[Rework Concept] Yasuo, the Unforgiven

Blaquenwhyte·12/24/2015, 4:44:01 PM·8 votes·2,225 views

#Background

Yasuo has been my favorite champion since his release. To this day, even with the limited amount that I play, he's the only champion I've achieved Mastery 5 with (at nearly 100k points--certainly not amazing, but considering he's my only champion above Mastery 4, it's quite a large difference). I love his lore, his playstyle, his flavor, his aesthetic; pretty much everything regarding his character and how it's portrayed in-game is perfect to me.

There is, however, the aspect of him being the ever-ticking time bomb of balance that has been brought to light with the recent preseason changes. No, I'm not saying his balance issues are new to me (there's a reason he was continually nerfed), or that he's the only one to benefit from the preseason changes (hybrid champions like Jax and Xin Zhao being the most obvious), but it's no secret that it seems every other patch seems to affect Yasuo in some way or another that, whether intentional or not, buffs him or nerfs him. He's not the only champion that has this problem, but he certainly is the most prevalent due to how powerfully he scales with the bare minimum of stats.

When I say "rework concept" in this context, it's not on the level of Poppy or Sion. Think of it more along the lines of the wave of Juggernaut reworks--small-scale reworks that tune a champion's identity and place within the game, but aren't a complete rehash of who they are. Like I said before, Yasuo is pretty much perfect in terms of flavor and aesthetic, and his kit as a whole complements him flawlessly. I hope to work within the bounds of his current kit to present something that, I hope, somewhat alleviates this issue of the nightmarish prospect of Yasuo balance.

It hurts me to see my favorite champion be so controversial, so I thought I'd try my hand at making him a bit fairer to everyone involved without compromising who he is and drawing the ire of Yasuo fans. So, without further ado, I present my rework and all of the thoughts I had along the way:

http://i.imgur.com/WjHnqmQ.jpg

#Goals

Given Yasuo's status as my favorite champion, it was a bit hard to dissect him and narrow down what was going wrong. A lot of love went into his lore, quotes, kit, and personality so that they complemented each other, but in terms of how it all translates to gameplay, it becomes a bit iffy. He's the go-to example of a champion that's fun to play as and not fun to play against (hell, even I hate Yasuo mirror matches). He fulfills his niche as the definitive wind samurai, but his abilities and scalings are where some issues arise.

Passive (Way of the Wanderer): This has always been the main reason behind Yasuo's balance situation. His Flow generation and Flow shield have been tuned in numerous patches and his extra Critical Strike was a contentious bonus from day one. I don't personally think his Flow is in a bad spot, but it never really struck me as impactful in his kit. Is it important? Well, absolutely; his Flow is what gives him the safety and sustain he needs to succeed in lane and in fights. Again, on the whole, I don't have a problem with it. However, in terms of gameplay, it has the issue of being a resource thats not really a resource--it's just sort of there. When it's at 100, he gets a shield. At any less, it's useless. One could make the argument that the "resource" part of it is managing how you use it when it's available, but the shield it provides is so short and so easily procced that that choice is often taken away from you before it was even an option to use it. It's not unhealthy, and it's perhaps the part of his kit that's most defined by counterplay (especially in lane), but I do think it could be more interactive.

As for the double Critical Strike... the problem it creates is that it's such a powerful bonus, and so core to the design of his kit, that it's very difficult to change without introducing the same sort of clunky numbers that originally got Azir's "Attack Speed from CDR" simply removed and baked into one of his skills. I want to circumvent the powerful scaling of his Critical Strike while still preserving the identity of how it defines his kit. We'll get to that when we cover his abilities, but to put it into a TL;DR, here's what I hope to do with his passive:

Desired Changes: Make Flow feel like more of a resource, and handle his absurd scaling of crit without compromising its importance within his kit.

Q (Steel Tempest): I don't think there's too terribly much to say about Steel Tempest. It's the centerpiece of his playstyle and really the ability that brings his whole kit together. Overall, I think it's in a healthy spot. On the subject of how it interacts with how Yasuo plays, however, is that some people complain about the amount of DPS his Q gives him--for someone with such powerful burst potential, Yasuo is nigh unmatched in DPS as well. There are many things I would contend to this statement (mostly that, given how squishy he is, his DPS is necessary to be useful), it does raise another concern regarding how it would be affected by changes around his kit.

Yasuo would be weak to the point of uselessness if Steel Tempest wasn't up as often as it was, so it's not a matter of increasing cooldown or cast time (which would make him unbearably clunky to play). The core of the ability doesn't need to change either, given how important it is to how his kit functions and his identity. As you'll see, my idea for Steel Tempest is very simple, but one that has very large ramifications for how the ability will be used and how it interacts with the rest of his kit.

Desired Changes: Handle the sheer DPS the ability provides, but in such a way that shifts its power elsewhere as opposed to simply nerfing its damage potential

W (Wind Wall): Oh boy, here we go. Wind Wall has always been the elephant in the room with Yasuo. The first ability of its kind (thought closely followed by Braum's Unbreakable), Wind Wall was quite the trailblazer in making ranged carries and projectile users alike curl up into fetal positions and cry themselves to sleep. I'm of the firm belief that, as a whole, the ability needs to exist in some capacity--partly because it's so iconic, and partly because it's necessary for Yasuo, with his current kit, to be a proper melee carry. Allow me to elaborate:

The balance of melee carries has always been a point of debate. Some of them have bonuses that allow them to do their job even under heavy fire (Tryndamere), while others focus on getting in and out as quickly as possible because they'll be blown up otherwise (Talon, Zed, etc.) These two types are commonly known as fighters and assassins, and while some (like Yasuo) blur the lines, there's something that the carries of old tend to lack: utility. This focus on sheer damage potential over general usefulness makes sense for carries, but it created the feast or famine problem where, as a melee carry, you were useless when behind because your playstyle was forcing you to die to do anything. Because of this, there's been a recent shift in this focus to instead grant utility in lieu of sheer carry potential, and Yasuo was among the first to be blessed with the holy grail of "utility beyond a carry role." Even when he's behind, a well-placed Wind Wall can, and will, turn the tide of a fight.

I don't think there's anything wrong with this sentiment; it sucks to feel useless and being granted this utility is a nice boon when you're behind. Here's the problem, though: in his current state, Yasuo's absurd cost-effectiveness and scaling mean that, even when he starts poorly, he's never behind for long. At some point in the game, and often quite a bit sooner than the extreme late game when his peer hypercarries reach their spikes, he will bring his scaling to bear with the minimum of items and gain the benefits of being both a melee hypercarry and someone with one of the most powerful utility spells in the game.

That's not to even speak of the problems with Wind Wall itself. It's a binary spell in the sense that it either blocks spells or it doesn't, which especially highlights how bugged the ability is. A priority spell can get through the wall (cough TF Yellow Card) just as easily as a sideways wall can somehow block an Ashe ultimate. The nature of the ability and its inconsistencies makes it frustrating for everybody (yes, even Yasuo players on occasion), and its current iteration either needs some work on the technical end, a rework, or both.

Now, as I said, I think Wind Wall should exist in some capacity. As someone who plays Yasuo, let me tell you: he would be totally helpless in many situations if Wind Wall didn't act as it does. The nature of his mobility being targeted means that he's quite predictable in a lot of situations (push him to his tower, for example, and suddenly he has only one way to go: toward you). And because his dash can be stopped by crowd control unlike a lot of other dashes, it would be surprisingly easy to stop his mobility (where a fair chunk of his power lies) and make him easy pickings. That is, of course, unless he had something to block that crowd control. Without that, he becomes a sitting duck versus smart opponents.

Now, given that I'm trying to handle Yasuo's scaling issue, let's assume that Wind Wall as a utility spell is OK within the context of his kit, but still needs work to make it not so binary. Well, here's what I plan to accomplish:

Desired Changes: Preserve the utility and defensive power of the spell while making it more interactive and skill-reliant instead of "fire and forget" as it is now.

E (Sweeping Blade): This is an ability that, like his Q, I think is in a healthy spot. Yasuo detractors swear up and down that the mobility it grants him is unfair, but as covered with my thoughts on Wind Wall, it suffers from being predictable in the right circumstances and being vulnerable to crowd control. There's no doubt he's slippery, but any Yasuo player can attest to the fact that he's incredibly weak without something to dash to, or feels very awkward when he's in a situation where he can only dash into the enemy. His slipperiness is core to how he plays, and while I concede that it can be annoying (just as any hyper-mobile champion can be), I think it's balanced for what it does and he would be helpless without it.

With all that said, I do think there's an aspect to his Sweeping Blade that needs to be examined: the stacking damage boost. Many cheeses have resulted from this damage, and not only is a stacking percent increase in base damage totally arcane (just say it out loud--weird, isn't it?), it doesn't really complement any other part of his kit. It's just damage for the sake of damage.

Now, I'm aware that the reason this damage component was likely added is to encourage Yasuo to use his dashes, when possible, to damage the enemy. Without a little push in that direction, it'd be just as effective to dash around a minion wave to build Flow while completely ignoring the enemy, which is just silly. With that said, the ability's fundamental purpose is to grant him mobility and make him slippery until an opportune moment to strike presents itself, and that can be done in a better way than it is currently, in my opinion.

Desired Changes: Change the ability to complement its purpose more, with an emphasis on intelligent use rather than just dashing for the sake of dashing.

R (Last Breath): This is my favorite ability in the game. This is for a lot of reasons: its name is awesome, it defines Yasuo's kit as an iconic ability, and it feels like an ultimate attack. The core of Last Breath is fantastic, but it's a bit rough around the edges for a simple reason: more free stats.

Aside from how well Critical Strike scales on him, another reason Yasuo was so cost-efficient is that he never really had to buy armor penetration due to the absurd amount of it he got from his ultimate. Now, granted, it's bonus armor penetration (AKA the healthy sort)--it doesn't make him any more effective against carries, but it does make him a tank shredder without necessarily having to spend money on items specifically designed for that purpose. He already gets to skip out on items due to his free crit, and now he gets more freebie slots. such a powerful stat boost would work if he had a niche as a tank shredder, but he's also a carry destroyer and a top notch duelist, so he's dipping his hands in a bit too many pots at the moment.

Desired Changes: Move away from more free stats, but preserve the "ultimate attack" bonus the ability already gives.

#Kit and Abilities

##I avoid numbers in my kits because they are not in my power to balance and can always be changed.

Innate | Way of the Wanderer

Yasuo harnesses the wind around him to generate Flow, his resource. Movement generates Flow at a fixed rate. Yasuo's Critical Strikes deal significantly less damage, but generate a percentage of his Flow that increases with ranks in his ultimate.

If Yasuo is in combat and has full Flow, he gains Intent, which lasts until he returns to zero Flow. During Intent, Yasuo gathers the reverberations in the air created by the force of his strikes, returning a portion of the damage he deals as a brief shield. Yasuo's Critical Strikes no longer generate Flow, but instead generate the shield at an increased rate.

While under Intent, Yasuo's basic abilities cost a percentage of his Flow, and if Intent remains active for too long, his Flow will begin to rapidly decrease.

##Q | Steel Tempest Yasuo thrusts his sword forward in a line, dealing physical damage to all enemies hit and building a stack of Gathering Storm if it hits an enemy. Steel Tempest applies on-hit effects to the first target hit and can critically strike at double the normal chance.

At two stacks of Gathering Storm, the next Steel Tempest unleashes a whirlwind in the target direction with double the range, dealing the same damage and knocking all affected enemies Airborne.

If cast during Sweeping Blade, Steel Tempest will instead strike as a circle around Yasuo.

##W | Wind Torrent Yasuo consumes a portion of his Flow and swipes his sword to create a torrent of wind in the target direction, destroying all projectiles in flight that it contacts for a very short time.

Wind Torrent's cooldown is reduced slightly for every projectile it destroys, and its cooldown is reset entirely if Yasuo reaches maximum Flow.

##E | Sweeping Blade Yasuo dashes a fixed distance through a target enemy, dealing magic damage and marking them for a short time. Yasuo cannot dash to marked enemies.

Casting Sweeping Blade multiple times in quick succession causes each dash to generate an increasing percentage of Yasuo's Flow. This bonus is doubled against enemy champions.

##R | Last Breath Passive: Yasuo's Critical Strikes generate a greater percentage of Flow.

Yasuo instantly leaps to the nearest Airborne enemy to the cursor, resetting his stacks of Gathering Storm, generating maximum Flow, and suspending all nearby Airborne enemies as well as his target in the air for one second as he unleashes a series of strikes and slams them onto the ground, dealing physical damage.

#Analysis

So with his reworked kit out of the way, let's get down and dirty with what these changes actually accomplish.

INNATE | Flow is an actual resource now, and his Critical Strikes are changed.

Desired Changes: Make Flow feel like more of a resource, and handle his absurd scaling of crit without compromising its importance within his kit.

This change is the one that really re-defines Yasuo, both in terms of his kit as a whole and his playstyle. It was the driving force behind the rework and how his abilities now interact with one another.

Flow still serves the same purpose: to provide shields and sustain in fights. What has changed, however, is the way Flow accomplishes that goal. First, you have to build it, which is done partly in the same way as it always has been (movement), but now is also done through Critical Strikes and enhanced with his new E. Once you're done building it, you enter Intent, which is when you start generating a shield. Instead of a frontloaded, one-second shield, Intent is only as good as you make it. Not only that, but it can only last for so long; your abilities cost Flow during Intent, so with the new Way of the Wanderer, utilizing Flow is punctuated by periods of building it up and then making use of its bonuses. You could almost say there's a flow to using Flow.

This also gives room to make Critical Strikes for Yasuo carry their own unique flavor. They're still immensely important to how he works--he generates more Flow and more shields--but now, they have an importance unique to Yasuo that isn't just "this stat scales really well on this champion." With this comes the welcome relief of Yasuo not breaking the stat entirely due to how well he scales with it, because all it does is increase his ability to make the most of his kit, rather than necessarily "this stat makes me do more damage."

With these changes, I also think it bears mentioning that, in my mind's eye, Flow generation should be tuned so as to give less Flow from movement. Because dashing is now a good Flow generator and Critical Strikes generate Flow, less upfront Flow from movement encourages the Yasuo player to have to make an effort of some variety to generate their Flow (as opposed to just walking around).

##Q | The Critical Strike had to go somewhere...

Desired Changes: Handle the sheer DPS the ability provides, but in such a way that shifts its power elsewhere as opposed to simply nerfing its damage potential

I think this is definitely a subtle, but nonetheless immensely important change. The ability as a whole is exactly the same, save for one thing: it inherited the double Critical Strike chance we know from Yasuo currently.

Why is this? Wasn't our goal to remove the stat's scaling and the ability's DPS potential? Well, I added this for a few reasons:

Remember Yasuo's Critical Strikes deal significantly less damage. I'm not talking the 10% decrease he has right now; if I had to give it a number, I'd put his Critical Strikes at doing 125-150% damage (instead of 180% as they are now). Because of this, the double Critical Strike chance isn't as absurd as it may seem, because it doesn't necessarily increase his damage output by a huge amount.
I needed to give him some consistent way to make the most of his Flow generation and Intent window. Playing a champion who benefits mainly from a pseudo-RNG mechanic would be a one-way ticket to frustration for everyone involved, so it only made sense to give him the ability to consistently make the most of the unique interaction between his Critical Strikes and how they enhance his playstyle.
During Intent, also remember that his abilities cost Flow. Sure, spamming his Q would be a surefire way to build up your shield, but it would also use up the Intent quickly. The ability is meant to be your primary Flow generator and Flow spender during Intent.

And just think, all of these interactions just from double Critical Strike! Like I said, it's a subtle but very impactful (beyond "do more damage") difference.

W | From Wall to Torrent and a more interesting ability.

Desired Changes: Preserve the utility and defensive power of the spell while making it more interactive and skill-reliant instead of "fire and forget" as it is now.

This is something I decided on after at least a dozen other iterations. Let me give you some examples of what I tried:

Remove the "projectile destruction" mechanic entirely. Instead, projectiles that passed through the front of the wall would slow down and deal less damage, and abilities that passed through the back would speed up and deal more damage.

This was the idea I spent the most time on. It's certainly the most interesting and interactive, but also incredibly weak in a game like League of Legends. This is very much a twitch-based game, i.e. very fast reactions and responses are needed to do well. Slowing and speeding up projectiles, while cool and paving the way for lots of cool interactions, just wouldn't work on a champion like Yasuo who, more often than not, needs a way to instantly get out of a tough spot. There's no doubt such a change could work (and be very cool) in niche circumstances, but let me tell you, if all you ever needed to do to Yasuo was walk into point blank range (so slowing projectiles would be worthless), you'd never see him played again.

Give the wall a base health value (i.e. the number of projectiles it would block) and make it consume all of his Flow, with the amount of Flow consumed also adding additional health to the wall.

I love this option for how Yasuo currently works, and if his Flow remained unchanged from my rework, I'd have gone with this option. Unfortunately, it just doesn't interact very well with his new Flow. Because getting to maximum Flow is so much more important and central to his playstyle than it is now, sacrificing an entire Flow bar would be less of a meaningful opportunity cost and more of a suicidal downside to the ability.

Keep the ability as is and yell at Riot to fix it on the technical end.

Wind Wall is a pretty bugged ability. It doesn't block things it should block, its hitbox is wonky as all hell, and it could definitely use a lot of work. And while that work should absolutely be done, I was a bit more ambitious than "rito pls fix."

Overall, I decided on this.

Think of his new W as an instantaneous ability; it acts like the current Wind Wall, but only for a split second, and then it goes away. It's good at blocking single projectiles, or a bunch that are about to hit at once, but it's not the "fire and forget" ability that it is now. Personally, I prefer this approach more, because it doesn't compromise how the ability works, but rather makes it far more reliant on how you use it. To compensate for what is essentially a straight-up nerf to the ability, I provided reset mechanics to reward using it well. Keep in mind that it's essentially a one-and-done ability now, so having it up more often won't have some ridiculous effect of being able to remove projectile users from fights entirely.

It's not without its drawbacks, though. It costs part of Yasuo's Flow (even outside of Intent), which means it presents a meaningful choice between blocking damage right now or later. In theory, its cooldown would also be quite similar to Wind Wall's current cooldown, just with the added reset mechanics to allow it to be useful more than to just block a few projectiles in lane.

It's definitely up for debate, of course, because Wind Wall has always been a hard ability to get down properly. Tell me what you think.

E | Bonus Flow generation to complement the ability's purpose.

Desired Changes: Change the ability to complement its purpose more, with an emphasis on intelligent use rather than just dashing for the sake of dashing.

Same ability on the whole, but the benefit to using it multiple times in quick succession is different.

To be honest, this is a more interesting version of the passive that Yasuo's W had on release (bonus Flow generation on dashing), except it makes much more sense as a part of his dash rather than his wall. Using his dash a lot will provide him with a lot of bonus Flow generation, which he can double by using it on champions (to encourage actually using it on your enemy). This is especially useful in early lane, when Yasuo will have a hard time cashing in on Critical Strike bonuses without any of the stat.

Sorry to all the naysayers who hate hyper-mobile Yasuo, but he'd be pretty useless without the ability to dash around and pick his fights when they benefit him.

R | Less free stats, more impactful cast.

Desired Changes: Move away from more free stats, but preserve the "ultimate attack" bonus the ability already gives.

It didn't change much, and if you looked at the ability and wondered if it changed at all, I'm not surprised. It's the same ability, but it no longer gives Yasuo bonus Armor Penetration.

Why, you ask? Well, as I've said many times throughout this post, Yasuo's free stats have always been a problem, and this seemed an easy stat to remove. But, contrary to what you might think, it's not a straight-up nerf.

Pretty much its only upfront bonus (besides damage) is that it generates full Flow... but stop and consider what that means. Being at full Flow is an incredibly important thing to Yasuo, and if he's already under Intent, then it's essentially a second wind (pun intended) for him. Also keep in mind that he'll immediately enter Intent if he's outside of it, which means his ultimate will be generating a shield for him just like it effectively does now. Reaching maximum Flow also resets his W. See the amount of newfound interactions the Flow reset has? That's why it's not just a simple nerf.

The increased Flow generation from Critical Strikes is another factor that I just thought made sense. As the game progresses and people start hitting harder and bursting you down, it'll become more and more important to have Intent up. Similar to how Gnar reaches Mega faster as the game progresses, Yasuo should be able to enter Intent faster during the later stages of the game so as to not be useless.

The only thing I can imagine adding to the ability is to have it be treated as a Critical Strike for the purpose of his Intent shield so that it generates a fairly meaty shield when you use it, because it does tend to put Yasuo in questionable positions. The visual for his ultimate (glowing sword) can be moved to Intent as well, which fits nicely.

#What's It All Mean?

I think it's very important to note that, with these changes, Yasuo really wouldn't occupy the same role that he does now.

His upfront damage potential is significantly smaller because he isn't made of Critical Strikes anymore, and even when he does crit, it doesn't do as much damage. However, what he loses in outright burst and sheer damage he gains in sustain and power in extended fights.

I always thought Yasuo's kit screamed "duelist." His main damage tool is on an almost negligible cooldown and is a very powerful CC, and he's incredibly mobile if he picks his fight properly. His playstyle, however, had trouble delivering on that duelist fantasy. Sure, he was a great fighter, but he relied far more on dashing in and out and poking people down than he did on fighting. As the game went on, his damage output was such that "fights" didn't exist versus Yasuo--you either burst him down or he bursts you down. With how Intent works, he's rewarded for going in on fights and staying in, because he's constantly generating more and more shields with which to soak damage. Theoretically, despite less outright damage potential, Intent provides him with the time he needs to make up for that lost burst with DPS and staying power.

To put it simply: he's less of an assassin and more of a fighter/bruiser.

Please also note that this is just a tuning of his abilities. I avoid numbers in my concepts because they aren't for me to balance, but also realize that this is not taking into account any changes that could be made to his base stats to accommodate these changes and ensure they accomplish what I intend.

I also make no claims of perfection. I put a decent amount of thought into all this, but as I've mentioned, I already love Yasuo so it was difficult to see what ramifications this might have, especially when compared to how he currently is. Please feel free to leave your thoughts and criticisms.