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Master Yi is one of those champions that can really tear up solo queue, and especially so in early League of Legends Season 12 patches, dominating across essentially all ranks. Unsurprisingly, Master Yi got a mini-rework in Patch 12.5 that was intended to tone down the champion and the prevailing Lethality build. However, the changes turned out to have the opposite effect, and because of that, the Riot dev team has now quickly followed up with a hotfix to nerf Master Yi on the live servers.
Master Yi receives unintended buff
When League of Legends Patch 12.5 came out, Riot devs had intended to nerf Lethality users, including Master Yi that was slashing his way through Summoner's Rift. In doing so, the changes shifted power into the champion's more traditional on-hit, attack speed and crit-centric build.
However, the supposed nerfs didn't work as intended. Instead, players quickly found that the changes were a major buff to Master Yi, as if he wasn't overpowered enough already. From the Patch 12.4, where Master Yi's win rate was at 52.12 percent according to LoLalytics, it climbed even further to a whopping 55 percent across all ranks on the live patch. His pick rate also rose by three points to 14.77 percent, and he gets banned in about a third of solo queue games.
As explained in a dev blog post, the mini-rework was meant to make on-hit build more optimal, and therefore more preferable to, the Lethality build for Master Yi. However, what happened was that these changes strengthened the on-hit build without really making a dent in the Lethality option.
Recognizing the unintended consequences of these changes, the League of Legends balance team has shipped an urgent hotfix on Friday, March 4, to balance Master Yi's kit a bit better.
“We’re tuning Yi down with some stronger nerfs this time, but ensuring that we’re pulling power from across his kit so as to not dramatically impact his gameplay,” Riot announced.
Master Yi hit with another round of nerfs in Patch 12.5
These nerfs — actual nerfs, this time — weaken both the Lethality and on-hit builds. The champion now has much lower base health, deals less damage with his E (Wuju Style, which empowers his auto), and has a longer cooldown for his ultimate except when already maxed out. Effectively, the changes make it significantly harder for Master Yi to 1v5 (or 1v9) after hitting level 6.
The champion's Alpha Strike or Q ability has been hit with the biggest nerf. Now the bonus damage from crits stands at just 35 percent, from 50 percent before the hotfix. Not only did his Attack Damage scaling get reduced, but so did the on-hit damage. As such, for an optimal build, Blade of the Ruined King will still be a good choice—just not as overpowered as before.
See below for the full list of changes to Master Yi.
Master Yi hotfix in League of Legends patch 12.5
Stats
- Base health: 599 >>> 550
Q (Alpha Strike)
- Damage: 30/60/90/120/150 (+60% AD) >>> 30/60/90/120/150 (+50% AD)
- On-hit damage: 100%, reduced to 25% for subsequent hits >>> 75%, reduced to 18.75% for subsequent hits
- Bonus damage from critical strikes: 50% of damage dealt >>> +35% of damage dealt
E (Wuju Style)
- True damage: 30/38/46/54/62 (+35% bonus AD) >>> 30/37/44/51/58 (+30% bonus AD)
R (Highlander)
- Cooldown: 85 seconds >>> 100/90/80 seconds
These changes have already launched on the live servers, so you can be a little less wary of facing Yi (or wielding him) in solo queue—just don't get him too fed early on!
