Yasuo - Quality of Life suggestions, thoughts and ideas.

Hello all. Pornstar Yasuo here to bring up something that I've been considering a while. I've been playing since season 3, and since Yasuo came out I've been playing him almost exclusively to the point of being a One Trick Pony. That said, I'm also aware there's a LOT of hate in the community for Yasuo. More than Riven, more than or just as much as Teemo, and on a similar level to Fizz. I'm aware of this, and I'm bringing this up with that in mind. So please, do keep the comments civil. We don't need a comment thread that's just Trinimortals youtube comments talking about noskill :P

I've played probably 1500+ games on yasuo, a majority of those in ranked, so keep in mind I'm not just talking out of my nose on how things feel when it comes to play, even if I might not have the most advanced knowledge of competitive use and applications thereof.

That said, let me start off by offering this.

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Way of the Wanderer (Passive) Yasuo's Critical Strike Chance is doubled. Additionally, Yasuo builds toward a shield whenever he is moving. The shield triggers when he takes damage from a champion or monster.

Steel Tempest (Q) Cooldown: 6/5.5/5/4.5/4 Range: 475 Thrusts forward, dealing 20/40/60/80/100 (+100% Attack Damage) physical damage.

On hit, Steel Tempest grants a stack of Gathering Storm for 10 seconds. At 2 stacks, Steel Tempest fires a whirlwind that knocks Airborne.

Steel Tempest is treated as a basic attack: It can critically strike, applies on-hit effects, and its cooldown and cast time are reduced by Attack Speed.

If cast while dashing, Steel Tempest will strike as a circle.

Wind Wall (W) Cooldown: 26/24/22/20/18 Range: 400 Creates a moving wall that blocks all enemy projectiles for 4 seconds.

Sweeping Blade (E) Cooldown: 0.5/0.4/0.3/0.2/0.1 Range: 475 Dashes through target enemy, dealing 70/90/110/130/150 (+60% Ability Power) Magic Damage. Each cast increases your next dash's base Damage by 25%, up to 50%.

Cannot be re-cast on the same enemy for 10/9/8/7/6 seconds.

If cast while dashing, Steel Tempest will strike as a circle.

Last Breath (R) Cooldown: 80/55/30 Range: 1300 Blinks to an Airborne enemy champion, dealing 200/300/400 (+150% Attack Damage) physical damage and holding all Airborne enemies in the area in the air for an additional 1 second. Grants maximum Flow but resets all stacks of Gathering Storm.

For 15 seconds, Yasuo gains 50% Bonus Armor Penetration - this affects Armor from items, buffs, runes and masteries.

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Above the information was copied from lolskill.net's page on yasuo, for convenience sake of having something to compare to. These are Yasuo's abilities and passives as they are currently. I'm going to go down the list and for most everything here, I will pick and poke at things that I think could be changed in some ways, big or small, to make everyone's most hated Samurai champion a little bit better with all the changes since season 6.

To start with, let's go over his passive.

Way of the Wanderer.

Everyone hates it. It gives him double crit chance for free, and his shield is built into it as well. I'm actually relatively okay with his shield, I like the way it works, even though I still think it used to feel a bit more 'fun' when you could dash around and get the shield built up that way too. Back when it was /all/ movement. I get that it was probably a bit too powerful but that might have been something that could have been adjusted with numbers perhaps rather than a straight cut. I accept that's not going to change, though, just thought I'd get that out of the way.

Now, onto the other part of this passive. Double crit chance. Just a flat double crit chance, no real interaction, or play, or anything. I personally enjoy the intention of this, which I see as trying to enforce a risk vs reward playstyle. That said, I do think this could be changed in some way to not just be double and that's it. Tied in with his Q, Yasuo was designed with building towards a certain kind of item path. Attack Speed, and Crit. You have always been able to build other things, but you're going to be less effective if you do in the same way you can get away with doing things like AD Malz. Sure, it works, but it's not really the intended purpose. I think Yasuo's bonus crit could be tied into his attack speed, more so than just having to go for /crit/. He gets bonus crit the more attack speed he get, similar to how Jihn's AS and Crit rolls into his AD. However, you also need to consider the current items available in the game. Pretty much everything that gives AS also gives crit, and everything that crit for the most part gives AS. So it's kind of hard to separate them as it is. But that's also part of the problem with Yasuo currently that I'll go into on his Q. Really, at this point though, I'm mostly saying the wheel should be reinvented for a similar effect, and there's really no reason for it beyond my own thoughts.

Now onto his Q

Steel Tempest

Q. Q. Q. Q. Q. It's Yasuo's primary source of damage. He's an AD Caster in the literal sense even as a melee swordsman. He gets his auto attacks, but a good portion of his damage comes from his Q. It's damage has always been decent, acceptable(the scaling is wonderful, 100% AD, not even bonus AD). Stack up your Q, get a knockup. Can apply on-hits, crits, etc. However, it doesn't scale with CDR. It only scales with AS. Okay, cute concept, forces Yasuo to buy AS items if he wants to be able to use his Q.

That's the problem, however. It's also forcing him into a very specific set of items that he /has/ to use if he wants to be able to use his kit. It's not like, say, an AP Mage who can decide to get Athenes or Morello(even if there's a clear 'best'), there is an OBVIOUS 'right' thing to do. It's not even a matter of meta. It's just... what's the alternative. Shiv or Dancer, Triforce, Ghostblade is kind of an option if you accept there's wasted stats, Blade of the Ruined King is an option and used to be good, but currently it's just... not. The item has been nickle and dimed down for so long that it's not used on too many champs, and... that's really all that's acceptable to use. The other attack speed items are Rapid Firecannon(Marksman, even though you could buy it on him it's the worst of Shiv/Dancer/Rapid for him), and Wit's End and Nashors, the former just not being used by anyone currently and Nashors used pretty much exclusively on Azir and maybe sometimes Diana. That's /all/ the attack speed items in the game.

To get the shortest CD on his Q, you either need to go for two of those items, or one and AS Quints/reds, and even on the latter you'll have to wait until higher levels to see that. Which is fine, not every champ should have max CDR at lower levels. But that considered, it forces him into specific items and those items in the current season aren't necessarily competitive this season. Hell, Yasuo was played a couple of times in the LCS and only a couple of times, and those times weren't that good. Why is this? Well, times change, meta's change, season's change. And currently, Tanks reign supreme. Sunfire, Iceborn Gauntlet, mobility is the meta as well as tankiness. And you better have a whole lot of CC too. Tanks can outduel anyone, assassins, bruisers, carries, everything.

So, what's that got to do with his Q? Well, because the current 'best' build on yasuo is Dancer, Triforce, Sunfire, and two other tank items and boots as the situation demands. It's simply the best. Shiv's sub optimal, and the other AS items just aren't capable of doing anything.

I'll use that as a seguay into what I think could be changed about his Q.

And hear me out on this.

Change his Q so it doesn't only scale off AS! It will open him up to so so so many more items and that in itself would bring the champ back into this season. Perhaps his Q gets bonus scaling off AS, but still benefits from CDR. CDR is a wasted stat on yasuo. His E is .1 seconds, his W having a lower cooldown is nice but not needed, and his ult? 30 seconds to 16 seconds at max CDR level 3? Okay but sure not needed you're only really going to ult once in a fight even if you could get away with twice.

And while we're on note of his Q, I accept that it's counterplay that you can interrupt his Q to negate the damage, such as a knockup or displacement, but for the love of god, make the missile speed faster, or change when the damage is actually applied. Because you can complete almost the entire animation on his Q and it can still deal no damage if you're interrupted, whereas say with his E, if you E to someone and it gets interrupted, it depends on if you passed through the target. Make his Q the same way. Perhaps the middle of his blade to edge of character model as a short-range skill shot, rather than just 'Here's the animation, and .5 seconds later they take damage'. So if he's on top of someone, his Q can hit them faster, and if he's further away it takes longer. Perhaps the CD of the Q starts when it applies damage, so if you'r eon top of someone you can Q them even quicker to go with the close-range swordsman swinging quickly and slashing all around rather than pause, turn, q, wait, run, pause, turn, q, wait, etc. More fluid. Fluidity in kits is wonderful, no one likes clunky kits or abilities.

His W overall I enjoy and think it's decent how it is, though I know a lot of folks dislike his W. I think perhaps his W could in theory work a bit more like Fiora's parry in that it's less 'Here is a wall of you can't pass for x seconds' and more 'I skillfully cut the wind and interrupt your skillshot'. Keep in mind this is just me penning thoughts, but maybe every time he throws out a Tornado, if he has a passive up(say, Windwall as a proc/buff), if his tornado interacts with a players skillshot, it can cancel it and everything in the line of the tornado, and the proc/buff falls off and is gone for another X seconds. But really his windwall is well enough as it is, imo, and offers a lot of fun 1vMany outplay situations.

Likewise, I'm generally alright with his E. His E is fine for what it does, it's unique, allows him to have a lot of mobility, but it's fun and that's the key point here. How a Yasuo E's separates the good yasuo's from the okay yasuo's from the great yasuo's. Probably my only suggestion on this would be to change it so he doesn't have to have a target to E, allowing him to E the distance at any point, however it will go on an especially long cooldown if he doesn't intersect another enemy/neutral units hitbox(A unit without the debuff). Make it an aimed dash ala shen/fiora instead of a point & click movement. Maybe even if you hit multiple units in one dash, it does increasing damage, rather than you stack it up to two and then go in on someone, for 50% more damage.

Now, onto his R. Last Breath. Signature move. Bullshit ult. Appear out of nowhere and has infinite range. Well, I do have a few ideas for this too! 1) Change the ult so it only applies the armor pen on hit targets. It's been a long-standing suggestion, but I think it would make a bit more sense. You cut up the armor of those you tear into, and only those, rather than your sword cuts armor easier after use.

2. I'm not actually all that fond of point and click abilities. I understand they have a place in league of legends, but it doesn't really offer much counterplay, and champions whose kits offer counterplay often are the more healthy ones IMO. Perhaps similarly to rumble ult, or Viktor's laser, you could press R and he vanishes for like one second off the map/old Fiora ult vanish, and he follows your cursor within a specific range. Any knocked up enemies he hits, he knocks them up and the ult applies to them. That way it's not just walking around whenever a fight is going on spamming R. Though perhaps it can still only be activated if someone is knocked up.

I will admit I love how it will place you outside tower range, or try to. It allows for some interesting plays if you knock people up in certain areas.

So, to sum up, my suggestions are

Passive - make it more than just 'Free crit', tie it to something else like the more AS he has, the more crit he has.

Q - Make it not scale only with AS, but have bonus scaling with AS. Allow CDR to effect it too. Also, perhaps do something with his Q's missile speed or when the damage is applied in the animation or /something/ to make it less interruptable by EVERYTHING. It's slower than most missiles in the game even on point-blank. I can't tell you how many times I've died because me and someone else cast at the same time and my Q just deals no damage because I die first, or theirs hits first.

W - Fairly good, though it could be made a bit more interesting if you tied it into his Q tornado or something.

E - Fairly good, suggestions on how the E could be adjusted to be a bit more interactive and less point and click

R - Much the same, suggestions on how to make it more interactive and less point and click.

Overall I see Yasuo as a champion who is supposed to be high risk, high reward. You build a lot of damage, you go in, you deal damage and you either fight your way out, or die trying. He's not an assassin like zed or leblanc that flies in, pops someone and flies out. He's a fighter. He charges in and kicks ass and chews bubblegum and takes names. But as it stands now, he's forced into joining the tank meta, because he's worthless otherwise due to being forced into the AS route and inability to make proper use out of CDR.