Since their launch, the two brothers Yasuo and Yone have always been favorite champions among League of Legends players in the Vietnamese server. With their agile playstyle and high damage output combined with rugged appearances, Yasuo and Yone have garnered a lot of affection from Vietnamese gamers. In fact, these two “Y brothers” are even regarded as the “national champions” of the local server.
In reality, both Yasuo and Yone are rated as solid, even very strong champions at the moment. The reason is that these characters fully utilize the power of the incredibly strong rune called Death Tempo. Therefore, this rune is so powerful that it completely compensates for Yasuo and Yone’s early game weaknesses thanks to the significant attack speed and additional attack range.
However, in the upcoming patch 14.4, Yasuo and Yone are likely to become extremely weak even though they are not directly nerfed. The reason is that the Death Tempo rune will be heavily nerfed in the early game. Specifically, the attack speed provided per stack in the early game will be reduced from 9% to 5% for melee champions.
Explaining this decision, League of Legends design team lead – Riot Phroxzon revealed: “Death Tempo is currently becoming too strong in the early game and providing an excessive power boost to melee champions. We decided to limit this and find ways to compensate the affected champions. To be honest, this nerf should have been implemented sooner.”
Right from its rework at the end of the 2021 season, the Death Tempo rune has been deemed too powerful. The fact that this rune provides a significant boost to attack speed and attack range can elevate a champion’s power to extremely high levels. For instance, in the case of Yone, this champion is seen as a versatile character as their lane phase, team fighting, damage dealing, etc., are greatly enhanced thanks to this rune.
Therefore, Riot Games nerfing the Death Tempo rune is a necessary move to balance League of Legends. For Yasuo and Yone, it wouldn’t be surprising if key statistics like win rates and ban rates for these characters drastically decline in patch 14.4 due to this decision.