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

Ok sure but why··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

Saezio18 votes

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

Flemman1 votes

or just make it so it can block as much normal projectile during the whole duration but break after the first ult projectile stopped

5050BS9 votes

Unlimited Auto attacks, 2 Abilities and it breaks or 1 Ult and it breaks

Bârd2 votes

Corki exists, as do other champions who would abuse this paradigm to render windwall useless.

Gramps698 votes

I think that's totally fine, Yasuo deserves to have more counterpicks

crippler382 votes

A counter pick shouldn't completely invalidate your main survival tool though. If such a change went through, any character who could break the wall quickly would basically make Yasuo unpickable unless he's against a team that wind wall won't necessarily save him from (or the enemy ADC gets glassed before they kill Yasuo).

Spoofghoul2 votes

Did you say a counter pick should not invalidate your main survival tool?

Then explain Sion vs item 3153

crippler381 votes

Build armor since the Bork does physical damage?

He still has his shield, ton of CC, and passive that basically screams 'if you kill me you better have a plan for the aftermath' to discourage his own demise.

Spoofghoul1 votes

Armor is still a thing? it's a worthless stat right now with the insane amounts of penetration and true damage available

And everything can out walk Sion's passive not to mention the cc and mobility creep The shield helps ill concede that one though, but it's not his main defensive tool that would be the passive of that ability

But i think my point still stands, you can do more then just counterpick to invalidate his main defensive tool

So to get back to your original point, if counter picking should not invalidate a champions main defensive tool then we should not treat sion any different then yasuo right?

So yasuo keeps his current windwall and we delete all % damage deal?

crippler381 votes
  1. Difference between items and champions dealing with a character's strengths, one is available to everyone and the other simply is not. Otherwise might as well delete all items since they all 'negate' something in one way or another. Anti heal, mobility, CC, damage, defenses, penetration for those defenses, healing, cooldown reduction, all things you can get from items.

  2. %hp damage merely helps with killing a tanky target relatively faster, it still takes longer than it would to kill a squishy target.

  3. Sion's passive, while easy to deal with, still requires people to deal with it. This added on to his own tanky builds mans that you rarely want to kill Sion first due to how long it'll take and how you'll have to avoid his corpse for at least a few seconds.

Yasuo's Wind Wall is not in the same vein of defenses as Sion's passive from his W. He still gets the shield, and he still benefits from defensive items. BoRK and characters like Vayne existing don't negate the fact that Sion is tanky, even if they go through him easier.

The proposed change to make ultimates instant melt the Wind Wall would mean that so long as Corki is on your screen, you don't have a wind wall period. Meaning he'd practically lose a third ability just because a specific character exists in that game.

Annoying though he may be, I'd rather not make champ select to make a character have 3 abilities and a passive be a thing.

Spoofghoul1 votes

Well do kind of agree with you that having an ult kill the windwall is stupid

But having champions or abilities that can hard counter it is not as big of a deal either There are many instances and situations where these things happen and they are often not super problematic

In yasuo's case i think OP's solutions are very good ones especially making the abilities hit box a lot smaller that would not really change the ability but would remove some of the bullshit surrounding it

crippler381 votes

There are plenty of abilities that ignore the wall, I just don't want anything to completely delete it based on one specific champion.

Yasuo does that to ranged attackers, but at having a defensive move do that vs an ability to remove defenses completely is a bit worse of a taste in my mouth.

I would prefer it if he couldn't stand inside of it as well personally.

Sirsir1 votes

Actually Corki is the only one I can really think of. Maybe Katarina, Ahri, if it only blocks one Syndra ball I would be upset, Twitch ult is modified autos so it probably wouldn't count...

So most cases could be solved by a slight delay on the break, like .5 or .75 seconds. Which leaves Corki a hard counter, and Katarina who wouldn't use her ult expressly to break a windwall.

Bârd1 votes

Ahri breaks it with 2/3 of her W or 1/3 of her ult. Cassiopeia can break it down with E spam. Corki can instantly break it with an ult, or with two ticks of his E. Heimerdinger 2/5 of his W rockets would break it. Kaisa 1/3 of her Q missiles would break it. Katarina her ult would break it in under half a second. Kindred 2/3 of her Q would break it, if there are that many targets on the other side of the wall. KogMaw can just throw his Q and E at the wall, which takes no time at all and doesn't put much of a damper on his dps considering all of it comes from autos. Nunu 2/3 of 1/3 of his E would break it. Rumble if his Q counts, he would break it nearly instantly. If it doesn't, he can double cast his E for a similar break speed. Ryze oh no, one of his fifty "E-Q" combos in that teamfight got blocked. The horror. Sona if both Q targets are behind a wall, the wall breaks. Swain 2/5 of his Q would break it. Syndra the first two balls of her ult would break it. Taliyah 2/5 of her Q would break it. Lucian two bolts of his ult would break it.

Ok sure but why3 votes

I mean, the act of Yasuo using his dash to get on the other side of his wall takes enough skill to reward it not disappearing. I just don't want the brain-dead Yasuo players walking into their own walls for some free ranged immunity.

Hilsun1 votes

What if, rather than just walking through the wall makes it disappear--if Yasuo or an enemy player DASHES (or gets knocked through [think Taliyah E]) the wall, it dissipates? I think this makes both thematic and practical sense: thematic because a larger object dashing would theoretically cause a small gust of wind that would displace the windwall. Practical because it creates counterplay: Yasuo players would need to be careful about dashing through their own wall, and it would provide players an opportunity to end the windwall if they have a dash or knockpack.

FemalesAreLesser2 votes

i dont believe they should change how it works, or what it can block. but for this post i agree how it should be made in the animation, especially since in game he swipes it outward, but to put a delay on casting it or to make it have a health or cap to what i can block would render it useless, especially for those plays in baron pit where an enemy missfortune is laying fire to the pit with your team inside, and it would feel incredibly bad if it could only take one or two ticks of the 12 or so waves it gives, same example could be used for lucian.

but i agree should be thinner and the animation could use a tweak, again for the thinner part, what can make a good yasuo player is when he's dancing around a ranged matchup, going back and forth between the sides of it. maybe have it come out as a ) shape, instead of the | shape too, but this would go hand in hadn with the sweeping motion to creating the windwall.

apologies for my comment being kind of everywhere.

~KarnifactsTwitch

Koechophe10 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.

LeftyRaydy1 votes

Sorry I did not read the whole thing, but to say that its useless to melee champs is just wrong. Melee champs abilities and poke can be blocked easily. Second he wants to be in melee range as he has Q poke so he does not need to worry about poke or AA to walk up to a melee champ vs a ranged one.

Koechophe1 votes

List of melee champs who have projectiles, and therefore whom the ability does nothing against: Alistar Camille Darius Fiora Garen Illaoi JarvanIV Jax Kayn Mordekaiser Nasus Rammus Renekton Shen Singed Taric Trundle Tryndamere Udyr Vi Volibear Warwick MonkeyKing XinZhao Yorick

That's almost a fifth of the champion pool. And there's a host of other melee champs with skill shots which aren't horribly important to their kits we could include too.

Those champions are balanced around not having poke (so they have much better all in) and yasuo will flop against them. But Yasuo's all in will wreck projectile champs who aren't built for all-in at melee range. That's why wind wall is so negatively polarazing.

LeftyRaydy1 votes

First I will say my Main Ekko suffers greatly vs Yas due to his Q being very important to proc his passive early. So the windwall is a quite annoying, but it can be dealt with. second I don't see why this is a big issue. if these are champs that the windwall is ineffective against its not really that big of a deal. first its not 1/5th its closer to 1/7 if there is 140 champs I am not sure on the total number. second that would also me 6/7 of champs its very effective against. what does it matter that it is ineffective vs these champs as the Windwall is just like a bonus skill that he doesnt really need to win especially vs Melee. lets say for some reason you went against 5 of these champs in game. Do you know how much easier it would be to get a 5 man ult off since they are all melee and have no real poke. The windwall is more of a cherry on top vs ranged then a needed ability for Yasuo. {

FemalesAreLesser1 votes

i see alot of arguments for is stopping alot of peoples kits, but yasuo's windwall has a very large cooldown, so if he we're to use it for a Q from (using this post as a good example) you can throw at least 2 more free range Q's without worry of it being countered, giving ranged mages or ads, a great advantage, esp with people who can make distance between yasuo and themselves, one he would dash onto ekko, he cant dash again, and only has 1 good placement for a W to try to block 1 ability you may use in the fight multiple times. (even more if he continues fighting you after your ultimate.)

so basically what im saying is, adc can always auto, mages have lower cd's since most mage items give 20% cdr and yasuo doesnt build cdr, so his windwall is down much more often then a mages spells are up or an adc can auto attack. But its skillmatchup i guess for a a fight and depends on how long a fight goes on. cause windwall doesnt stay up for overly long either.

fair?

~KarnifactsTwitch

Tormentula1 votes

Camille's hookshot can be windwalled (it'll cancel) Illaoi's E can be windwalled Yorick's E can be windwalled

Volibear Shen JarvanIV these ones i'm mentioning because i'd like to see somebody test them. Idk if windwall affect's shen's Q (sword returning through the wall) or volibear's ult (blocks bolts from continuing past wall). J4's flag I think if casted directly on yasuo's windwall or if yas cast windwall as it lands will be removed too but i'm not sure, I know some abilities do get removed like that.

ÔneWindyBoi1 votes

Camille's hookshot can only be blocked during first cast, which is extremely hard to do because you have to make a hard read and place the wall between her and where you think she's going to go

I don't see anything wrong with being able to block Illaoi E

Yorick's E can only be blocked before it hits the ground. Yorick can easily throw the E a little short so it'll hit the ground and splash through the wall.

Windwall doesn't do anything for you against Voli, Shen, or J4

5050BS5 votes

[deleted]

Nevrankroaton8 votes

I am sure this comment bring a lot on the topic and especially on how windmall could be tuned to be less frustrating for the opponent. Glad you bless us with this.

Carnicore5 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.

Dicerson4 votes

The issue the OP is speaking of is when an all-in occurs. You can't just "Back off" in the middle of a teamfight, or if it means running away from your turret and into minions. If Yasuo drops a wall on an ADC, forcing them to spend 1 or 2 seconds moving to a position where they can shoot, that is 1 or 2 seconds of free attacks and abilities, wherein Yasuo could very easily kill the ADC with autos or his Q/Ult. There is very little skill expression in that scenario, the ADC gets out of it by not being in it in the first place, which is exceptionally difficult to do when in the chaos of a teamfight or when trying to not fall behind on CS. Compare that to the Yasuo, who need only push a button while in melee range (Which he will be in anyways due to his incredible mobility and ultimate)

Not to mention the other problem being that the wall can block spells even if he cast it in the wrong direction. While I don't think the OP's suggestion on this front would be particularly good, it's current incarnation is still a bit busted. I'd change it so that it is a two-way block instead of 4-way. IE, the wall cannot be parallel to an attacker's attack or a caster's skillshot. It must come in from one side or the other. Further, fix the cone so that it is off-center from yasuo, placed slightly forward instead (Perhaps where his sword is visually placed during the animation, for simultaneous Aesthetics and function). That way, he can't block a thresh hook by windwalling away from the thresh, or when the hook is already on top of him.

Sharpest glasses3 votes

You can't just "Back off" in the middle of a teamfight, or if it means running away from your turret and into minions.

If the windwall is an issue, you're a range most of time (most of time, u just made a mistake). So explain how you can't back ????

D357R0Y3R2 votes

FUCK YEA i don't get this everytime people complain about windwall

Ulkusus1 votes

So you'd leave your frontline to die and escape to be picked on later?

D357R0Y3R1 votes

unless your frontlane has 2 neurones, they would see that thing called windwall and would immediatly back off

at least in my games this how it goes

Ulkusus2 votes

Because champions like Amumu etc. have an easy time disengaging...

D357R0Y3R1 votes

outdated champion but he has legs anyway and can run away so yea

Leto GT5 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.

FemalesAreLesser1 votes

lux has lasers.

Leto GT1 votes

Only her ultimate.

FemalesAreLesser1 votes

"my (whole) champ denied by a W. Sad." and her ult is a pretty big part of her kit, also ignites part of her passive and re applies it. so if that much dmg is still able to be put through, with also such a low CD, and late game CAN be lower then yasuo's windwall.(mage items are stupid and give too much stats)

Karunamon5 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.

Ulkusus4 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.

Jaspers4 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.

Calabera4 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.

FemalesAreLesser1 votes

Mages ARE able to do things about it, some people have it hotkey'd to A or Shift+Left-click

JoeAnarchy4 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..

Z3Sleeper3 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.

TheSingularity2 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

Ok sure but why2 votes

Yeah, maybe it could run on its own special wind-energy (Scaling with level), and the energy would drain faster for however big the wall itself actually is. Hm. I like it!

Tormentula2 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)

FemalesAreLesser2 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.

Searington1 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.

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