League of Legends' Newest Champion is Yasuo, The Unforgiven

[Revnak_v1legacy]

@ all of you rushing to defend this champion...

Open your eyes. Look around the league. There are only a handful of assassins with any amount of real CC in the game, and not a single one has a combination of hard AoE CC and true defense. Let me put this into a little bit of perspective...

Infinity Edge: 25% crit chance increased to 50% on this champion
Statikk Shiv: 20% cirt chance increased to 40% on this champion

With the addition of 9 critical marks, this puts his crit chance at 100% with 2 weapons. This combination of weapons can easily be achieved within 20 minutes, at a point in the game where no assassination targets have any sort of built up defense and where enemy tanks only have a moderate amount of armor and health, both of which are defeated by Yasuo's ultimate.

Offensively, all of his abilities could scale like piss, have extremely short ranges, and still be extremely overpowered. Any ability that grants a huge amount of mobility makes a champion EXTREMELY hard to pin down, even when opponents are incredibly skilled at smartcasting. And while a case could be made for predictive targeting, the fact that he possesses an ability that does not require a specific enemy targeted but can be cast in any direction makes such predictive and intuitive play extremely difficult, especially when one considers the fact that his ultimate grants him a huge armor penetration bonus for what will most likely be the duration of ANY teamfight. This effect basically allows him to continue dealing assassin quality burst damage to heavy tanks and bruisers, negating their usefulness in soaking damage, especially when considering the artillery will most likely be completely unable to punish Yasuo for focusing a tank.

Now, let's examine his defenses. He has a shield which activates on damage and whose shield amount is refilled on rapid movement AND ability useage. Even if that shield only protects from 100 points of damage at max level, his kit and a critzerker build nearly guarantees him multiple shield procs per fight (notice how there is no cooldown in the tooltip) Add to that an INCREDIBLY powerful zoning tool that will shut out nearly 100% of ADC and APC in a teamfight as well as render him virtually unkillable when moving to assassinate a single ranged, projectile based champion.

Finally, let's not forget his CC, of which he has 2! One is an AoE CC that knocks up ALL foes in a line similar to Janna's tornado OR knocks up all foes AROUND him, allowing him to initiate a teamfight AS AN ASSASSIN, much like Malphite would. Add to that a suppression effect to MULTIPLE FOES, an ability that NO OTHER CHAMPION IN THE GAME HAS for the specific reason of how broken it is. Champions like Warwick and Malzahar only get 1 Suppression, and they have to sit there and channel it, making counterplay possible. But if all the enemies that could capitalize on the champion's inability to move are likewise suppressed AND taking damage, and all enemies outside the effect are completely shut out from dealing damage... well, what can anybody do?

This champion is Zed, Anivia, Fiora, Janna, Malphite, Tryndamere, Warwick, and Master Yi all rolled into a single ball of "OMG Riot why the fuck are you doing this to us?"

We don't know his cooldowns, we don't know his attack speed, we don't know the shield's value, and THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT THE KNOCKUP WILL BE AS LARGE AS YOU ARE IMPLYING IT IS. It flat out will not be as large as tornados or malphite ult. To equate it to them is to equate maokai's knock up to their's. Those are some of the largest CCs in the game. If the cooldowns are too long, if he is energy based, if his base AS is shit (I'm betting it will be unless they're morons) he will have issues. The shield will probably be a small bonus for utilizing his primary defense, his dash, the ult will probably be a very short suppression, the wall is nowhere near as good as people think it is (though it certainly isn't useless) and he has almost no way to stick to a target once he's initially gotten on them, meaning he WILL struggle to kill adc's (the mark lasts 6 seconds at max rank). Oh, and other assassains definitely have cc. Other AD assassains even (Lee Sin has kick, Talon has silence). If his two crowd controls (both of which is highly situational) add up to more than 2 seconds of lock up I will be EXTREMELY surprised, and he will NEVER get off more than one cc in a fight due to how his q seems to work. He will be strong because he is very mobile, and his passive should be tuned down to being a 1.5 multiplier or something rather than doubling it, but most of his kit is not that crazy, especially not his q-ult combo.

 

[Artemis923]

@ all of you rushing to defend this champion...

Open your eyes. Look around the league. There are only a handful of assassins with any amount of real CC in the game, and not a single one has a combination of hard AoE CC and true defense. Let me put this into a little bit of perspective...

Infinity Edge: 25% crit chance increased to 50% on this champion
Statikk Shiv: 20% cirt chance increased to 40% on this champion

With the addition of 9 critical marks, this puts his crit chance at 100% with 2 weapons. This combination of weapons can easily be achieved within 20 minutes, at a point in the game where no assassination targets have any sort of built up defense and where enemy tanks only have a moderate amount of armor and health, both of which are defeated by Yasuo's ultimate.

Offensively, all of his abilities could scale like piss, have extremely short ranges, and still be extremely overpowered. Any ability that grants a huge amount of mobility makes a champion EXTREMELY hard to pin down, even when opponents are incredibly skilled at smartcasting. And while a case could be made for predictive targeting, the fact that he possesses an ability that does not require a specific enemy targeted but can be cast in any direction makes such predictive and intuitive play extremely difficult, especially when one considers the fact that his ultimate grants him a huge armor penetration bonus for what will most likely be the duration of ANY teamfight. This effect basically allows him to continue dealing assassin quality burst damage to heavy tanks and bruisers, negating their usefulness in soaking damage, especially when considering the artillery will most likely be completely unable to punish Yasuo for focusing a tank.

Now, let's examine his defenses. He has a shield which activates on damage and whose shield amount is refilled on rapid movement AND ability useage. Even if that shield only protects from 100 points of damage at max level, his kit and a critzerker build nearly guarantees him multiple shield procs per fight (notice how there is no cooldown in the tooltip) Add to that an INCREDIBLY powerful zoning tool that will shut out nearly 100% of ADC and APC in a teamfight as well as render him virtually unkillable when moving to assassinate a single ranged, projectile based champion.

Finally, let's not forget his CC, of which he has 2! One is an AoE CC that knocks up ALL foes in a line similar to Janna's tornado OR knocks up all foes AROUND him, allowing him to initiate a teamfight AS AN ASSASSIN, much like Malphite would. Add to that a suppression effect to MULTIPLE FOES, an ability that NO OTHER CHAMPION IN THE GAME HAS for the specific reason of how broken it is. Champions like Warwick and Malzahar only get 1 Suppression, and they have to sit there and channel it, making counterplay possible. But if all the enemies that could capitalize on the champion's inability to move are likewise suppressed AND taking damage, and all enemies outside the effect are completely shut out from dealing damage... well, what can anybody do?

This champion is Zed, Anivia, Fiora, Janna, Malphite, Tryndamere, Warwick, and Master Yi all rolled into a single ball of "OMG Riot why the fuck are you doing this to us?"

We don't know his cooldowns, we don't know his attack speed, we don't know the shield's value, and THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO WAY THAT THE KNOCKUP WILL BE AS LARGE AS YOU ARE IMPLYING IT IS. It flat out will not be as large as tornados or malphite ult. To equate it to them is to equate maokai's knock up to their's. Those are some of the largest CCs in the game. If the cooldowns are too long, if he is energy based, if his base AS is shit (I'm betting it will be unless they're morons) he will have issues. The shield will probably be a small bonus for utilizing his primary defense, his dash, the ult will probably be a very short suppression, the wall is nowhere near as good as people think it is (though it certainly isn't useless) and he has almost no way to stick to a target once he's initially gotten on them, meaning he WILL struggle to kill adc's (the mark lasts 6 seconds at max rank). Oh, and other assassains definitely have cc. Other AD assassains even (Lee Sin has kick, Talon has silence). If his two crowd controls (both of which is highly situational) add up to more than 2 seconds of lock up I will be EXTREMELY surprised, and he will NEVER get off more than one cc in a fight due to how his q seems to work. He will be strong because he is very mobile, and his passive should be tuned down to being a 1.5 multiplier or something rather than doubling it, but most of his kit is not that crazy, especially not his q-ult combo.

.

You are probably correct in most of your assumptions. And individually all of those arguments are completely valid. But you have to look at the champion as a whole. Thinking that he has no way to stick to an ADC or APC is untrue. The mark does indeed last 6 seconds, but you forget about Steel Tempest. A simple Sweeping Blade to close, a Steel Tempest to re-close when the ADC or APC uses their escape, and the ADC or APC has no more options (unless they have abilities in their own kit that grant mobility, such as Ahri or Ezreal) Good point on Lee Sin btw, but really he's the only one with a HARD CC, which was what I was alluding to (Fizz also has an AoE hard CC, and his mobility is high, which is one of the reasons he's the strongest AP assassin in the game atm) And while his Q>R combo is strong, his Q>E>R combo is even stronger. You are correct that we do not yet know the impact area or the duration, however, simply allowing an assassin (or an AD carry/fighter) this kind of control in a fight (the ability to completely lock up more than 1 person) without the proper counter-play options is very, VERY unbalanced and one-sided. This kind of control needs a weakness that can be exploited or worked around, and the presence of a wall that completely defeats all manner of ranged missiles basically takes away that weakness. Individually, I don't have any problems with any of his abilities. It's the fact that they are all stacked into each-other in one champion that causes the issue. Don't forget too that Sweeping Blade's damage is increased per use. I'm assuming this ability is going to work similar to Akali's Shadow Dance or Fiora's Lunge, in that it can be used repeatedly on a 0.5 second global CD (adding stacks to the ability to use would actually go a LONG way to balancing this particular ability imo) Meaning that a dash to a tank, followed by a dash to a support or ad/apc and a third dash to the other ad/apc will result in an extreme amount of damage to the final target, and a large amount of mobility, in addition to building up additional flow and allowing multiple shieldings. The addition of the mark keeps you from spamming it on a single target, true, but the fact that you can hit multiple enemies in rapid succession means it will be a simple matter to stay in the back of your team, wait for the engage, then leapfrog through the enemy team, locking several of them up along the way, before landing on the ad/apc. Now, as to the SA speed issue... true we don't know what it is and how it scales at this moment, so it may very well be that he can't attack very quickly. In this case, he can easily be played as a combo burst champion, similar to Zed. However, Zed is currently (arguably) the strongest assassin in the game, and the reason he has any balance at all is the fact that he has very little CC (a powerful slow to be sure, but it doesn't effect SA speed and doesn't block abilities, so it's not a hard CC)

Very good argument though, and good perspective. Don't get me wrong, I do see a few things that could be considered weaknesses in him, but they don't balance out his burst and control factors in my opinion. Even if his scaling and ranges are low, building him Darius would solve that problem and make him a more than formidable bruiser, or engage artist, and allow him incredible zoning potential on the scale that no other single champion possesses. I would have to see hard numbers and gameplay of him to make a final call on this, but initial tooltips and abilities point to a very control-heavy, burst-heavy, nuke-type ad assassin/fighter.

 

[Uratoh]

Friends of mine with PBE accounts say there's no way his passive will make it live as it is, really. He can get crit runes stacked and at lv 1 his damage shield combined with doubled crit chance (and the 'no longer really random' crit formula) means unless you're a champion whos kit very specificly keeps him denied, he's going to kill you at lv 1, and lv 2, and lv 3, and then spill out of lane and just win the game, because is is so rediculously binary...and he'll get his items.

I really hate the premise of 'ultra feast or famine' kits in general, since they really narrow the game down to 'can your team stop this cold?'.

 

[ThunderCavalier]

Everyone's here talking about the new champion and what his kit will mean to the metagame, and I'm here like:

"Wait, Rurouni Kenshin was mentioned. Does he have a reverse blade and a cross scar? Will he have a Rurouni Kenshin skin to reference it if he doesn't? If so, MUST BUY NOOOOOOOW."

 

[Weaver]

He's really boring design wise. I don't know who at Riot keeps giving all new male champs massive shoulder pads but the designs are starting to run together.

Anyways, that passive sounds goddamn broken.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Why would a "fast" samurai have a huge multilayered metal shoulderplate that is so large that it blocks his peripheral vision?
It's not even on the shoulder that faces the enemy, that one is completely unarmored.
And why would you put spikes that can cut your own hand on the guard and bottom of a katana, a sword that is about anything but ornaments and doesn't even have much of a guard?
This tries so hard to be "cool", it's almost as stupid as zed, a "sneaky ninja" in the most impractical spiky full plate armor ever.

Why don't they go full final fantasy and put one angel wing on him. Oh wait, they did.

Shhhhhhhhhhh. Because Riot Games.

OT: Ehhhhh, I dislike all melee AD carries. I know everyone is debating his passives and stuff (opopopopop!) but it's just going to boil down to him running in all #YOLO GOML LOL then getting instakilled. It's what happens to all melee carries with the possible exception of 'Troxikins.

If you're still worried just pick Vi. Problem solved.

 

[KaosuHamoni]

Core Build: Triforce, Youmuu's, IE, GA, Randuins (Or some other defensive). Calling it now.

[sub][sub][sub]Just like I did with his fucking kit...[/sub][/sub][/sub]

 

[Jessta]

That being said I'm kind of looking forward to this champion, Talon sucks, I don't like the aesthetics of Zed and I've been needing a new mid lane Assassin to add to my arsenal so this works perfectly, I don't really care how bad they make all of his abilities might end up being with that double crit thing a phantom dancer + infinity edge = 100% crit chance which is insane
I'm thinking Ravenous hydra, Infinity edge, last whisper, berserker greaves, phantom dancer, warmogs, +around 120 base AD and he'll be able to walk in and deal 800+ damage a hit + hydra+ whatever else he has. I hate his ultimate though since it feels like his Q is going to be hard to get off and that's the only thing it plays off.

 

[freaper]

Now all I want to see is two low on life Master Yi and Yasuo using their Q and E on each other. Maybe the server dramatically lags for a bit and then one slumps over.

Haha!

Yea, this guy reminds me of every Samurai anime character ever. Definitely has that Champloo vibe to him.

 

[JLML]

it's just going to boil down to him running in all #YOLO GOML LOL then getting instakilled. It's what happens to all melee carries with the possible exception of 'Troxikins.

You're forgetting me. 'Cause actually somehow *something* suicidal melee carries. <.<

OT: Yeah, that design is just stupid. As a kend&#333;ka I'll tell you right away, whoever uses "armour" or a weapon like that would be *insert term explaining how seriously screwed someone is here*. Also, from what I can gather from those pictures, he's holding his sword incorrectly, his footwork is completely off (more akin to certain disciplines of karate or similar martial arts where it's more important to have low centre of gravity and control the zone than be able to quickly cover distance) and. . . have I mentioned his suit/armour is completely fucked up?

That said, his abilities look like *every champion designed the last year, with two or three exceptions*. Broken passive (for good or bad)? Check. High-damage burst ability? Check. Crowd control/defence ability? Check. Dash? Check. Ulti that either disjoints, CCs, dashes or a combination of those, together with damage? Check.

And here I was getting my hopes up because of Jinx, first non-dash champion since. . . forever. But guess we can't have more than one (sort of) original champion per season, eh?