How I would rework Yasuo
Alright, I see a lot of people hate Yasuo, I'm not one of those guys, but I do understand he can be extremely frustrating. Honestly, I feel that the way his passive grants him double critical strike is stupid, but I feel his passive, Intent, should revolve around it, but it doesn't currently work in tandem with the other component of his passive, Resolve.
How I would change things up? I would follow Ashe's example, but move from damage to utility.
I would return the focus on keeping Yasuo as this crazy, ever-moving assassin who has to use active damage mitigation to avoid being crushed, as in dancing around, shielding with wind in one way or dashing through enemies. I would remove the double critical strike, and instead make it so that, a certain portion of his critical strike is converted instead to additional attack and movement speed, say... 40%?
So if he built Statikk Shiv, 20% Critical Strike? That becomes instead 12% critical strike, and 8% bonus attack and movement speed. But to benefit more from the bonus attack speed, he needs to build damage, rather than rely on critical strikes alone to do his damage for him. The movement speed feeds into his passive, allowing him to shield more regularly.
So to make things more intricate, here is what I would do for his other abilities.
The Q, Steel Tempest, stays as it is, it benefits from attack speed and thus feeds more into a more cohesive Yasuo, but again it requires damage rather than simply relying on easy crit alone to do his work for him. Maybe reduce the base damage if it becomes a problem.
The W, Wind Wall, should only last through a few normal ranged projectiles (say, three projectile abilities or auto-attacks), and be bypassed entirely by a super-powerful projectile (i.e. a ranged ultimate). In return, I would have the W's cooldown reduced to about 13/12/11/10/9 seconds, so that it could be used more than once in a teamfight, giving the ability a measure of vulnerability that it really needs, and raising Yasuo's skillcap.
The E, Sweeping Blade should no longer deal damage, but instead feed bonus momentum to allow for more defensive Yasuo play. Possibly even allow him to dash through allies as well, with the same limitations.
The R, Yasuo's ultimate. Take off the armor shred, Yasuo shouldn't be able to counter tanks who are supposed to themselves counter assassins, it's one of the biggest issues people have with him. Rather, make it so that Yasuo deals bonus physical damage to targets that he auto-attacks or uses Steel Tempest against that he used his ultimate against, which allows Yasuo to do more overall via outplay and rely less on being able to take on anyone.
Edit: For the record, I want Yasuo to be more focused on utility and less on damage, squishies are supposed to be bursted by assassins, but neither should he be doing ridiculous damage with minimal damage built, if he wants to be able to have that ridiculous burst, he needs to itemize more for it, and rely more on outplaying opponents in the early and mid game.


