Yone Build Guide by DarDarThePenguin

Hey! I'm DarDar. I peaked Diamond 2 and am a mid laner that decided to main Yone after he was released and he has quickly become my favorite champion to play. Because of his hybrid damage style and his crazy combo potential, Yone's a great pick for mid lane that's insanely fun. If you want to have an insane snowball, crazy combos, and the ease of sitting back and hitting your 0/10 powerspike with a strong kit, you'll be sure to love playing Yone as much as I do. Be sure to go and follow my livestream at Twitch.tv/DarDarThePenguin if you want to stay up to date with Yone and potentially witness some of those cool plays I mentioned!

Conqueror is Yone's current best keystone in the game because it gives him super good dueling power, very nice healing and is the best keystone for extended all-ins. Doran's Shield and Fleet Footwork are both more than enough for sustain in laning phase if you decide you need it. Conqueror grants easy access to Legend: Alacrity allowing for the 111.11% bonus attack speed that Yone needs to be efficient to be easily obtainable.

Precision

Conqueror supports long and extended trades. Be sure to continue pressuring your opponent and don't let champions scare you with their burst since you'll easily win the fight with their damage on cooldown. Additionally, Conqueror allows for one or two short trades to be more than enough damage to kill your target from high health as long as you stay on top of them. Conqueror, even into some ranged matchups that are not extremely poke heavy, will be better than Fleet Footwork. If you are not confident in a ranged matchup, though, I recommend trying Fleet Footwork instead.

Overheal is now one of the best runes for Yone to take while running Kraken Slayer. Getting additional attack speed/level with patch 10.25 brings Legend: Bloodline into the limelight as Yone's best Legend rune. Overheal can now be abused from level 1 because of it which is even more important because Overheal is mathematically better than Triumph until you get at least two takedowns at 1 health.

Triumph will normally be better than Overheal when running Immortal Shieldbow because the lack of attack speed from the build still requires Legend: Alacrity to be used. Overheal is still an option but isn't recommended.

Legend: Bloodline is now the best Legend rune for the Kraken Slayer build. The increased attack speed/level from patch 10.25 causes Legend: Alacrity to no longer be needed with Kraken Slayer to hit 111.11% bonus attack speed for maximum efficiency on Mortal Steel and Spirit Cleave. Since you no longer need Legend: Alacrity, Legend: Bloodline is your best option by far.

Legend: Alacrity allows for players to hit the magical number of 111.11% bonus attack speed at two items while building Immortal Shieldbow, letting your champion have maximum efficiency on the cooldowns and cast times of your Mortal Steel and Spirit Cleave to maximize your damage output.

Last Stand generally does more damage than Coup de Grace in the majority of situations. Cut Down is also an option against HP stacking team compositions, but is rarely recommended.

Taste of Blood is the go-to for laning phase because Yone needs as much sustain as he can get to survive. On top of this, there is very little benefit from taking the other runes in the domination tree as Yone.

Ravenous Hunter is one of the most impactful secondary runes we could take since it was changed from spell vamp to omnivamp. Because of this change, Yone can heal sometimes up to 15,000 health over the course of a game from only this rune.

Fleet Footwork is normally used into laners that heavily poke like Xerath. Normally in long ranged poke lanes, Conqueror will not get much use because you won't be able to stay in your opponent's face easily. The additional damage that Conqueror provides isn't very needed into these matchups either due to long ranged poke champions normally being very squishy and having lackluster self-peel. Finally, Fleet Footwork offers incredible sustain when combined with Doran's Shield making you almost unkillable in lane.

As of now (Patch 11.5) your first item built will in all situations be Berserker's Greaves to gain a massive buff to your champion efficiency. It is extremely important to build items that keep Yone as efficient as possible because of how he abuses and multiplies the effectiveness of stats he is given. Berserker's Greaves provide movement speed to continue trades during Soul Unbound, and lots of attack speed to lower the cooldown and cast time of your Mortal Steel and Spirit Cleave resulting in the most damage possible.

Kraken Slayer

VS

Immortal Shieldbow

Kraken Slayer is a decent choice against teams that consist of primarily tanks due to the true damage also affecting your casts of Mortal Steel. Unfortunately, the glass cannon nature of the build combined with not normally needing the additional damage it provides other other options causes it to be the second item to consider.

Immortal Shieldbow is going to be the must-buy mythic item for Yone in almost every single game. The immense defensive capabilities the passive shield gives are indescribable. Additionally, it has a very good build path for every lane matchup combined with very good sustain for the side lane macrostyle of Yone.

Galeforce is, unfortunately, the single worst mythic item you can currently build on Yone. It supplies an excess of damage which ends up completely unneeded when Yone can very easily one shot enemies with lower damage mythic items. The build path Galeforce forces upon the player is also suboptimal, not being able to take Legend: Bloodline or get Infinity Edge second item due to the lack of readily available sustain.

Bloodthirster is good if you want a lot more damage and sustain. Overcapping Crit Chance gives you more AD to scale your Soul Unbound and Fate Sealed with.
Wit's End is good if you need magic resistance or need to do damage to an armor stacking champion like Malphite.
Guardian Angel is best if you dive into fights to assassinate the backline since the revive prevents you from dying.
Spirit Visage is best built if you already have a healing item like Bloodthirster and need magic resistance.
Death's Dance is best when you still want to buy damage, but also need to counter physical burst damage.

As Yone, your goals in a game depend on how a match looks before it starts. You will need to determine: Who your lane opponent is and if you win the matchup. What roles on your team are supposed to win their matchups. How you will be using your champion's powerful kit to assist your team in the game. At what point in the game you should expect to be able to fight each individual champion on the enemy team.

Who your lane opponent is and if you win the matchup:
If you know you win your lane, then the task of impacting the map becomes easier. If you're unsure, play cautiously and try to cause situations that you think you'll win based off of your knowledge of other champions and how they interact with Yone.

What roles on your team are supposed to win their matchups:
Knowing who on your team is supposed to win is also extremely valuable because you'll know where you can safely play to and who will need help. As Yone, if you have a laner with an extreme amount of crowd control like Maokai or Leona, then roam to that lane. It makes sure your Fate Sealed will land which always results in a kill early game.

How you will be using your champion's powerful kit to assist your team in the game:
After you know which lanes to help, you've already solved half of using Yone's kit to help your team. Next, decide how to continue pressing your advantage. Roam and use Fate Sealed to force skirmishes and dive, or clean up fights and split push.

At what point in the game you should expect to be able to fight each individual champion on the enemy team:
Finally, knowing when you can solo kill the enemy champions is important because Yone is a very powerful side laner with lots of wave clear and good tower pushing power. Normally, you should try not to used Fate Sealed if you're 1v1ing someone in the side lane so, when you kill them, you can rotate and force a 4v5 for the win.

Good Matchups

And

Bad Matchups

In Yone's good matchups, focus on getting good CS, keeping vision on the river and in the enemy jungle if you can. Don't be afraid to try to get kills on your weak lane opponent. Be careful though! Yone, even in free lanes, is very susceptible to dying to ganks. Junglers can easily turn your free lane into a nightmare. Stay warded and safe!

In Yone's bad matchups, you almost always need Doran's Shield and Second Wind to stay alive. Do everything you can to get CS without dying, and try to get your jungler to gank for you to alleviate some of the pressure your lane opponent has.

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When playing Yone in the laning phase, the majority of your power comes from having the threat of your 3rd cast of Mortal Steel and Soul Unbound available. Because Yone can use Spirit Cleave to block the occasional bit of poke damage while retaliating, most players consider him a menace in lane. Into most matchups, you have to hit your 3rd cast of Mortal Steel to be able to pressure them because its your main engage tool, does more damage than your normal autos, and hard CCs your opponent getting you free damage.

A standard level three trade for Yone involves stacking your 3rd cast of Mortal Steel (I am going to call this Q3 from this point onwards.) on minions, Soul Unbound forward, Q3 onto your laner. Auto attack them once, then use Spirit Cleave as they come down from the airborne.

Continuing trades in this manner means that, by the time your opponent is done being CCd, you'll have a shield up to block any of their retaliation damage and have already won the trade.

At level 6, Yone's combo can do upwards of 1500 damage, assuming you hit everything and Ignite the target, depending on how many auto attacks you get off. If you have an opportunity to get a kill from your combo, go for it. (See video for combo.)

The mid game is where Yone begins to shine. After hitting your item spikes ( Kraken Slayer or Immortal Shieldbow), your damage gets really insane. Typically, with the waveclear supplied by Mortal Steel and Spirit Cleave you'll be able to easily burn through minion waves like nothing, freeing up lots of time to take towers, get picks, and collect enemy jungle camps.

In the mid game, Yone serves as a split-push focused assassin. When you get matched by your opponents in a side lane, try to either break off to your team and force a 4v5, or defeat your lane opponent without using Fate Sealed so you can fight a guaranteed 4v5. If you are unable to fight a winning fight with your team, continuing running down the side lane and keep pressure.

With the impact that Yone can have on a fight and game from his high damage and Fate Sealed, it's very important for you to stay close to neutral objectives like Baron Nashor and Dragon . If you're split pushing, keep to the side of the map near those important neutral objectives.

Remember, Yone is easy to shut down with hard CC. Feel free to try 2v1ing, 3v1ing, or even 4v1ing the enemy team if you're confident and fed enough. Against any enemies with easy to land, lasting, hard CC, do not look for multikills and focus on getting towers and jungle camps.

Yone late game is very similar to his mid game with the exception being much longer death timers and Fate Sealed has a much lower cooldown. Because of this, feel free to begin using your Fate Sealed to kill a single enemy.

Be very wary when teamfighting with Fate Sealed. Missing, mistiming, or poorly angling the ability can easily ruin your team's wombo combo, save the enemy carries, get you killed, and completely throw the game. Play to the value of your spammable Q3 and Soul Unbound instead of the value of Fate Sealed. Obviously, always be on the lookout. Amazing 4-man ultimates can appear out of nowhere.

If you found the guide helpful be sure to upvote it! If you think I'm wrong about something or you disagree for whatever reason, feel free to tell me why and I'll try my best to explain why I have my stance. You might change my mind too!

Follow and stop by my stream if you have any additional questions: Twitch.tv/DarDarThePenguin