Transcript
G'day, I'm UberGiantsBro and welcome to this concise Yasuo guide. In this video I'm going to teach you what you need to know to play Yasuo mid as well as how to counter Yasuo if you're versing one.
The first thing you need to know about Yasuo is that he's a high risk, high reward champion - he's easy to stuff up but he has a fairly high skill cap so he feels great when you outplay someone with an awesome combo.
So with the runes build and masteries, I don't want to talk about them too much because they're fairly self explanatory. Ofcourse you can try other stuff but this is what I've fuond to be the best settup. The reason for the 5% crit runes is that with this build it puts you at a neat 100% crit chance.
So with laning with Yasuo there's a few things you need to keep in mind.
Firstly with skills you'll want to start with Steel Tempest (his q) and max it always because it does the most damage. The only exception to this is starting with e against someone with skillshots like Syndra or Gragas so you can dodge their harass by dashing through minions.
Never stand still in lane, moving charges up your shield (passive) which is really what gets you through a tough harass lane. So make sure to time your trades for when your shield is up. The other reason you want to keep dashing in lane is because it increases the damage of your dash.
So Steel Tempest, Yasuo's q is either a little stab skill shot or if you use it while dashing it's a small spin attack. Every 3 casts you get a knockup on the q which turns the spin attack into a spin attack with a knockup and the stab into a whirlwhind, both of which you can use to set up your ult. It's good for farming and it's got a really low cooldown which is actually reduced by attack speed. It helps to charge your knockup before you engage, like in this example. I block Lee Sin's q with my wind wall and then dash away and charge my knockup which I use as a whirlwind to set up my ult and die as a hero samurai.
Alright so you can close a lot of space with Sweeping Blade his dash but if you're chasing it really helps if you have your 3rd q ready for the knockup. If you don't have 3 stacks of q ready like in this example you can easily charge it up by using q when you dash through a minion but it might slow down your chase.
Most of Yasuo's kill potential comes from his ult and you can activate the ult on your own by getting 3 stacks of q and then q'ing for a whirlwind like in this example or dashing and then q'ing for a guaranteed knockup like in this example. Make use of your windwall to block any retaliation damage but I didn't need to in this example cause TF's card was down.
One of the things I love most about Yasuo is that he's a great roamer. As soon as you hit 6 you should be looking to roam, preferably to a lane that can set your ult up. Yasuo combos really well with AOE knockups in team fights so that's another reason the Rock works great with him. Monkey and Cow are all great picks with Yasuo but outside of lane there's literally a tonne more champions that Yasuo's ult works with. Almost any displacement or knockup ability can activate it. Not sure how many of them are intentional but it even works with things like Vayne's condemn if you can react fast.
This was one of my first games with Yasuo and I didn't anticipate his ult to work with Lee Sin's ult and so I bungled it up really bad, but the next time he came back I'd learnt from my mistake which is the important thing and something I talk a lot about in my other videos.
Another cool thing you can do if you're running away is you can run next to a wall and then skirt around them and dash through them to get over the wall. You can do the same thing with jungle creeps if you stab them over the wall first so they agro on you and you get vision.
One of the main things you have to remember is that you can't dash to the same target within 10 seconds so be calculated in how you use it.
Alright how to counter Yasuo. A lot of Yasuo's matchups come down to skill and jungle pressure so there's not too many champions that counter him directly. It's impossible to go past Riven though because she can out-trade Yasuo with her shield if he ever gets too close and also she can match his mobility especially if there's not many creeps around. It's worth noting though that Riven's Wind Slash can be blocked by Yasuo's Wind Wall, pretty tough to do.
So instead of talking about matchups and counterpicks here's what you can do to counter Yasuo DESPITE what champion you have. Like all champions it helps to know what his cooldowns are like and his ability ranges and so it's a good idea to play him yourself a few times.
Firstly you need to be aware of what his knockup looks like, it makes a special sound effect and he has a glowing aura around him. This makes it easier to know when he's going to go in on you or you can be ready to dodge the tornado. Don't confuse the knockup aura with the shield animation.
You can dodge his q fairly easy by sidestepping tiny bits as it's so short and narrow. Be aware of all the things I told you about in this video like the bonus damage from consecutive dashes (especially early on) and also be aware that he can't dash to the same target for 10 seconds and be aware of his windwall and HIS KNOCKUP! Hue Hue Hue Hue
That's all for now, please follow me on Twitter @UberGiantsBro, like and subscribe and I'll catch you in my next video.
