League of Legends (LoL) Question: What's up with every Yi rushing Statik?

It's just you. I have not seen any Master Yi players, me included, going for anything other than Blade of the Ruined King as first item on him. It just gives you everything you need in jungle or in lane, as well as working disgustingly well with his kit.

9/10 I will end up with a build like this for jungle Master Yi:

Stalker's Blade - Devourer, Blade of the Ruined King, Mercury's Treads, Youmuu's Ghostblade, Randuin's Omen, Banshee's Veil or Guardian Angel.

in our low elo, high bronze low silver, its more of a "dumdum" item. very easy to use, and you know what to expect. its wave clear attack speed = more autos = more q's. crit? do i need to explain? and the movement becasue alot of us lowbies dont konw how to position correctly. it helps with moving around the battlefield. the passive is ofc for wave clear and extra damage. yi doesnt have ranged abilies and it gives him an option to hit soemthing at range, though its cd isnt perfect for this.

Well, my best guess is that the Yi's you play with aren't the greatest ones out there, but you need to remember that there generally is always logic in what someone does. Even if your ADC sits in bot lane all day and farms, he still knows that farming gives you gold, and gold gives you items. It may not be the best course of action, but there is sense behind it.

Now, back to Statikk Shiv. Blade of the Ruined King is generally the better purchase, but Statikk Shiv can work as somewhat of a fallback option. Statikk Shiv's main draw is it's lightning passive, obviously. This passive is incredibly strong for clearing and split pushing. Many Vaynes are now building Statikk Shiv over Youmuu's Ghostblade or Phantom Dancer because Statikk Shiv offers the pushing power that Vayne lacks over other ADCs. The same logic applies to Master Yi.

Master Yi, Tryndamere and Vayne are fantastic split-pushers (Although I do NOT recommend sending your ADC to splitpush unless you're desperate) not because they clear waves particularly fast, but because they have fantastic dueling capabilities and tower pushing capabilities. If these types of champions are splitpushing, then you'll need to send two or more champions to deal with them because they generally will beat you in a flat one on one duel.

Now, this ties into Statikk Shiv because, yes, that extra burst is nice, but being able to clear waves really fast when you have primarily single target damage is the real draw of this item. Statikk Shiv makes average wave-clearing split pushers (due to single target damage) into really strong and fast split pushers, not only with the attack speed to help clear towers faster and movement speed to help escape, but the fact that Statikk Shiv gives immense clearing power for a lower cost than Ravenous Hydra.

However, to get back to your question, Statikk Shiv should not be rushed unless you're playing Yasuo. It does not offer much consistent damage on its own. You need to have Attack Damage in order for the full potential of this item to be used. ADCs scale so well into late game because all their stats scale multiplicatively (I made up a word) with each other. Attack Speed on its own is very weak, and is generally really underwhelming unless you have Attack Damage.

TL;DR Statikk Shiv offers immense pushing power, especially if you fall behind early. However, rushing it is a bad idea because Attack Speed as a standalone stat does not offer much to your champion. You should always buy it after you have damage or on-hit effects.

Many Yi's will rush statik shiv and IE because they are items that go extremely well together. As you have probably noticed this is what 90% of ADC's rush at the moment. Having said that though I have not seen that many Yi's rush statik and I personally think getting botrk is so much better to get first. But anyway, I am by no means a Yi player so I am not an expert on what is best to buy on him. I recommend watching Cowsep as he is a Yi main with 1000's of Yi games and is a streamer over on Twitch.

Hope this helps,

ToastyTom

Most low elo players right now go for crit builds in almost every position. Yi can get pretty hard crts with statikk shiv and IE so that's probably why you are seeing it.