As a Plat 1 Yasuo main with 400+ Yasuo games, Yasuo needs a damn rework.

Plat 1’s not the highest of ELOs, but I have hundreds of games with Yasuo and he is the only champion I really enjoy in League and can play every match without getting bored of - but his current state is cancer and mere numbers changes won’t fix him.

After his huge wave of nerfs, Yasuo’s basically lost his identity as a champion because his kit is just unimaginably difficult to balance. He has simultaneously the highest ban-rate AND the lowest win-rate in solo queue because ain't nobody want his ass on their own team, and certainly don't want him on the enemy team either.

I’m supposing that Riot intended to release a very unique melee DPS champion who has a strong balance of offense, defense, and utility - and quite possibly become the first mADC that’s not uber-cancer. But instead his most popular play-style currently across almost every ELO is a LOT like a Japanese version of Fiora where he ults into a team fight, spams everything, and hopes to deal tons of damage before he dies in 2 hits. We already have plenty of cheese-lord melee “baneling” ADCs, we don’t need Yasuo to be another mADC glass cannon with just a slightly different power-spike path.

Here’s my suggestions to change Yasuo:

• -Remove his double crit. What the hell was the point of it? It makes his power spikes stupid strong and completely inconsistent with any other champion in the game and cancer to play against. It doesn’t really contribute to him thematically (Does have 20 eyes like or something?), has no counterplay, limits his build paths, and just seems like a gimick damage steroid that was thrown on to boost his DPS up to match other mADCs, but in the end has cost his kit a LOT in nerfs just to keep.

• -Restore the strength of his shields and his W’s passive but reduce it’s duration. His flow/shields/windwall are what make him unique to other mADCs. Unsurprisingly, the “Japanese wind guy with a sword” is a pretty established trope, and for damn good reason: it’s cool as hell and almost makes sense. What DOESN’T make sense is why Riot decided to keep his uber-gimmick crit passive, but nerfed the flow/turbulence system that was central to Yasuo into a gimmick. To add more interactivity with his shield, it should only activate when he faces away from the damage source, and of course when he ults. It’s actually pretty arbitrary what his shield trigger should be, but it sure as hell shouldn’t be “whenever the hell it’s up”. Having it only activate when he turns away kind of fits into his “always on the run” lore, synergies with his dash, has a ton of interactivity, and allows opponents to trade with him when he goes on the offense.

• -His Windwall should drain his FLOW. Allow it to completely eat the first non-minion projectile, give it a small amount of base health, and allow it to have scaling health based off how much Flow Yasuo has. It doesn’t make sense that Yasuo has to generate his flow to cast his passive shield, but suddenly whips a ton of wind out of his ass-cheeks to cast an indestructible wall of flatulence. Combined with his original Windwall passive, leveling this ability gives him a stronger wall because he generates flow quicker.

• -Remove the damage on his E. Clearly the early game damage on his E for a late-game scaling champion like Yasuo has been a problem for the balance team (Smells like Tristana). His sweeping blade is used for mobility and flow, not everything needs to do damage.

• -Make his ult do more damage and remove the armor pen on it. Like, what was the point of his current ult? Probably the most satisfying thing on Yasuo is flying into the air, screaming wildly, and slamming the enemy team into the ground to do an outrageous amount of damage, but that’s actually NOT what happens with his current ult. Almost all of his current ult’s power lies in the armor pen it gives (why does it even give armor pen?) and its utility. You can’t even Q during his ult anymore, so when he screams and body slams enemies, it actually does a very unsatisfying amount of damage.

TL;DR: -Make him do less damage because we don't need more -Remove the non-interactive and uncounterable parts of his kit (his stupid crit and armor pen) -Remove the gimmicks, reinforce his theme -Make him tankier so noob-suos can stop feeding.

Update: The main concern seems to be that Yasuo would be lacking damage with these changes, but I don't think this would be the case.

It's not necessary for Yasuo to remain an Assassin/mADC, actually given his relationship with Riven, it'd make a lot of sense for him to be a fighter. His AA reset with Steel Tempest is already a huge boost to his DPS, something closer to Riven's Q rather than Yi/Trynd. Like Riven, he doesn't need to build a lot of AS, he will max out with only Shiv assuming you have proper runes and masteries, which means he has space for other itemization.

Besides, logically he shouldn't have anywhere near the same amount of damage as pure DPS champions because he has one of the most CC heavy kits in the game.