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Master Yi Build Guide by Deano321

Jungle Yi (6.11) Can you call that tank? (Build still testing)

Jungle Yi (6.11) Can you call that tank? (Build still testing)

Updated on June 2, 2016
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Deano321 Build Guide By Deano321 136 9 6,565,135 Views 116 Comments
136 9 6,565,135 Views 116 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Deano321 Master Yi Build Guide By Deano321 Updated on June 2, 2016
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General Pre-Game In-Game Information
Introduction
Pros & Cons
Skill Breakdown
Runes
Masteries
Summoner Spells
Skill Sequence
Jungle Route
Matchups WIP
Patchnotes
Changelog


Everyone knows the rumors about Master Yi, he is an easy autoattack based champ who makes one Pentakill after the other. Well, I don't deny that he makes a lot of Pentakills and
it's true that he is easy to play, but he is also hard to master. The timing on Alpha Strike and Meditate makes the difference between a bad and a good Yi player.

One of the main factors that I main him is simply because it's so much fun to play him. Atleast for me.

With this build I'm trying to remove the weakness of him being too squishy.
This build might look bad on your first view but after you tried it you are going to agree that this build deals just a stupid amount of dmg and oneshots an APC or ADC even as a tank in the later states of the game.

This build might look weird because you haven't seen a lot of tank Master Yi's or even none at all.
It just takes ~40 minutes to try it for yourself. (Or even less in a botgame)

This build simply works so well on him because the three items Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor, Guinsoo's Rageblade and
Blade of the Ruined King offer a hella lot of Attack Speed + his Ultimate Highlander which also gives him Attack Speed and a lot of Movement Speed. There is no enemy which can run away from you simply because your high Attack Speed refreshes the passive of Black Cleaver which adds another set of Movement Speed.
Guinsoo's Rageblade also has the effect that every Basic Attack triggers on-hit effects twice, which means that the passive of Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor, Guinsoo's Rageblade and Blade of the Ruined King also trigger twice.
Important to mention that Guinsoo's Rageblade deals Magic Damage and Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor and Blade of the Ruined King deal a percentage of the enemies HP.
Let's not forget about his E Wuju Style which can also trigger twice and add a painful amount of True Damage.

Here is a screenshot of some of my stats:


And some more for the case:

Spoiler: Click to view


Screenshots from Guideusers:

Spoiler: Click to view




Pros:

+ Very fast Jungle clear thanks to Alpha Strike
+ Very strong Midgame (which leads to a lot of surrenders]
+ Very hard to itemize against thanks to the True Damage from Wuju Style, the Magic Damage from
Guinsoo's Rageblade and the percentage Health damage from Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor and Blade of the Ruined King
+ Can catch people off-guard because of his high mobility
+ Needs 2 Basic Attacks to kill the Squishys.
+ Can dodge a lot of Spells with his Alpha Strike like Cease and Desist or Ace in the Hole
+ Meditate helps him to survive with gaining some resistances
+ Has very good cleanup
+ Can easily get away if caught

Cons

- Weak early
- No Crowd Control
- Weak in Teamfights
- Will get focused
- Difficult to use Alpha Strike and Meditate correctly.



I prefer E second because you gain a lot more damage from it.
The true damage with your passive and krug buff melts the Redbuff easily.
You need your W on lvl 3 because otherwise you prolly ain't gonna make a full clear of your jungle.



Passive: The passive is one of the main things that helps this build to work. Every 4th attack strikes doubled but only deals 50% of the damage. The 50% doesnt really matter because the true damage from your E Wuju Style is an On-Hit Effect, that means the damage of it isn't reduced. It's the same for Skirmisher's Sabre - Bloodrazor and Blade of the Ruined King.
It's also important to mention that after your first activation of your passive you only need 3 Auto-Attacks because the second strike from your passive counts towards it.
It's like: 1-2-3-4(1)-2-3-4(1)-...

Q: This is prolly the most important ability. It can hit up to 4 enemies, that means you will always hit every monster at a camp and it does a really high amount of damage to them.
In a fight it makes you untargetable and it helps you dodging tower shots and more or less dangerous abilities like Ace in the Hole, Requiem or Cease and Desist. It may take some time but after a few games you should feel improvement. You may keep in mind that it doesn't negate the damage from things like Ignite or Brand's passive Blaze.
Every Auto-Attack reduces its cooldown by 1 second and thanks to your passive Double Strike you get it even faster.

W: This skill allows you to heal up for a certain amount which is increased by your missing health. It also gives you 50-70% damage reduction. The downside is that it's easily interrupted by a stun, silence or a knockup/knockback. So you want to use it when your enemies have used all of their stuns etc..
But if you time it right you are easily able to turn around teamfights for example if your Q Alpha Strike is on cooldown and you need to survive some more seconds. It has often enabled me to be successfull in a 1v2 or 1v3. On max lvl you get as much dmg reduction as an Alistar in his ultimate Unbreakable Will.
I recommend you to max this 2nd if you join early teamfights.

E: Even tho the 10% extra ad from its passive is pretty nice, the true damage from his active is the thing that makes it so hard to itemize against him. It lasts 5 seconds, scales insanely with his total ad and also benefits from his passive Double Strike.
Remember that the passive is disabled as long as the ability is on cooldown, so don't waste it on towers since it doesnt deal true damage on them.

R: This ability is just insanely strong because it not only gives you a lot of attack speed and movement speed, it also makes you immune to all slows, that includes movement and attack apeed slows.
That as an ability would be already really strong but it also has the passive to reduce all your remaining cooldowns by 70% if you get an assist or a kill. Combined with your passive Double Strike and the passive of Alpha Strike you can use your Q after every kill.



Greater Quintessence of Attack Speed
I choose these because Master Yi scales very good with Attack Speed, for example his Passive Double Strike gets activated more often.
Some people suggest me to take Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed but personally I don't think it's necessary because he already has the highest Movement Speed.
I wouldn't recommend Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage because it slows your Jungling down for a decent amount and you lose more health because the Ancient Krug buff doesn't get activated that often.

Greater Mark of Attack Speed
It's pretty much the same as for the Quintessences.



Greater Seal of Scaling Health
These are the best in my opinion because in this meta are so many Armor Penetration items that Greater Seal of Armor doesnt really do that much.


Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist
Since your build usually has no Magic Resist, you want to have a bit atleast.
And since you AFK farm the first couple of minutes the scaling ones are better than the flat.


Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction
This gives you a total of 10% CDR on level 18 which helps you clearing the Jungle faster and getting your abilities back up.
And since your Ult Highlander has the effect that a kill or assist reduces your Cooldowns by 70% it's also shorter.



Ferocity Tree







Fury : More attack speed
Double Edged Sword : Increase of your damage
Vampirism : More sustain
Bounty Hunter : Increase of your damage
Battering Blows : Increase of your damage
Fervor of Battle : Increase of your damage (Read my opinion in the patchnotes chapter)














Cunning Tree







Savagery : Makes your jungle clear faster
Assassin : Increase of your damage
Merciless : Increase of your damage
Dangerous Game : More sustain in teamfights
















Why do I prefer 18-12-0?

I went for 18 into the Ferocity Tree because Thunderlord's Decree is not comparable to Fervor of Battle because it only gives you a small burst and then it has a very long cooldown. You would most likely use it once in a battle and that's not much.


Ferocity


Why and not ?
Because this build benefits from every Attack Speed you can get without building even more offensive items. Sorcery only makes your Q stronger because it's the only damaging spell.
Why and not or ?
Dealing 3% more damage and only getting 1.5% more? Sounds amazing. 20 Health for killing a unit might be useful but it has a 25 seconds cooldown. It might be good if you play Master Yi on a lane.
I also haven't made my mind up on Expose Weakness but it seems like it's pretty good on aggressive supports that use the Ferocity Tree.
Why and not ?

You can use both but I recommend Vampirism because it gives you more sustain.
Why and not ?
Since you kill almost everyone atleast once you get a free 5% damage boost. Oppressor wouldn't really do anything since you have no slows, stuns, etc.. and you are most likely alone most of the time.
Why and not ?

Because you deal more attack damage than magic damage.
Why and not or ?
You don't need the Lifesteal against Champions or Minions because you are in the Jungle most of the time. You also don't have a lot of Damaging Abilities. Fervor of Battle is also really OP. (Read my opinion in the patchnotes chapter)


Cunning


Why and not ?
You don't really need the Movement Speed because Master Yi has the highest Base Movement Speed anyways. Dead Man's Plate also gives you a good amount of Movement Speed. Savagery is the better choice because it makes your jungle clear faster.
Why and not or ?

Assassin is just way too perfect for Master Yi because he loves 1v1's or 1v2's. You really want to look for those fights and then you gain 1.5% more damage.
Why and not ?
Even tho you may be OOM sometimes it's pretty much a waste if you pick Meditation because you don't really gain a lot of Mana since it's scaling with your missing Mana and you don't buy any Mana items. Merciless is just better because it helps you to execute your enemies even faster.
Why and not ?
The effect of Bandit isn't very useful since you aren't on a lane with someone else who executes minions for you and you don't really hit a lot of champions to gain the 10 gold.
Dangerous Game is a pretty good Mastery because it gives you sustain in a teamfight. It often saved me from dying to burns or Ignite and turned around a lot of fights where I fought 1v2,3,4,5.




Must have Summoner Spells:

Obviously. Duh.




Good:

It's almost impossible to play a perfect game, so Flash is a good Summoner Spell to undo your mistakes. For example to reposition in a teamfight if you did a bad engage.


This helps if you want to farm really quickly to get your items and stacks as fast as possible. It also offers a good way to flank the enemies. But it's not really useful if you are IN a teamfight.


OK:

I wouldn't judge you if I saw you playing with it, because it helps catching people offguard or helping an ally who is in danger and quite far away. But you have no chance to reposition fast in a fight.


I'd only recommend this if you play against another Jungler who is more of a duelist like Udyr or Shyvana. It's also a useful way to reduce the DMG of Assassins who'd oneshot you like Fizz.


This gives you more kill pressure in the early game. Also useful against champions like Dr. Mundo who have a high health regeneration spell.



BAD:

In my opinion only good on APC's or ADC's who can use the heal to survive heavy damage spells and the movespeed to run or kite. Not good for an offensive champ like Master Yi.


A bit more useful than heal but still a bad summoner for being offensive.





Blue Side: You really want to start at the Ancient Krug because his buff is very powerful. Thanks to it you stun monsters/minions with every 6th Auto-Attack and even less with your passive Double Strike. Compared to a Redbuff start you have more health after a full clear because the Redbuff just gives you a certain amount of health which is easily lost by just a few Auto-Attacks from monsters and the stun buff provides you from getting a LOT of hits by jungle creeps because it remains until you have beaten the Bluebuff. You'd also need a lot more time if you wanna do a fullclear, which you wanna do since you can buy your first upgrade Skirmisher's Sabre after it.


Red Side:

WORK IN PROGRESS



+ = Buff
- = Nerf
~ = Change

Patch 5.22:
+ Appearance of the Rift Herald
This CAN give you 5 more stacks in the early.

Patch 5.23:
- Guinsoo's Rageblade COMBINE COST 775 ⇒ 1075 gold
Delays your early a bit.

Patch 5.24:
- Dead Man's Plate HEALTH 600 ⇒ 500
You could just get Sterak's Gage instead if you feel like this has been a big nerf but imo I think it's still viable. (Because DMP was really op)

- Guinsoo's Rageblade AREA-OF-EFFECT (AOE) 450 ⇒ 350
It's just a small nerf because it doesn't affect your jungle clear. It was pretty obvious that this item would get a lot of nerfs. This won't be the last one.
Compared to Ravenous Hydra (~385-400) it's just slightly less.

+ Fervor of Battle changed (Got changed again in Patch 6.1)
new Now ONLY stacks on champion hits
new Melee attacks now grant double stacks of Fervor
new Hitting an enemy champion with an ability grants 2 stacks (2 second cooldown)
removed Using abilities no longer grant stacks of Fervor
Overall this is a buff because even if you had 10 stacks in the jungle, they would often be gone when you arrive on a lane. So you needed 10 hits/spells to deal maximum damage.
Now you only need 4 auto attacks and 1 spell (your q) to get maximum stacks.
The only bad thing is that you can't hold your stacks by simply using your w.
(Your passive and Sated obviously makes the stacking even faster)

+ Assassin added
Finally they got another opportunity for the second tree. Even tho Runic Affinity is pretty ok it's still not very useful on a Master Yi and Secret Stash is just a faceroll because you don't even buy Heal Potions.

Patch 6.1:
+ Skirmisher's Sabre: COST 1050 gold ⇒ 1000 gold
You CAN go back with 700g after your first clear.

+ Tiamat: COMBINE COST 225 ⇒ 175
+ Titanic Hydra: COMBINE COST 750 gold ⇒ 700 gold
TOTAL COST 3600 gold ⇒ 3500 gold
Faster Tiamat and Titanic Hydra, awesome!

+ Fervor of Battle : DAMAGE ON-HIT 1-8 ⇒ 1-14 (at levels 1-18)
MAXIMUM STACKS 10 ⇒ 8
Let's do some math, before the Buff it gave 8 dmg on-hit on lvl 18 per stack. Thats 8x10=80 dmg on-hit at a maximum of 10 stacks. Now it gives 14 dmg on-hit on lvl 18 per stack. Thats 14x8=112 dmg on-hit at a maximum of 8 stacks.
You get your maximum stacks now with 3 auto attacks and 1 spell (your Q). Clearly a buff.

Patch 6.2:
+ Assassin : DAMAGE BONUS +1.5% ⇒ +2%
More damage, why not.

Patch 6.3:
- Dead Man's Plate: COMBINE COST 1000 gold ⇒ 1100 gold
SLOW ON HIT 75% ⇒ 50%
If this gets threw you prolly shouldn't build this item anymore cause after all the nerfs to this item it doesn't have the same value as before.
- Boots of Swiftness: TOTAL COST 800 ⇒ 900
- Ionian Boots of Lucidity: TOTAL COST 800 ⇒ 900
+ Randuin's Omen: TOTAL COST 3000 gold ⇒ 2900 gold
HEALTH 450 ⇒ 500
With the nerfs on Dead Man's Plate and the buffs on Randuin's Omen this kinda gets interesting.

Patch 6.4:
- Sterak's Gage: HEALTH 500 ⇒ 400
It's still a strong and necessary item on Master Yi.

Patch 6.6:
- Wuju Style: BASE DAMAGE 10/15/20/25/30 ⇒ 12/19/26/33/40
RATIO 0.1/0.125/0.15/0.175/0.2 total attack damage ⇒ 0.25 bonus attack damage at all ranks
This will slightly nerf the tank version of Master Yi because his active E now scales with bonus attack damage which is a buff if you build him completly offensive.

+ Tiamat: ATTACK DAMAGE 30 ⇒ 20
NEW: AOE 20-60% total attack damage (based on distance)
The return of the old passive and the better recipe for the item is really good and makes the slight AD nerf disappear. Your jungle clear will be way better combined with the aoe of Guinsoo's Rageblade.

- Titanic Hydra: ATTACK DAMAGE 50 ⇒ 35
This is a nerf directed to all the tanks which were building Titanic Hydra.

Patch 6.7:
- Maw of Malmortius: MAGIC RESIST 50 ⇒ 40
PASSIVE ATTACK SPEED 25% ⇒ 0%
Still a viable pickup vs AP bursters.

Patch 6.8:
- Highlander: COOLDOWN 75 seconds ⇒ 85 seconds
DURATION 10 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds
EXTENSION ON KILL OR ASSIST 4 seconds ⇒ 7 seconds
They want you to be more considered about when to use your ult.
You can't always use your ult some seconds before you go for a gank because then you might not have enough time to use it correctly.

Patch 6.9:
- Enchantment: Devourer removed
The loss of Enchantment: Devourer is truly devistating and Enchantment: Bloodrazor won't be able to replace it. Master Yi has lost his power of spiking very early with the cheap combination of Skirmisher's Sabre - Devourer and Guinsoo's Rageblade
+ Enchantment: Bloodrazor added
+ Guinsoo's Rageblade ALL CHANGES FOUND HERE
They moved the passive of Skirmisher's Sabre - Devourer (Sated) to this item and made it even better. Now every auto triggers on-hit effects twice.
They also added Recurve Bow into the build path which makes it a lot easier to build.
+ Black Cleaver: TOTAL COST 3500 gold ⇒ 3100 gold
ATTACK DAMAGE 55 ⇒ 50
They lowered the cost by 400 for just 5 AD.
5 AD has a gold value of 175 so it's a huge efficiency buff for the item.

Patch 6.10:
+ Meditate: RATIO 0.15 ⇒ 0.25 ability power per second
+ Wuju Style: TRUE DAMAGE ON-HIT 12/19/26/33/40 ⇒ 14/23/32/41/50
+ Enchantment: Bloodrazor: ATTACK SPEED 40% ⇒ 50%
ON-HIT DAMAGE 3% ⇒ 4% of the target’s maximum health
Small adjustment to equal his weaknesses since Patch 6.9.



18th November 2015:
- added chapter "Why would you pick Master Yi?"
- added chapter "Is this build even viable? Looks strange"
- added chapter "Pros and Cons"
- added chapter "Runes"
- added chapter "Is this Guide finished? + Youtube Channel"

19th November 2015:
- added chapter "Summoner Spells"
- added chapter "Change Log + WIP"

20th November 2015:
- added chapter "Jungle Route"

10th December 2015:
- added chapter "Patchnotes that affect Master Yi or this build"
- updated "Masteries"

16th December 2015:
- added chapter "Skill Sequences"
- added chapter "Skill Breakdown"
- added chapter "Masteries"
- updated chapter "Jungle Route"

22nd December 2015:
- updated chapter "Masteries"

23rd December 2015:
- updated chapter "Is this Guide finished? + Youtube Channel"

14th January 2016:
- updated chapter "Patchnotes that affect Master Yi or this build"
- improved my grammer in some chapters

19th January 2016:
- updated chapter "Skill Breakdown"

20th January 2016:
- added Boots of Swiftness to the item section

22nd January 2016:
- added headers and a banner! (made by OwenTheAwesomer)
- new structure

23rd January 2016:
- visual updated chapter "Masteries"

29th January 2016:
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"
- added Maw of Malmortius to the item section

9th February 2016:
- updated chapter "Runes"
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"

10th February 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.3
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"
- added Randuin's Omen to Situational Items
- moving Dead Man's Plate to Situational Items

13th February 2016:
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"

25th February 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.4
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"
- added Sunfire Aegis to Situational Items

29th February 2016:
- updated chapter "Masteries" ( Expose Weakness added)

23rd March 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.6
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"

10th April 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.7
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"

20th April 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.8
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"

21st April 2016:
- updated the Item-Section
- removed Guinsoo's Rageblade and Titanic Hydra from the Core Items and moved them to Situational Items
- added Blade of the Ruined King to the Core Items

5th May 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.9
- added Guinsoo's Rageblade back to the Core Items

18th May 2016:
- updated to Patch 6.10
- updated chapter "Patchnotes"


WORK IN PROGRESS


- chapter "Jungle Route"
- chapter "Matchups"


This guide isn't finished yet. I'm still adding a lot of stuff but I don't have that much time because I'm studying, I just wanted to release it because I think it's a powerful way to play Master Yi and you should have fun with it.

The comment box is the way to communicate with me,
so if you have any questions or suggestions, tell me and I'll answer to it.

Btw, I have a Youtube Channel if you want to check it out: CLICK ME!

I could record a whole game and upload it if you guys want. Please let me know.


Also a BIG thanks to those guys:
OwenTheAwesomer for the amazing headers & banner!
LimitlessHavoc & Foxy Riven for helping me with the BB-Code!

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