Yasuo Guide - Season 8

Yasuo - The Unforgiven

Simply one of the strongest champion of the league.
His mobility, his scalling, his kit...

Yasuo is a bruiser AD, who works like a master yi mixed with Malphite.
let me explain this.
His kit and item path mean he is a high dps, squishy with a hard engage potential .

To play as yasuo, you need to know your powerspikes, know when you can engage, or when you can't.
Yasuo mains are often considered as "typical random yasuo" because the way from beginner to master is long and hard.
i'm seeing too often yasuo player who are good at mechanics, good at building but who don't know their champion in depht.

When you play yasuo you need to be 100% focus, lucid and keep calm.
Before any engage, any trade, you need to plan what's going to happen before it happens. you need to know how your mates are going to react to your engage and how your ennemies will react as well.

Playing yasuo doesn't consist in dashing everywhere, casting spells randomly and dps the first ennemy who's on your way.
See the minions waves as ways to go in and go out and where you can move freely so think twice before you use your Dash.

When you play him, you gotta assimilate all the enemies Controls, and have an eye on every champions that are facing you. When you'll be able to do this you'll know how to move, how to use your windwall and when it's time to make a bloodshed. ;

Hey i didn't say it would be easy..

Top Lane

This is the lane where i prefer to play yasuo, first of all, the toplane is way longer than midlane, you can easily have a situation where two waves of minions are fighting in the center, and another wave is on its way. Why does that matter ? because yasuo is a champion who has Offensive phases and defensive phases. and simply E through minions lets you get some more seconds in a trade, where you can stack back your q spell,and channel your shield.
Yasuo has a lot of mobility, so you can make a fight last, to give the time to your jungler to counter gang for example.

Mid Lane

Yasuo is a strong midlaner, especially against champions who have to get near minions to farm, against distance range champions it is a bit more difficult. The strenght of yasuo mid is your dodge potential. Most of the midlaner got a burst dmg phase, and it's almost every time a burst coming from projectile spells or small AOE spells. Your Wind Wall can block the projectiles, and your Sweeping Blade can dodge the AOE spells. If you dodge the burst phase, you can simply free trade your opponent with a Auto attack dual, and as an AD champion against an AP champion, i swear you win.

Abilities

Passive

Yasuo's passive is one of the most interesting of the game. Yasuo's critical strike chance is doubled, but his Critical strike deal 90% damage, reduced to 75% damage on Steel Tempest
Zeal -> 20 % critic -> 40 % critic
The second party of the passive is the fact that yasuo chanels a shield while he moves. When the stacks reach 100, he creates a shield that blocks for one second 100 dmg lvl 1 and 510 lvl 18.
What's important to know, is that the distance made while dashing with your Sweeping Blade counts. That's why the mobility brought by maxing this spell is important.
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Steel Tempest

Yasuo's q spell is his first source of damage. It counts like an autoattack, what means it can critical strike, apply red buff, sheen and all other items wich have an effect affecting the auto attacks.
Second thing to know, is that the cooldown of this spells doesn't depend of cooldown reduction. The only way to reduces the cooldown of Steel Tempest, is the amount of attack speed. That's why We go for a 29% attack speed rune page + Fury masteries.
Another thing to know, is that as this spell is considered as an auto attack, if you're hit by a control spell, you'll miss your Q spell.
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Wind Wall

I don't think there is a lot to say about this spell as everyone know what it does.
First, this spell brings vision if it's casts near a wall.
Then, There is a little trick with the Steel Tempest animation. You can see it in the combos section if you didn't already see it.
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Sweeping Blade

What people usually don't know about this spell, is that the distance travelled with it is always the same. Only the speed changes, scaling with yasuo's movement speed. Which means that if you cast it on a target near your, you will arrive outrange of Q spell with a E Q combo. which also mean that you can go through walls by casting it on a target that is near to this wall.
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Last Breath

Used on knocked up targets. You usually think that knock up always come from your team, but if you think for a second, you can know that drakes knock up everyone that's near them when they get engaged. Same thing for baron Nashor who has a spell that knocks up ennemies.
The spell in itself isn't awesome, what's important is the bonus that it gives to yasuo after been casted. Yasuo gains 50% Armor bonus penetration, which make a BIG difference on a duel. carries usually have about 70 armor bonus with their runes, masteries and items. If you ignore 50% of it (35 armor bonus left instead of 70 makes a difference).
That's why you musn't be scared when you see that a trade will be very close, because after your ultimate, the dps will be totally different.

flashed tornado :

This trick is useful when you want to surprise your opponent, and you know he has the possibility to dodge your tornado (flash, dash...) the time to react is way shorter and you can gain from this.
there is a casting time when you throw your tornado, just like lee sin kick flash, instead of flash and then throw your tornado.
simply cast your q spell as if you want to throw your tornado into a direction, but during the animation, you use flash to get closer and the tornado will be send from the position you now are after flash.
Q --> flash
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Steel wall 

This is a simple trick, useful to gain 0.5 sec during a fight. If you have to cast your to dodge an incoming projectile but also want to attack, simply use W then Q fast. The q spell animation will be cancelled by the casting animation of windwall instead of losing time with casting both.
W + Q
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Flashed airstrike :

this is a hard one, took me a while to learn how to use it. Imagine you have a low opponent in front of you, and you want to quickly engage and surprise without letting him any chance to react.
Yasuo's airstrike works with the E linked with the 3rd q spell + ultimate.
So this one is a bit different in the execution, and way harder.
You have minions in front of you, and your opponent is behind them, but you can't directly E on him, your 3rd q spell is ready. You will dash on a minion but while half way, you will cast your q spell and at the same time flash to your opponent and then use your ultime on the knockup.
here is a short video that shows it.

Flashed airstrike
the video's credit does not belong to me

E --> Q + flash
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AirBlade :

This trick consists in having a tornado ready after having cast your ultimate on a first tornado. This is the best optimisation for Q spell, and allows you to link 2 bumps in a short time.
To do so, you will need to be at your Q spell cooldown cap, (let me remind you that this cd, depends on yasuo's attack speed) that is 1.33 sec.
So, imagine you send a first tornado to your opponents, you hit, you will (if you can) E on them instantly, and use the E+Q, so that means you already are at 1 stack, then you can ultimate on your knockup, and once you go back on the floor, cast another q spell, means you are at 2 stacks and can send another tornado in 1.33 sec.
BUT, the secret of this technique, is that you don't have to EQ on them directly, there is an exploitation of animation that allows you to EQ on whatever you want, and then instantly R, the dmg provided from your EQ, will be dealt where your ultimate is right away before you start your ultimate animation. This is kinda complicate to understand so i will show you a video from the one who created this trick.
the video's credit does not belong to me.
Quote : having 1.33 cd on q spell isn't necessary, but then you have to execute it in order to be able to EQ fast enough to link it with your ultimate

Airblade

3Q --> E+Q+R --> Q --> 3Q

Yasuo Runes:

Yasuo Spells: