How Strong/Good is Yone? Initial Impressions on New Champion Yone

Yone Review - Initial Impressions Yone (Yoh-Neh), Yasuo's older brother is a fascinating new champion worthy of being Yasuo's relative in lore. Packing insane amount of crowd-control and a very tricky kit, Yone is definitely fun and satisfying to play. After a champion as whimsical as Lilia, it's nice to have a badass like Yone released to avoid getting made fun of by our friends. Check out some initial impressions below!

Yone Review - Initial Impressions

Yone (Yoh-Neh), Yasuo's older brother is a fascinating new champion worthy of being Yasuo's relative in lore. Packing insane amount of crowd-control and a very tricky kit, Yone is definitely fun and satisfying to play. After a champion as whimsical as Lilia, it's nice to have a badass like Yone released to avoid getting made fun of by our friends.

Check out some initial impressions below!

Skill Set

Way of the Hunter [Passive]: Gains double critical strike chance but deals less with crits

This means two crit items is enough to get to 100%, making his standard build likely the same as Yasuo's with Phantom Dancer + Infinity Edge.

Mortal Steel [Q]: Same as Yasuo, but instead of Tornado he gets a dash and a Tornado at the same time.

Somewhat interesting....a nice 2 in 1

Spirit Cleave [W]: Cone damage and a shield

Basically the same as Camille's move but faster and a pure shield instead of a specific damage type.

Soul Unbound [E]: Really long description, but basically a forced Ekko ultimate with some damage boosts.

This one's interesting and people are definitely messing up on it. Some people try and use it as an escape, but it's fairly obvious after playing against it a few times that he's just going to snap back to where he started.

Fate Sealed [R]: Stuns and marks all enemies in a line with a blink, then pulls them and knocks them up.

This looks absolutely insane but I haven't seen anyone use it terribly effectively yet. 

 

What Roles Should Yone Play?

As with any melee champions with high utility, you'll see this champion in literally every role until players decide which role he's strongest in. Let's take a look at all his positions and see his strengths and weaknesses in each one.

Top: As a mixed damage champion, he doesn't suffer from complete damage lockout from bramble vest. His shield lets him trade freely and he does have front line initiation power with his ultimate. As a top laner he's not bad, but his damage is currently a little low to out-trade champions like Riven or Camille without landing all his utility.

Mid: Soul Unbound [E] allows Yone to trade freely and jump away from dangerous spells at will. This makes him only vulnerable to pure damage casters or ones with fast CCs. Champions that are skillshot reliant will find him to be extremely difficult to deal with.

Bot Lane: As a bot laner Yone is significantly worse than Yasuo since he doesn't have Wind Wall and his third Q forces him to dash forwards instead of giving the option to poke. His mobility is also significantly lower and I don't see him as a very good bot laner even with someone like Senna.

Support: This may actually not be too bad. He doesn't have much in the way of sustain, but a Yasuo + Yone combo could be strong in all-in strategies and his late-game utility is quite good. The only drawback is the range isn't long enough and his skills aren't fast enough to be truly unavoidable when compared to someone like Rakan or low CD like Leona, so I don't see him becoming meta as a support.

Jungle: As far as gap closers go he's not terribly effective since one of his gap closers forces him to snap back to his initial location. I've seen a lot of jungle Yone and his team fighting is still good, but I don't see him as being a primarily a meta jungler any time soon.

Overall Current Strength Level

Yone's definitely been under-tuned in order to avoid his insanely gifted kit from being too overpowered. I think that he's strong enough at this point to be effective, but does have a bit of a learning curve. He likely doesn't need buffs at this point and I'd put him in the same category as Lilila.

What are your initial thoughts on Yone? Comment below!