MASTER YI BUILD GUIDE

 

Introduction

Pro's

• One of the fastest characters in the game (base move speed).

• Some of the best steroids in the game.

• Slow immunity (think red buff, ashe Q, frozen mallet, tryndamere slow, etc)

• Gap closer that also grants Yi temporary invincibility (he's untargettable during alpha strike)

• Some of the highest and most under-rated lane sustain.

• Snowballs incredibly well and can fill a hybrid melee carry/assassin role at the same time.

Con's

• Naturally squishy.

• No utility that benefits the team whatsoever.

• Long cooldowns by default. Thankfully this is fixed with the way Yi's ultimate functions.

• Not getting a kill in a team fight early enough can mean losing all your steroids for the rest of the fight.

• Mana hungry if you spam your abilities early on.

• Item dependant

• A bit all-in.

 

Early Game/Laning Phase

During lane phase master yi is looking mostly for passive farm unless the enemy slips up. Your main ability to trade comes from combining alpha strike + double strike proc on an enemy and activating wuju style for extended trades.

When you land around 40-50% hp you'll want to back off and meditate to regain some health. Try not to be too overly aggressive when meditate is on cooldown though because it is your main lifeline if you get into a sticky situation.

You lack an emergency escape outside of summonerspells until level 6, so try to keep that in mind when extending in lane. Once you're level 6 you have both greater all in potential as well as the ability to disengage better, especially against slow based top lanes like Lee Sin or Nasus.

 

Runes

attack damage10.80

armor12.69

magic resist12.06

Life Steal %4.00%

Attack Speed Marks (9): Some flat attack damage is good to help with early trades and farming and it goes well with the lifesteal quints. Also more AD makes Yi's wuju passive bonus stronger.

Flat Armor Seals (9): Master Yi will need flat armor seals, as do nearly all top lane champions, in order to compete and hold his own in the lane as well as aid his survival later in the game.

Magic Resist Glyphs (9): Flat MR glyphs to reduce the amount of magic damage you take in general but especially early game. If you're against a lane that does no magic damage, or are jungling, swap these out for MR per level.

Lifesteal Quintessences (2) : These allow Yi to sustain himself a little bit during the lane phase while he farms up and aid in his in-fight sustain later on after you've built some damage.

Attack Damage Quintessences (1) : Again, extra AD is good for his Q, E and Farming.

 

Skills

Double Strike

Every 4th consecutive basic attack, Master Yi will attack twice, dealing 50% damage on the second strike

This passive makes yi attack more often than most champions normally would. The second attack can critically strike. The main thing to note here is that the second strike actually counts toward the next timer, meaning it takes 4 attacks to benefit initially, but then only 3 subsequent attacks afterwards meaning his DPS goes up the longer you're benefiting from this passive. It resets when out of combat so try not to let it go to waste.

Alpha Strike

Master Yi becomes untargetable and dashes to up to 4 units, dealing 25/60/95/130/165 (+1.0 total Attack Damage) physical damage and 75/100/125/150/175 bonus damage to minions. Alpha Strike can critically strike for 60% of Master Yi's total Attack Damage.

Cooldown 18/17/16/15/14
Cost 70/80/90/100/110 mana


This ability is Master Yi's bread and butter skill. It does AoE physical damage to 4 targets max and is the main source of Yi's burst. When you get kills, you will want to use this to get MORE kills, as this is his most powerful skill that resets off of his highlander passive.

Do note that you can use this ability to dodge AoE damage, skillshots or crowd control as well as damage like karthus ultimate if it would take affect while you are in the untargetable phase of alpha strike. It can take time to get used to this technique but be sure it master it to be able to be as useful and slippery as possible in fights.

Meditate

Master Yi channels for 4 seconds, gaining 40/45/50/55/60% damage reduction and healing for 30/50/70/90/110 (+0.3 Ability Power) per second. This heal is increased by 1% for every 1% Health Master Yi is missing. The damage reduction is halved against turrets

Cooldown 35 seconds
Cost 50/65/80/95/110 mana
Range 20

This is our core laning skill. It gives us our lane sustain, we can tank turret dives with it and it's useful to tank burst damage in team fights if you can time it well too. Really an underrated skill in lane phase.

Wuju Style

Passive: Master Yi gains 7/9/11/13/15% Attack Damage
Active: Master Yi deals 10/15/20/25/30 (+0.1/0.125/0.15/0.175/0.2 total Attack Damage) true damage on hit for 5 seconds. Wuju Style's passive bonus is lost while the skill is on cooldown

Cooldown: 18/17/16/15/14 seconds
Cost 0 mana


This is our primary AD steroid, it helps boost auto attack damage as well as alpha strike's damage. On activation it provides a true damage on-hit bonus. The duration is really short and the drawback for using it and not getting a reset is a huge problem though. Save it for when you know you can get a kill with the extra damage or if the only target for you to attack is a super tanky man. You can also use this in lane to win trades then back off until its off cooldown again.

Highlander

Passive: When Master Yi kills a champion, the cooldowns on his basic abilities are reduced by 18 seconds (half for assists)
Active: Grants Master Yi 30/55/80% Attack Speed and 25/35/45% Movement Speed for 10 seconds. If Master Yi scores a kill or assist while Highlander is active, Highlander's duration is extended by 4 seconds

Cooldown 75 seconds
Cost 100 mana


This is Master Yi's primary Movespeed and Attack Speed steroid. This hugely bolsters your ability to auto attack enemies to death, and as such should be used to do so quite liberally. You can use it as an escape tool as well due to it removing slowing effects such as red buff, ashe slow, etc. The passive of this ability means that you can get rests on your other abilities on kills/assists so be very aware if you get any resets with this.

The duration of highlander also extends when you get a kill or an assist so try to use this ability when you NEED the damage or movespeed boost (like when focusing down a squishy target) and not just whenever because it does not reset like his other abilities.