Am I wrong to ask for a Yi nerf?

Sira Ren·Nov 22, 2014·3 votes·2,145 views

Not trying to be a butthurt about Yi, I play him as well. But I think he needs a nerf.

Thoughts?

24 Comments

Yxion the YordleNov 22, 20143 votes

I have mixed feelings about Master Yi... the only real issue is, what do you nerf? His attack speed? His Q? Some kind of CD adjustment? It doesn't take a whole lot to shut him down but I have been frustrated playing against Yi before. I don't know if he needs a nerf but his kit is a bit 'trollish'. At least there is no more AP Yi.

Sira RenNov 22, 20141 votes

Yes that's exactly what I'm confused about. You can't really nerf much but his kit, like you said, is "trollish" and it frustrates me late-game.

TheRainInSpainNov 23, 20141 votes

Master Yi's kit offers nothing in terms of utility to his teammates. He is a DPS champion. Maybe you could use him in place of an rADC and free up the jungle (rare cases top/mid) with something that offers more utility. As the game progresses, he increasingly becomes stuck in the cleanup/splitpusher role, the former is exactly the role that rADC's are normally placed in.

I can see where you get the troll part. Yi's kit is ridiculous simple ... I think the only more simple kit in game is Teemo's. Simple, yet exceedingly powerful if he can clean up or get early kills. As the game goes on, if you can't reduce him to gelatin, he can ult, take a tower, and run away. Frustrating, but other jungler mADC's offer better utility in my opinion.

Leti the YetiNov 22, 20142 votes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrvSMLbi4o4

lol not wrong at all

Sira RenNov 22, 20141 votes

EXACTLY. It's so frustrating.

powergtNov 22, 20142 votes

1 exhaust and hes useless and picked off.

Sira RenNov 22, 20141 votes

Does Exhaust stop his Ult? The fact that it extends everytime he gets a kill is frustrating.

Leti the YetiNov 22, 20141 votes

lol no /o/

TheRainInSpainNov 23, 20141 votes

It doesn't slow him down (Immunity to any movement speed debuff), but it does shut down a large portion of his steroid. The problem is that Alphastrike renders him untargetable.

However ... any decent hard CC would make him miserable, considering unlike Vayne, Caitlyn, or Tristana ... Yi actually has to be at melee range. Much easier to lock down a mADC than a rADC.

BeatzBoyFTWNov 22, 20141 votes

You mean stun. Exhaust do nothing to Yi during his ult.

Sightless66Nov 23, 20141 votes

Exhaust decreases all damage done by 40% for 2.5 seconds. That can absolutely fuck reset-dependent Yi.

DrakexionyxNov 23, 20141 votes

Except of course that he reduces his alpha strike CD by 1 second on auto attacks (also his passive counts as 2 auto attacks every fourth attack for the purpose of this) - independent of getting a kill or assist and the 70% CD reduction on all abilities for that! Additionally Yi can cast summoner spells like smite and ignite while untargetable during alpha strike.

Additionally, if Yi feels really endangered by exhaust he can simply meditate which will reduce the damage he takes by 50% - scaling to 70% - which is effectively putting an exhaust on anyone who tries to attack him - in a 1v1 or with his team he can easily outlast an exhaust. And he heals. And you can instantly activate meditate for an auto attack reset.

In my opinion, if you're going to nerf Yi anywhere it would be around one (or more) of his alpha strike mechanics.

Sightless66Nov 24, 20143 votes

Except of course that he reduces his alpha strike CD by 1 second on auto attacks (also his passive counts as 2 auto attacks every fourth attack for the purpose of this) - independent of getting a kill or assist and the 70% CD reduction on all abilities for that! Additionally Yi can cast summoner spells like smite and ignite while untargetable during alpha strike.

Yes, those are things he does. None of that means that Exhaust doesn't affect him. Someone needs to die for him to get resets. If Yi isn't the one killing them, they often aren't dying. He's certainly not lending anything else to help them die except damage, so exhausting that can absolutely fuck him.

Additionally, if Yi feels really endangered by exhaust he can simply meditate

And then his target can get away, he doesn't do damage, and he gets CC'd and killed. Meditate is rarely effective over periods of more than a second or so. The situations where you can meditate for any extented period of time are the exceptions, not the rule. If you get exhausted while going in, meditating to tank damage is the "please god let my enemies be really incompetent" strategy.

He has an assassin playstyle. Exhaust can shut that down extremely hard. Not much more to say.

If you needed to nerf Yi at all, I'd be surprised. I'd also probably expect it to be something involving alpha strike, or possibly base stats to increase early risk. One of the two.

ihateitunesNov 22, 20141 votes

his w is op

Drunk RummateNov 22, 20141 votes

his kit is much akin to a late game poppy. really annoying and it would be imbalanced if his early game was good enough for him to be viable

Leti the YetiNov 22, 20141 votes

Well, watching cowsep shows me that it is possible for yi to be a high skill cap champion

his alpha strikes when timed correctly can dodge everything like fizz and his meditate... might as well rename to mitigate... mitigates a crap ton of damage

so I can imagine yi as a very high reflex dependent champion if we were to nerf his damage and lower his CDs

Sira RenNov 22, 20142 votes

I don't mind it. I would take nerf to his damage for lower CDs. If he's reflexive then at least don't make him 2hko w/ highlander late game. Make the players play him using reflexes.

I saw one Yi on my team pop Highlander -> Turret Dive Alpha Strike into enemy -> 2hko basic attack -> Alpha Strike onto minions out of turret range -> Meditate.

Maybe the def on the enemy sucked or what not, but surviving that much of turret, considering the shield 2nd turret gives to the enemy, it's pretty scary.

I'm just wondering if he needs a nerf or I'm just easily frustrated by Yi? I can't seem to kill a Yi unless I Q->E->R->W->Ignite with Kat. And I survive with 20% of HP left. And that's when I'm 300+ AP against a fed Yi.

WeihGuyNov 23, 20141 votes

No not wrong, he gets out of control really fast. The only problem I find is the cooldown reset of his Alpha Strike since it deals so much damage scaling with AD now.

TheVishualNov 23, 20141 votes

Yi is in a nice spot bc the new jungle items sort of favor him (skirmisher's true dmg and easier to stack on hit helped him out alot)

I think the real issue is the new jungle items, not Yi needing a nerf. He was balanced before the patch and is still balanced.

DrakexionyxNov 24, 20141 votes

The point I was making is that he can get a reset on his Q without having to get a kill at all. So even when exhausted the mechanic on it allows him to circumvent exhaust's strong effect at denying him resets from kills/assists.

I agree with you on meditate - it is rarely used for over a second, because it does make you incredibly susceptible to cc - and it's effect at resetting your auto attack is so damn useful too. I was drawing the comparison between it and Exhaust but generally a brief meditate followed by alpha strike very quickly accounts for exhaust.

Hard CC is the real bane of master yi and a lot of champs are packed with it in a team comp. but as you said how if anything it would be yi's alpha strike that should be nerfed it is with this ability that his unbalance comes. It is a blink that can dodge just about anything (except dots Yi's already afflicted with) but it's up so often you can use it do dodge almost any ability if you time it well. Alpha strike timings are what separate the great yi's from exhaust fodder, but if you are capable of using them well, you can follow people over walls using dashes and blinks of their own, and there is almost no counter-play to it.

I generally don't mind Yi because you can abuse his early weaknesses, but AFK farm jungle Yi who comes at level 6 with attack speed built has very little counter-play and a lot of tools to carry hard. I'm not out right demanding he be nerfed because he's OP, but I do think he has a little bit too much utility with constant alpha strikes and that this ability needs some down tweaks. This will depend further on the new itemization that season 5 brings as Yi is incredibly item dependent. changes to jungle and crit item builds will shift his power around a lot, along with the gold efficiency of the items in the game which will effect when his power spikes occur.

Additionally removing the slow from red buff entirely would remove some of the free CC utility junglers (and later game: adcs) get for free when their kits deliberately don't have it.

I may have strayed across a couple of different topics. Sorry for that LOL! If you can be bothered reading, I'm curious to know your thoughts?

Sira RenNov 24, 20142 votes

I agree with you completely. I guess what I was really after was Yi's Q. Because of it, he gains invulnerability and facing him a multitude of times as Kat, Janna, and Evelynn, I've noticed that I can't pick him off. I was a fed Kat one game but I could never kill a full health Yi with his Highlander on. I try to Shunpo on him but can't target since he Q's me. Then, I have to ward jump outwards because of his attack speed. As Janna, I tried to slow him and tornado him but it seemed that he completely avoided my tornado (maybe my bad aim) and he cancelled my slow with his Highlander.

Admittedly, Kat and Janna aren't Yi's counter and obviously sparsely have any CC (only Janna's slow and tornado), Yi was simply invulnerable due to his Q. It frustrated me quite a lot so I gave up chasing after Yi and picked him off when he was low health.

I agree with you on AFK farm Jungle Yi as well but many junglers do that so it's not player's fault. I guess it's best to pick him off early.

Sigh maybe I should learn to play new champions.

DrakexionyxNov 24, 20141 votes

There needs to be more counter play made available to afk jungle farming in general, particularly for the lanes. The junglers have received a whole slew of new items and as such possibilities to situationally make plays it is like the lanes are just experience delivery systems now to feed the toher 4 members of the team until mid/late game.

Ideally more item choice for lanes that would either support roaming or hard pushing such that counter jungling can be a team wide effort, and not a high risk endeavour undertaken by your own jungler with the threat of the enemy team collapsing on you. Opposing this pushing items to take advantage of when the jungler does show himself in a lane other than your own, and perhaps one of the other lanes has roamed as well (the infamous four man gank down bot) no matter what the match up is you at least have the options to punish on the other side of the map.

DrakexionyxNov 24, 20141 votes

I must admit I'm not too familiar with the effects of the new elixirs but if they don't already they could easily add new ones to provide effects that serve the strategies listed above.