Yorick is the most interesting and healthiest juggernaut:

Hemulen Magi··7 votes·1,179 views

Nope, this isn't a joke thread. Despite all of the horrible slander you have heard against Yorick by players who have probably only seen him 5 times or less in total over the past 2 years, Yorick is actually a perfect juggernaut class champion. Virtually all complaints that have been used to single out Yorick also apply to the other juggernauts. For those not familiar with his kit, I've made an in-depth comparison to another juggernaut, Darius. Each effect in Yorick's passive + Q + W + E is matched with its equivalent in Darius' kit:

Sustained damage over time effect:

Darius Hemmorhage - Bleed Damage: Darius's basic attacks and damaging abilities cause enemies to bleed for 10 - 27 (based on level) (+ 30% bonus AD) physical damage over 5 seconds, stacking up to 5 times for a maximum of 500% damage over the duration.

Yorick Unholy Covenant - Ghouls: Each of Yorick's basic abilities spawn a ghoul near their target and grant it a unique bonus. Ghouls prioritize enemies hit by Yorick's abilities and enemy champions, dealing 35% of Yorick's AD per autoattack as physical damage with an attack speed of 0.67.

.

Bulk up during fights effect:

Darius Hemmhorage - Noxian Might: Upon applying full Hemorrhage stacks to an enemy champion or killing them with Noxian Guillotine, Darius gains Noxian Might for 5 seconds. NOXIAN MIGHT: Darius gains 40 - 200 (based on level) bonus attack damage and instantly applies full Hemorrhage stacks through his usual means.

Yorick Unholy Covenant - Self Buff: Yorick deals 5% more damage with his basic attacks and reduces incoming damage by 5% for every ghoul or revenant he has active, stacking up to 4 times for a maximum 20% modifier.

.

Sustain + trading ability:

Darius Decimate: Darius hefts his axe for 0.75 seconds, then swings it around himself, dealing PHYSICAL DAMAGE: 20 / 35 / 50 / 65 / 80 (+ 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70% AD) to nearby enemies, doubled against enemies hit by the blade. Darius heals for 12% missing health for each enemy champion hit by Decimate's blade, up to a maximum of 36% missing health.

Yorick Omen of Famine: Yorick deals MAGIC DAMAGE: 55 / 85 / 115 / 145 / 175 (+ 100% Bonus AD) to the target enemy and heals himself for 40% of the damage done. SELF HEAL: 22 / 34 / 46 / 58 / 70 (+ 40% Bonus AD) Omen of Famine summons a ravenous ghoul that heals Yorick for 17.5% AD on each of its basic attacks, doubled to 35% AD against enemy champions.

.

Auto attack reset and stickiness that requires landing a melee autoattack proc:

Darius Crippling Strike: Darius's next basic attack within 4 seconds has 200 range and deals 40% AD bonus physical damage and slows his target by 90% for 1 second. If Crippling Strike kills its target it refunds 30 mana and half of its cooldown. Crippling Strike resets Darius's autoattack timer.

Yorick Omen of War: Yorick's next basic attack within 10 seconds has 175 range and deals bonus physical damage: 30 / 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 (+ 20% AD). Omen of War resets Yorick's autoattack timer. Omen of War summons a spectral ghoul with 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 AD and 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35% movement speed. While active, Yorick is ghosted and gains the ghoul's bonus movement speed.

.

Low-mid range soft CC/gap-closer:

Darius Apprehend: PASSIVE: Darius ignores 5 / 10 / 15 / 20 / 25% of his targets' armor. ACTIVE: After a brief delay, Darius Airborne icon pulls in all enemies in front of him, slowing them by 40% for 1 second, and briefly grants sight of the area around the pull.

Yorick Omen of Pestilence: Yorick deals 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+ 100% AP) magic damage in a target area, slowing targets hit by 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40% for 1.5 seconds. Omen of Pestilence summons a decaying ghoul that continuously applies half of Omen of Pestilence's Slow icon slow to all enemies around it.

As you can see, his laning skill set is completely in line for a juggernaut. He has as much counterplay as the rest of his juggernaut class peers, including the same weaknesses, low mobility and low CC. I would even say he has MORE counterplay than many other juggernauts, for reasons such as his ghouls being killable for gold or avoidable via means as simple as ducking into a bush to remove aggro, unlike Darius's hemmhorage bleed which cannot be as easily removed. He also has a LESS oppressive laning phase than other juggernauts due to his need of early investment into mana instead of combat stats, allowing his opponent to become established in the lane before Yorick starts to scale up.

Out of all of the existing juggernauts, Yorick has the most interesting lategame transition, trading lategame selfish power for flexibility and team utility with his ultimate. Yorick does not have a simple (brainless as Xelnath puts it) kit - managing his limited resources in laning, strategizing flanks to overcome his immobility, positioning his omen of pestilence to block escapes (think trundle pillar), controlling both Yorick and his revenant independently in fights, making the most of his potential windows to revive himself or an ally... Taken straight from the League Wiki: "Yorick has one of the most varied skillsets in the game, with an auto-attack modifier, a ground targeted AoE, an enemy targeted instant-cast and an allied targeted instant-cast. Among these are both controllable and incontrollable pets."

The key defining difference between Yorick and all other juggernaut kits is his ultimate, which defines his unique and healthy niche in the game. The "win lane, lose game" myth about Yorick is based entirely on players who misunderstand the flexibility of Yorick's ultimate. Yorick actually does best in long games, reaching his peak winrate around 40 minutes. You can think of his ultimate as scaling up along with the carries on his team.

Juggernaut niches/identities: Mordekaiser The AP and objective-focused juggernaut. Nasus The hyperscaling damage juggernaut. Sion The hyperscaling tanky juggernaut. DrMundo The unkillable sustain juggernaut. Trundle The anti-tank juggernaut. Darius The snowball/bully juggernaut. Garen The shutdown/anti-snowball juggernaut. Illaoi The punishment juggernaut. Yorick The unselfish/team-support juggernaut.

All juggernauts are massive powerhouses, but Yorick ultimate is uniquely flexible and provides the deepest juggernaut gameplay. Out of all of the juggernauts, Yorick trades the most of his power budget to allow him to help his team, making him a really fun character to have on your side. When I play Yorick, I love receiving "thank you"s from my teammates when I revive our mid laner in a close fight so that he/she can pick up a quadra kill. I love creating a revenant ADC to take down an exposed turret quickly. I love using a revenant of myself for surprisingly effective splitpushing. I don't find Yorick's early mana hunger problematic, since it gates his early sustain/poke and allows his power budget to be spent on his lategame team utility. Yorick is completely viable, has a high winrate among experienced Yoricks, and has even been played professionally (UoL jungle Yorick for example). I find Yorick to be the single most fun and rewarding champion in the game. I like playing as Yorick, I like playing against Yorick, I like having Yorick as a teammate.

Thank you for reading.

7 Comments

Remlap12235 votes

Yorick is so healthy he is permanently quarantined from the free rotation. Don't want him catching a Fiora anytime soon.

Hemulen Magi4 votes

Yorick: Too late... I must be coming down with something... All of these ranged top laners are making my stomach feel a little Quinnzy.

Nebuul1 votes

Sion isn't a juggernaut. At all.

Hemulen Magi3 votes

He isn't on the original list of juggernauts, but he fits thematically and plays like other juggernauts. I definitely feel that he plays more like a juggernaut than Skarner, who was actually on Riot's juggernaut list. Sion lacks the damage output of the others, but that helps defines his role in the juggernaut lineup. His natural lumbering, clumsy playstyle tends to force Sion to rely on teammates' CC to set up his own lockdown, which ends up making him feel quite juggernaut'ish.

You can either call him a tanky juggernaut or a tank that feels like a juggernaut. It's subjective really and a rather small difference in terms. I don't really want to argue since it boils down to a matter of opinion.

Nebuul2 votes

Sion is pure tank. All his abilities either protect him or cc the enemy. His ult is both movement and cc. He scales better from armor/mr

Hemulen Magi1 votes

Yes, he builds as a tank and does what tanks do. However, the way that he feels in a game and the way that he accomplishes his tank role feels juggernaut'ish. As is the case with other juggernauts, his clumsy, hard to pull off kit causes him to be balanced with a lot of natural brute strength to compensate.

The lines between classes is often pretty gray. I think that's especially true of the lines between juggernauts/tanks/bruisers/fighters. A lot of champions are close enough to the "gray areas" between those classes that building them slightly different could push them into a different class. The terms juggernaut and bruiser are often used interchangeably, and likewise a tank that picks up a damage item or two could be referred to as a bruiser, or a fighter that builds defensively (current Yi and Fiora builds for example) might end up being referred to as a bruiser.

I think the most defining aspect of a juggernaut is that they feel brutally powerful but clumsy. That's a subjective definition, so naturally, you are free to use your own judgement on who "feels like a juggernaut" but there is no real official definition. Like I mentioned, Skarner was originally called a juggernaut by Riot.

Ðelofasht1 votes

This is an extremely accurate analysis of my favorite champion. He really is like a Swiss Army Juggernaut though, he can be built with almost anything and still provide something to his team. His versatility is the primary reason I main him, and though people often feel his damage is lacking I find that to be completely untrue, he can burst extremely hard on soft targets, provided he can get on top of them. That is where all the movement speed items you can get and good mechanical skills to avoid a stun or charm come into play (or just plain good positioning).

I also think people tend to really underestimate how hard it is to play Yorick well, he has very little room for error in the current environment and will often be ignored by his teammates in solo queue completely in his lane even if he is starting to fall behind and asks for help. There are solutions to every problem though, and that is what makes him so difficult to play well in my opinion. Effectively identifying your role as Yorick and building towards that in a given game is important and can shift quite a bit depending on how the team is playing. Sometimes you bave to ignore your entire team and just teleport bottom and push hard getting the attention of the entire enemy team while you ping Baron. It shifts so much from game to game and you have to strategically be one step ahead of your opponents all game, this is much less true when playing a champion with more mobility or even many of the other juggernauts who perform their functions best in class and the team can easily build and play around them.

Yorick is often underplayed and under appreciated, may he always be remembered!

More from Gameplay

More by Hemulen Magi