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Yasuo: A tale of frustration.

VoidLegion··7 votes·2,668 views

EDIT: Please read through the discussion below before responding directly to this post as a number of good points have been made by various people with various views.

Good day everyone, I am VoidLegion. I am an average player, and cannot reasonably claim to know every in and out of the wondrous game that is league of legends. That said, I come here today to voice my personal experiences with one of League's champions. The champion that I take issue with today is Yasuo. Keep in mind that the following is just my personal opinion, but many of those I play with share the same sentiment.

As I see it, there are three main problems with Yasuo.

First, he is an all-rounder. This may not initially sound that bad, so let me better explain. At the start of the game, Yasuo does fair, but not oppressive damage. He fits the mold of someone like zed, another powerful, but generally well-balanced AD mid. He then scales into late game very well, with damage high enough to reliably annihilate his opponents. That by itself is fine. Many mid laners do that; but then you might think, "Hey, he sure seems to be dashing around a whole lot, he seems to have a lot of mobility." and you would be right, he is in-fact one of the most mobile champions in the game. So, between the mobility and the damage, things start getting a tad bit oppressive, but even then, things could be alright. It is the last part of the all-rounder trifecta that really makes Yasuo so difficult to play against. More than base damage, more than even his movements, reliable CC is what makes Yasuo such a pain in the ass. While many champions have straight line CC, very few can also turn it into an area burst and personal buff at the same time. Honestly, even that could be forgiven if there was any chance of him becoming unable to use all of his abilities constantly, buuuuuut...

Second, Yasuo has no mana costs. Yes, I know, there are a fair few champions without mana expenditure, but, I would submit, there are no other champions in the entirety of League who can spam as mercilessly as Yasuo. Not even Katarina has the sheer lack of cooldowns, and ensuing team-killing potential that Yasuo possesses, and she is one of the most well-known hyper-carries in the game. With no limit to how often, and how continuously Yasuo can use his abilities, things get rather ridiculous rather quickly. Despite that however, counterplay might still be a reasonable expectation were it not for the final problem that I see with Yasuo.

Third, crits are insanely easy to abuse. Yasuo is the only chamion in the game who can reach 100% critical chance, and thank the bile spewing elder-gods for that. The result of his passive is that a single item built on Yasuo has not only the potential, but the likelihood to make him more effective than his opponent and keep him that way. Think about it this way;

If Yasuo builds a static shiv first (Which he does as a rule) He instantly gains about a one in two chance of making every single attack he performs into the equivalent of a burst-mage skillshot (despite costing no mana). He further has very little risk involved with going in, as his cooldowns are low and he has the mobility to reposition constantly, making most skillshots extremely difficult to land on him (this mobility despite his massive damage output). Then, finally, should you get him into a position where you might otherwise have him cornered, you had better hope he isn't level 6, because if he can manage to hit you with his knock-up, it just about doesn't matter how low he is, because he is likely to kill you nearly instantly. Unless you are a burst mage, and a damned quick one at that, this means that your options when dealing with Yasuo are to hide under your turret and hope he doesn't dive you, or to attempt to outscale him before he becomes nearly impossible to kill. Either option is complicated by the fact that in terms of damage, he effectively scales twice as fast as everyone else (Or 2.5 times as fast with infinity edge).

TLDR version:

A champion that has sky-high damage should not also have massive mobility, 100% crit rate, and no mana costs, because it is oppressive and in many cases nearly impossible to effectively play against.

Also, please do not respond to this with things along the lines of "You just can't do it because you suck."

I may not be obscenely skilled, but I know my way around league, and its champions, having acquired all of them and played them all at one time or another. The above is my observation, and this is my plea to any rioters who may be around. Please give Yasuo some actual weaknesses. I want to like him, I really do, but as it is, he really kills the fun of most games he is in. For another example of this phenomenon, though for different reasons, see Master Yi.

43 Comments

JedenVojak5 votes

Hweeh... I'm tired, sorry if this is incomprehensable...

Yasuo is a melee adc, a class of which there are extremely few champions in this game (namely only Tryndamere, MasterYi, Gangplank, and Fiora). Melee adcs, much like their more common ranged counterparts, are intended to build mostly full damage, applied mainly through auto attacks, which means building attack speed, crit, AD, and armor penetration.

The problem that arises is that, unlike marksmen, melee adcs need to engage opponents at melee range in order to properly apply their damage; this means that they are at significantly greater risk and generally have smaller windows of opportunity to attack. As a result, all melee adcs are provided with offensive steroids (their offensive windows are shorter, so they must do more damage), some way to force an engage (either a gap closer or some kind of slow), and one or more non-standard kit-based defenses that revolve around using unique mechanics in order to keep them alive since they build full damage (Such as the untargetability from Master Yi's alpha strike, or Gangplanks delicious oranges). A MADC must have these 3 things, and without these 3 things, they would be unable to effectively perform their role, as the inherent risk of melee makes being a full dps champion untenable since you'll be kited/bursted/killed what have you.

In the case of Yasuo, his non standard defenses are his flow shield, and wind wall, his engage being his e dash and q knockup to ultimate combo, and rather than gaining a flat AD steroid, his steroid is the doubling of his native crit chance. As far as his full kit goes, his abilies synergize extremely well with one another - his Q can crit, benefitting from his passive, he uses the knockup from his Q to use his ultimate, the distance he travels with his dash charges his flow shield, and his wind wall let's him counter the powerful ranged abilities that would otherwise prevent him from performing his role.

I would say that, compared to previous incarnations of MADCs (of which many are forced into gimmic builds, like Critplank Q's of death, or Fiora's Ravenous hydra ulti combo), Yasuo's kit functions much better and allows him to better perform his job. Hit kit properly rewards him for building glass cannon, by allowing him to acquire the windows of opportunity necessary to apply his damage. Without the multiple dashes that he can perform, he would not be able to get within effective range of his opponents - opponents who can fire back on him with impugnity, without needing to put themselves at risk. Even then, his mobility is very conditional, and I've seen yasuo's get screwed by that condition (the lack of enemy units) multiple times.

You mentioned Yasuo killing entire teams - I would counter that by saying, yes he does do that, but I've also seen Jinxes kill entire teams, Vaynes kill entire teams, along with Kog'maw, Tristana, Vayne, and Lucian. It is the role of an ADC to carry, apply high dps, and kill the other team - traditionally this has been difficult if not impossible for melee characters, but Yasuo changed all that, through the well designed synergy of his kit and proper tuning and limitations of his abilities. He is very powerful if played correctly, but he's also much easier to screw up than playing a ranged carry, since as a ranged character, at least you're not in your enemies face when you screw up.

You say that he shouldn't function this way, but I say that he is functioning as intended - he is the first melee champion who can really pull off the ADC role. Complaining about him doing his job is basically tantamount to saying melee champions shouldn't be allowed to be carries.

So, I'm sorry but I must politely disagree with your assessment. He's just fine as he is, and I sincerely hope we can see more functional melee carry designs in the future.

VoidLegion1 votes

I applaud the clarity with which you can express yourself while tired friend XD. Anyway, to respond, I would say that I agree with about half of what you are saying here. I do think that mADC's need something extra to keep them alive, but because of the way his kit is structured, Yasuo tends to make any champion that is not directly picked to counter him extremely vulnerable. It is all well and good to give a mADC the capability to get into battle quickly, but if every twenty or so seconds (assuming the player using him knows positioning) he gets a close to risk free heavy engage from behind his wall, usually chaining into his ult, there is very little room for champions that do not have either;

1: Massive mobility of their own, or a teleport/dash a la Ezreal.

or

2: A whole lot of HP (like tank mids).

...to play against him. Admittedly, I do make the assumption that we are talking about effective Yas players, but realistically, once he gets one kill on his lane opponent, especialy if they are a mage, there are very few situations where he will not snowball.

To address your point about classic ADC's teamkilling, well, yes, they do, but I would submit that there is a reason we have the support role filled in nearly every successful game. Alone, champions like Jinx and Kog will get obliterated by most opponents in the early game because they are designed to be extremely powerful, at the expense of personal survivability. Yasuo is squishy certainly, but he provides enough safety to himself without help, that it is hard to justify him also having the same capability for near instant aces that only late game ADC's usually have.

JedenVojak2 votes

{quoted}

I applaud the clarity with which you can express yourself while tired friend XD.

hey thanks ^^

Anyway, to respond, I would say that I agree with about half of what you are saying here. I do think that mADC's need something extra to keep them alive, but because of the way his kit is structured, Yasuo tends to make any champion that is not directly picked to counter him extremely vulnerable. It is all well and good to give a mADC the capability to get into battle quickly, but if every twenty or so seconds (assuming the player using him knows positioning) he gets a close to risk free heavy engage from behind his wall, usually chaining into his ult, there is very little room...to play against him. Admittedly, I do make the assumption that we are talking about effective Yas players, but realistically, once he gets one kill on his lane opponent, especialy if they are a mage, there are very few situations where he will not snowball.

So, let's talk Yasuo's wind wall.

It's an ability that lasts for a few seconds and while it's up will block all projectile attacks. Assuming Yasuo has his whirlwind up, he can skillshot you from behind it, and if you don't dodge it, he can ult you through it. Sounds pretty OP right?

Well there's a couple of caveats to that - one it has a long cooldown, so if he doesn't get anything from his windwall engage, than it's down for the next 20 seconds, meaning that you have all this free time with which to poke him with. Secondly it will only block attacks from in front of the wall; I know that sounds stupid, but I've literally watched him throw up his windwall before, dodged his skillshot (which is very highly telegraphed* "Wind blowing through my haaaaaaiiiir~"*), walked a little to the left and fired my Q at him... AROUND THE WALL.

The duration of his wind wall combined with the long cooldown means that the best time for him to use it offensively, is to reactively block some powerful ranged ability with it, and counter engage immediately either by surfing the creep wave (Creep wave, ba na na na na na na, creep wave!...), or firing his Q skillshot to get an ult off on you. This means, however, that the counter to this strategy is immediately obvious: dodge the skillshot, or save your disable (which nearly every mage has) for after he's dashed through the wall. I know he seems scary and it's easy to panic and go "FIRE ALL ZE MISSILES", but as long as you have a cool head, you can understand that his kit, while powerful, operates under a lot of constraints. If you dodge his skill shot and don't stand near creeps (understandably difficult in the laning phase at times, but you're ranged after all), he basically can't do squat to you.

To address your point about classic ADC's teamkilling, well, yes, they do, but I would submit that there is a reason we have the support role filled in nearly every successful game. Alone, champions like Jinx and Kog will get obliterated by most opponents in the early game because they are designed to be extremely powerful, at the expense of personal survivability. Yasuo is squishy certainly, but he provides enough safety to himself without help, that it is hard to justify him also having the same capability for near instant aces that only late game ADC's usually have.

Well... to say Yasuo has enough safety to himself without help is somewhat correct and somewhat incorrect. When we look at his kit-based defenses, he has a flow shield which charges up while moving and when fully charged can block some amount of damage for 1 second, and his wind wall; these are both highly effective, but very short in duration meaning they're good for blocking lots of damage very quickly rather than a smaller amounts of sustained damage. (queue the dramatic music) Remember you said these things are strong against Yasuo:

for champions that do not have either;

1: Massive mobility of their own, or a teleport/dash a la Ezreal.

or

2: A whole lot of HP (like tank mids).

There's a reason that Yasuo is not played in the top lane (or bot lane or jungle) - his kit-based defenses are all designed around countering poke, specifically powerful ranged abilities. The truth is, in the early game he has the same problem every ADC has - he's squishy with low damage; he has to build items for combat effectiveness. He comes with a mini support in his kit to let him block some ranged damage, but nearly all of his damage is still coming from auto attacks and Qs - he can't afford to take sustained damage early due to the nature of his native defenses. In the early game any fighter will destroy him 1v1, and he doesn't have the ranged capabilities to free farm with a support in the bot lane - so he's relegated to fighting against champions who revolve around high impact spike abilities, that is, mages in the mid lane.

The only difference between him and marksmen (outside of range, of course) is that the nature of his steroid gives him an accelerated path to crit based damage. This allows him to reach a higher level of combat effectiveness sooner, but due to the nature of melee champions, he needs that effectiveness sooner as the very nature of his playstyle requires him to take larger risks. He needs extra survivability or he would not be able to function, the flip side being that he is more independant as a result.

The way he operates is indicative of the way mADCs have to be to operate in the game, take that as you will.

Major Sparkles1 votes

Jeden. This should be stickied. Well said.

VoidLegion1 votes

You know what, that is actually a very good point, and one that I have only moderate issues with. It is true that a great deal of what makes Yasuo viable tends to run in the direction of mitigating poke, and that that is a defining part of his kit. I don't have a problem with that section of what he does, because as a melee champ with his kit, he needs it. At this point, having seen as many responses as I have here, I have come to a secondary conclusion.

In a sense, the main problem with Yasuo in mid lane today is that there is very little diversity in what can be reasonably picked against him and still be viable for the rest of game. Perhaps once riot releases more mid laners that don't rely as much on projectile range and burst, my stance on him will be mitigated, but for now, despite the well-thought-out, and reasonable nature of your statement, I feel that he still needs some tweaks.

Despite our differing opinions on the subject however, I appreciate your clarity and depth of explanation. In the end, you may be right, and we may see more mADC's of this type in mid before too long, but I can honestly say that I'm not especially looking forward to it.

Kouga1 votes

One consideration that I don't think has been addressed in particular (reading through the comments below) is the idea of Situational Picks. That is, champions who are maybe not always going to be the best but, under the correct circumstances, truly shine. And Riot seems to be embracing this idea to some degree. Their goal (although they are far from it) is to create champions, items, and mechanics that allow for different roles beyond the lane. That is, to allow "Jungler" to be more than just a ganker - opening up options for counter jungling, farming for late game, or ganking early on.

This philosophy also applies to Champions. Take Bard, the latest reveal. Bard is not going to be the kind of safe, every game, I-Just-Want-To-Support that someone like Thresh might be. Thresh is almost always useful - his kit just allows him to be. Bard, however, will only really succeed in specific comps, particularly ones in which the bot laner can hold their ground 1v2.

How does this apply to Yasuo? Just pointing out that his kit and playstyle (being able to block massive incoming damage in a very short window) only works in certain situations (namely, against burst-casting mages) but there are a lot of situations in which Yasuo straight up gets shut down based on pick. According to ChampionSelect.net Yasuo's worst win rate in mid lane is against Malzahar. Why? Because his spells - you can't actually stop Malzahar in any way. At most you might be able to block one of his Q particles but since it has two projectiles, you'll still get hit. And his W, E and R can bypass his wall. Bam, game over Yasuo. Malzahar can shut him down at any point.

Who is he strong against? Ahri, Syndra, etc, because they rely on short bursts and can generally be cancelled by a single wall (Ahri's entire kit can be blocked, but a smart and good Syndra can harass behind his wall with her Q and can bait it before her ult)

Point is, champs like Yasuo also have a huge amount of their success based on who they match up against. This has wildly different impacts on casual Blind pick games versus Draft and especially Ranked games where counter-picking is a much bigger component.

This doesn't just apply to Yasuo and his lane opponent, this also applies to his team. Is there any Champion in the game you don't want to see with a Yasuo more than a Malphite? You get Malphite top with a Wukong jungle (Throw in a Janna support for good measure) and suddenly your entire end-game is one big buffet table for Yasuo. Even a mediocre Yasuo can make that kind of team work for him - but in a team with 0 knockups outside of Yasuo's Q3? Suddenly his game just became a whole lot harder. And while its true that a skilled Yasuo can still make it work (relying on his Dash-Q to reliably knock up), it still introduces a huge variable to his strength.

I'm not saying that the ability to be counter-picked should allow a Champion to be overpowered, but I think that Yasuo's "Big Moments" tend to shine so brightly because he benefits from Team Synergy in a much different and much more emphasized way than your average pick. Most mids, if they get rolling, can just roam the map and murder people (See: Ahri, LB, Zed) and if they have a good team comp for them, then its just frosting on the cake. However their general ability to murder people may be largely unchanged. But put a Yasuo in a proper team comp, and suddenly his Murder-potency just skyrocketed.

Not sure what that says for the Champion but I think its a valid consideration.

VoidLegion1 votes

I agree with you wholeheartedly on this. There are definitely specific champions one can use to halt Yasuo's snowball, but I suppose that the best way to characterize the problem in the current meta is that the vast majority of the mid laners that riot has put out rely on projectile burst, and Yasuo's kit is designed to make that ineffective. In the future if we get more champion diversity in mid, that may change, but barring a few champions (among them Malz as you mentioned) Yasuo, played well, has a significant likelihood of destroying his lane opponent, even if they are at the same skill level, due to the base picks that tend to occur in mid as it is now.

In terms of the team synergy thing, I think you hit the nail on the head. Yasuo can take advantage of knockups extremely easily, which makes him difficult to deal with if such a team-comp occurs. That is fine, team synergy is a great thing; it tends not to be as great however when the champion already soft-counters most of his match-ups.

Joe Dredd3 votes

Yasuo really isn't mobile unless being aggressive in a team fight. He can only dash to you once every ten seconds so if you can create a gap he has no means of closing it. Also, Yasuo isn't the only one who can reach 100% crit, and either way a typical yasuo never actually reaches 100% crit.

VoidLegion1 votes

I sort of addressed the first point, but if there are other champions that can get 100% crit, please refresh my memory on which ones. I was under the impression that there is a crit cap for everyone else, or is that not the case? As for the typical Yasuo never reaching 100%... I don't know man, I see it quite often. Given that he can get it, or close to it, with two items, it seems almost stupid for him not to as he is now.

Joe Dredd1 votes

The crit cap is 100% lol also yasuo gets 80% with ie and shiv, so not 100%

VoidLegion1 votes

Really, huh, I thought it was 60. Fair enough then, thanks for letting me know.

Anyway, Yasuo's you play with don't get a third crit item?

I guess that's a question of preference.

TomA3X1 votes

I use Yasuo's passive as a chance to build more damage and tanky items, without wasting money on Crit chance. Once I build IE and Shiv, thats it for me. I'll get a tanky item.

I agree with you though, I think his crit passive needs to go, they should give him damage on his ult, like riven, and give him his health back. He's like a paper bag at this point.

Tying most of his damage to his ultimate fits the assassin playstyle, of which he's meant to be a member.

Minuano1 votes

He's a fighter. He's not meant to be a pure assassin. That's why his ult does hardly any damage until lategame.

Major Sparkles1 votes

Yasuo is a melee ADC, all of which need 3 things; 1 of which is a damage steroid. In Yasuo's case it's his passive damage that allows him to do his job. Without the crit multiplier, he has no damage steroid, unless you count his armor shred. Removing Yasuo's passive would be like taking away Master Yi's double hit proc and his E. (Remember Yi can still build Crit too, on top of his natural steroids). What you suggest would literally make Yasuo below Urgot trash tier.

Narasimha2 votes

Generally not. Beyond that point, Yasuo needs some sustain, and usually a defense item or two. Without his windwall, he's too easy to burst down, even with his shield.

67chrome3 votes

As I see it, there are three main problems with Yasuo.

First, he is an all-rounder.

As a melee carry/assassin, sure - he's fairly versatile and his kit addresses a lot of inherent weaknesses of such a class in unique ways.

Second, Yasuo has no mana costs.

Most of his stuff is glorified auto-attacks, and he's heavily leaning towards the sustained damage, AA focus.

Generally speaking bigger mana costs come with bigger front-loaded damage. LeBlanc and Veigar have enormous mana costs due to front-loading ~12 seconds of damage into ~1 second. Yasou's combo is more about weaving 3 Steel Tempests and auto-attacks together, finishing it off with a Last Breath - which only crams ~12 seconds of damage into about 8 seconds. Lots of time to react, lots of potential for positioning/zonning/CC to screw him up.

Third, crits are insanely easy to abuse.

No, they're not - and this is one of the biggest things that iritates me with Yasou QQ posts.

There is no advantage between dealing 200 DPS with 100% crit chance or with 200 AD and 0% crit chance. There is nothing "magical" about 100% crit chance. The only thing that matters with critical strike chance is DPS. DPS is easy to calculate as well, as you just multiply AD, AS, Crit, and armor penetrations together - throwing in some on-hit effects, multiply those by AS and their associated penetrations, and you've got AA DPS.

The only meaningful differences between dealing 200 DPS with 100% crit or 200 AD is the fallowing: 1 - towers, inhibitors, and the Nexus are immune to critical strikes 2 - most AD champions scale their abilities with AD and armor penetration 3 - there is significantly more flexability and itemization choices for AD. 4 - AD is more reliable.

1~3 give a clear dissadvantage to crit.

Yasuo is the only chamion in the game who can reach 100% critical chance, and thank the bile spewing elder-gods for that.

Every champion in the game can reach 100% critical strike chance. Critical strike chance isn't a unique stat, you can just stack 3 Phantom Dancers on anyone. Which isn't ideal on anyone because crit isn't a magical stat that makes everything better, getting a solid mix of DPS through AD, AS, Crit, and armor pen is a better idea.

The result of his passive is that a single item built on Yasuo has not only the potential, but the likelihood to make him more effective than his opponent and keep him that way.

And for math on why this annoys me.

Yasou's crit chance steroid gives him 0% crit chance when he has 0% crit chance, for 0% more DPS. Yasou's crit chance steroid gives him 50% more crit chance when he has 50% crit chance, but it reduces his critical strike's total damage by 10%.

Which means when Yasou is doing 180% damage, another champion is doing 150% damage. As 180 is 1.2 times 150, Yasou's AA steroid equals a 20% boost in AA DPS. Or, when Yasou has IE he does 225% damage when another champion is doing 175% damage (29% more damage).

Now remember how I pointed out AD, AS, and armor pen, along with on-hit effects also apply to AA DPS? Mages are litterally the only archetype in the game that doesn't come with an AA steroid more than 50% of the time. It's more than likely every tank, fighter, assassin, marksman, and support has an AA steroid - which means Yasou isn't even doing 20%~29% more damage then the next guy with the same items.

Janna has a +50 AD steroid. Alistar has a +90 AD steroid. Taric has a + 70 AD steroid. Mundo has a +100~200 AD steroid. Elise has a +140% AS steroid. Jinx has a +130% AS steroid. Fiora has a +35 AD steroid along with a +120% AS steroid. Nasus has a potential +300 AD steroid with 40 armor/mr shred.

Base AD is ~110 at level 18, you need ~150% AS to double level 18 AS with how AS scales.

Also, it's worth nothing Fiora's awful Riposte skill, arguably one of the worst QWE skills in the game, grants her: ~25% more DPS at level 1 and ~40% more DPS at level 9.

With one of the worst skills in the game.

The result of his passive is that a single item built on Yasuo has not only the potential, but the likelihood to make him more effective than his opponent and keep him that way.

The truth is Yasou's AA steroid(s) aren't particularly noteworthy compared to a wide selection of marksman, fighters, and assassins - and his QWER rotation requires a critical striking AA fallowing it up to stay on-par with most assasins in the game as well.

Plenty of champions beat Yasou in the AA or burst, and several in AA and burst together - so no, Yasou doesn't always have the potential to be more effective than his opponents.

VoidLegion2 votes

While I would not characterize my grievance as a QQ thread per se, I can see your point. Your math is basically sound, but I feel that you are missing part of my point here. It is perfectly true that 0% anything is zero, but because Yasuo does solid damage at all stages of the game, you are never going to end up with a situation where more crit chance does not equal higher dps unless you're A) obscenely unlucky, or B) building in a way that makes no sense whatsoever. Another thing to consider is that crits do away with a great deal of the protection that many would buy in response to a hard AD champ in a normal situation.

In terms of your stance on the AA steroid, yes, other champions have larger attack steroids, but in context, Yasuo's tends to make dealing with any type of engage or combo he performs very difficult.

As a side note, 30% more damage is also not an exactly small amount of damage where Yas is concerned.

Anyway, I think that your points are valid on a mechanical basis, but looking at his kit as a whole, and in play, I still feel that he offers too much opportunity for steamroll situations. I'm not one of the people who thinks that Yas takes no skill, but the threshold you need to hit playing him before you can start snowballing is pretty damned low comparatively, especially come mid game.

I appreciate your in-depth answer, and I would be happy to discuss the issue further if you wish to.

67chrome1 votes

but because Yasuo does solid damage at all stages of the game,

Ehhh

I'd say his damage is fairly average over the course of a game, and hits a few peaks and valleys. His scaling is similar to Vayne in that his level 1~2 is pretty solid, then his damage slides off a cliff, comes up a bit at 6, falls off a cliff some more, and gradually ramps up from completing major items.

I'd also say his damage isn't really a problem in any capacity, and he gives up a noteworthy amount of damage compared to other fighter/assassins for the utility and CC his kit provides.

The utility and CC his kit provides is largely what allows him to be a competative pick, as both of those things essentially never need item scaling to matter, so he still has some pressence when he's in his valleys.

you are never going to end up with a situation where more crit chance does not equal higher dps

That's pretty obvious

Another thing to consider is that crits do away with a great deal of the protection that many would buy in response to a hard AD champ in a normal situation.

Crit is really easy to counter build.

In some games crit does offer a solid way to deal with armor, but LoL is not one of those games. Crits and armor even keep on a really obvious interaction - 100% crit chance increases damage by x2, 100 armor reduces damage taken by 1/2. Get IE and a bunch of crit damage and you might increase damage by x3, get 200 armor and you reduce damage taken by 2/3.

The thing that makes crits look like they help deal with armor is the multiply the bonus of AD - if you have 200 AD getting 100% crit will boost DPS by another 200 to 400, where getting 100 more AD will only see 300 DPS.

However - HP and armor work in exactly the same way.

So - crit offers no inherant advantage over armor.

Defensive itemization actually tends to carry unique passives that gear them towards being extremely punishing for a specific combo of damage.

Armor targets physical auto-attack damage MR tends to target magical burst damage.

The passives on item 3047 item 3075 item 3143 item 3082 item 3110 all specifically target auto-attacking, and critical strikes specifically modify auto-attack damage. In Yasou's case Steel Tempest is treated as an auto-attack for the purposes of on-hit effects and such armor items.

Those items aren't as effective against champions like JaxUdyr Nasus Shyvana that deals a solid chunk of magical, ability-based damage.

Those defensive items also aren't as effective against champions like Zed Khazix Renekton Lucian that deal a solid chunk of their damage as ability damage, especially considering their secondary multiplier tends to be armor penetration instead of crit, and %armor penetration does counter armor a lot harder than armor can counter it.

This is one of the big reasons Yasou also has a valley in early/mid game and why you see him go mid lane over top - a lot of tanky champions can shut his damage down incredibly hard, as armor items are more cost-effective against him than a wide range of units.

Especially because Yasou is melee and sustained-damage based, which opens the passive of item 3068 up to give him substantial problems.

There's also small delay between when Yasou starts casting his ultimate, and when his ultimates starts doing things: there's usually a gap in airborne CC where you can mash the button for Zhonya's between getting knocked aribrone and eating his ult. So even the only armor item with a passive geared towards countering burst messes with a substantial part of Yasou's kit.

In terms of your stance on the AA steroid, yes, other champions have larger attack steroids, but in context, Yasuo's tends to make dealing with any type of engage or combo he performs very difficult.

Yasou's steroid being increadibly average doesn't make dealing with him any more problematic. Considering he's heavily reliant on pursuing his AA steroid path where other champions like Cho'Gath have the option of not pursuing it, it actually makes Yasou a lot easier to deal with through pretty much any strategic maneuver.

It basically means that, as a squishy melee-ranged champion, Yasou still wants to auto-attack: which makes him exceptionally easy to focus in a team-fight, and exceptionally difficult to protect. Also - sustained damage is pretty easy to work around in melee form, as a simple slow can essentially drop your DPS to 0, where the same can't be said of a bursty melee like Zed or Kha'Zix, where a slow mostly just prevents them from fallowing up their burst.

AA DPS does have an advantage in places like Treelines where you'll never be faced with a large team-scale fight and it's back to back duels, especially as life steal and manaless AA's allow even better kill-to-kill transitions than re-setting burst kits, but that advantage is usually incredibly difficult to exploit in Rift and often out-shown by AoE, Poke, Burst, and range as useful mechanics.

As a side note, 30% more damage is also not an exactly small amount of damage where Yas is concerned.

It's an increadibly average amount of damage, and the basic %AS steroids in marksman (that have range) is pretty much the same. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about Yasou's AA steroid, as simply calling him a fighter/assassin implies he has a steroid of similar (or often greater) magnitude.

looking at his kit as a whole, and in play, I still feel that he offers too much opportunity for steamroll situations.

I'm pretty sure Riot agrees with you there, fighter/assassins tend to be plagued with a feast/famine settup regardless of how Riot tweaks them, often leading to incredibly binary play where they're useless or hogging the spotlight.

I'm not one of the people who thinks that Yas takes no skill, but the threshold you need to hit playing him before you can start snowballing is pretty damned low comparatively, especially come mid game.

I'd say it's more the lack of skill on his opponent's that makes Yasou look low-skill over him actually being easy to use. Anything Assassin usually relies more heavily on 1v1 strats and exploiting opponent weaknesses, and that just happens a lot more in low Elo play.

Oddly win rates don't really back up assassins stomping Bronze, supports and CC tanks usually dominate those charts even in bronze solo-queue, so this might be more an emotion vs. fact, connotation vs. denotation, hearts vs. minds, perception vs. reality thing.

I don't think it's a stretch to say Yasou causes a more profound psychological impact and emotional punch to the gut when he's MVP over a heavily supportive champion like Janna. Usually your own team can miss-attribute a supportive champion carrying the game, where nobody is going to doubt the increadibly obvious, KDR announcer shout-out to a snowbally, kill roll that carries a game.

I appreciate your in-depth answer, and I would be happy to discuss the issue further if you wish to.

Hey, no prob.

VoidLegion2 votes

A couple of the points you raised here have been responded to to some degree in other posts, so I won't go too in depth with them, but here is what I think regarding the things not otherwise covered.

First, you make a fair point in terms of the peak and valley nature of his net base-damage throughout game. That said, I don't entirely agree that he gives up that much compared to other champions, the reason for this being his doubled crit-scaling. While his base damage may fall off at times, his DPS rarely dips very much, at least not to the degree where it hinders him, unless he is not farming, which is unlikely unless he is facing a burn-mage or something (as was pointed out in another response, Malzahar is probably one of the best examples of this) in which case, he's already purposely been counterpicked which makes the rest of this discussion somewhat secondary in that situation.

Second, it is not impossible to itemize against Yasuo, but because there are few workable tank mids (that have a good chance of also holding their own throughout the game) building tanky is often not a very good option if one wants to stay on par with the rest of the team, which brings us back to the "Hiding under turret." situation. Keep in mind, I am not talking about a hypothetical situation wherein Yasuo is for some reason going top where a good chunk of the picks are tanks, I'm talking about mid, which has something of a lack of tanks, or even tanky champions that are viable, which is where he tends to go.

As a secondary note, I was not suggesting that armor does not apply to crits, but rather that crits provide enough extra DPS (at least on Yas) to make what your average champion can fit into their build completely insufficient for protection.

Third, and this one was more my fault for not being clear, Yas's steroid itself is not the main issue. The issue is that, because of its method of delivery, and his already quite high dps, anything short of 1 to 2 seconds of hard CC is likely to be irrelevant between his dash and the steroid. Yes, slows are effective against him in a normal scenario, but when he has already blinked to his target it becomes something of a moot point. Sure, his steroid is not god-tier, but it doesn't have to be to make his already large burst obscenely difficult for anyone that is not a tank to have any hope of surviving, whether or not they attempt to retaliate.

Fourth, and this is more of an aside, yeah, I guess riot has been having this problem for a while. I've been here since late season 2 and they still seem to be having the same issue with the fighter/assassin role as they did then.

Fifth... This is difficult to address because on one hand, there is a grain of truth to the idea that most of the higher design level complaints against Yasuo can be attributed to insufficient skill on the part of his opponents, but to say that his capability to snowball is just a side-effect of good 1v1 strats and such is a bit of a false attribution. If this were the case, Yasuo's average game would be a great deal more varied. As it is, he plays a lot more like rock-paper-scissors than chess.

That is not a comment on his skill-ceiling mind-you, but rather the way that his kit nigh on completely blocks out a large portion of mid's champion pool.

As for the bronze thing, I can't really comment, I am silver and I actually don't deal with him much, as I tend to play ADC and Top in ranked. I can certainly see your point though. There are a lot of misconceptions about the relative usage of champions vs. their win frequency, but from my perspective that isn't what defines the problems I mentioned. I am sure there are plenty of terrible Yasuos, but that doesn't stop the champion himself from having issues.

Again, I appreciate the thorough explanation of your points, and look forward to your responses to mine.

IronChefBoyardee2 votes

He's not impossible to play against but can very easily snowball out of control. Essentially, how I learned to play against him was play a lane bully melee. Not a mage, not another MADC, preferably no one ranged at all short of Gnar. Play Garen vs the sumbitch, wreck his early game, make him useless for a good portion of the game. Call your MIAs, don't let him roam without punishing him or his team somewhere else. Bully bully bully bully. Bully for days

VoidLegion1 votes

I agree that this strategy is a good one, but it is worth pointing out that this implies that he eliminates the viability of a very large portion of the champions in the game. That in-and-of-itself speaks to me about the need for some changes, at least minor ones, to how he plays.

Major Sparkles1 votes

So you're saying that champions shouldn't have counters? That's pretty messed up bro. Take Le Blanc for example, she can counter a "very large portion" of mages in the game and yet you failed to mention her too. I'm sorry but you don't make a very convincing argument.

VoidLegion1 votes

I'm not saying that champions shouldn't have counters, I'm saying that it is a matter of scale. If a champion causes most of the AP mids in the game to become significantly ineffective, that is not the same thing as having a few champions that are clear mismatches. As for Lb, I'm not sure that that is really a valid point as she has very well defined weaknesses and relies heavily on the perfect execution of combos that leave her extremely exposed should she miss even one link of her chain so to speak. In any case, this, again, is my opinion, if you disagree with me that is fine. With my play-style, and in my experience Yasuo has been a problem, the same may not be true for you.

Major Sparkles1 votes

{quoted}

As for Lb, I'm not sure that that is really a valid point as she has very well defined weaknesses and relies heavily on the perfect execution of combos that leave her extremely exposed should she miss even one link of her chain so to speak.

sounds like Yasuo.

VoidLegion1 votes

Yasuo has no mana costs, high attack damage, and additionally his extremely low cool-down on his Q allows him to recover from many otherwise botched engages. Lb has her ult, but otherwise relies on her full combo connecting to end her opponent before they can react. You may have a point, but the three words you posted to make it do not ring true from my perspective, if you care to elaborate, i will be able to give you a more complete response.

Imperial Japan2 votes

He is extremely squishy unless you build some armor but can still be easily taken out of focused upon. In lane you could just play passively or play maybe someone like talon or zed that can 100-0 him and take him out.

ApplyForAGrant1 votes

I think people have an exaggerated view of Yasuo's power, because while he can be extremely powerful, everything he does except for wind wall is only possible in very specific situations.

His E requires enemy targets to dash, and requires that target to be very close (475 range). So if you are Caitlyn standing at max auto range with no minion wave nearby, he can't do shit to you except windwall (22s cd until he's starts leveling it after level 13) and run.

His ultimate, a long range blink, requires someone to be knocked up, which is easy to very hard to pull off depending on your comp.

His Q, like his E, requires enemy targets to be present and very close (475 range). To put his Q and E into use, he has to get very close, putting him at a punishable range.

He has a very good laning phase because this condition is met all the time. However, in the late game, without the proper team comp, it's very hard to be useful with him.

Also, as a squishy, melee character, he needs mobility to be viable. Additionally, as a squishy melee who is more dps than burst oriented, he needs either disengage or extremely high dps in order to not be outclassed completely by ADC. Yasuo has no disengage, he survive fights by killing his enemy before they kill him, that's why he is given insane dps via double crit chance.

Yasuo appears stronger than he really is because when the condition is right, he's carries the hardest and everyone takes notice. When the condition isn't right, he is a liability to his team, but people don't notice that. So all people remember is that time when Yasuo aced their team beccause all 5 members clumped together, got knocked up, and tried to throw skillshots at him when he had windwall and multiple targets to dash to.

I think Yasuo is in a good place now. His win rate is at 46% and really requires knowledge/skill to win. He's not permabanned in solo que anymore, and I haven't seen people complain about him in a long time.

VoidLegion1 votes

I don't entirely disagree with the basis of your points, but I do disagree on their specifics.

I honestly feel that comparing Yasuo's mobility to other champions is quite fitting, if only because while he may not have as easy a time dashing away from a battle, his kit makes engaging extremely easy for him, and, as I mentioned before, this lends itself to making him nearly impossible to take down before he bursts you (again, barring a burst mage).

In terms of your Caitlin example, you do have a point, assuming that this is taking place in a vacuum. In reality, Yasuo can very quickly engage by chaining through minions, or alternatively, using his knock-up to poke every few seconds.

Now, I will agree that his ult is somewhat situational in terms of the ease with which it can be applied, but I would call your attention to the very fact that even if he himself may be having difficulty landing his skill shot, if his team has knock-ups, that too becomes a moot point. (This is especially noticeable with champions like Rek).

His Q is situational, but it is only situational in the way that any melee range ability is situational. That in and of itself does not for me excuse the frequency and consistency with which he can put out damage with it.

In terms of being a squishy melee champion, I actually agree with you, I'm not entirely sure how they could preserve his current kit and also take down his mobility, but as that is not really what I am looking for, that is a question for another thread. I don't think he needs to have no mobility, I just think that if he is going to have the amount that he has, he should not also have such obscenely high damage output to compliment it. In a sense this is the same problem we had with Kass a while ago.

As to his win rate, I cannot attest to what it presents. In games that I have played, I have encountered the problems I outlined, as have several of my friends. He may not be permabanned, but at this point, I don't feel that that is sufficient, because while you may not have seen complaints, I have, and quite a few of them.

ApplyForAGrant1 votes

I maintain that Yasuo's mobility cannot be compared directly to other champions, not just because its difficult to disengage with him, but because engaging is with Yasuo is conditional. It range from very powerful to very lackluster, depending on the presence of minion waves. Without minion waves and only one enemy target, his E is merely a single, 475 range dash with a 10 -> 5 second downtime. Compare this to Nidalee's unrestricted dash every 5s (no Hunt targets), or Fiora's two dashes from 600 range away.

Also my example with Caitlyn is not just a fantasized situation, it does happen in reality. Fights can and often do take place without the presence of multiple available enemy targets for Yasuo to dash to. Obviously this is irrelevant if Yasuo chooses his fight carefully, but that is a weakness compared to champions who don't need to choose. Additionally, in solo que you don't always have a say in where to fight and when because your team might engage without communicating or considering who your champion is.

While other melee abilities like his Q are situational, they are often on much tankier champions. While its very powefrul and frequent for a free spell, you did not consider one weakness of it and that is safety. In midlane where most matchups are ranged, while he can juke with his E, he has to face a contant hail of ranged auto attacks. He also pushes the wave and puts himself in a very gankeable position. He has no alternative like Zed or even Talon who can farm safely from range, he has to go ham as hell in order to do anything.

And since his mobility is so situational, so is his damage because he needs mobility to get into range to do damage. I don't think there would be a reason to play him if he had similar damage outputs to a normal ADC or bruiser while being melee, squishy, and situational as he is. If his damage is to be toned down, he needs to be buffed elsewhere via survivability or universality in his usefulness.

VoidLegion1 votes

I will readily admit that your points here have far more merit in my mind. Unfortunately, relative situational play tends not to stop Yasuo from snowballing ridiculously, even when he is massively behind. From my perspective, situational abilities justify damage, but not what amounts to a multi-nuke. We aren't talking about some massively rare occurrence where one time in a million Yasuo might be able to get in range on a mage or something, that is literally what he is built to do.

In terms of the safety related to his Q, I won't pretend that melee range characters don't have a disadvantage in midlane generally speaking, but given Yas's tendency to outdamage people throughout the game regardless of his other strengths, I have a hard time swallowing the idea that his current massive burst is necessary for him to be effective.

The fact he has to go ham to be a terror doesn't mean much when that is the focus of his gameplay.

Honestly, I recently found another post that goes into much better depth with suggestions for changes here.

That aside though, I see nothing wrong with retuning his strengths. I don't want a useless Yasuo, I want a Yasuo that I don't have to see coming from nothing, buying one item, and getting triple-kills in the first ten minutes of game (an extreme example, but one that I saw fairly recently).

Kitten of Evil1 votes

He used to be able to get 100% crit with 5% from reds (doubled to 10%), 25% from IE (doubled to 50%) and 20% from Shiv (doubled to 40%). IE now gives just 20% (doubles to 40%). There's not really an easy build-path now to make up for the last bit he needs, so he's now usually at 90% crit. If you ran more crit chance reds, you could get that up to 96% but you're giving up about 5 AD he used to have before IE changes.

VoidLegion1 votes

I usually see people get a phantom dancer, but even if they don't, 90% crit isn't nothing man.

I'm not trying to be contrary here, I just tend to see him built full crit.

Kitten of Evil1 votes

Right, 90% isn't nothing, but for someone who's balanced around the assumption he'll have full crit, the IE changes definitely hurt him. It makes you really sad the 1 in 10 times you don't crit, and can end up killing you (just ask Critplank).

VoidLegion1 votes

Well you aren't wrong. Any chance of not getting the crit is unfortunate, but again, I tend to see Yasuo's buying phantom dancer, which rather eliminates the critical gap.

Major Sparkles1 votes

Yeah Yas doesn't really have unlimited mobility and it's not like he can slip through the same guy over and over and over. I'd say he's pretty balanced.

VoidLegion1 votes

It is true that he does not have unlimited mobility in terms of one on one engagements, and if I was too hyperbolic, or not specific enough about that then I apologize. That said, we do still disagree somewhat on the balance portion of things. Admittedly, everyone has their own perspective on what constitutes good game balance, but for me, chained dashes with no mana cost, and essentialy no cooldown, even if they cannot be repeated with the same target, seem a bit excessive.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Well you summarized his good points fairly well and I can understand that playing against good Yasuos isn't as straight lined as for most of other champions since he is very flexible.

I played Yasuo since release and practiced it with and against him so I have practicle experience enough to have learnt some tricks.

You should consider that his CC and AoE long range burst is really telegraphed by graphics and sound and since its speed ain't that big it can be easily dodged.

His defenses are composed by a shield that can be kept down 24/7 by any ranged and most of melees (the latters usually win trades by basic stats) and a wall that gimps most of ranged characters but doesn't stop common initiators and since his fair CD (20% uptima at max rank) can either be lured or bypassed with ease, it all comes up on how well organized are your and the enemy team.

His only steroid is its crit chance bonus from items that with the nerf to the crit given from one between SS or IE (can't remeber which) now needs more crit chance runes in order to achieve the 100% crit chance trading other offensive stats, a bit but still less. Other melee carries (Fiora, Trynda, etc have more reliable ones).

His mobility is high given the right conditions = enemies avaible. This means that you and him got to watch the lane for minion waves and that in absence of them he has to dive your team. Yasuo is targettable even during the dashes so you are free to CC/focus him down since he is rather squishy.

VoidLegion1 votes

You certainly have a point here regarding the mobility, but until mid to late game, Yasuo will almost always be pushed up against your minion wave. This is fine if you have options for disengaging, but very few mid laners have that advantage. Nearly every mage in the game comes up against serious issues when dealing with Yasuo throughout every phase of play (with the possible exception of Vel, and perhaps heim) simply because he can get behind, and around you so quickly with his mobility that any champion without large-scale AOE and burst is unlikely to be able to put out enough damage to delay Yasuo, much less kite him. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it is impossible to account for his mobility, as it is, as you said, somewhat conditional, but given that he can also block everything under the sun with his wind wall, when he decides to go in, there is not much risk involved barring him fighting another melee mid.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Hmm honestly I don't see many problems even as Xerath (poke till kingdom comes and stun when he gets in the minion wave xD) and also Syndra has good chances against him. Even Lux (imo), the fact that all her spells but her ulti are stoppable by WW (Wind Wall) isn't gimping her either because she can choose what to sacrifice to lure it out and her range makes his shield useless.

I can see Brand suffer a lot if he focuses on Q stun and since his range isn't either that big the struggle is real. Right now every AD mid walks over Yasuo if on par with skill. Brand and Lissandra are the only ones I can see feel the pain.

Honestly, my vision of Yasuo is that for each of his tricks there is counterplay dpending on which character you are on so you get to capitalize both on his weaknesses and your strenghts. I like it because it's far less linear than many other match ups where it's either don't get poked/poke a bit and then all in.

Said that, Yasuo is actually a strong character if used right and I like the spot he is now (though a small buff to base defensive stats wouldn't hurt).

Oleandervine1 votes

I think Yasuo's largest problem is his wind wall. Anyone who needs to kill him can't unless they are melee champs, as the wall lasts too long for anyone with range/skill shots to recover and react before he kills them. This makes him particularly vicious against all mages, and the fact that it can prevent things that technically aren't projectiles along with how much displacement (and not just knock up) that he can use to trigger his ult makes him a pain to deal with who's sole existence is to exploit loopholes in coding to make wins.

I would honestly prefer that his Wind Wall be replaced by a sort of spell shield like Sivir has, so that at least mages have some chance to deter him if their initial shot is nullified (as opposed to everything against the wall).

VoidLegion1 votes

I agree with you fully on this, the change of wind-wall to something either shorter or more personal would make Yasuo perfectly fair to me.

Raja Chachki1 votes

"He fits the mold of someone like zed, another powerful, but generally well-balanced AD mid." Zed is not well-balanced at all...bad comparison. but I do agree that his kit just needs change, it has too much.

VoidLegion1 votes

Huh, I have heard that from other people as well, which i guess puts the entire thing into perspective. Everyone struggles with different things. Anyway, I'm glad we agree about the base need for changes.

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