Master Yi when she's chasing him.

  • Rengar - 30-50% MS from Ferocity

  • Katarina - 50-90% MS from W, plus Shunpo resets

The duration extension of Highlander that comes from kills/assists was increased from 4 to 7 with the Highlander nerf, but that just feels less balanced. After a good fight you'll often have Highlander continue long after everyone's dead, e.g. when you don't need it.

TL;DR, revert the 6.8 Highlander changes, or give us some way to extend the duration without killing enemies. We could combine ricklessabandon's ideas with the popular requests of Yi mains. Make Highlander 4 seconds longer (or 15% faster) if you fully channel Meditate before casting it.

37 Comments

Jesus is Savior1/24/2018, 6:42:48 AM9 votes

I just want to note: it was said that the meditate change will permanently empower his next 3 attacks. So you could empower them in your jungle and then run all the way to top lane and gank, and get healing on your next 3 hits. Meditate may even be off cd again by the time you get there. We really have to see how it plays out. (I main Yi)

PiVoRx1/24/2018, 7:42:01 AM8 votes

Another set of meaningless "buffs" for Yi to stfu Yi mains for another 2 years.. Like OP mentioned, highlander is the reason why Yi sucks right now, you cant 1v1 to splitpush or it ends before you get to the target.. this ability should either be reverted or have cd cut by half if its supposted to maintain its current state. Yi's uselessmes without ult is not compensated at all by highlander anymore.

Lightning I1/24/2018, 12:55:55 AM7 votes

You're suggestions are cool and all and might help bring Yi back to the game more, but more champions are in worse positions right now. While yes he's very squishy and yes he has no cc and cc counters him, but he's damage output is insane and fast with lethal tempo.

I don't mean to say he's great, he might actually need some buffs, but I'm saying he's not the only one out there.

Blue Sord1/24/2018, 8:47:10 PM4 votes

I am REALLY getting fed up with you, RIOT. You NEVER answer the tough questions. This guy obviously put a lot of work into his write-up and you assclowns can't even give him the time of day to give a reply. i've discussed it a lot with Yi mains from KR and NA... they all think this 'buff' is plain dumb. Meditate itself is ACTUALLY getting a nerf... you give Yi some sustain and call him fixed. You people are a shitshow joke.

Minaho1/24/2018, 9:18:38 PM3 votes

((complete silence from riot as usual))

paisy1/24/2018, 2:21:20 AM3 votes

The ult revert is all he needs. He feels so bad to play when he needs to fight without his ult.

RainXBlade1/24/2018, 9:42:20 PM2 votes

Can they just revert the nerf to his R and E so that he's at least usable? Sated Devourer's gone, and so I think it would be right to give back some of the strength he lost during the time Sated was removed.

T4underbolt1/24/2018, 1:29:14 PM2 votes

In my eyes it's basically a nerf for W. That abilities cd reduction for 3 autos doesn't have synergy with his fight style.

FeedingWithRiven1/24/2018, 2:51:20 PM2 votes

Just give Yi some bonus MR or armor per level so skrubz like riven can't one shot him :D

Onandaga1/24/2018, 3:29:01 AM1 votes

I just wanna see how these changes play out for Top lane Yi, the only place I play him cuz I hate jg.

Ya Bois Timbs1/25/2018, 3:53:39 AM1 votes

imo the last thing yi needs is another buff. im comfortable having him as a noobstomper, not an easier yasuo.

Ayan1/26/2018, 2:27:32 AM1 votes

This buff(nerf) can be seriously a buff if the meditation can't be interrupted. I'd like to say that because Rioters may hardly change their direction about how they should fix Master Yi to be viable. If you add the ability to the meditation not to get interrupted, it can be a compromise between the direction that Riot tries to fix Master Yi in, and what Master Yi players need.

PPPPPPPPPPPP2701/26/2018, 2:49:19 AM1 votes

What is the point of meditate after a full channel supposed to accomplish because that skill can only basically be used in the jungle. It's impratical to use it during any fight with an enemy champion.

Anomander1/26/2018, 4:18:22 PM1 votes

The meditate changes I am pretty sure are designed for early jungle sustain. After taking a camp walk to the next meditate and then alpha strike. Now your next three attacks not only heal you but also reduce the CD on Alpha strike by 2 seconds instead of only 1. This is what I think they want for the meditate changes. This is not meant as a late game change (IMO).

BestPudgeNA1/26/2018, 8:41:05 PM1 votes

Yi's a mindless dumb champ that is the master of getting Penta's in bronze. The champ doesn't need buffs it needs a rework like another mindless boring press R Jungler Warwick

Justech2/5/2018, 11:14:37 PM1 votes

Update: Master Yi's meditate changes are getting scrapped, and he is receiving raw buff on Q and E (both passive and active)

okamiyasha952/11/2018, 8:25:11 PM1 votes

Lest not forget, he deals true damage. Yi was fine where he was. Not too strong not too weak. Clearly had weaknesses, but now those weaknesses are not so weak. Reducing his ult cd was the stupidest thing they couldve done. Now it is an even more spammable attack damage steroid on top of his true damage and with BORK and rageblade, he can 1 v 5 easy. CC him? Yeah, that'll help. Once he Q's he's already killed 3 people. He was fine before. He did not need to be touched. Now every game the guy gets in, he goes at least 15 kills.

okamiyasha952/11/2018, 9:16:14 PM1 votes

The buffed yi always finds a way to get fed. Even if it's mid game and his team can hand him free kills, he's still gonna get back to hypercarry status from behind and even if he does fall behind, he can build straight damage and 1 v 5 nuke the enemy team and deal a considerable amount of damage for his team to cleanup.