Yone In-Depth Guide (12.3)
A Yone midlane guide covering everything from runes to matchups!
Playing Yone in the Midlane
Playing Yone in the midlane can take a little bit of understanding but once you have it down, it should be easier. Yone may seem like a very easy champion to manage at all stages of the game but that simply isn't true. Yone's early game damage, attack speed, and overall performance are not nearly as good in comparison to somebody like Yasuo. Yone is not very dependable until somewhere around level 7 with 2 components of shieldbow. Until then, take short trades with the enemy laner, and if somebody like Akshan or Lucian, avoid trading to the best of your ability. You are going to want to focus on farming for the majority of the early game, getting you closer to your much-needed items. Yone's greatest powerspike of the game is hitting Berserker's Greaves, Immortal Shieldbow, and Infinity Edge granting you 100% crit. Once at this powerspike, it is extremely difficult to deal with you, (being ahead of course) and very few champions can match your damage. This powerspike also allows you to farm very easily, so try to farm the best you possibly can. Lategame Yone becomes a scaling monster as you may know, but can still be dealt with using somebody with tons of cc or damage. This will possibly cause you to redirect your build path toward resistances or something like Mercurial Scimitar. Yone's item options are very diverse, but try to aim for something with attack speed and/or crit (or anything else listed in the build path) to make yourself even more powerful.
Runes
Yone has three core rune pages, those being lethal tempo, conqueror, and fleet footwork.
- The Lethal Tempo rune page is currently the most optimal and is recommended for most players. It is a great rune page for all situations and lowers Q cooldown significantly as well. There is also preference involved, so see the Conqueror page for more.
- The Conqueror build was the old standard build, and for some players, it comes down to preference between this build and tempo. Since players have worked with this rune for so long, it may feel more natural to them when in combat. This build is still very good, but I recommend using it when you are acting like more of a bruiser than an assassin.
- The Fleet Footwork build is highly situational and may not ever be necessary with the other options to choose from. This is usually used to evade being solo killed earlygame by hard matchups and more specifically ranged midlaners such as previously stated, Akshan and Lucian. Fleet Footwork is a highly optimal rune in this meta so it is definitely not a bad choice when the time is right for it.
In all three rune pages, shield bash was selected under the resolve tree, which can easily be changed depending on situation. I listed shield bash under every rune page because I believe it is a very strong rune on Yone judging by how many shields he gains (mostly his W.) If you're into a matchup which involves quick trading, bone plating is a great choice because of that significantly reduced damage inflicted. Into ranged, second wind is excellent for that extra healing after taking damage, and with fleet it is a perfect synergy with all the healing. Another thing to note is my choice of Legend: Tenacity rune and that is because lethal tempo and other items provide enough attack speed for Yone to thrive with, and given how much cc is in the game, tenacity is not a bad option at all. This rune can be swapped out for alacrity (and bloodline if you're feeling confident) easily for the conqueror and fleet build or if little to no cc provided on the enemy team. For the extra stat runes, always take attack speed and adaptive force, and armor/magic resist respectively.
- Lethal Tempo
- Conqueror
- Fleet Footwork
Items
Yone is an extremely diverse champion in terms of items, giving him lots to work with. Before you look at the chart, Galeforce and Kraken Slayer will not be listed and are most definitely not as optimal as Shieldbow so I do not advise you use these items frequently if at all. Boots other than Berserker's Greaves will also be listed but they are HIGHLY situational and I advise never to use them if you don't have to. Having Zeal and Zerker's/Noonquiver on Yone early is very strong so if you have a lead maintained, Zeal is a great buy on second or third back.
- STANDARD
Against Heavy AD Comp with Tanks
Against Heavy AP Comp with CC (Spirit Visage Optional)
Total Lane and Game Domination (No Particular Damage Abundance)
Matchups for Yone
In this section, I will be talking about Yone's matchups using a tierlist and spreadsheet which contain how hard the matchups are and why. The order they will be in is alphabetical, and there is no ranking within the tiers.