Walking through Yasuo's Windwall should dissolve it
It takes some serious issues to become more hated than Teemo, and yet the weeaboo swordmaster has managed to do that. Of course in spite of his abysmal winrate - he's frustrating to play against, and weak when played with.
The 10 ban system has forced Riot to take action and rework him to ease that burden, and I think there's some good stuff to do here.
#What Makes Yasuo Frustrating
While some champions don't mind laning against him, in the extreme case the sheer outplay power he possesses is too damn much. If you're a skillshot-based champion, Windwall and Sweeping Blade are surely going to ruin your day.
Yasuo suffers from the Lee Sin syndrome, in which a skilled player will perform their combo without any possibility of counterplay (like Lee Sin's kick, which roots you and can't be flashed, while Lee can flash during the root changing the kick's direction). In a duel between ranged mage and Yasuo, it feels like Yasuo has all the agency in that fight, and as long as he windwalls or outmaneuvers the crucial part of the combo, he can't lose.
Of course he's paper and helpless in a duel with a melee champion who won't stand in his minion wave, but that's something a midlane mage won't see.
I believe the frustration factor could get reduced a LOT if the edge case - ranged midlane mage - was pacified, of course increasing his overall power to compensate.
#Instant Feedback
One thing that might increase frustration in low elo is the seemingly infinite mobility. Perhaps if not the cooldowns, then another visual cue to what minions are available for dashing would help understanding and predicting Yasuo's movement. Maybe even going as far as highlighting the dash path and ending point.
One of the core principles a beginning player learns is that they're safe with their minions, who will block projectile skillshots, and unsafe among enemy minions, who will attack them if they attack enemy champion. Yasuo's Sweeping Blade completely refutes that concept. It isn't the only skill to do so, as many ranged mages have powerful AoE that will harass their enemy along with clearing the wave, but it's a melee champion we're talking about here.
#Counterplay!
So yeah. If it feels like only the Yasuo player has agency, we need counterplay. And "pick a champion without projectile skillshots" is not counterplay, it's counterpick. There's a place for counterpicks, and some champions could be geared stronger towards that principle (Galio for example should be an anti-mage, but there is nothing truly anti-mage about his laning other than some miniscule MR scaling and a magic shield on an ability he levels up last anyway), but Yasuo is a better anti-mage than this game's dedicated anti-mages since the removal of silence from assassins.
There needs to be something to do for a ranged mage to ease their pain. Walking through the Windwall to dissolve it is one example. Windwall lasting long in a siege situation seems fair, but it working both ways during an all-in trade doesn't. Of course we wouldn't want it to immediately disappear if casted during a melee fight, so let's say it stays for one second no matter what.
Obviously weaker Windwall would warrant buffs elsewhere, and I'm not sure it would be enough to stop people from banning Yasuo.
#PERHAPS
As we've stated already, Yasuo is pretty frustrating to face in a solo lane.
Now this might be a horrible horrible idea due to the anti-cooperative nature of his playerbase, but I'd like to revisit the very core design of Yasuo to prove a point.
- He's a paper-thin crit-oriented AD-scaling carry.
- He can use Q as a longer basic attack to reach farm.
- He can block ranged attacks with W.
- He can dive in and out to farm the enemy minion wave and has a shield that protects him from poke.
- He can utilize his teammate's displacement ability to cast his ultimate.
See the pattern?
He was made for bot lane.
That's something obvious once you see it, but Yasuo was clearly Riot's attempt at introducing a "melee carry" to the duo lane. Of course it never worked (considering Mordekaiser, who would have thought? oh wait both were made by the same designer), and it explains why he had too much power for the solo lane - because he was packed with enough to "break" the ranged ADC meta at bot.
Now I don't think confining Mordekaiser to the bot lane was a good idea. Some of his spells are awesome, like using the drake ghost to push towers, but that was a failed class matchup - an immobile and offtanky Juggernaut cannot fill the role of an AD Carry.
However, in the case of Yasuo, I'd consider bringing him back to the bot lane. Tying any part of his kit to the duo partner - nothing as broken as Mordekaiser's free exp, just something about the Windwall, Sweeping Blade, or the Flow generation - could completely remove him from the solo lanes for a while and help him dodge the ban draft. He might need some help there as his kit has no way to safely take down towers, but it could work much better than Morde.
Just imagine if he could only cast Windwall on an allied champion.
One good way to ensure he escapes the permaban status is for people to realize he won't annoy them anymore. Something like when Kassadin lost his silence. Sure, he's still scary lategame, but suddenly his levels 1-5 are harmless, and he's a piece of cake to go against at that time. I think Yasuo needs a period like that. A time where he feels completely harmless and vulnerable so that people aren't annoyed by him that much.
But for starters, consider allowing people to break the Windwall by walking through it.
