Boards›Concepts & Creations

Potential Skirmisher Yasuo Rework Idea

Mrazhall·7/4/2017, 3:06:20 PM·1 votes·576 views

PREFACE: (Rather long, feel free to skim, but if you have any questions or comments, please read it first. The actual rework idea is further down.) Yasuo's kit is slightly overloaded currently, and he is considered one of the most cancerous champions among the League community, but also one of the most fun. His ability to kill a squishy target in a few swift strokes is matched by no other champion of his kind. His mobility in a minion wave allows for some epic outplays. His windwall shuts down burst from an entire champion's kit. His ultimate can suspend the entire enemy team in the air, dealing massive aoe damage and giving him 50% armor penetration afterwards. But the fun is always one-sided. Yasuo is not a champion that you want to face, especially in the hands of a decent player. No matter how many times you kill him in lane, he will always come back late game with 100% crit after two items, and destroy your will to live.

Riot has already announced that Yasuo will be getting a rework sometime next season after all of the "officially" scheduled reworks (Urgot and Evelynn). Whether he will be getting one or not is no discussion. I had made a post earlier about a neat kit for Yasuo if his kit were to be turned into an assassin, and I realized that this struck too many core, fundamental issues. Yasuo would have to be changed entirely to become an assassin and that is not what many players want. He should still remain a skirmisher with the ability to sustain and duel, but he should not have quite as many tools as he has now.

I think some of the biggest issues in his kit rely in a passive that forces him to buy two items before any others, every single game, and that also gives him a tremendous power spike once he reaches those two items. Normally, a player should build differently based on different situations, but Yasuo's build is pretty much the same every game, at least for the first two items. There is rarely an wiggle room, room to be creative. Also, this passive is not very interactive, and is quite boring, while still quite strong. I believe the flowshield mechanic is a very nicely implemented passive that gives Yasuo players an incentive while playing the game: they must remain constantly moving to stack up their shield.

The second problem is that Yasuo is most often played in the mid-lane. He is currently considered a skirmisher, not an assassin, but the only other AD champions that are played mid are the assassins! Yasuo should become a top-lane champion, not a mid-lane one. The biggest difference between many other AD top-laners and Yasuo is range. Riven can gap close, but her only ranged ability is on her ultimate, which is still normally used at point-blank range as part of a combo. Fiora has no range. Poppy has her empowered auto, but it's on a long-ass cooldown and doesn't do a horrible amount of damage. Garen also has barely any range, aside from his ultimate. These champions are low range but engage heavy, as top-laners should be. Yasuo's tornado recently received some major nerfs to the times he is allowed to use it, but I think it has to go entirely. His Q is very strong for poking in the minion wave and doesn't give too much extra range, so I think it should only be changed from a 475 unit range to 450.

Third, regarding windwall, top-lane champions do not have many projectile skillshots. Windwall is kind of useless in the top-lane and doesn't give Yasuo much to do about more aggressive melee champions which are often played top. Again, windwall makes his play revolve more around the mid-lane, giving him more ability to fight mages in the laning phase. I think windwall is a cool ability, but very annoying for many champions, and also doesn't fit the best version of Yasuo's kit.

Fourth of all, Yasuo has the ability to jump into a fight and jump out quite easily with his E. This mechanic is usually only found in assassins (Zed, Ekko, LeBlanc, Kha'Zix, etc.) and should not be in a skirmisher's kit. Riven can engage with her 3 Qs and her E, but after that, she has no means to run away. She can go for quick trades with third Q knock-up into an AA+W and then E away, but that doesn't do much damage, even with thunderlords, so there is really no point. Fiora can't run away after going in for a Q unless she procs a vital and gets a little bit of bonus movespeed. Garen goes in with Q and then E, but doesn't have a way to quickly escape afterwards. Poppy goes in with W to get in range to E, but then have no more abilities to escape. Meanwhile, every few seconds Yasuo can go in with his E, get a few autos and a Q, and then dash back out. This does not support the style that many skirmishers have and makes him very hard to deal with.

I think, however, Yasuo's ultimate ability does support his play-style as a skirmisher that also has the ability to teamfight exceptionally well and would not require much change, aside from a few numbers.

Now there is only one more issue I feel that needs to be addressed. Yasuo's early game is quite weak compared to other top-laners and often loses early match-ups if he doesn't play very safe. By removing the critical stike bonus from his passive, he no longer gets that second item power spike, so he becomes very weak in general. To fix this, I believe the general flow of his kit should scale less on items (attack speed on Q, movespeed on E) and have more base statistics. His current Q's cooldown scales off attack speed and has a cast time that is 0.54 - 0.18 seconds, scaling with attack speed. This no longer fits his kit (phantom dancer shouldn't be the first item every game). His Q should have a cast time close to 0.25 seconds, so it is the same all game, and feels much smoother. I also believe that his Q's cooldown should remain the same all game regardless of CDR. I mean, the attack speed no longer makes sense, and how does thrusting a sword constitute as an ability more so than a basic attack? I think his Q should have some additional bonus effects to synergize with his kit to differentiate the spell between a basic attack and an ability.

With all this out of the way, I can now express what I feel the rework should look like!

REWORK: Passive - Yasuo generates a Flow stack for every 59 / 52 / 46 units he travels by any means. At 「 100 stacks 」 and upon taking champion or monster damage, Yasuo consumes all Flow to shield himself for 100 - 510 (based on level) for up to 1 second. (Same current passive taken from wiki, exempt of the critical strike math) Q - 3 second cooldown - 400 unit range - After a 0.25 second delay, Yasuo thrusts his sword (100 units thick), dealing (20/40/60/80/100 + 80% AD) physical damage to all enemies in the target direction (does not apply on-hit effects or critically strike). Ignores 10%/20%/30%/40%/50% of enemy armor. All enemy champions struck by Yasuo's Q gain a stack of Gathering Storm. W - 16/14/12/11/10 second cooldown - 800 unit range - Yasuo marks a line of Earth visible to enemy champions (about 300 units wide). After a 0.5 second delay, Yasuo summons a gust of wind that pulls all enemy champions marked by Gathering Storm to within 200 units from him and deals (60/70/80/90/100 + 40% AD) physical damage. Enemies that have been pulled are also slowed by 50% for 1 second after being pulled to Yasuo. W (passive) - Yasuo's auto attacks deal 5/10/15/20/25 bonus magic damage to enemy champions and apply a stack of Gathering Storm. Gathering Storm stacks up to 4 times. E - 10/9/8/7/6 second cooldown - fixed 500 unit range - Yasuo dashes in a target direction (speed of dash is quick, remains the same at all levels, does not scale off movespeed), dealing (30/50/70/90/110 + 30% AD) damage to all enemies hit and also reduces their armor by 10%/12.5%/15%/17.5%/20% for 3 seconds. If Yasuo presses Q while in his dash, Yasuo applies his Q's effects in a cirlce around him (similar to E+Q as of now). All targets with 4 stacks of Gathering Storm hit by Yasuo's E or targets with 3 stacks of Gathering Storm hit by Yasuo's E + Q are knocked up for 1 second. R - (same function as old R, changed slightly, copied from and edited off wiki) - Yasuo blinks to the visible airborne enemy champion nearest the cursor, instantly generating 100% Flow but removing all stacks of Gathering Storm from enemy champions effected by Yasuo's R. Upon arrival, he suspends all nearby airborne enemies for 1 second, dealing (200/300/400 + 130% AD) physical damage and 10% of the enemies' maximum health as magic damage. (No longer grants 50% armor penetration off critical strikes for 15 seconds after ultimate).

Please let me know what you think of this in the comments! If you have any questions, let me know, and I will be happy to answer them. If we upvote this enough, maybe Riot will actually look at one of these suggestions and get some good ideas for the future of Yasuo. Thank you for reading!

9 Comments

IronwallJackson7/4/2017, 5:04:28 PM3 votes

I feel there's a fundamental misunderstanding at play, specifically regarding Skirmishers and what it is they're supposed to do. The term "skirmish" implies a small engagement, and this is how a modern skirmishers like to interact with their lane opponents. Ignore Yi, Tryn, and to an extent Jax, because they have outdated designs and are on the list for full relaunches.

Look at Fiora, look at Kled and launch Ekko for hybrid skirmishers. Fiora doesn't want to blow her entire kit at once. She barely even wants to trade, if possible. Fiora wants to Q in, pop a vital, and get out before you can retaliate. Her speed boost helps her reposition, whether it's to retreat or try to get at another vital, her riposte is a substantial slow, as well as cc-denial tool and potential source of cc. There are other parts to reinforce this in her kit, but what I'm trying to get at is that the various forms of utility in her kit facilitate both her all-ins and the sort of harass I mentioned earlier. Similarly, Ekko's trading pattern usually involves some combination of an E, a Q, and auto, and then running the hell away with the move speed difference he just created. Kled's E (joust) is just as easily a hit and run tool as it is a re-engage. Kled E's in, gets the last hit of his W off and lands a hook, only to E out again. This is optimal harass.

Not only that, but they all have legitimate ways of chunking down beefy targets, and this bit's a trait shared with older skirmishers as well. Fiora has % health true damage, Yi is a bundle of damage steroids and true damage, Tryn is also a load of steroids, but also has a freed-up item slot to build arpen, Ekko has %health magic damage, Kled has 5health physical damage, you get the idea.

Your Yasuo has a one-point-wonder Q, just like he does now, because the arpen isn't going to make a huge difference until your target has a substantial amount of armor to chew through, and even then it does fairly pitiful damage without even the benefit of applying on-hits. The W is a nice enough form of CC, sort of like a Diana pull, but that magic damage passive isn't high enough to be remotely relevant after laning phase. His E presents the strange issue of denying you its maximum benefit until you're been fighting for a bit (shred+knocukp) when both are better served at the beginning of an engagement. And his ult... his ult is just kind of bad. The thing about Yasuo's ultimate is that it has never been all that fantastic. It has the potential to deal a lot of team-wide damage, but the actual damage value is hardly any higher than his crits, it often isn't safe to use, and the damage steroid it gives him is only good against armored-up targets. This version of his ult is objectively worse than even that. 10% max health magic damage is nothing. Gnar hits for like 15% off one proc of his W passive.

This kit is problematic, but the thing I take most umbrage with is that it lacks almost everything that makes Yasuo fun to use. It doesn't flow well, it doesn't have a high APM, the room for outplay has been severely diminished, and as a personal gripe, this version of his kit only lets you threaten the enemy front line unless you have a comp that can dive deep for you, thereby making him more team comp-dependent than ever before.

SSrikeShadow7/4/2017, 3:37:19 PM1 votes

Without his windwall, he wouldn't be nearly as toxic - that's for sure. But his dash and flow are the real toxic skills he has. Remove the damage from his dash and it'd be fine. The problem is that he can wave clear too easy with his dash while his passive protects him from poke when he goes in to wave clear. He needs to vulnerable when he wave clears like normal melee champs.