Yasuo will ‘likely’ be nerfed soon

Over on Riot’s League of Legends boards, a user asked what became of the rumored Yasuo nerfs if the champion became too strong. Riot Lead Champion Designer Meddler responded, and it looks like he’s going to get some tweaks soon:

He is looking a bit out of line yeah. We'll likely trim a bit of power sometime in the next couple of patches. Not sure what yet, one of the first things we'll look at though is whether tank builds are inappropriately effective.

Yasuo has started to see more and more play in the top lane recently, and some builds have started to favor tanky items like Frozen Mallett, Sunfire Cape and Guardian Angel. Per Champion.GG’s stats of ranked games Platinum and higher, 50.44 percent of Yasuo games are now in the top lane, compared to 47.09 percent in the mid lane. For a champion intended to be an assassin/fighter, that’s not ideal.

Yasuo’s win rate in both solo lanes has been steadily rising over the last few patches, too. He’s gone from a 47.9 percent mid lane win rate on 6.12 to 49.89 percent on 6.15, and 50.28 percent in the top lane on 6.11 to 52.15 percent on 6.15.

Commenter ArKaDaTa, a Yasuo main, had a suggestion for a specific nerf on the boards:

As a supposedly high skillcap champion he looks a bit too powerful since a few patchs (winrate increase) and this might have to do with the usage of Fervor of Battle which synergize really well with him and provide too much damage on tank builds.

The main issue here is that nerfing this Keystone could negatively affect others champions, same for nerfing others items such as Phantom Dancer which is really good on him.

So, assuming Yasuo is the real problem here, lowering his Q base damage (current 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+ 100% AD)) and lowering the critical strike damage penalty (current 25%) could be a good way to balance him by lowering the damage he can output as a Tank but making AD/Crit chance a more rewarding stat on him.

I believe that would be a nice way to tone him down as a tank without touching his offensive midlane playstyle and his kit too much, though that's just my suggestion as a Yasuo Main.

We’ll keep you updated on Yasuo’s eventual changes as they come through.,