Reworking Yi into the Master that he is (Spit balling ideas)

Rocket Panda··2 votes·1,969 views

Yi hasn't changed a whole lot since his early days and I think it's finally time Yi became Master Yi. Despite his name, there isn't much to master on Master Yi and that's what I what to focus on with this concept.

Goals: Greatly increase Master Yi's skill cap Simple kit hard to master Hits hard and fast Still has a meditation CC still a death sentence

This is what I have so far:

Q - Alpha Strike Master Yi dashes in a fixed target direction dealing physical damage to everything he passes through. At the end of the dash Yi swings behind him dealing physical damage to everything hit. If a enemy champion is hit by the second swing Yi is granted a recast of Alpha Strike (Can occur up to 5 times) -Both strikes can crit -Targets hit by multiple recasts Alpha Strikes take reduced damage -Kills grant addition recasts -The dash is too long for Yi to be able to get multiple recast off of one target so he would need to bounce between multiple targets in order to get the full effect of Alpha Strike -The dash speed is similar to Kai'Sa ult dash speed -In short this ability to Yi's current Q but actually takes skill

R - Highlander Master Yi can dash at will for a duration or until he runs out of charges -Deal no damage -Yi dashes to where you right click -Distance has no effect on number of charges used -Max dash distance is equal to Yi's movement speed -Additional dashes are granted on kill -Dash speed is similar to Kai'Sa ult dash speed

I not sure what do to for his Passive and E yet. I think to a degree they should be similar to his live state but should require actual thought.

Once I know what I'm going to do for Passive and E I'm going to make a separate post for the complete concept.

Dying to a master shouldn't be followed by the thought "who fed the yi"

11 Comments

LuaDotExe3 votes

Hello, resident Yi main. Have been a Yi main for approximately 3 years.

"Crit focused" Okay, so the first thing here is that I have to disagree with this. The primary build at the moment (and almost all the time) is attack speed, and you're focused around delivering many swift strikes rather than bursting down a target really quickly. Additionally, you're effectively planning to gut out Yi's many build paths, which are, in my opinion, something nice about him. He has a crit build, a bruiser build, a tank build, a flat AD build, and an on-hit build, and there's many builds which are somewhere in-between, and generally they are all viable.

My gripe with your Q is that it slows down Master Yi, even though he's supposed to be this wicked fast "you can't see me" swordsman. You're also effectively gutting the thematic space surrounding Alpha Strike. I see this often-- turning Alpha strike into a dash-- an I honestly hate it. Secondly-- if the speed of the dash is approximately the same as Kai'Sa's R, is there REALLY a skill requirement? It's still effectively instant, and can no longer be used to dodge abilities like the current Alpha Strike does (which is how you differentiate a good Yi from a bad Yi). Thirdly, this ability just blows Yi's mobility out of proportion, and gives him one of his weaknesses: a reliable escape. "In short this ability to Yi's current Q but actually takes skill." Apologies, but this is just flat-out wrong. Assuming you're untargetable during the dash, which, might I remind you, is going to be a fraction of a second of untargetability due to the speed at which you travel, you're making it only a gap closer with incidental ability to dodge abilities, whereas the current Alpha Strike actually encourages people to use it to dodge abilities, such as the crowd control that utterly destroys him, and, again, separates a good Yi from a bad Yi.

You're also doing the same thing to Meditate. Thematically speaking, when you meditate, you SIT STILL. I'm also not sure why the shield exists. I'm not sure if you know this, but Meditate is commonly used as a way to soak up damage. Yi's entire kit is built around the concept of mitigating damage and punishing enemies for not being careful with their spells. Turning the damage mitigation into an out-of-combat heal, followed by a shield and increased out-of-combat movement speed, does further to push his mobility to ludicrous amounts and gut the thematic idea behind a meditation ability, as well as push him away from the idea of mitigating damage. A little-known fact is that Meditate can also be used as an auto attack reset, which is, again, one of the ways you separate a good Yi from a bad Yi. I often find myself using it as both a mini-spell-shield to block something important (Veigar R) and cancel an auto attack at once with good timing. This change would, again, lower his skill requirements, which is the opposite goal.

"Master Yi's movements becomes dashes for a duration or until he uses up all his dashes." I... don't see the point in this. This will just make him even more infuriating to deal with, since now he's, again, running around everywhere and harder to keep track of. You're also making it easier for him to dodge abilities, which is, again, the opposite goal here: we want to make it harder for him to do so. This would also just feel clunky to play, since when you try and stick on a target without using a charge, you HAVE to use a charge, instead of just hitting R again to use a dash. You're also pushing his thematic into a weird place. Forcing him to stop between strikes is just weird. I understand Meditate may seem weird, but it seamlessly flows into his kit as it is now due to the prior-mentioned mechanics, as well as being "okay hold on a minute before I go ham again," rather than "START stop START stop START stop START stop."

Rocket Panda1 votes

Firstly, thank you. This is the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. I had an idea I thought could be interesting but having A) not played Yi for a decent amount of time recently and B) being new to concepts in general, I figured I should get the opinion of people more experienced in both regards before spending time turning this into a concept. I do believe Yi should have more mechanical decision making beyond the current two abilities given his role in the game however I see what I suggested isn't the way to go about it. Thank you for putting in the time for make that lengthy comment, I want to get better that creating concepts and feedback like this helps with that.

LuaDotExe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Rocket Panda,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=nW19WI9e,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2018-05-29T23:43:27.629+0000)

Firstly, thank you. This is the kind of feedback I was hoping to get. I had an idea I thought could be interesting but having A) not played Yi for a decent amount of time recently and B) being new to concepts in general, I figured I should get the opinion of people more experienced in both regards before spending time turning this into a concept. I do believe Yi should have more mechanical decision making beyond the current two abilities given his role in the game however I see what I suggested isn't the way to go about it. Thank you for putting in the time for make that lengthy comment, I want to get better that creating concepts and feedback like this helps with that.

No problem! I'm always happy to see a new face around here lol. I'm glad I could give you good input! OuO I'll probably keep an eye on this, since I'm pretty interested to see where this goes.

MooooooooreDakka1 votes

How important do you consider it for Yi to do almost all his damage with auto attacks and have a point and click gap closer with q. I'm kicking around a few ideas for a rework that would involve these things. Basically, q would have a small roll or other evasive maneuver to cross thin walls at the start followed by the current q but centered on his location and with armor shred and a variable duration. E would be a dash with similar targeting, windup, and speed to a Lucian q that would act as an execute (% missing health component so it would be able to finish off tanks). It would probably have an increased cast range when reset by a kill so it's not a very good gap closer but can clean up fights easily. Not sure exactly what else would change but his main gap closer would be running at people with highlander, his auto attack dps for would be lower without wuju style, the armor shred on q would help him deal with tanks and give him some utility, and the new e would help him stay mobile while cleaning up a fight.

LuaDotExe1 votes

{quoted}

How important do you consider it for Yi to do almost all his damage with auto attacks and have a point and click gap closer with q. I'm kicking around a few ideas for a rework that would involve these things. Basically, q would have a small roll or other evasive maneuver to cross thin walls at the start followed by the current q but centered on his location and with armor shred and a variable duration. E would be a dash with similar targeting, windup, and speed to a Lucian q that would act as an execute (% missing health component so it would be able to finish off tanks). It would probably have an increased cast range when reset by a kill so it's not a very good gap closer but can clean up fights easily. Not sure exactly what else would change but his main gap closer would be running at people with highlander, his auto attack dps for would be lower without wuju style, the armor shred on q would help him deal with tanks and give him some utility, and the new e would help him stay mobile while cleaning up a fight.

My gripe with adding that tumble to your Q is that the entire point of it is to dodge abilities and, again, mitigate damage. The tumble is adding a delay which, frankly, messes up his gameplay fantasy of being this monster who goes "I dodge everything you throw at me." This's why I disdain people who add dashes onto Master Yi's Alpha Strike, or remove it entirely. The main purpose of the blink is so that you didn't end up slowing yourself down when you dodged their ability.

In my opinion, Master Yi's auto attack reliance is mainly there to slow him down so that he actually requires you to time it, since you won't be instantly blowing people up unless you're either really far ahead or it's super far late game and they have no defensive items. It also keeps him from blowing people up with Alpha Strike, unless he builds crit (crit build puts a lot more emphasis on Alpha Strike, after all). Some more emphasis on spells, though, could definitely make him feel less like he's just hitting right click and killing you (because personally if you're at least Gold ranking there's so much more to it than that but at all ranks it just looks like you hit right click and killed them). I'm not sure how I feel about more emphasis on spell-based damage patterns, but I'm all for increased spell emphasis.

My gripe with additional movement spells on Master Yi outside of, say, a dash on Highlander into the normal buff, or current Alpha Strike, or just movement speed, has always been that they give you movement patterns I personally feel as though he shouldn't have. For example, it gives you better evasion, but I feel as though his evasion should be tied more-so to timing (he's always been about timing), rather than just dashing in a direction that isn't straight into a skillshot. However, the requirement of dashing onto them, and casting it similar to Lucian's Q, change this up a bit. I feel like it has the potential to be a really cool ability, but I'm not quite sure if I'm sold on it yet.

I should keep tabs on whatever you're doing as well lol. I'm pretty happy to be giving my two cents into the matter! Good luck with your rework. OuO

Before I finish, just remember that tagging Alpha Strike onto "around you" rather than "the target and the nearest enemies" makes it a tad more uncontrolled on who your primary damage target is.

MooooooooreDakka1 votes

Thanks for the feedback, good points about the q needing to be instant and this version of the q being potentially too uncontrolled. Do you think an I-frame on the e while dashing would help or would it be better to change how the dash would work and/or the execute on an ability?

The idea behind targeting like Lucian q is to limit its use as a reliable gap closer, keep the movement as fast as Yi should move while being potentially dodgable, and give him a few ways to show off mastery with it by using it to escape or reposition in a fight.

Would it be a problem for him to cover no ground during alpha strike and if so would a short range free aiming whose range scales with charging time be a good way to fix that?

LuaDotExe1 votes

{quoted}

Thanks for the feedback, good points about the q needing to be instant and this version of the q being potentially too uncontrolled. Do you think an I-frame on the e while dashing would help or would it be better to change how the dash would work and/or the execute on an ability?

The idea behind targeting like Lucian q is to limit its use as a reliable gap closer, keep the movement as fast as Yi should move while being potentially dodgable, and give him a few ways to show off mastery with it by using it to escape or reposition in a fight.

Would it be a problem for him to cover no ground during alpha strike and if so would a short range free aiming whose range scales with charging time be a good way to fix that?

Sorry it took so long to respond, I've been busy.

I'm not sure about the E.

The issue with not moving at all upon casting Alpha Strike is that people like Morgana can throw out a CC ability at you to force you to dodge it, only for you to just come out of Alpha and not have moved at all anyways because of the Alpha Strike animation's length. Free aiming is interesting, but it comes at the cost of reliability on who you're hitting, as well as giving Master Yi too many escape paths. Tagging a charge time onto it would hurt the "timing- or reaction-based dodge" factor, which is what Yi's all about.

MooooooooreDakka1 votes

This wasn't really clear but what I meant by charge time was that he could hold it down for up to the maximum duration and drop out of alpha when he chooses. The blink would be pretty short ranged from any duration of being in alpha but would partially compensate for the time during which you can't move and could be used to juke with bushes or thin walls. I'm not sure how best to let him hit who he wants to buy I'm thinking prioritizing anyone he has his mouse on when he casts it then champions then low health minions then anyone else in range.

LuaDotExe1 votes

{quoted}

This wasn't really clear but what I meant by charge time was that he could hold it down for up to the maximum duration and drop out of alpha when he chooses. The blink would be pretty short ranged from any duration of being in alpha but would partially compensate for the time during which you can't move and could be used to juke with bushes or thin walls. I'm not sure how best to let him hit who he wants to buy I'm thinking prioritizing anyone he has his mouse on when he casts it then champions then low health minions then anyone else in range.

Ah, okay. I dunno; I'm not sure what the implications of being able to stay in Alpha Strike for a chosen period of time would be, but it sounds really interesting.

reba0421 votes

Passive MASTER YEEET After hitting a champion with 8 basic attacks within 5 seconds, Master Yi knocks that champion back 1200 units. Master Yi then gets the bonus YEEET for 26/27/28/29/30/31/32/33/34/35/36/37/38/39/40/41/42/44 seconds. YEEET Master Yi can break the attack speed limit. If Master Yi is below 25% health he gets x2 movement speed and can break the movement speed limit. Master Yi cannot gain the YEEET buff 30 seconds after it ends.

E THE MASTER OF WUJU (Point and Click 150 Mana 100/90/80/70/60 Cooldown 600 Range) Master Yi dashes with the power of the ancient Wuju masters, dealing 50/120/190/260/330 damage to the target (can critically strike), and gaining attack speed equal to the damage dealt if it critically strikes. If THE MASTER OF WUJU does not critically strike, then 70% of the damage from Master Yi's next 10 attacks is converted to true damage.

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