Hello, everyone! Ecco here with another guide. This time for the extremely popular new champion Yasuo!

In my opinion, Yasuo is the most unique and best designed champion in all of League of Legends. He is so unique with so much versatility and is incredibly satisfying and enjoyable to play. Also, his skill ceiling is one of the highest in the game as well. I am just amazed at how amazingly well this champion is designed and god do I love him dearly. Hopefully this guide will help you master him!

Pros

1. Extremely high skill ceiling.
2. Rewarding gameplay.
3. Extremely versatile.
4. Fairly safe laning phase.
5. Snowballs like a mad-man.
6. Incredible AoE damage.

Cons

1. Extremely high skill ceiling.
2. Requires a composition that works well with him.
3. Does not contribute much when team is losing.
4. Punished severely for being mispositioned. (CC -> 1shot)

The composition I have set out above is literally the best composition I can think of for Yasuo. It has everything you need to work. Shyvana in general is just amazing. Strong laning phase, scales incredibly well, split-pushes well, and for the icing on the cake she has an AoE knock-up. An overall incredible pick that has great synergy with Yasuo. Vi is, in my opinion, the strongest jungler right now and she also has great synergy with Yasuo. Has incredible early game ganks that can get Yasuo snowballing and also has a free set-up for his ult at any time. The Yasuo Vi combination is probably the strongest, most consistent level 6 combination of any mid jungler in the game. Sivir is fantastic for initiation as well as having incredible AoE and Alistar has fantastic initiation/follow-up initiation as well as more knock-ups!

Obviously this is /the/ ideal composition and you typically won't get it as perfect as this. Just make sure to have at least one other consistent knock-up on your team as well as a very strong team-fighting composition!

This set-up can be argued and to be completely honest is personal preference. You /can/ go Ignite but I just don't prefer it. Ignite gives you stronger laning presence and more ability to snowball in the early game but I just think that barrier does more. Definitely with the Patch 4.3 nerfing his shield by over 200 at max level I think it is even better to run it on him now. It gives him longer survivability which gives him more time to deal out damage with his insanely high dps.

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Greater Mark of Attack Damage Greater Mark of Critical Chance Greater Seal of Armor Greater Glyph of Magic Resist Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage Greater Quintessence of Life Steal

These are almost identical runes to those that I run on an adc with the exception of taking out my mana-regeneration blues and substituting them for a little bit more magic resist as well as taking out 5 of my attack damage reds for critical chance. The efficiency of these runes are doubled and will put you at 99% critical chance once you have your core items giving you a critical strike on literally almost every hit. Flat ad reds will always be the choice on any champion who scales well off of ad just because they're so incredibly cost efficient. Flat armor and magic resist are fantastic for sustaining and trading in laning phase. Finally, I take a bit of sustain in my glyphs with 4% life-steal as well as a couple more ad to help with last hitting and trading!

So, just as an adc I am going to invest 21 points into the offensive tree for the most damage possible. I then put my remaining 9 points in defense to help with my early laning phase of reducing auto-attack damage and helping sustain through it as well as helping my health-pool scale just a little bit more as the game progresses.

My ability sequence on Yasuo is fairly stagnant. There really aren't any reasons for deviation from this as it optimizes your damage and overall strength.

Way of the Wanderer(Passive) Yasuo's passive is one of, if not the strongest passive in the game on paper. Even with the nerfs, he has a regenerating shield for more than the health of a Giant's Belt as well as doubling his critical strike chance. It is just completely absurd that this is in the game.

Steel Tempest Steel Tempest is a pretty awesome move. It isn't the ability that really defines Yasuo necessarily but it is one of the main reasons as to why he is soooo fun. It is extremely spammable and even though its range is terrible, due to your insane flow of movement and high mobility it isn't a very hindering aspect. What makes it so unique is that it acts as an auto-attack. Your critical-strike and on-hit affects transfer over to this ability which is amazing. Red buff as well as the passive of Statikk Shiv proc on it for example which is truly helpful to allow him to do decently well in his early game while ramping up to his core items. When combined with Sweeping Blade it will cause Steel Tempest to go in a circle. This is fantastic for clearing waves and guaranteeing damage on opponents as well. To add to the uniqueness of this ability, after landing two successful Steel Tempests in the allotted time, the third one will be a tornado skill-shot (similar to Janna's except it is much faster with no ramp-up time. This allows for a self set-up for your ultimate as well just being a really strong harass move and wave clear.

Wind Wall Wind Wall is an interesting skill that is a truly unique. There are no other abilities in the game that block projectiles and it helps allows for Yasuo to have an incredibly high skill-cap and be extremely aggressive in situations where it would otherwise be risky to. Such as against a not so popular champion, Twisted Fate. You could be dashing all through the lane and using Steel Tempest to be aggressive and if he ever tries to gold card you, as long as you have the reaction time you can just block it. Same as if you were playing aggressive and an Elise is ganking you. Be scared of Coccoons no longer. Although it is incredible, the cool-down is /extremely/ long. Don't spam it all the time and save it for the proper moment!

Sweeping Blade Sweeping Blade is awesome. I feel like a little kid talking about Yasuo's abilities but it's true! They're so unique and awesome and I love it so much. Anyways, back to Sweeping Blade. It is a dash ability similar to Fizz's because it is always a set distance that you will travel. Also, it has a small global cool-down as well as a separate cool-down for each target that is dashed to. It gives you incredible mobility and chasing potential around minions waves and also in team-fights. It makes him extremely slippery and hard to lock-down. While playing aggressive in lane with this ability, if your opponent is close to minions, dash to the minion as opposed to the champion. This will give you the option of dashing to them once again after they retreat from the minions and optimizing your damage and kill potential.

Last Breath Last Breath is ridiculous. A 1200 range targeted ability that puts you right into the fray and does a giant AoE on everyone near the chosen target. It does incredible damage as well as cc'ing potentially a large portion of champions. Aaaaaaaand to top it all off, Yasuo gets 50% bonus armor penetration for 15 seconds. Stuff like this passive is what makes Yasuo such a rediculous champion because all of these passives on his abilities are completely absurd. Even his ultimate without the passive sounds strong to me! Keep in mind while playing as and against Yasuo that his damage will go way up after performing his ultimate.

The starting items that I run on Yasuo are fairly standard. Definitely with the recent nerfs to Doran's Shield in patch 4.3 this would always be my start on him. It will give you the highest kill potential and overall ability to be aggressive as well as a decent chunk of health/sustain.



Typically I will try to save up for a Zeal for my first back and then pick up Boots soon after that (or at the same time if I have enough gold). Then I will complete my Statikk Shiv. Statikk Shiv is phenomenal on Yasuo because it gives a lot of early to mid-game damage with the proc as well as giving him 40% critical strike and a decent amount of attack-speed. This gives him a lot of early-game strength and wave-clear that allows him to get to his core items without too much trouble. Once I complete my Statikk Shiv, I pick up a Vampiric Scepter to help with my overall sustain, allowing me to stay out on the map in longer periods of time.

I typically keep my boots as Boots of Speed until Infinity Edge is completed because there really isn't any need to finish boots asap because you'll mostly be farming and shouldn't be taking too much cc this early anyway. Infinity Edge is the second complete item that you pick up on Yasuo because it will get him up to 99% critical strike chance as well as increasing his crit damage by 50%. Overall a god-tier item on Yasuo that makes his damage just absurd. Mercury's Treads are chosen because there really isn't any other option that is good on him. CC is his biggest weakness as it allows him to get burst down in team-fights so this will help prevent that.



Once the core is completed, it is time for a defensive item because of how aggressive you will have to be playing and you really have no true escape. Guardian Angel is the best choice because it allows for focus to be off of you while you are dead and also because you have amazing clean-up potential in team-fights. Usually I'll get my last damage item of the game with Last Whisper to give a large chunk of armor penetration to help your damage scale into the late game.

Upgrading your trinket to the Greater Stealth Totem a time of convenience will help you and your team with the map control. Pretty much any time I back and have 500g left over when not close to completing a big item I'll go ahead and pick it up sometime after getting my Guardian Angel.


There are a few different choices that I have for my last item. Two defensive choices and then a very offensive choice. If they have a lot of ad damage and I'm having trouble surviving and sticking to my target then I will go with Randuin's Omen because the passive and active is just so incredible and overall it will help me survive longer in fights as well which will overall increase the damage I can put out in total. Banshee's Veil is my other choice and it is probably the one I build the least out of my three choices. It is more situational as it isn't giving me as strong of stats as Randuin's and the bubble isn't super helpful since I'm diving in anyway so it will get popped immediately.

Bloodthirster will add an extra 100 damage as well as give you a lot of sustain and overall very strong dueling power. I go this when I'm not having too much trouble surviving in fights or am getting hit with a lot of mixed damage.

Yasuo overall is a fairly safe pick due to his high mobility and shield from his passive. In pretty much any match-up the worst you should be doing is going even or maybe losing by a little bit of cs. In the majority of match-ups you should be winning in the cs due to his fairly easy csing and also being able to rice (farm wolves + wraiths) quickly and safely.

The best match-ups for Yasuo are those who are very skill-shot reliant because he can abuse them so much since you're pretty much always fighting in a minion wave which gives him a lot of options to dash around and dodge everything. More skilled players will simply just sit there and auto-attack you while you look cool flying all over the place but many will just waste their spells. Those who have more consistent, click damage on low cool-down (like Lulu) are much more difficult to fight and win the wore of attrition against.

Laning with Yasuo is fairly straight forward. It consists of a lot of dancing around while waiting to farm and some nifty movements with your Sweeping Blade. You'll be dancin' around, poking with Steel Tempest and looking for opportunities to dash in and do some damage. Like stated previously in this guide, save your dash onto your actual laning opponent for when they are isolated and not near minions. That way you can maximize your damage and chase potential.

If you are in a lane where you are stronger than your opponent and able to constantly shove the lane, forcing them to farm under tower then you should have opportunities to roam. Look for opposing lanes that are defending under tower, presenting fantastic opportunities to dive them and pick up some kills. You have insane burst and cc which makes you a fantastic diver (your passive helps too!). Overextended champions are vulnerable to ganks as well, definitely if you catch them as their minion wave is entering the lane which gives you optimum room to chase.

If there are no opportunities presented to gank, then you can either coordinate a dive on your own lane with your jungler/top lane or just farm your jungle and get to your core asap.


Once you reach your core and laning starts to phase out, we enter the mid-game. Coordinating picks with your team and forcing objectives as a group of five should be your main goals. You won't be very strong at sieging although /extremely/ strong at diving. Make sure not to hesitate. Reacting in the moment and knowing when to dive is what will make or break a Yasuo player.

For the majority of fights, you play kind of similarly to Katarina. You dance around the edges, safely poking with Steel Tempest and just wait for your time to strike. Going in either too early or too late will prove futile. Timing is /everything/.


Once late-game is reached, you will not be nearly as fragile. Your shield will be at its highest, nearly 500, and you will have your Guardian Angel and hopefully another defensive item by this point in time. Even with being tankier and overall being able to play a little bit more forgivingly, you should still play just about as carefully as you did in the mid-game. Your defensiveness is mostly there for comfort and allowing you to stay in the fight longer than you did previously. If the other team plays properly then you should be getting focused and dying almost every fight (barring that you get a perfect engagement on them).