Yasuo laning phase power- How much is too much?

JamesTheMage17··5 votes·1,849 views

Yasuo is a fighter-assassin with high mobility, extremely high damage, moderate to high defense, and brings some very interesting mechanics into the game for players to take advantage of both versus and playing him.

His laning phase is very, VERY strong...

But how much is too much?

To avoid hate, flames, and counter-arguments from yasuo mains or tank mains that clearly don't have any problems with yasuo, I will present both mathematics, common logic and/or sense, and lastly, comparison to explain my reasoning for Yasuo being broken in the laning phase to me:

1: Poke block & overall defense

Yasuo has a lot, probably too much ways of blocking any damage including but not limited to poking. He has a exceptionally high shield that triggers upon being damaged, (thus blocking said damage without having to time it), which is enough poke-block already. However, he also has something that blocks ALL poke for a much longer duration from a chosen direction that's width increases with level (keep in mind that projectiles are extremely thin and will always be blocked by the windwall). If that wasn't too much, he also has nearly unlimited dashes to block projectile (Skillshot) forms of damage as long as they are not instant, but if they are instant, he's got two other gaurunteed damage blocks.

2: Mobility, Escape, and Surprise Movements

Take this given scenario: You're at about 200 health, Yasuo has about 100. You expect him to recall, but he doesn't. You're both at level 2 and know if he tries to kill you, you'd win for sure. You throw a Skillshot at him, his shield blocks the entirety of it. You try to auto him multiple times, he uses his windwall. You realize you can't do anything while its up and wait it out... Throw another Skillshot as Yasuo simply presses E and avoids it, then uses E again four times, going through the minion wave to get you. You try to auto him... His shield is up again, blocking all of the damage as he Instakills you then escapes harm from your minions by E'ing through them almost instantly.

You feel like you've been cheated since you should've won that fight but Yasuo was clearly too powerful and will now dominate the lane with that small, one-kill advantage. Hope you can ban him forever from that point.

Other Scenario:

You're at full health and Yasuo has half. You prepare to dodge his whirlwind, he runs through a minion and fires it at an unexpected angle and you cant dodge it, he teleports to you and pierces all your armor you expected to counter him, Instakills you, and then walks away from your corpse with almost nothing missing from his health bar. Balanced? I think not!

3: Damage & Infinity Edge Synergy

Yasuo has extremely low cooldowns on his high-damage abilities and it doesn't stop there. He has full crit chance from two items, meaning he can focus on full damage once he gets an infinity edge (to increase the gaurunteed crits damage which was already insane) and Stattik Shiv (to, of course, give him even more damage for whatever reason) and now he can pretty much kill anyone in the click of a button.

4: Outplay Potential

I am aware Yasuo takes high skill and practice.. However.. He just needs to learn to spam E on nearby minions and wallah, he can avoid anything while doing insane damage to you between dashes. You can't hit him with skill shots, making champions like Nidalee, Lux, and Syndra useless against him, and champs with slower skill shots like Orianna and Lissandra even worse! He is in desperate need of an E-CD increase as he cant be hit by anything that needs to be aimed, which is actual skill compared to spamming E.

Possible Nerfs:

There is a way to balance Yasuo. First:

My favorite Nerf idea: (#1) Reduce yasuos crit increase from double to 50%, reducing his damage slightly as he needs more crit chance and less damage now. Nerf #2: Base magic resist and armor reduced by 5 and base attack damage by 9. Nerf #3: Increase E cooldown from 1-0.2 per level to 3-0.3 per level. Nerf #4: Limit windwalls blocking by using the following idea: Reduce remaining duration by 0.5 seconds for each projectile blocked, bring base duration down by 0.5 seconds. Nerf #5: Bonus armor penetration lowered from 50% to 35%. Nerf #6: Increase time needed to gain full flow, reduce shield.

I really hope people now realize the menace Yasuo is potentially and please comment below.

21 Comments

MagicFlyingLlama7 votes

Yasuo mains are probably more qualified to comment than anyone else, since they actually understand his kit.

As i am not one of them, i will just say most of this is nonsense. Yes, he can be annoying in lane, but no, he is not overpowered. It is mainly a skill matchup, learn how to deal with him.

USG Failsawce1 votes

{quoted}

Yasuo mains are probably more qualified to comment than anyone else, since they actually understand his kit.

As i am not one of them, i will just say most of this is nonsense. Yes, he can be annoying in lane, but no, he is not overpowered. It is mainly a skill matchup, learn how to deal with him.

except that they are often biased, and don't care for game balance as much as personal gain.

not always the case, but certainly true far more often than not

DunkinNoobs4 votes

{quoted}

Nerf #2: Base magic resist and armor reduced by 5 and base attack damage by 9.

ROFL.

Handy Sandy 2 votes

Lategame i find it easy to outdamage him, kill him before he kills you. I use all my skillshots on myself (Such as veigar's W, Syndra's Q/W, Brand's pillar of flame, etc) when he comes close, and **one ** attack leaves him at about 1/2 health. Then back off a little to where you can hit him with skills. If he uses his windwall, run where there aren't minions. (Like the river, if he's top lane) If you're laning against him, basically all Yasuos push like crazy. Low his health a bit and call for a gank, or freeze the wave at your tower and farm under the turret. He'll probably throw a tornado at you and try to dive you, when that happens I stun him, attack him a little and let the turret kill him. In the end though, you just have to outplay him.

Lux just uses a W and he's slowed along with doing some damage, and as a Syndra main I have little to no problem dealing with him, mostly because my stun catches him off guard and my Q and W aren't affected by his shield. Nidalee can quickly go around his shield in tiger form and throw a spear then, or fight him up close when he's out of charges for his tornado. Also, lux's ult isn't blocked by Yasuo's windwall, so if you manage to root him you can throw out a W infront of his windwall to still do damage, and then ult. Lissandra can freeze him with her large AOE, and then unleash her combo. She can also quickly get to him with her ice claw. A good orianna player can get her ball behind his shield and attack from there all while attacking from a very safe distance. Keep in mind orianna is one of the hardest champions to begin learning, and way harder to master.

This is what happens when I'm against him:

We are both at full health, as a squishy Syndra main I never go out of base with less than 80% health unless my team has nearly scored an ace. Yasuo comes at me when I'm alone, he blocks my stun with windwall. I Q myself, then W him, slowing him down. I run away while he's slowed, throwing Q's infront of him so he runs into them, using ignite if needed. I'm doing this with a full AP build, so those 3 attacks leave him at nearly 0 health. I normally would have ulted him, since my ult cooldown is low. I escape with maybe 20% health left.

This actually happens most of the time I fight him.

Šeraρh1 votes

Problem with Yasuo IMO is that he's utter shit to play against when you're projectile / skillshot reliant... but he's utter shit to play as when facing someone with high instant burst ( Post 6 Annie per se ) or against tanks / bruisers.

It's not that he's overtuned really, as much as I hate the guy ( and trust me I HATE him with a passion ), he's rather balanced as of now and does require quite a bit of skill to play efficiently. The big problem is, that if you happen not to play a direct counter to Yasuo, it feels like he has an answer for every single move you make, while you on the other hand, can't do anything about him.

Let's say you're playing Lux, so you picked a long ranged mage known for being a good poker in laning phase. You walk into lane pretty confident thinking that Yasuo is melee, and thus should be somewhat easy to force out of lane, or at least will allow you to safely farm. Problem is, if you try to E him he either :

  • A ; negates the damage with his shield passive
  • B ; negates the spell with his windwall And even if flow takes a while to come back and his windwall has somewhat of a lengthy CD early game, there's a low chance that both are gonna be down when you try to poke him. Your E has a 10 seconds CD after all.

And there you're going to tell me to "just pop his shield with an auto before you poke him" but really, when playing as a poke champion, this is not really doable because he'll just dash through your minion wave and smack you with a couple autos / Q while dodging your hypothetical first skillshot, soaking most of the damage with his passive and having the potential to windwall any hope for a counterattack, and ultimately winning the trade.

Then you always have the option to just ignore him and farm, but the guy will most likely outscale you, and has the means to deny you cs with windwall or engage hard trades when you come for the last hits.

That's the problem with Yasuo. Playing a "projectile character" leaves you without any opportunity to outplay him by yourself, while he has an answer for every single action you take. Unless the Yasuo player is downright bad, you WILL get bullied into nothingness during the laning phase in the worst possible way.

Then, laning phase eventually ends, and teamfights are gonna be a bit of a complication for him if he didn't snowball out of control, but most of the time, you'll be behind and struggling to have as much an impact as he does ( but well, if both teams matches evenly and you have some cc, taking the role of a peeler and/or racking up assists and waveclearing now that he's not being the 24/7 Berlin Wall will most likely allow you to catch up at some point ). The problem during teamfights though is that Yasuo being alive poses the threat of an incoming windwall on your big cooldown / during your burst rotation ; meaning that if your team can't force Yasuo into blowing ( lol@the pun ) the CD, he can still make your game a living hell. What is REALLY irritating about Yasuo during this game phase is that him sitting on his Windwall CD puts you in a lose-lose situation. So long as windwall hasn't been wasted, you can't cast spells, because he'll just undo them, but so long as you're not casting spells yourself, you're depriving your own team of a member.

It's not him being OP. It's him being obnoxious to a point where his sole presence is making you feel like you're no longer part of the game.

I feel like one easy way to make him less oppressive would be to make him summon his windwall directly before him and give it a 0.5 seconds cast time, rather than making his coming out of ( or rather from slighty behind even ) him. That'd require either extremely good reaction time for Yasuo or actual PROACTIVE THINKING, and allow you to have a chance at disengaging him when he dashes on top of you, thus making the spell less of an abnormally powerful reactive button. In turn, I'd even accept the wall's length being slightly increased or the CD slightly decreased.

Secondly, I'd say remove the crit passive, and retune his damage accordingly, because really, if the combination of his dashes, windwall and passive shield was obnoxious, HasagiMan winning lane over THAT ONE CRIT because he bought item 1051 is absolutely disgusting.

NotSpecialDude1 votes

I agree, but I have a different nerf in mind.

I'd make it so his tornado on his third q would cost flow. Maximum 50% but it will work regardless if you have at least 1 flow. Have it gain 5% flow for every minion it hits and 50% if it hits a champion at one point.(Maximum flow gained is 50%) Add a damage penalty for using it with less then fifty flow and I'd think playing against him will improve.

The idea is that he should have more moments of weakness. Currently, his passive, his e, and the fact that all his abilities are on low cooldowns gives him a decent room for error against projectile champs. He should have the advantage by design, but it shouldn't be that massive or insurmountable. Putting his shield at risk for poke/setting up ult is a decent trade off. It won't fix it entirely, and I think your suggestions would work as well, but it feels like a step in the right direction.

Šeraρh1 votes

Don't think that's would adress much. That'd hit his offensive patterns while IMO that's only his defensive options that make him toxic. Forcing him to give up on damage in any way would be against his fragile mobile fighter fantasy and forcing him to give up on his passive shield when going in would make him too easy to blow up and teamfights and force even more people into his stupid broken tank build.

The windwall - flow shield combination and the early game RNJesus plays are the most problematic parts of his kit and the only things that'd deserve being looked into IMO.

If there's one skill in his arsenal that should have cost flow, I'd say it would be Windwall. Giving Windwall a 50 flow cost or so would mean he'd be open for a trade if you either just managed to pop his shield or he missused the wall and now can't count on his passive for a backup damage mitigation alternative.

MunchCrunchLunch1 votes

remove yasuo's flow passive and give him something else. there you go. yasuo is fixed.

also yasuo counters tanks. tanks hate yasuo as much as squishies. who yasuo hate are darius Jax and master yi warwick shyvanna xin zhao. yasuo hates those.

General Levi1 votes

High dueling power melee characters counter him, such as diana, zed, darius, jax, and lane bullies.

Šeraρh1 votes

He counters tanks in a 1v1 scenario, I meant he had problems agains tanks in teamfights. Getting too close to Nautilus in a fight really can make Yasuo's life miserable... but well, he deserves it anyway.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

You make it sound like he has a lot but most champs actually do.

You can make a list about any champ, in fact

Minion-

no respawn time have more members on their team insane pushing power can 1v1 some champs lategame without any items range

Zerenza1 votes

That's kind of nit picky and a bit sarcastic...

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

its also easier than going through this 1 by 1

I mean damn he's got "surprise movements" on his list.. what even..

the only thing surprising about it is that sometimes you miss when he's charging his Q and you be like "wtf when did he even get it"

Šeraρh1 votes

Most champions have a lot, but having a lot into your kit doesn't always mean having as much options as he does. Aside from maybe Ekko, I don't see a single champion with a kit so overloaded and as many options as he does.

CerealBoxOfDoom1 votes

he has about the same thing most melee adcs (old terminology) have.

Tryndamere MasterYi Gangplank Fiora Aatrox Zed Yasuo

tried to get them all might have missed a few

but these champs have always done about the same thing

They also HAVE to have overloaded kits because things like Anivia Gragas Ashe Ahri Malzahar Veigar Viktor Corki and more exist.

Šeraρh1 votes

Except those other "melee adcs" ( I'm counting Zed out btw, he's the epitome of an assassin, far from being a melee adc ) do not even have half as much options as Yasuo in their kit. Most of them are given damage, gapclosers, damage/mobility steroids and some form of self-survivability in their kit. Only outlier there barring Yasuo is Gankplank, trading gapclosing ability with ranged damage and some utility.

Yasuo on the other hand packs arguably more mobility than any of them, damage mitigation that doesn't require any input on his part when the others need timing, is given damage and damage steroïds like them but also packs the single most powerful utility spell in the game, on top of utility in the form of a potential AoE knockup on a 4.5 seconds CD and a followUp AoE knockup+gapcloser on his ult.

Melee adcs have been mostly overTUNED to be able to cope with the cc's and range of other characters, but none of them is overLOADED like Yasuo is.

FioraWillCarry1 votes

Why are people complaining about Yasuo when Leblanc exists ?

JamesTheMage171 votes

{quoted}

Why are people complaining about Yasuo when Leblanc exists ?

Because Leblanc doesn't have the ridiculous laning phase yasuo does, she's more of a Lategame champion.

USG Failsawce1 votes

{quoted}

Because Leblanc doesn't have the ridiculous laning phase yasuo does, she's more of a Lategame champion.

Actually Leblancs early to mid game are her strongest points. She falls off late game, and particularly hard if she isn't ahead.

However I agree that Yasuo is a lot more ridiculous than Leblanc, and has a strong enough laning phase for someone who also happens to be a late game hypercarry and only gets stronger the longer the game goes - pretty much no matter what, and no matter how far behind he is.

JamesTheMage171 votes

{quoted}

Actually Leblancs early to mid game are her strongest points. She falls off late game, and particularly hard if she isn't ahead.

However I agree that Yasuo is a lot more ridiculous than Leblanc, and has a strong enough laning phase for someone who also happens to be a late game hypercarry and only gets stronger the longer the game goes - pretty much no matter what, and no matter how far behind he is.

I guess I didn't see it this way. Thank you for keeping it in a professional (not cursing me out and saying I'm wrong because I'm ranked B II) manner.

ZapMyHeart1 votes

I would like to see Yasuo's E static cooldown increased. 0.5s ->0.1s is rather ridiculous and gives enemies little room to counterplay against him if he makes a mistake.

Even Ahri's R has been nerfed due to the issue of crazy spammability back in the day, yet Yasuo can go dashing all over the place.

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