Yasuo vs Assassins... Help?

thicc krit·Mar 18, 2015·2 votes·2,019 views

Hi all,

So I have decided to main Yasuo.. been playing draft norms for what is close to 100 games now of him. I find myself able to do really well with the exception of ASSASSINS.

Zed, Talon, LB... (not talking about Riven/Jax/Fiora, thats for another thread lol) I hate them!

My runes for Zed/Talon are:

Marks: Flat Damage (all)

Seals: Flat Armor (all)

Glyphs: Flat Armor (all)

Quints: Lifesteal (all)

My runes for LB/AP champs are:

Marks: Attack Speed (7) and Crit Chance (2)

Seals: Scaling HP (all)

Glyphs: Flat MR (all)

Quints: Lifesteal (all)

Okay. So that's what I typically run. The reason for so much armor for Zed/Talon is I simply feel like I can't keep up with their damage! Pre-6 I actually find I am winning, but once they hit 6 they really just hurt me so much I get bullied out of lane.

I have not yet tried this, but I am considering getting a zeal or cutlass and then going straight into ninja tabis... that honestly could do the trick..

Against LB/Diana/etc. I find myself in a similar spot. Pre-6 I do really well. From 6 on I tend to lose. Not because my mechanics are necessarily bad, but because I just get bullied out of lane. With LB, when she goes in for a W I try to counter by using my dash to a minion to avoid dmg. My success rate with this is ~40% I think.

Honestly, any good Yasuo players who have tips for dealing with assassins like Zed, Talon, Le Blanc, Diana, etc. and WINNING, please help. Or, for any assassin mains, any tips for how to beat you in lane would really help lol.

Oh, and I always run flash/exhaust in the above listed matchups.

Thanks a ton,

18 Comments

Drunken MuttMar 18, 20151 votes

For zed I have seen many players save a tornado for the second he ults you then dash away on minions until the damage mark is gone.

thicc kritMar 18, 20151 votes

Problem is I don't always have tornado up lol...

MrPerson10Mar 18, 20151 votes

You can't guarantee you have Q up for his Death Mark, and a Zed will play around your Q in lane.

Drunken MuttMar 19, 20151 votes

Its pretty easy to know when he's gonna ult you so keep it up as much as possible you should always have at least one stack and when he ults you, you just q him again. Also his wind wall blocking his shurikans can go very far.

MrPerson10Mar 19, 20151 votes

Not necessarily, a decent Zed, or anyone for that matter, is going to be able to track your Qs and only ult when you've just expelled your tempest.

Your windwall will certainly block one if placed well, but let's not forget that 9/10 times a Zed is going to gapclose on you before planting his W knowing that you have that mechanic at your disposal.

MrPerson10Mar 18, 20151 votes

Firstly, I'd like to start by saying I'm not a Yasuo main but am a frequent Assassin player (Platinum I katarina mid main on NA server, this is me as well. http://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=biissfui )

You're not keeping up with the damage because you have 3 quints invested in life steal rather than AD and didn't seem to give any thought to CDR/penetration

Some of these matches you're better off to be running flash/ignite (for example, Talon as his engages are far too short to warrant an Exhaust pick in comparison to Zed who's more likely to stick around for 2-3 seconds with DM, Talon will be in and out in less than 1.5 with his ult.

the bonus AD from taking AD quints should help you harass with E/AA early game when you're the most mobile of all of these.

vs more immobile lanes without engage you may want to consider taking E > W > Q, vs those with instant mobility ( Zed ) would definitely recommend it, he can shadow hop your Q at lvl 2 unless he's overusing his shadow to waveclear and harass in a straight line.

As for runes, when I'm playing an AD assassin vs an AD assassin, my rune page looks like this:

2x AD quints, 1x LS quint 6x flat armor, 3x scaling armor seals (9x flat vs Talon) 6x flat CDR glyphs, 3x scaling MR glyphs. 9x AD marks (3x AD/6xarmor pen vs Talon)

AP looks like this: 3x AD quints 9x flat health seals 3x flat MR glyphs, 6x scaling MR glyphs (9x flat vs LB) 8x AD marks, 1x crit chance mark

Hope that helps some, any other questions just ask

thicc kritMar 18, 20151 votes

I feel like because Q CDR lowers with Attack Speed, there isn't much reason to invest into CDR (plus E has a 0.5sec CD anyway lol).

Would you think that perhaps getting 1 Lifesteal and 2 Attack Speed quints would be better? Or just 3 straight Attack Damage?

Thanks for the thought on Talon. I think ignite also is good because of his invisibility with his R. For Talon especially I think zeal/cutlass into ninja tabis would be really good. Thoughts?

MrPerson10Mar 18, 20151 votes

As for the effectiveness of AS vs AD quints and some base CDR: While the Q CD does lower with AS, having universal base CDR also lowers your CD on W (at 24 seconds lvl 1, even having 10% brings it down to 21 seconds), and you're sacrificing a ton of early damage by taking AS runes as opposed to AD, particularly on a champion you're going to end up building AS from item 3006 item 3087 first, (total 65AS) already putting you at ~38% CDR on his Q. On a 4 second static CD, that's pretty big, dropping down to 2.4 seconds (on par with max lvl Nasus Q with 40% CDR)

Add a item 3046 in there, it only gets stacked higher. I'm not 100% sure if the 40%CDR cap applies to his Q or if it will scale infinitely with AS, however even if it doesn't you're sitting on 40% with your base CDR and your first two items totalling just over 3k gold (I haven't played Yasuo often enough for quite a while to remember whether it's continually decreasing or capped by the 40% CDR general limit)

In short, AS runes will not help you any more for CDR by the 10-12 minute mark, rendering them useless

You're best off going with straight damage/armor pen/lifesteal. I like to take 2 AD/1 LS as the LS helps a small bit with laning phase and you still have 4.6AD from your other 2 quints scaling into the mid and late game with you, as well as 7.6 (8x AD/1crit) - 8.5 (9AD) from marks. This drastically improves your early game and into the mid-game transition.

thicc kritMar 19, 20151 votes

Ah, I see where you're coming from. CDR just seems like it should have more of a universal usefulness to a kit, you know what I mean? I feel like I'm not optimizing my slots effectively -- though that can be said with regards to AS for my other moves as well. I'll give it a shot!

I am considering trying armor pen as well... though I find that when I'm dealing so much dps I shred tanks pretty easily anyways, but yeah I'll try that also.

So my question then becomes... is BoRK a 100% necessary item now? A lot of builds with my AS make it so sometimes BT is a really good option for the shield it gives as well as the high damage and lifesteal... I'll usually go BoRK >ONLY< when I don't get Berserkers Greaves, to compensate for the lack of AS. Thoughts on this?

What do you think about 4 Armor Pen and 5 AD?

MrPerson10Mar 19, 20151 votes

Sorry for taking forever on this reply, I was helping out showing someone the very basics of league then writing quite the novel on another post.

CDR is largely useless on Yasuo (opinion) outside of his W - it's a long CD anyway, and you may not see a huge difference in whatever elo you're in. The few times I have had to play Yasuo (again, Kat main, banned often enough along with Zed, and Yasuo's my 3rd pick) I've found those 3 seconds can make a gigantic difference between getting hit in the face with an ult and a total escape or turn around.

Example of this, I did once play as Yasuo vs Katarina as Kat was already picked and Zed was banned. As Kat, I find this to be a super easy lane but simple outplay using his mobility vs her immobility can be huge. I found myself at low health (~700) early on, more than low enough for an ult to melt me. As predicted, she did go in for a combo as soon as she'd pushed out the wave. I couldn't have stopped her Q with the windwall, it was on CD for another second or so. She Q/E/W/ulted, I windwalled just behind her and E'd across behind it, Q/Rd in return for the kill. and escaped with less than 10 health. Notably, I made sure I was safe first before I went to counter-ult in the case that I missed the Q from a misread reaction. Had I not had that CDR, I could've just as easily died.

As for Bork, it's something that I would very, very rarely take. Yes, it gives AS, yes it gives you % health damage, yes it gives stats everyone likes - but the active doesn't do you any good. You have no small hitbox/difficult skillshots to land like Zed , what do you need a slow for? The only time I ever take Bork is vs a team who's carries are quite heavy on HP with less armor - usually very AP heavy. Annie Swain Vladimir are good examples of champions I'd want to be using Bork against, though taking it for one high health tank is senseless, as an assassin you're looking to eliminate carries first and deal with tanks later.

In short, Bork > tanks. Bork = not ideal any other time on Yasuo. You'll have more than enough AS from the rest of your build.

As for 5xAD/4pen I've never tried it - I'm not a big fan of splitting runes like that unless it's armor/health seals on a champ like Darius who are huge lane bullies early on.

thicc kritMar 19, 20151 votes

Okay, pretty insightful. Honestly, I'd prefer the AD to the armor pen. It's odd, I see guys like Voyboy 100% building BoRK on EVERY game he is Yasuo... then again, he always maxes E first which is just weird to me lol...

So for Kat you try and W behind her, then E through her? That seems pretty nifty, thanks for the advice on that.

So as a general strategy against someone like Zed, do you only go in when you know his W is on CD? How do you know when to really be aggressive? One thing that scares me about trades with Zed is that his passive chunks me and that guarantees him to win a trade 80% of the time... One thought is to really be aggressive, but in a feigning sort of way -- by this all I mean is, force Zed to constantly use his abilities so his energy is always low, this guarantees an easier time bullying/outtrading.

One thought against Zed is I find myself getting hit by his stupid f***ing double Q too much. I guess I just need to be moving around and E'ing through minions more often to make him afraid to use it.

MrPerson10Mar 19, 20151 votes

You've also got to understand that Voyboy is one of those people who play League for a living. He does it a lot because he's incredibly efficient at it, for lower tiers (pre-platinum) I wouldn't recommend it.

For Kat, essentially I waited until her E was on CD, W'd just behind her and E'd through her/my windwall to block the incoming ult damage, turned around, Q/R around, E for safe measure. It was the only one great outplay I ever made as Yasuo, hence why I remember it.

Zed is a hard enough lane for anyone, yes. Yasuo's low E CD makes it so you shouldn't be getting hit by very many of his Qs at all, dual or otherwise. Spam it as soon as he drops his shadow, even if you get hit - remember your passive blocks one, he won't be getting the energy return from the dual hit. Of course, a skilled Zed is going to see you spamming E and probably want to dual Q near where he thinks you're going to stop your dash for a greater chance to hit you. You just have to be more productive. His shadow has a long CD at lvl 1 (18 seconds without CDR, after his shadow has expired) and isn't maxed until lvl 14-18, which leaves him relatively immobile early on. Taking advantage of that is one of the few weaknesses he has.

Also avoid extended trades with him entirely, his passive will ensure you die if you try that.

thicc kritMar 19, 20151 votes

So if I can't do extended trades with him, and that is the area Yasuo excels in, is the best option to just get shiv, vamp sceptar, and randuins ASAP?

It's like, I can't all in Zed because he's an assassin... and I can't do extended trades because he's Zed. LOL. It's like a Catch-22...

MrPerson10Mar 19, 20151 votes

It's a poke war using your spammable mobility against his lack of to avoid skillshots until you can all-in. Remember, his E is melee range and you can quite easily avoid it

Extended trades will put you below 50% health, which is where his passive and executioner mastery kicks in. Using your passive and ability to move around his skillshots and stay out of range of his E is going to be instrumental in that lane.

Dark ravens 77Mar 18, 20151 votes

you can take summoner 3 it will help sure you will lose some kill pressure because of no ignite but after you exhaust them when they are on you get knock up and you won the fight

ccseancc143Mar 19, 20151 votes

You cant all out duel them lvl 6. You have to focus on prolonging the fight as much as possible thats where yasuo shine and Zed and Talon fail. Also being super fucking aggressive lvl 2 is also ideal since they both have extremely weak lvl 2's compared to yasuo who basically get his entire damage part of his kit lvl 2.

thicc kritMar 19, 20151 votes

Yeah for sure, that's what I need to try and do. Abuse them and get them below half health, then constant pressure there. The only thing stopping me is getting ganked/chunked by a w e q Zed combo lol

Jamatrix666Mar 19, 20151 votes

Considering myself a decent Talon player (and also my favorite champion in the game), I can tell you what I've noticed about this Yasuo/Talon match up. My following comments are about this match up only and might not really apply to other assassins.

First thing I want to mention is that I win this match up much more often than my Yasuo enemy. This is due to Talon's nature, his kit's design. His blink helps him a lot to dodge the only knock up you have to access to you ult and his circle ult makes it hard for you to place your windwall accurately. The good thing is you can ignore his W poke once in a while with it.

That being said, good Talon players are always waiting for their opponent to make a mistake before engaging. Your most critical and dangerous moments are the seconds following a missed tornado. Also, another dangerous moment is when Talon's W hit you and destroy your passive shield.

A Talon player can jump on you at level 6 and kill you if you're below 75% HP. 66% if he doesn't have ignite. Like mentioned earlier, Exhaust might not be the best summoner against him due to the speed of his burst. The best way to not give him this opportunity of going in is to dodge his W pokes AT ALL COST, especially at rank 4 and more.

Also, tell your jungler this match up is hard for you, your jungler is most likely to understand that you will need some help and he'll be there for you more often (Ganking a Talon is not very hard due to his lack of evasive skill and squishyness).

Talon players might also all-in you even if you're 100% to make you waste a flash and go back to base. They do that because Talon's ult is on a short cooldown and there is a lot of chance it's gonna be ready for the next fight. It's basically a poke all-in to make you waste summoners, exp and gold. When that happen, don't recall on your turret. Go a little bit further, because I can remember how many times I can get a opponent off guard by Flash E under turret, get the kill and walk away safely.

Hope it helps a little.