An Objective Look at Yasuo's Kit (+Some Small Advice)

From his release to the current day, Yasuo has historically been a large pain-point for League of Legends players. Being a Skirmisher with high mobility, moderate survivability, and strong offensive capabilities, Yasuo is in most cases an overwhelming opponent, even when suppressed early on. While I would like to go over his kit and highlight problems holistically, trying to highlight any problem in particular would only be asking for trouble, since everyone's particular pain-points differ.

That being said, my goal isn't to point out problems inherent to his kit, but rather to look at his kit and talk about how it has affected his play. (Particularly when it comes to items he buys.) So, let's get started.

Passive - Way of the Wanderer: This is potentially one of the most infamous parts of Yasuo's kit, in that it's two passives in one; Resolve, and Intent.

Passive 1 - Resolve: As Yasuo moves around, he gains Flow, and after reaching 100% Flow, he gains a protective barrier that absorbs the first source of Champion or Monster damage and grants Yasuo a small shield.

This isn't particularly overbearing passive, and its primary use early-game is to help Yasuo make early trades, and late-game it serves as a sort of built-in AD Banshee's Veil to give Yasuo his openings while the enemy tries to break it.

Passive 2 - Intent: Yasuo gains double Critical Strike Chance from all sources.

Most anyone who talks about gameplay will probably tell you, Critical Strike Chance is a horribly overbearing stat. Some Champions can go without it, and some (such as Tryndamere), have it built into their kit, making it unavoidable. Yasuo is an interesting case of a Champion who only needs two Crit items to be able to land a Critical Strike on every single hit, whereas most require four items.

While this is very good for Yasuo, as crit builds now have four whole spaces free (three if boots are taken), it serves much to the detriment of his opponents as it doesn't take much for him to get that much more dangerous.

Q - Steel Tempest: Yasuo thrusts his sword in a direction, piercing any enemy in a line of his choosing. If it hits an enemy, he gains a Gathering Storm stack, which, at two stacks, his next Steel Tempest launches a tornado that knocks anything it hits into the air. Steel Tempest is treated as a basic attack; it can Critically Strike, apply On-Hit Effects, can be interrupted by Crowd-Control, and its cooldown scales inversely with Attack Speed.

And, on top of it all, casting Steel Tempest in the middle of your Sweeping Blade dash changes it from a line skillshot to a circular AoE Slash. This ability is his primary offensive skill, and has the interesting quirk of being counted as a basic attack. This both opens and closes doors for both Yasuo himself and his opponents, but I'll get to that later.

W - Wind Wall: Yasuo projects a barrier of wind in a direction, blocking all projectiles from that direction for four seconds.

Also an infamous aspect of Yasuo's kit - his Wind Wall serves as his strongest defensive tool, as well as a powerful denial ability that grants him few supporters. One problem I've seen people raise a number of times is that this ability can deny multiple Champion Ultimates, some of which are admittedly interesting cases. (Nami's Tidal Wave completely disappearing on contact with a block of wind.)

E - Sweeping Blade: Yasuo dashes through a target, dealing damage. Each cast increases the damage by 25%, up to a maximum of 50%. Dashing through a target places a short personal cooldown on said target for Sweeping Blade.

An ability that's powerful, but not powerful, Sweeping Blade is a strong case to bring up when talking about Mobility Creep. While it is somewhat designed to be an offensive tool, most players would likely opt to use it more as a repositioning/escape tool than an offensive one - though the circular AoE Steel Tempest is a good balancing point between offensive options and escape options.

Ultimate - Last Breath: When a target is knocked Airborne, Yasuo can teleport to that target, holding all Airborne enemies in the air as he strikes his target multiple times for one second. Grants maximum Flow, but resets all Gathering Storm stacks, and for 15 seconds, all of Yasuo's Critical Strikes gain 50% Bonus Armor Penetration.

Unequivocally a strong Ultimate ability, as well as the third offensive ability in Yasuo's kit, Last Breath can turn the tide of fights where an unlucky person or people get knocked Airborne, allowing Yasuo to strike them all down, gain his Resolve barrier, and halve the effectiveness of Items, Runes, Buffs, or Masteries that grant armor when he Critically Strikes.

Now that I've gone over his kit, I want to talk about how it affects how Yasuo is played.

With a kit full of both offensive and defensive abilities, as well as a Passive that allows some leeway against opponents and the freedom to build half-crit, Yasuo is primarily a Mid or Top laner who excels in dueling out opponents, giving him a high-risk, high-reward playstyle - although, the risk is dampened by his myriad defensive tools.

However, even when he gets beaten by opponents, Yasuo can still play well from behind - especially considering the double-crit of his Intent passive, which twofold allows him to hit his power-spike earlier, and to have a wider variety of options come mid-game.

This has manifested in some unsavory ways; easiest of which to recall would be Phantom Dancer + Frozen Mallet - giving Yasuo a bigger health-bar, slowing Steel Tempests/Auto-Attacks, and 12% damage reduction from most-recently-hit enemies. The ease of building from offence (critical strike) into defence has only gotten easier though, nowadays, with the change to Guardian Angel directed at Attack Damage users.

Even still, Yasuo can be fought - though not with any sense of ease. Here are some options to consider when going against the Unforgiven:

• If you can invest the gold and item slots for it, don't hesitate to take a defensive item. Guardian Angel, Randuin's Omen, Ninja Tabi, etc. can be effective against him, though I need to stress "can". Just because it can, doesn't mean it always will.
• Tanks, particularly Wardens (though some Vanguards can work too) are fairly good Champions to take against Yasuo. Particularly good options include Poppy, Galio, Tahm Kench, Maokai, or Alistar. Just know that like defensive items, Champion choice isn't a surefire way to deal with Yasuo.
• Yasuo has a lot of freedom to be aggressive, but only to a point. Being aggressive in turn may force him to blow his Wind Wall and open himself up for counter-attack.
• If you have any form of Ultimate that Yasuo can block - or a high-cooldown ability, for that matter - don't fire until you see the Wind Wall drop. Bait it with low-cooldown projectiles if possible, but for your own sake, don't let him waste your longest cooldowns. (although that tip is kind of a no-brainer at this point)
• In teamfights, Yasuo is probably going to be Priority #1. If you focus anyone else, Yasuo would be more than happy to wreak havoc on your team, so killing him first, regardless of how well he's been doing, is ideal.

While I cannot myself say whether or not Yasuo needs nerfs (due to most everyone banning him or teammates not playing well overall when he's in a match), I can at least say that he is an interesting champion design to balance around, as well as one to try to strategize against. I hope that this look at Yasuo's kit without my personal opinions can open up some interesting discussion - or even some advice from those who have learned how to better counter Yasuo than my suggestions.