Yorick First impressions

Played the new Yorick last night a few times, and wrote down some immediate thoughts, but decided to wait until today to actually write this to see how it would settle in my mind.

What's sitting in my mind right now is that Yorick is a splitpush utility Juggernaut. That's unique. It also feels good, and like it's something that could be fair, but there's a lot of risk to allowing that combination. We're seeing the pain that comes from the utility assassin Ekko right now, and Yorick could be very dangerous if handled wrong. I personally feel that if riot is willing to see him, he will be a toplane staple and jungle flex, but if they decide they don't want him to be a staple champion, then he will be a similar situation as Sion, and he'll basically disappear after the three patches of nerfs settle and the novelty wears off. I don't think there will be a middle ground with him.

Immediate obvious Issues

• Ghouls create clutter that they are not smart enough to overcome
• Ghouls do not act like rotlings, and stick to Yorick until they enter combat, meaning they can be dragged away from a lane that you intended to push, or stay in a lane when you intend them to follow you
• Mourning Mist has an impacting moment when ghouls are out, but as an independent ability it feels far too subtle. Especially when the ability doesn't scale with Yorick's gold

Ghouls can't handle the cluster that's made by, well, them. Their pathing doesn't really allow for them to manage the situations that you want to create, which ends up throttling down your high moment of landing an E when four of them are out. E's passive MS should have the ability to ignore unit collision, when in range of a marked target, added to it. For both the Ghouls, Maiden, and Yorick. This would fix both 1 and 3. A phantom dancer mobility reward (no damage reduction) for landing the ability would make it feel far better in the instances where Yorick uses it, but has no ghouls out.

When near lanes, Ghouls should stick to them regardless of whether their in combat or not. When in jungle they should continue to follow Yorick. But, by making ghouls trigger their "Lane railroad" mindset off of combat, it can be too unpredictable when trying to set up either a push or a minion empowered roam. Don't give people the option, and just ensure that people know what happens when they use their abilities in a specific location.

Some gameplay observations. When left alone, he pushes like AD malz. He's strong in 1v1s, and as long as you hit his power spikes, he can solo kill with surprising ease. His build path seems to be TF -> Defensive item -> Defensive boots -> Second offensive item -> Defense/offense item (Gage, Maw, Titanic) -> Fill

His W isn't the best for engaging, but is amazing for disengage, or as an anti-gank tool. If the enemy team tries to disengage it's great for catching 1 or 2. Unless you feel the burning desire to cage someone mid fight for some reason, it seems to be best to hold on to it until the fight is decided to either keep to either prevent the enemy from ending the fight and running, or to allow you to end the fight and run.

His ult is quite possibly the highest skill cap ability that requires no mechanical skill. The Maiden is macro play in ability form, and I love that.

I also love how easy it is to get an S on a champ right after it comes out, It's hilarious.