Yi is not often played or liked because player always play him as ad crit carry. During mid and late game, when there is 5v5 teamfight, Yi is considering as useless with this build; he takes one control and die.
I propose an alternative.
Actually, with the ult and the e, you have great damage even with hp or tank items. This means there are tons of different build viable on Yi. In any situation, you will have the right item possible; this allow you to play against almost all champion on a lane without being hard countered.

More than items, you can rely on the choice of your spells to rock.
You can have great sustains by maxing w. If you feel you can kill at lvl 6, then max the e with the w. If not, max q and w, because the q will allow you more sustains by easy farming and good harassment.
If you choice to do a tank item in first item, max the e, or your damages will be too weak. Its important to experiment this because your e and r are damages not easy to forecast, and they are damn high.
Don't use the q to engage an opponent, especially if they have a dash. Go on them just by walking. You can stay close to them after their dash with the q (zac, gragas, will not escape!). The most important thing is to time alpha strike to dodge their spells.
Teleport:
You can easy grap free kills with your teleport spell. Yi is really good to clean up a fight because the reset of q cooldoon on kill. If their jgl come bot and if they try to dive, it can be a free triple kill for you.
Or you can clean up the battlefield after or during a fight for dragon.
Its for that early Distortion Boot are good on Yi.
On lane, farming under tower is not a problem. Its avoid you to be gank: its perfect. The problem is being zoned, on some hard counter case. Just ask help, and time your tp.
Its good to start with armor or mr item because Yi have great base damage on his kit. I particularly appreciate the Sunfire cape, really strong as first item.