After the League Championship finals (with Team Fnatic coming out on top!), the latest champion to join the League was announced. Meet Yorick, with the power to summon minions to do his bidding and an ultimate that seems as though Zilean and Mordekaiser had some hawt times and gave birth to some twisted spawn.
Yorick, the Gravedigger
- Omen of War: Yorick’s next attack will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul that deals additional damage and moves faster than Yorick’s other ghouls. While the Spectral Ghoul is alive, Yorick moves faster as well.
- Omen of Pestilence: Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. While the Decaying Ghoul remains alive, nearby enemies continue to be slowed.
- Omen of Famine: Yorick steals life from his target and summons a Ravenous Ghoul that heals Yorick for the damage it deals.
- Omen of Death (Ultimate): Yorick conjures a revenant in the image of one of his allies. If his ally dies while its revenant is alive, the revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them time to enact vengeance.
- Unholy Covenant (Passive): Yorick’s attacks deal more damage for each summon that is active. Meanwhile, Yorick’s ghouls deal some percent of Yorick’s Attack Damage and have some percent of his total health.
- (Yorick’s abilities unceremoniously ripped from the latest patch notes)
Though I don’t personally own Yorick, this is what I’ve learned from other players.
–His passive suggests focusing on building Health and Damage, as opposed to AP, since all of his skills scale from damage. Though he has early mana problems, don’t let that suck you in to building an early Manamune, since it renders him a bit too squishy to be useful.
–An early Philo Stone (as shown in the Champ Spotlight) is very helpful in the laning phase to get you going towards your next major item.
–His ghouls and the ultimate’s ghoul are great for taking a few extra tower hits away from your team’s minions when pushing turrets, so use that to your advantage. Additionally, ghouls can be used to block skill shots like Morgana’s Dark Binding.
–He brings DPS and minor crowd control in the form of slows to team fights. His ult gives the added chaos of a 6v5 feeling to the fight as well. With skill, an ally who gets killed under the influence of his ult will usually result in a revenge kill afterwards.
–Overall first week impressions: Yorick feels a little underpowered (surely a result of Riot trying to balance the ghouls he summons), but has a lot of potential as a tanky DPS pusher. The one issue that stands out is ghoul duration, as even though the skills state that they persist for up to 5 seconds, they never seem to be able to stick around for long enough.
Have you tried out this lord of the undead yet?
Rian Quenlin
I’ve laned against him, but I honestly find that he needs a significant boost. I play Vayne and Lux, both fragile, but very, very good at dealing damage. He’s a very interesting champ but is in dire need of some buffs to bring him up to speed.