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Revamping Yorick's old passive would help balance him across ELOs

Moody P··73 votes·18,584 views

I don't know if I like this title

Currently, Yorick's passive is not even a passive; it's just a description of how his Q works. Yorick issues mainly stem from 2 things; being a Juggernaut with horrible defenses, and being very reliant on very squishy summons (that take a long time to put into play). Because of this, he's set up in a way to be almost combo-oriented and heavily punishing when he works to his win condition. Because his kit is not "obvious" since it involves macro counterplay like keeping him off minions, and because lower ELO plays don't often pay attention to ghouls when they are in play, he ends up being disproportionately punishing on the lower end of the bracket while remaining generally low priority in higher MMR. I came up with an idea based on how his kit currently works that I think would help curb some of this issue.

Now:

  • Yorick redirects a portion of damage taken from enemy champions to any ghouls he has in play. The damage is distributed evenly between his summons.

It's a simple passive, but here's why I think it would work:

  • Since damaging Yorick now also damages his minions, it's less of a trap to go directly for Yorick, a big boon for lower-end gameplay.
  • For the same reason above, it'd be less of a pain in the ass dealing with the ghouls' annoyingly small click-boxes since hitting Yorick directly would transmit at least some of the damage into them.
  • Since the damage redirected is the same whether he has 1 or 4 ghouls in play, Yorick's tankiness is consistent as long as he has at least 1 ghoul on the field. Increased durability is a massive necessity for Juggernauts.
  • Being more durable greatly assists high ELO gameplay for obvious reasons; in ranks where people correctly coordinate, Yorick stands a better chance of surviving.
  • There's now an actual purpose for ghouls having HP bars, and their HP bars scaling with Yorick's into the game will feel less ignorable.

This might need to come with other tuning changes but I think the idea is solid.

84 Comments

Olmiku64 votes

The idea makes sense and so i don't expect riot to do anything about it

SaltyCauseBad9 votes

This is so true it hurts

Nilok3 votes

Describes everything perfectly.

rawiazam12 votes

although i don't think 1 ghouls should give the same tankiness as 4 ghouls.

feintfiend18 votes

Yeah he needs a real passive badly. Honestly I'd be fine if they just reverted the ghoul nerfs from 3 months ago, seriously his ghouls do no damage right now.

GreenKnight6 votes

Well, i want him reverted, so that would be a good start.

After3perma9 votes

{quoted}

Well, i want him reverted, so that would be a good start.

Yes so they revert him, then nerf the shit out of him because he is broken tier then start crying again because Yorick is so weak. Old Yorick was the most busted champ in the game so they had to gut him completely.

Agent Corgi8 votes

As someone who played Old Yorick alot, I'm glad he got his rework. He honestly just felt like a Solid Lump half the time & he really didn't bring much to fights besides his [R: Omen of Death].

GreenKnight3 votes

{quoted}

Yes so they revert him, then nerf the shit out of him because he is broken tier then start crying again because Yorick is so weak. Old Yorick was the most busted champ in the game so they had to gut him completely.

I don't care if champion is weak or overpowered. I simply hate reworks, and i want old champions back.

Jeddy0176 votes

Did you even played the pre-reworked champs?

ZaneShadow5 votes

Hmmm. I’ve never really found I was too squishy as Yorick. And I’ve always viewed the mist walkers ho bars meant for when you leave them in lane to push while you go and rotate.

That said, the idea seems decently thought out. This would be a buff so a nerf would need to accompany it. I’m not fully on board with the idea because of that but I would be genuinely interested to see if it worked.

My personal thing about Yorick is I wish summoning the Maiden to Split push a lane was actually a thing. Because right now his power is early/mid game focused so when late game rolls around, there is no way he 1v1s someone without the maiden next to him.

Perhaps if the damage redistribution was cross map and based on the number of ghouls, then the maiden generating an extra 4 ghouls would actually be a valid strategy. Trading the offense of maidens damage for defense of extra ghouls. That would be a version of your idea i would be excited about seeing.

DragonShea4 votes

{quoted}

Hmmm. I’ve never really found I was too squishy as Yorick. And I’ve always viewed the mist walkers ho bars meant for when you leave them in lane to push while you go and rotate.

That said, the idea seems decently thought out. This would be a buff so a nerf would need to accompany it. I’m not fully on board with the idea because of that but I would be genuinely interested to see if it worked.

My personal thing about Yorick is I wish summoning the Maiden to Split push a lane was actually a thing. Because right now his power is early/mid game focused so when late game rolls around, there is no way he 1v1s someone without the maiden next to him.

Perhaps if the damage redistribution was cross map and based on the number of ghouls, then the maiden generating an extra 4 ghouls would actually be a valid strategy. Trading the offense of maidens damage for defense of extra ghouls. That would be a version of your idea i would be excited about seeing.

It's most about defensive power that Yorick in his kit, has not his base stats.

ModCaptainMårvelous5 votes

While not a bad idea, I do think one of the problems with redirecting damage is that ghoul HP is so low that even redirecting 1% of the damage would lead to ghouls getting killed. Still is a very good idea though, would just tweak so Yorick gets either armor/mr or flat DR for each ghoul up so you're encouraged to get rid of summons before taking on the raid boss like a Juggernaut should be.

+1

Moody P2 votes

Ghouls actually have a pretty decent HP bar considering they scale off Yorick's bonus HP as well; 100-185 + 15% of Yorick's HP isn't bad at all for summons. Taking a portion of Yorick's damage and split up between 4 would let them assist tanking quite a bit.

That being said there's always ways to numbers-tune stuff like this. I just thought the idea was neat.

DragonShea2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Moody P,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=3boos10j,comment-id=00100000,timestamp=2019-01-02T00:45:19.897+0000)

Ghouls actually have a pretty decent HP bar considering they scale off Yorick's bonus HP as well; 100-185 + 15% of Yorick's HP isn't bad at all for summons. Taking a portion of Yorick's damage and split up between 4 would let them assist tanking quite a bit.

That being said there's always ways to numbers-tune stuff like this. I just thought the idea was neat.

It's a good idea in theory but I think that it wouldn't really work. Having Yorick gain defensive power from his Ghouls wouldn't make them a target and it would be a flimsy fix at best.

I'd say it would be better that he gains defensive power if he in his W or lands his E.

y0r1ck1 votes

Again the problem is that it's probably far easier to land these abilities against low elo than high elo. I like yorick as much as the next guy but I don't want him to get nerfed for low elo again.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

It's rather reliant on how much damage yorick is taking.

For a hypothetical situation, let's say Yorick is full build with 3k HP and takes a 250 damage hit. (Just being super rough with this)

Ghouls would have roughly 635 HP. Depending on how much damage they absorb from yorick (Perhaps something like 10-25%?) each ghoul is taking 62-ish damage. Which isn't too bad! Until you realize that's 250 damage every second or so. And there's not counting AoEs that might hit yorick's ghoul or if they take a hit themselves.

I still think it'd be better for the ghouls to give some matter of buff so you're more encouraged to get rid of them but I also think yorick's ghouls getting armor or MR or some sort of stat share beyond HP/AD would be nice. After all, unlike zyra plants or heimer turrets they have to put themselves in more danger.

y0r1ck1 votes

I think increasing mr/armor for each ghoul is a bad idea since it'll just buff low elo yorick where people don't kill the ghouls, and have little effect in high elo where people do kill the ghouls.

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

Not really.

Another good side-effect this has is it causes people to focus ghouls. Which, even if you're behind, requires the enemy to attack the ghouls instead of you. Every ghoul attack is another attack not aimed at you, giving you a little bit more time not being attacked.

rawiazam12 votes

you ignored his point completely. low elo players just ignore the ghouls and everything they do completely in order to go for yorick. so if you gave him armour/mr. you'll make him even stronger in lower elos

ModCaptainMårvelous2 votes

So, to be completely honest, maybe lower ELO players should learn to play around it then?

rawiazam11 votes

when they do they will no longer be low elo :)

ZaneShadow1 votes

{quoted}

you ignored his point completely. low elo players just ignore the ghouls and everything they do completely in order to go for yorick. so if you gave him armour/mr. you'll make him even stronger in lower elos

I think attaching a visual could help. Perhaps a mist that gets darker/thicker around Yorick as he has more ghouls. Then even a low elo player can figure out “hitting him when the mist is thick means I don’t do very much damage”. Perhaps this is a leap, but I think most can figure out “killing ghouls reduces/removes the mist”

Just a potential solution to a theoretical issue for another potential solution.

ZaneShadow1 votes

{quoted}

While not a bad idea, I do think one of the problems with redirecting damage is that ghoul HP is so low that even redirecting 1% of the damage would lead to ghouls getting killed. Still is a very good idea though, would just tweak so Yorick gets either armor/mr or flat DR for each ghoul up so you're encouraged to get rid of summons before taking on the raid boss like a Juggernaut should be.

+1

Wow, that could actually be the best answer I’ve seen in the comments yet! I like the idea of stats per ghoul because then having maiden in another lane spawning extra ghouls could be a viable strategy. One of the big concepts for Yorick was he could push one lane while maiden pushes another, but he winds up really weak right now.

By making the choice: “do I want extra Damage with the maiden or extra defense and separate” that could actually happen! Obviously nerfs to either his base/growth defenses would need to happen or some other work like reducing his heal would be important. I’d really be okay with that though if they actually enabled the maiden split push strat.

DragonShea3 votes

FIrst of all, Yorick is a raid boss type Juggernaut. Meaning he should feel like a mini-boss when fighting him and should have abilities tied to that kind of playstyle. His ghouls can help him shove waves alongside his ult but if he is gonna be a viable champ couple of things in my book needs to be done.

Make his heal from his Q scaling with his Max HP when attacking champions.

Remove Decay on Ghouls on Maiden.

Make his W ground his targets.

Give Yorick a proper passive and tied his current passive into his Q. One that reduces damage taken by mist or neurotic based attacks (W,E,R's attacks) by 4/7/10% for 5 seconds.

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

FIrst of all, Yorick is a raid boss type Juggernaut. Meaning he should feel like a mini-boss when fighting him and should have abilities tied to that kind of playstyle. His ghouls can help him shove waves alongside his ult but if he is gonna be a viable champ couple of things in my book needs to be done.

Make his heal from his Q scaling with his Max HP when attacking champions.

Remove Decay on Ghouls on Maiden.

Make his W ground his targets.

Give Yorick a proper passive and tied his current passive into his Q. One that reduces damage taken by mist or neurotic based attacks (W,E,R's attacks) by 4/7/10% for 5 seconds.

Raid boss champions are ones who scale infinitely - yorick does not scale infinitely. Beyond that, Yorick is, through virtue of his kit, not a juggernaut. Hes designed in the fighter vein, and its why he suffers really.

To rework him into a juggernaut he needs some form of damage mitigation/execution.

DragonShea1 votes

{quoted}

Raid boss champions are ones who scale infinitely - yorick does not scale infinitely. Beyond that, Yorick is, through virtue of his kit, not a juggernaut. Hes designed in the fighter vein, and its why he suffers really.

To rework him into a juggernaut he needs some form of damage mitigation/execution.

No, you've misunderstood what a juggernaut is. A juggernaut is a champions that in most cases lack a dash but in return have tankiness on par with tanks and deal very high damage. Juggs also have some form of sustain in order to survive in fights as well as some having combat utility,

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

No, you've misunderstood what a juggernaut is. A juggernaut is a champions that in most cases lack a dash but in return have tankiness on par with tanks and deal very high damage. Juggs also have some form of sustain in order to survive in fights as well as some having combat utility,

Youve misunderstood what a juggernaut is. A juggernaut is - simply - an immobile bruiser who has a little more reliance on abilities.

And none of what you said goes against what i said either. Yorick is, flat, designed to be a fighter rather than a juggernaut. In order to BECOME a juggernaut he needs some form of strong sustain or an execution mechanic.

DragonShea1 votes

{quoted}

Youve misunderstood what a juggernaut is. A juggernaut is - simply - an immobile bruiser who has a little more reliance on abilities.

And none of what you said goes against what i said either. Yorick is, flat, designed to be a fighter rather than a juggernaut. In order to BECOME a juggernaut he needs some form of strong sustain or an execution mechanic.

Does Illaoi Udyr Nasus Mordekaiser or Shyvana have an execute mechanic? No they don't being juggernaut doesn't mean that they must have one. Yorick lacks proper sustain, that is true and I've said that numerous times that he needs proper sustain.

Nyxian Drake2 votes

{quoted}

Does Illaoi Udyr Nasus Mordekaiser or Shyvana have an execute mechanic? No they don't being juggernaut doesn't mean that they must have one. Yorick lacks proper sustain, that is true and I've said that numerous times that he needs proper sustain.

uh...they said "or", as in, they can have sustain, or they can have an execute, or even both.

Moody P1 votes

and he's still wrong, lol

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Does Illaoi Udyr Nasus Mordekaiser or Shyvana have an execute mechanic? No they don't being juggernaut doesn't mean that they must have one. Yorick lacks proper sustain, that is true and I've said that numerous times that he needs proper sustain.

Or. He needs strong sustain OR an execute. Dont confuse "or" for "and" - unless you cant really read english, in which case be more careful with your translator.

Also Shyv and Udyr are fighters, not juggernauts. Nasus is a raid boss. THe only two juggernauts you mentioned right here are Illaoi and Morde...

MadViking3 votes

He either needs a real passive or his ghouls need to have a serious buff.

I know he was nerfed some patches ago because he stomped low elo play, but since that nerf his win rates took a huge hit.

Yorick should be powerful when he has his pets up.... He has a huge window of weakness if his ult isn't up or if he doesn't have graves ready, so it only makes sense for balancing sake that when he achieves his window of power he needs to be worth respecting and very strong. His ult and ghouls can be gone in a matter of seconds, and then he's back to being weak again while he preps graves or waits for his ult to go off cool down.

DragonShea1 votes

{quoted}

He either needs a real passive or his ghouls need to have a serious buff.

I know he was nerfed some patches ago because he stomped low elo play, but since that nerf his win rates took a huge hit.

Yorick should be powerful when he has his pets up.... He has a huge window of weakness if his ult isn't up or if he doesn't have graves ready, so it only makes sense for balancing sake that when he achieves his window of power he needs to be worth respecting and very strong. His ult and ghouls can be gone in a matter of seconds, and then he's back to being weak again while he preps graves or waits for his ult to go off cool down.

Give him a real passive, that is something that Yorick is in dire need of. I wouldn't mind if he got a Dot that deals more damage the less hp the enemy champion has and it's applied by his AA, Q and E.

y0r1ck2 votes

Corruption of the mist

DragonShea1 votes

{quoted}

Corruption of the mist

Sounds like a good name for it 👍.

y0r1ck1 votes

Define "huge", because at most it was like 5-6%. From 53 to 47 I think. And while it's bad, I think there are other champions that are far worse and need to be a priority for buffs.

And yes I agree entirely with your second paragraph. That's why I think the only change yorick absolutely needs is not letting single champion abilities one shot every ghoul. I don't mind ezreal q or fiora q, but the irelia, urgot, and morde interactions need to go.

After3perma2 votes

Why do you want one of the best split pushers in the entire game to be able to teamfight? He has low defensive stats because he is strong in a 1V1 or 1V2 position. You can’t fight him properly in a split push situation.

ZaneShadow10 votes

Except against Fiora, Tryndamere, Jax... or many other split pusher in the game. He might be the FASTEST split pusher, but he is deffinitly not the strongest or the best. Heck he might no even be the fastest, if Nasus got enough stacks early.

y0r1ck9 votes

In all honestly yorick has a lot of really strong champions who counter him 1v1, allowing him to team fight may be a good idea. It's just that this is not a good way to do it, since now aoe will destroy the ghouls even faster than before and his team fight might end up being even worse lol.

GFREEMEN2 votes

Illaoi can split really fast too if she gets a sheen item

ChaosReyn4 votes

considering ESPECIALLY the Yorick vs Susan matchup: he will DEFINITELY get enough stacks early.

And honestly, SINGED can splitpush Yorick under the table in his current state, since the ghoul nerfs make sending the maiden to splitpush basically worthless now.

Necro Warrior872 votes

I mained Old Yorick Jungle, now I don't even play him. This passive idea might add some of his jungle prowess back though

Leaf on Bush3 votes

Yorick would need a special jungle interaction like always getting a ghoul from big monsters, then he could easily be a good jungler.

Critmaster Garen2 votes

honestly, yoricks post rework kit is 100% fine. when i play him, i always have fun with him. when i play against him, hes never really problematic or opressive. his counterplay is incredibly obvious.

what would really help yorick is reverting his nerfs and screw low elo if theyre having problems with him.

were only talking about the lowest of the lowest mmr ranges here, where he was "too strong".

if they cant deal with him, make them ban him.

learn to play against the champion. hes not unfair to deal with and not nearly as polarizing as a ton of other top laners. everyone can dodge his e. everyone can avoid his w. everyone can auto attack his ghouls. there is no real champion who absolutely cant deal with yorick.

Z3Sleeper1 votes

This is actually a pretty massive buff to him vs his high elo counters. In high elo, almost every one of his counters is some either some ranged champion who can contest well in melee range due to their kit or some whacky burst/mobile champion (well, almost everyone is a burst champion, but these ones moreso). So most people ignore the ghouls and go straight for Yorick because it's actually plausible to do so if you can execute your kit and get out without eating much damage from them.

Some examples of current Yorick laning counters where this is a huge buff:

Riven - Usually is a ton of unanswered damage Yorick takes from her engages if she plays right (she saves 3Q and W for disengage). This normally renders ghouls rather useless as they get at most 1 auto off during this trade and are ignored until after the disengage where picking them off individually is easier while Yorick's kit is on cooldown. Essentially, Yorick is just taking less damage in this trade.

Renekton - Similar to Riven, Renekton simply EQW's then E's out for trades. Yorick players are pretty familiar with the fact that Renekton simply wins this trade and often Renekton players can do this trade under tower and come out far ahead in it as well. Ghouls taking damage for Yorick is just a buff in this scenario too since it's just straightup less damage taken.

Camille - Same as the two above, she trades while saving E for escaping the wall. Just less damage taken here since Camille can't stick around to kill ghouls anyway.

Teemo - Strangely enough, Teemo actually contests Yorick in melee range post-6 (with minor kiting of ghouls due to shroom slow). His shrooms are making ghouls unable to catch him due to their slows and his Q is rendering Yorick's autos worthless half the time (which is all he does outside ghouls). He barely comes out on top each time even through Maiden's damage. Once again, ghouls aren't doing too much in those cases. This would tip the scales ever so slightly in Yorick's favor which is all he needs to straight out-stat post-6 Teemo.

Viktor - Same as Teemo, there's a point around levels 4-6 where Viktor just out-stats Yorick in melee range ever so slightly (thanks ghoul nerfs pre-7 and Viktor's W cucking them for a bit even in best scenario trades). This would just straight reduce Viktor's damage since he can't reasonably be auto-ing ghouls anyway during Yorick's all-in.

Garen - Spin to win ain't doing nothing to ghouls anyway, but now is doing less to Yorick. Also Q will do less.

Gangplank - Same as Viktor (those few wonky levels ~4-6 where Yorick does pitiful damage compared to 3 & 7+). Yorick will lose less statchecks.

For everyone else it's more or less the same, but will still be a minor buff in damage resistance.

I'd like a Yorick buff after the disgusting ghoul nerf, but this may be too much. Ofcourse putting it in with low numbers makes it another meaningless passive.

His ghouls have a decent amount of health (15% of Yorick's + some base) so they still won't be just dropping cuz Yorick is taking some damage (damage would be split into 1/4th distributed among those ghouls as well). You'd have to do 60%+ of Yorick's health without touching ghouls to kill all 4. This might help AoE champions a little (such as Singed) in killing ghouls but I still think it still just buffs Yorick vs Singed as well.

y0r1ck1 votes

But none of those champions will trade with yorick when he has ghouls up....

and yorick already destroys teemo, viktor, garen, and gp

Z3Sleeper1 votes

D3 Yorick onetrick, they most definitely do. Not when ghouls are spawned ofcourse, but even when graves are up they don't think twice about going in for trades since they all have means of negated ghoul damage (talking about the melees bar Garen).

And no, Yorick countered Klepto GP. Grasp GP is a different story. It's an even matchup.

y0r1ck2 votes

Yeah I meant when your ghouls are spawned. And why is grasp gp even? I've always won that matchup tho I peaked low diamond one tricking yorick.

I try to deal with the renekton matchup by freezing at my tower and running him down if he tries to trade. But none of the renektons I play vs save their second e to dodge me e. I guess if they do that then even freezing at tower isn't going to win lane.

Z3Sleeper2 votes

That goes for all the dash champs. The good ones save their dashes, the bad ones use them and let you wall and dunk em.

It's the reason low elo Jax gets stomped by Yorick while high elo wins hands down.

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