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Yasuo's Wind-wall is balanced, but its execution is what breaks him.

Ok sure but why·9/3/2018, 5:30:13 AM·62 votes·32,274 views

I'm just going to get straight to the point, here. A wall that breaks projectiles seems perfectly fine to me. He's a melee slayer guy, and if he's jumping feet first into danger, there's nothing wrong with a tiny bit of safety. But there are two main issues that come with it that can be changed.

#Firstly, his wind-wall is thicc. I don't mean it's long, but actually thick. It's wide enough to stand in, which he makes people do. He can put his wall on top of the enemy ADC and use it as a literal Teemo-esque blind until the ADC walks out of it. it's kind of like Grave's smokescreen, but without the range, slow, or debilitating nearsightedness it causes. So if you're trying to engage on him, he can run up to you really close, lay it down, and get some free harass on you, all while you're forced to run away to even manage to break his shield. If a Caitlyn, Ashe, Jinx, Miss Fortune, etc, is trying to ult him, he deserves to be able to block it with a well-timed wall. But if a ranged champion is simply trying to use an auto attack, putting a wall right on top of them to banish them from using any attacks or skill-shots is just cruel. INVERSELY, once the ADC walks away from the wall, Yasuo himself can stand inside his windwall, attacking freely whilst negating attacks from all sides. Like, ew. #Solution: Make the wind-wall thinner. So Yasuo can't abuse its massive hitbox.

#Secondly, when Yasuo casts the windwall, it shoots out from within him as a cone. Why is this bad? Well, it turns his mere "Wind-wall that blocks abilities" into a "Free spell-shield that then turns into a wind-wall that blocks abilities." You've seen YouTube videos where a Yasuo blocks a Thresh hook by casting his wind-wall sideways, haven't you? It's because of how his wall is designed. Since it casts from within him, any skillshot that's almost about to hit Yasuo will get negated, as if it did hit him, but Yasuo just used a cleanse to physically push the projectile away from him. It's too good, and it's too safe. #Solution: Make Yasuo cast his wind-wall from left to right, in the way Victor's E does. Give it the same length, distance and parameters that his current wind-wall has, but change its summoning from coning out from him to coming in from a side. You can pick the side; I don't care. Probably from left to right, because that's how he would naturally cast it when unsheathing his blade. Aesthetically speaking, of course.

Sooo, what do you y'all think?

81 Comments

Saezio9/4/2018, 4:16:20 AM18 votes

Just make it disappear if Yas walks through it. Or make it have some like 0.3 sec delay after cast

Koechophe9/5/2018, 4:07:13 AM10 votes

I've posted a similar analysis in the CT thread, so I'll be briefer here.

Even with your recommended changes, I still feel that the windwall is an unhealthy design, for one main reason. It is an extremely polarizing strength. It is (literally) useless against melee champions, but it's (somewhat absurdly) powerful against ranged champions. This means that if Yasuo gets into lane with a melee champion he will really struggle, but if he's versus a ranged champ, he's a serious problem (compare his top lane VS bot lane win rates on this. 48% win rate top, 55% win rate bot). This means that Yasuo is a champion where the lane is decided in the champ select, rather than the lane itself. Projectile and skill shot champs feel almost powerless, when mixed with his ability to run around the minions and effectively dodge skill shots.

The larger issue with the windwall (and with many champion designs) is that it seemed to be designed based around why Yasuo needed it, but with a failure to consider the larger implications. The ability is one of the most team-fight warping skill sin the entire game. If used correctly, it can literally disable many ultimates and decide an entire teamfight. For as long as Yasuo has this in his kit, the rest of his kit has to be kept deliberately behind because of the sheer power the one move brings to his kit.

I think that windwall would work a lot better if:

  1. It was primarily a self-defense mechanism and
  2. it was less specific to fighting a single type of champion (ranged).

Good examples of similar defensive abilities include

  1. Pantheon's passive
  2. Fiora's Riposte
  3. Vladimir's pool

Suggestion on reworking Wind Wall to be healthier Wind wall now protects a portion of Yasuo (think Fiora's vitals) from damage for X seconds

This would make the skill more based on skill expression, less of a team-oriented thing less emphasized on ranged-only defense

I'm sure someone else can come up with something better, but I wanted to throw out a suggestion to demonstrate my point, on what a healthier defense would be.

Carnicore9/5/2018, 6:49:08 PM5 votes

I'm never a fan of ideas to rework Wind Wall because they're trying to fix problems that aren't really problems. Wind Wall is fine the way it is; the counterplay is to back off when Yasuo uses it. It's stationary and it has a cooldown at least 20 seconds long. It doesn't need to be thinner, Yasuo being safe standing inside of it is intended. He can't really force you to fight him inside his wall. If you feel like you're in "a Teemo-esque blind" then just walk 2 pixels to get out of it.

There's nothing wrong with firing it in a cone either. Stuff like spellshields and untargetability need to be nearly instantaneous to be useful, otherwise you're hit by spells before they take effect. Wind Wall is no different. Yasuo needs to be able to block spells reactively, or else the spell loses most of its usefulness.

5050BS9/4/2018, 4:33:54 AM5 votes

[deleted]

Leto GT9/8/2018, 4:12:16 PM5 votes

My problem is the duration. If I play Lux, I cant do anything while its up. Teamfights are over before I can land a skillshot. My whole champ denied by a W. Sad.

Karunamon9/9/2018, 4:10:21 PM5 votes

I have to agree. Being able to "nope" most line ranged ultimates (not dodge it, not get out of the way, not take reduced damage from it, just completely negate it) with a_** non-ultimate ability on really easy timing**_ is a glaring problem of balance.

Jaspers9/4/2018, 8:44:31 AM4 votes

On the second point, if it just cast where you put it, that is the simple solution, you know like Karthus wall or Anivia wall.... it's a wall.

It means it'll actually take skill to use and won't be spammed off cooldown too.

Ulkusus9/4/2018, 7:32:53 AM4 votes

I don't think any balanced champion deserves a normal ability that can potentially block 70%+ of the damage his whole team would receive in a team fight. I'd feel much better if wind wall was a personal shield or something, not a teamwide nope.

JoeAnarchy9/18/2018, 7:32:04 PM4 votes

non-ults shouldn't be able to block ults IMO.. for the longest time, i thought his wind wall WAS his ult.. it's way more impactful than his actual ult.. i'll take getting hasakied over him nullifying EVERYTHING i do..

Calabera9/4/2018, 10:54:39 PM4 votes

Neither of those are as much of an issue as Yasuo pressing windwall and immediately winning the fight for his team because it stops every single auto or ranged ability. What it needs is a health bar like Yoricks wall, he shouldn't be able to sit under it while marksmen or mages are unable to do anything.

Z3Sleeper9/8/2018, 5:24:09 AM3 votes

For the 2nd suggestion, just have it appear at max distance to begin with. The whole "traveling" mechanic seems like it's only there to hold the player's hand until they learn to aim it right and just rewards Yasuo players for firing off their wind wall in an entirely wrong direction.

Really seems like a training wheel mechanic that was never removed once players mastered him.

Tormentula9/12/2018, 12:11:25 AM2 votes

IMO yas's wall is fine, yas's passive is fine too..

but when you combine both on a mobile kit that gets double crit, knock ups, and free armor pen in ult while itemizing item 3046 first item, potentially item 3156 later, there is just way too much damage yasuo denies his opponent from returning back to him while he deals an excessive amount himself.

That's where my frustration with yas is, but I agree with making WW more narrow and not as wide. It has counterplay but it could use a little more room to counter, possibly even a health bar.

I'd be fine if they left WW alone and removed the shield part of his passive personally. I don't understand why they offered yas a poke counter in his passive when he has a poke counter in his W, if he really wants to farm without poke I think making his W more urgent would open up more counterplay (poke him as he farms to force WW more often, then attack him when it expires)

FemalesAreLesser9/18/2018, 6:34:37 AM2 votes

Im seeing alot of comments here, but i'd like to see humble yasuo mains talking about this whole thing too. i can agree with a few points in this post, but alot of the counter points from others seem to be from those who just cant get around it. and the reasoning and solutions everyone seems to pick out is

"im ranged, he got ability that stops that, so lets cripple it so my range cant be beat anyways so me win more fight"

yeah the wall can be obnoxious, but only by someone who uses it right and can dance within it properly to block key projectiles.

and this is from someone who use to play only yasuo, but also use to main ADC. it's all situational, skill matchup, and positioning. but some minor tweaks wouldn't be too bad, but adding a limit to what it can take, or drastically cutting the time its up would just be a unhealthy undeserving nerf for the champion itself, and if you can't get around that, play him to learn what he's weak too, or ban him.

~karnifactsTwitch

EDIT: Great post btw, i like this one.

TheSingularity9/4/2018, 11:06:30 AM2 votes

I think a really cool way to change it would be to make it like viktor's Death ray in the way he aims and casts it. So he'd slash is sword making a windwall from start point to end point (it would also be thinner)

This will fix several issues:

  1. panic windwalls that eat your pejectiles as they hit yasuo (since it generally won't start in yasuo's model)
  2. he'll be able to stuff it up as opposed to blocking projectiles coming in the opposite direction to the cast
  3. He won't be able to dash wall (which usually makes you helpless)

With varying lengths they can compromise and make a short one for faster cast time or a longer one which'll take longer to aim and cast (longer animation).

You could also add a health bar that scales with wall length if you wanted to gate its lategame power

Searington11/17/2018, 6:13:37 PM1 votes

I agree with everything except the solution to the second problem. In that case, making the wall appear from the ground up, like in "The Climb", is enough. No need to add extra mechanical complexity to an already complex enough champion.