The Akali and Yasuo Problem

~~~~ Long Post, reader beware

So, I'm sure we've all heard the fiasco with 10.3 patch notes out now about yet another nerf to Akali. The difference is, this nerf is planning to bring significant counterplay to Akali (Something no other nerf did since it was all just numbers constantly being nerfed), and she is getting virtually no compensation buffs for this. What will likely happen, in traditional balance fashion, is Riot allows her to be an oversized cannon minion for a few patches until finally giving her love in ~10.5 or 10.6.

Either way, I wanted to address two of League's worst champions EVER, supported by the fact that these two are not brand new champions yet they have consistently massive ban rates across all elos (Akalis banrate is higher in high elo and yasuo in lower elo, but still maintain huge ban rates when you average all elos too). Whether or not these champions are strong or not don't even come into play yet, the truth from these numbers is that a majority of the people in this game, for YEARS, simply do not want to play in a game with these two in it. That's toxic design and leads to the horrific murder scene of balance we have today.

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--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AKALI: ------------------------------------------------------------- Look I hate Akali... like.... I REALLY hate her. But I have told my friends and boards these 10.3 changes should have been her FIRST nerf, and might have saved Akali mains, and all other league players the horrible last season and half. In the ~33 patches new Akali has been in, roughly 14 of them have been nerfs, almost HALF. This is more consecutive nerfs than I have seen ever really, and I've played since S3. This many nerfs like this prove a few things:

1. The rework was incredible poorly balanced. It was a great idea of paper, and it felt like Riot read the design and shipped it off to the game same day. At least 8 of those 14 nerfs should've probably happened all within the PBE, not on live.

2. All of the nerfs that have been happening aren't working. In 10.1, the most recent full patch, Akali's winrate is 48% top and 47% mid (worldwide, U.gg). These are actually AMAZING numbers considering she's been nerfed 14 times. Even if she isn't winning that many games, her pick rate is still incredibly high for a champion this "weak". Literally any other champion, if they are nerfed that hard 14 times in a row and had things like adding 20 seconds to their ult, their waveclear gutted, etc. would likely be ~30% winrate at most and already be around ~47% likely in the first 3 nerfs alone, and this is even assuming that the player base for any other champion in this state would be high enough to even have a winrate at all. This means Riot created a balance NIGHTMARE if 14 nerfs aren't even enough to take a champion to lowest of the low.

3. Almost all of the nerfs are damage related and mean nothing. Constantly, Riot thinks added or subtracting base damage/% damage is the way to fix things. Akali's damage, while obnoxious and high, is still the least problematic aspect of her kit. The three main issues I have against her is: A) Stealth can almost be renamed invulnerability, restealthing during CC, having no means to truly reveal her, and it lasts EIGHT SECONDS with infinite restealth capability. B) She is both incredibly safe and incredibly lethal, with stealth, ms steroid, ms slow, and 2(3) dashes she can zip out of any situation even if does cost her kill pressure for a minute C) Her Q+PassiveAA make her a ranged champion basically, and makes her damage impossibly high starting as early as level 1. She should've had more power pumped into her E that makes not landing it significantly harsh, like you did with Ahri's charm. Cause as of right now, Akali E is actually a really cool ability but honestly 75% of the time it wasn't needed for her in a fight, or she whiffs it entirely with almost no negative drawback.

So, 10.3 finally comes around. Now you can finally CC Akali and reveal her! Now she has to target a champion for her ult and can't cast it for both disengage, gap closing, or to just jump over a wall for giggles. Unfortunately, these significant nerfs to her toxic gameplay come after you fail to miss the mark** 14 times.**** 14.** I'd be fired from my job if I made that half that many mistakes in half the time period. As much as I hate to say this, you honestly should start to think about reverting all the last nerfs to Akali since you finally seemed to got it right. But you won't. She and her mains will have to suffer for months before this is done. The least I can hope is that future balace changes learn from this dumpster fire we've had for the last year and half, but seeing Aphelios has made me lose my faith.

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---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------YASUO --------------------------------------------------------- A problematic champion that's been around the rift since 2013, and has toxified the meta ever since. The inverse of Akali, his ban rate is high in lower elo and low(Er) in high elo. Don't be mistaken however, his ban rate is still a hefty 20% at the highest elos, so even the best of the best hate this monstrosity, he just has slightly more counterplay options. But once again, this champion is one that gets so many freebies in his kit, if he's 8/0 he gets to win the game single handedly and if he's 0/8 he can win the game single-handedly.... wait what....? Losing lane and feeding seems to not even affect this champion, a product of having thousands of gold value in passives and mechanics, no cooldowns, and no mana to limit gate his power. He also has three particularly toxic points about him:

1. Unlike Akali, Yasuo hasn't been nerfed often. Actually, in the last two seasons he's had 2 nerfs and a few buffs sprinkled about. This entire time, his ban rate still remained as high as 50% in some elos. Obviously, even if you thinks he's balanced, he's still toxic in gameplay. But for some reason, Riot thinks Akali deserves countless nerfs, and Yasuo needs a net amount of... none? And Yasuo has almost triple Akali's playrate, and a solid 50% winrate!

2. So continuing point 1, why is it no one wants to play against him? Like I said before, this champion feels as if winning against him lane (and i mean STOMPING) has 1/10 the effect on him as it does on literally any other champion in the game (minus Akali). This is because he gets three main freebie kits that overloads him and actually rewards losing: A) Free crit %. This should NEVER be in a kit, it only really exists on one other champion, being Tryndamere. And guess what? Its toxic on Trynd too, but at least his crit % is temporary and tied to staying in combat. Yasuo gets double the crit (almost 2000gold in value) for FREE. The lower crit damage is negligent since his main dps ability can also crit. B.) He gets a LEVEL SCALING shield for moving. This makes poking him out not feasible, as it is for every other assassin in the game and is the only option for a mage to do for them. This honestly should never be a thing, but if it has to be it should scale on AD so if Yasuo does get stomped he gets even lower shields. If his current shield wasn't good enough he also gets it again if he ever ults, what a joke. C.) Wind Wall. He already has a shield that stomps ranged counterplay, so naturally I wouldn't even imagine this type of ability of this type of champion, yet it exists. Its usually overkill in lane, he already takes half the damage he should, but where it truly poisons gameplay is in teamfights. The entire enemy team has to wait 5 seconds to be able to play the game, especially since it blocks projectiles from both directions and Yasuo isn't even tied to it (Braum cries in jealousy).

3.) Finally, Yasuo's skill ceiling is extremely high, yet the skill floor was also set incredibly high. In case you might have missed your third tornado, it is automatic and buffered if you dash before it, lol. In case you STILL can't hit the tornado, Yasuo can simply ult on anyone else's knockup and win the game that way instead. In case the Yasuo places the wind wall the wrong way, it blocks 360 around Yasuo when first emitted anyway and continues to block projectiles from all directions anyway. Yasuos I play against also miss 90% of their ranged tornadoes, but all it takes is that 1 that does connect for him to score a kill, and this is easy to do when there isn't really any negative drawback to missing a tornado anyway, he gets another one in as little as 3 seconds. (He should really get a long cooldown on Q that is refunded if he hits a target, and is not if he whiffs it)

So Yasuo has the opposite problem... not nerfed enough. With just as much ban rate as Akali, it almost feels like all hate he should get is instead being channeled to Akali. In fact, his ban rate began dipping hugely with her release, mostly due to limited bans, but it almost makes me think she was merely created so certain balancers that love Yasuo can finally play him in ranked again. _(Just joking....or....?) _Regardless, my main gripe here is the amount of free things Yasuos get, and the "bowling-bumpers" added in so he can never misplay and play at any gold value to 1v5 potential. I wouldn't mind this champion if misplaying was actually possible, or if he lost one of his insane safety nets in either his wind wall or level scaling shields. Also his free crit should just not exist, you can buff his crit damage accordingly, but the live passive is boring, unimaginative, and causes him to power spike even if massively behind with 2000 gold of free crit.

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**TDLR: You can stop nerfing Akali now for the love of all that is good and holy. You can start nerfing Yasuo now for the love of all that is good and holy. **