Now that Yasuo's confirmed for changes by (likely) 6.19, allow me to talk about a problem.

I'm still vehemently protecting my stance on Yasuo being pretty balanced as a champion and that annoying to play against =/= overpowered, but there's no denying that Yasuo's winrate and banrate are rising. Even for mid, currently his weaker lane of the two. Why? Simple; the items that Yasuo currently builds are overpowered and probably need their own nerfs.

Moving on to the build that drew attention to Yasuo in the first place: the Frozen Force Tank build. Frozen Mallet doesn't seem much like an issue to me, I hear it got it's own nerfs a while back (?), but Trinity Force is DEFINITELY a problem. Irelia was (and still kinda is) a problem. Hecarim was a problem. AD Bruiser Fizz was a problem. I've been seeing Tri Force AD Bruiser Ekkos around (with varying degrees of success). Surprisingly enough, the other Tri Force builders haven't been getting much attention but at this point I wouldn't be surprised if they suddenly do. I understand that Tri Force is supposed to be a highly offensive item for bruiser type champions, but god damn is that damage ridiculous. It offers so much (again, I get that it's supposed to offer a "little bit" of everything) and even increases chase potential exponentially. The passives should be looked at because those two aren't a "little bit". 200% Base AD in bonus damage every 1.5 to 2 seconds isn't a little bit. 20 to 60 Move speed for 2 seconds isn't a little bit, especially for those with already innate chase potential (AKA, a good amount of Tri Force users).

Even other tank/bruiser items offer Tank Yasuo more damage that he's supposed to be dishing out with such a build .

There's one more item I want to talk about for Yasuo before moving on, and that is this , what I think of as the ultimate duelist item. This piece of shit is basically everywhere on Yasuo. It's being taken over Statikk Shiv in builds that focus on crit, and there's even the Tanksuo Phantom Dancer + Frozen Mallet (what should we call it? Frozen Dancer? Frozen Phantom?). I personally haven't tried it, but according to some it's even worse than Frozen Force. Phantom Dancer is just way too good. It gives the most Attack Speed from the Zeal upgrades, and holy shit those passives; those passives just increase what's annoying about Yasuo by giving him even more chasing and dueling potential. What other champions are infamous due to abuse of this item? Graves and his Dancing Duelist build comes to mind (Phantom Dancer + Death's Dance + Red Smite if Jungling). I've also seen Korean Lucian build it as a third item a lot in the past when that was still a thing.

I keep on noticing that Riot refuses to address problems that stem from items and simply look to the champions. I'm not denying that the champions themselves also had a part in the blame because everyone else has differing opinions, but an item should definitely be looked at if so many troublemakers are building it/ built it in the past. comes to mind. does as well. Honestly, all of these cases might just end up like the Cinderhulk incident of the past, when they nerfed champions first, then turned the hammer to the item without giving back to the champions effected.

A lot of the QQ-ers on the boards might be happy about the "Yasuo nerfs", but I'm not. Guess why? No, not because I'm a dirty Yasuo player, but because they're not going to be straight out nerfs. They're most likely going to be nerfs to his Tank builds and buffs to his normal full crit build. That could honestly draw even more attention to him and start even more QQ-ing from the haters. Sure, Fizz and Ekko stopped getting a lot of attention when their tank builds got crushed underfoot, but I think Yasuo garners even more hate than the two. Again, can't be sure until it happens, but I'm a pretty cynical person to begin with, I have no faith in the community and their outlook. I don't want to see Yasuo at a perma-ban. Especially if the current problems with him could be slightly quelled by looking at the items that are not only being troublesome on him, but have been/are on others.