What if Intent was replaced with Skillful?

KFCeytron·Aug 17, 2019·2 votes·1,049 views

Intent is the crit portion of Yasuo's passive, granting him double crit chance but reduced crit damage. Skillful was the Odyssey augment that made Yasuo always crit near the edge of his auto and Q range but never crit otherwise.

This would change so many things about Yasuo, from his build to his play style. Since it was live only in Odyssey where enemies generally either stand there or slowly approach you while SR is much more dynamic, I'm not sure how it would play out. Any guesses or theories? Do you suppose Riot has tested this internally?

5 Comments

Tahminatrix Aug 17, 20191 votes

He would be oppressive against immobile champs who cant really avoid his q without being bullied from farming.

This would also be an immense buff pre first back when yasuo`s crit passive normally isn't even in play yet.

But later on he might be alittle bit weaker unless he buys item 3022 and abuses the crap out of it in order to bully anyone who doesn't have ms buffs, slow ignores, etc...

He would probably be useless against champs like MasterYi Riven Fiora Kassadin

KFCeytronAug 17, 20192 votes

[{quoted}](name=Tahminatrix ,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qe8fQKYf,comment-id=0000,timestamp=2019-08-17T00:26:14.958+0000)

He would be oppressive against immobile champs who cant really avoid his q without being bullied from farming.

This would also be an immense buff pre first back.

Well, it would give him an opportunity to crit early game, but he would have to do a certain thing. Late game, instead of always critting, he would still have to do a certain thing. I find it interesting to think about. :)

Tahminatrix Aug 17, 20191 votes

Again, yasuo players normally hit their q with the tip along with at max auto range, forcing someone to consistently run towards yasuo in order to avoid the crit from his q will just mean they are still in range for him to attempt to max range auto them again.

Not to mention the leniency that the tip of his q / autos can be in his favor.

This would make many matchups that are favorable to yasuo even better while making yasuo useless against certain champs that can just jump inside of him consistently and yasuo wont have any way of being able to crit.

flibitydooAug 17, 20191 votes

it would break him because he would feel no incentive to build crit items

he can now immediately start working towards a ravenous hydra to give him big ad and lifesteal and aoe damage or a titanic hydra if he wants the flat health to survive skrimishes and teamfights instead, following up with a second item spear of shojin or cleaver for more windwall uptime. Or if he still wanted attackspeed he could go into either blade of the ruined king or trinity force first for either tank shredding or more burst damage against squishies. Basically if he didn't have any reason to build into crit to dps, he'd start accessing the counter-itemization part of the game much faster. heck we might even see yasuo picked outside of midlane, like in the jungle, where he can freely build into a completed smite-item (like enchantment:bloodrazor) without missing out on his main dps source. Imagine getting surprised ganked because the darius pulled you and now there's a yasuo lifting you off the ground.

Having that crit passive actually ties up yasuo's hands a lot more than what you'd think. He's not getting lifesteal or health or armor or cdr or anything if his first two items are always PD/shiv->IE, he has to work on that crit thing for about 6k gold to finish his core. until that 6k is over with he's just a guy with a 20 second windwall and never more than 2k hp

heck the ideal yasuo build in project odyssey was actually a lethality yasuo build that somewhat dipped a wee bit into attackspeed. turns out going full into crit items like infinity edge is actually very pricey and very slow tempo.

KFCeytronAug 17, 20191 votes

{quoted}

it would break him because he would feel no incentive to build crit items

he can now immediately start working towards a ravenous hydra to give him big ad and lifesteal and aoe damage or a titanic hydra if he wants the flat health to survive skrimishes and teamfights instead, following up with a second item spear of shojin or cleaver for more windwall uptime. Or if he still wanted attackspeed he could go into either blade of the ruined king or trinity force first for either tank shredding or more burst damage against squishies. Basically if he didn't have any reason to build into crit to dps, he'd start accessing the counter-itemization part of the game much faster. heck we might even see yasuo picked outside of midlane, like in the jungle, where he can freely build into a completed smite-item (like enchantment:bloodrazor) without missing out on his main dps source. Imagine getting surprised ganked because the darius pulled you and now there's a yasuo lifting you off the ground.

Having that crit passive actually ties up yasuo's hands a lot more than what you'd think. He's not getting lifesteal or health or armor or cdr or anything if his first two items are always PD/shiv->IE, he has to work on that crit thing for about 6k gold to finish his core. until that 6k is over with he's just a guy with a 20 second windwall and never more than 2k hp

heck the ideal yasuo build in project odyssey was actually a lethality yasuo build that somewhat dipped a wee bit into attackspeed. turns out going full into crit items like infinity edge is actually very pricey and very slow tempo.

I mean, I'm pretty sure IE would still be an early buy for the AD and crit damage, so it's only really removing one item, and that crit plus attack speed would be some other attack speed item because he still needs that for his Q CD.

Did you try Skillful without the aug that increased his range? Even with what amounts to a map full of jungle monsters, it wasn't so easy to consistently hit the sweet spot.

Yasuo has already left mid, as he works better as a bot ADC with a support.

I'm wondering whether it'd be better to balance him for "crit if you're Skillful" than "0/10 power spike." :P But that might widen the gap between good and bad Yasuos, and no one wants another Ryze/Azir/etc. So I dunno.

I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted; I thought it was an interesting discussion topic. It's not like I'm saying "YaSuO nEeDs 100% CrIt" or "ReMoVe YaSuO pAsSiVe" or something.