After years of memes and hoping, Riot has finally given the players the highly-anticipated Yorick rework. But ability-wise, does it live up to the hype? Will this rework help Yorick become a highly contested meta pick? Through this article, the abilities of Yorick will be analyzed in the hopes of determining if Yorick will have a place in the meta or if he’ll stay a mainly solo queue pick with the occasional cheese picks in competitive matches.

Passive: Shepherd of Souls

“The Cursed Horde: Yorick can have up to 4 Mist Walkers in an area with [100+5 per level] (+10% of Yorick's HP) Health and [10+5 per level] (+30% of Yorick's total AD) Attack Damage. Mist Walkers will perish if the move too far away from Yorick or the Maiden of the Mist.
Final Service: Every 12/8/4th (at level 1/7/13) enemy unit that dies near Yorick will leave a grave. Enemy champions will always leave a grave.
If Yorick's minions enter a lane, they will proceed down the lane.”

Opinion: Yorick’s new passive sticks to the main theme of summoning minions as your source of damage. At first glance, the Mist Walkers do a decent amount of damage and have a decent amount of health considering how easy it’ll be to generate the graves required to summon them. An important thing to note is the last part of his passive, “If Yorick’s minions enter a lane, they will proceed down the lane.” This will allow Yorick to allow the Mist Walkers to push one lane in the late game while Yorick groups up with the team. Overall, Yorick’s new passive is a great fit for the overall theme of the champion unlike his current passive (5% more damage on basic attacks and 5% reduced damage per ghoul) which is a relic of the past in terms of design.

Q: Last Rites / Awakening

“Mana Cost: 25
Cooldown: 8/7.5/7/6.5/6
Yorick's next basic attack deals 30/55/80/105/130 (+140% Total AD) physical damage and restores 12-82 health (doubled when below half Health). Last Rites will leave a grave if it kills the target.
When there are 3 or more graves nearby and Last Rites has been used, Yorick can cast Awakening to raise Mist Walkers from graves."

Opinion: Yorick’s Q will be your main source of generating graves and a great tool for trading in the early game as well thanks to the small heal it provides too. With its great scaling, it’ll allow Yorick to build mainly tank items as he’ll still be able to dish out a good chunk of damage off of this. This skill will most likely be maxed first due to it being your main source of grave generation and damage while having a very low mana cost.

W: Dark Procession

“Mana Cost: 70
Cooldown: 20/18/16/14/12
Yorick summons a destructible wall of spirits with 2/2/3/3/4 health around target area for 4 seconds. Allies can walk through the wall freely.”

Opinion: If used properly, Yorick’s new W has the potential to be a game changing ability. It’s a great tool to catch out enemies and trap them while your team can easily jump on them and burst them down. The delay on the wall being created is very short as well so that won’t be an issue as well. Along with that, the wall is a great tool for disengaging as allies are able to walk through it freely, unlike Anivia’s wall or Trundle’s pillar. Despite all of this, Yorick’s W will most likely be maxed last since its use is still limited compared to his other skills and the benefits of leveling this skill are small.

E: Mourning Mist

"Mana Cost: 50/55/60/65/70
Cooldown: 12/11/10/9/8
Yorick throws a globule of Black Mist that deals 15% of enemy's current Health as magic damage (minimum 70/105/140/175/210 (+70% AP)), slows by 30% for 2 seconds, and marks targets for 4 seconds. Yorick and his minions are hasted by 10/12.5/15/17.5/20% while moving toward the mark."

Opinion: Yorick’s new E is a great tool for chasing down enemies while being able to chunk tanks due to the percent health damage. This will allow Yorick to be able to keep up with the mobile top laners such as Fiora, Yasuo, and Riven. Overall this skill helps Yorick’s main weakness which is lack of mobility.

R: Eulogy of the Isles

“Mana Cost: 100
Cooldown: 160/150/140
Yorick summons The Maiden of the Mist and 2/3/4 Mist Walkers. The Maiden has 700/1500/3000(+30% of Yorick's total HP) Health, deals 10/20/40 (+50% of Yorick's total AD) magic damage per second, and raises Mist Walkers from nearby enemy deaths.
When Yorick damages the Maiden's target he will deal 5/7.5/10% of their max Health as bonus magic damage (2 second cooldown).”

Opinion: Yorick’s new ult gives him a huge boost to his already excellent dueling ability. A skill that does damage per second and allows him to deal percent health as bonus damage on autos against a target, this will allow Yorick to outduel any tanky champion as each auto attack will shred through their health. It could have the same effect as a Trundle ult if used properly in a team fight. as the enemy tank will simply get burst down and be unable to continue the fight.

Conclusion

Based on the current numbers on Yorick’s abilities, I believe that Yorick will at the very least become a prominent pick in ranked play. However, due to his lack of mobility apart from a small speed boost in his E, it will still be seen if he can become an important pick in competitive play. Personally I believe that Yorick will have a presence in the competitive scene simply due to the possible damage output provided by his abilities along with his ability to trap enemies with his W. The most likely build path with Yorick will most likely be Triforce or Iceborn Gauntlet, along with one more damage item such as Titanic Hydra or Maw of Malmortius, into a full tank build. This allows Yorick to take advantage of his fantastic AD scaling while become a tanky and formidable front line threat in the later stages of the game. Overall, it’ll be interesting to see the possibilities of this rework once it’s released on to the main servers and how the pros will use him.

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