A thread about Yorick

[Shakespeare joke goes here.]

Been playing a lot of yorick recently, mostly in the jungle because I find it funny how safe he is. It's no secret that Riot wishes they could delete this guy from the game but I think there's more to it. Yorick was the concept of a minion master pushed out to capitalize on the desire for a semi-micro heavy champion that many people were clamoring for. However, the tech for minion control didn't exist at the time and as such it ended up really leaving people disappointed about Yorick.

What I wanted to discuss here are some possible ways to make Yorick's minion-mancer gameplay work a little better, using some ideas that haven't quite been suggested yet. I know Yorick is far off when it comes to updates but believe me, I think this guy has immense potential.

#1.) Ditch the Passive.

You really have to try in a kit like Yorick's to make a boring skill, so props to going above and beyond. While effective, Yorick's "Unholy Covenant" is the very definition of invisible power. 5% Damage/Defense per minion up is even worse when they currently last so short. What I'm going to propose are a few ideas about what can be done with his passive.

• New Passive- Keeper of Corpses: When Yorick dies, he digs himself a grave and rests. Yorick may choose to respawn from this point or to return to the fountain. Yorick may bury allied corpses as well, although this effect has an eight second channel time.

As a zombie (?) and master of undeath, Yorick never really dies. Rather, he just sort of crawls into the ground for a relaxing snooze. This tool exchanges his invisible power for a quite visible marker of where Yorick could go/respawn from. He can also bury allies, although this takes quite a long time and is the perfect chance to kill Yorick, not to mention "Should I bury this decaying Ezreal or just take a tower while I can?" Right now, I don't know if enemies should be able to destroy it. Likely not, as it'll make this ability neigh useless, but have Yorick have a channel time crawling out of the ground and being open to attack (6/5/4 seconds spent digging himself up?)

• New Passive- Burial Master When allies die, Yorick has the choice of burying them. After this short burial, they arise as a omen of death for (4-8) seconds. During this time they may use abilities and summoner spells. Yorick can opt to resurrect himself when he dies for half the duration. (240-ish second CD)

Stonewall put it best when he said that Yorick's ultimate has an infinite power to it. It's literally one of the strongest ultimates in the game because it massively extends the life span of your carry or teammate, in addition to giving you a duplicate of them for a short time. If Yorick ever wants to be even moderately good, something has to be done with his ult. Again, I go with the burying theme. For a guy who is all about gravedigging, Yorick himself does a fairly minimal amount of digging graves. (Not to mention prevent instant rez. You'll know who's he's bringing back).

#2.) Do something with his ghouls.

• Option 1- The Code approach: Straight up, fix/change/edit/revitalize the code and allow for minions to be controlled. I don't think this will happen but I imagine it'd be the quickest way to improve Yorick's identity as a minion-mancer. Keep his skills somewhat like they are now and make him somewhat more reliant on maneuvering them correctly to force enemies to deal with the ghouls or run.

• Option 2- The Azir approach: AKA Bugmageddon. Make Yorick's summons focus on whoever he's auto-attacking. If they're at range, the ghouls swarm on the out-of-range target while Yorick lifts his shovel and commands his little ghoulies to chew at their ankles (or Kankles in gragas's case)

• Option 3- The Gangplank approach: What is the most unique thing about Gangplank? The fact that he acts as a melee carry but is actually ranged due to his barrels and parlay. Borrowing from the book of plank, Yorick's ghouls now permanently exist but Yorick's base AD suffers. Now, Yorick uses his minions as a proxy-melee attacker. He attacks through them, the three different ghouls aiding him in different ways: War gives him on-hit effects and movement speed boost when you activate the skill while War is up. Pestilence has a slowing field around it and leaves a cloud of sickening filth and decay in a spot when you use the skill. Famine grants life steal and gores a target, opening a magical wound others can lifesteal from.

The ghouls can still be attacked and killed, although they'd get some damage/defense boosts in all of these regards. In fact, I'd even argue making them permanent parts of Yorick's arsenal unless killed. Make Yorick's mana pool small so he has to burn mana, the counter being to force Yorick to constantly resummon his posse.

#3.) Change his Ultimate.

There's WAY too much power currently in Yorick's ult to begin giving his other spells some love. Here are some ideas on how to better thematically approach Yorick:

• New R- Omen of Death:
• Passive: Neutral monsters and enemy minions that die in Yorick's range are reanimated as shambling corpses. These corpses slowly decay over time and deal reduced damage. Enemy champions who die reanimate as bone horrors, dealing base damage plus (0/25/50%) of the target's AP/AD (Depending on which is higher) as that damage. (IE: If your AP is higher, the horror will deal AP damage).
• Active: All minions under Yorick's control are healed for (25/50/75%) of their total HP. They decay at a faster rate but have increased attack speed. Minions who die under the active effect explode. While on cooldown, Yorick cannot summon more corpses.

What's the scariest thing about zombies? It's the hoard. The massive, shambling wave of flesh and bone that slowly overruns anyone who get in thier way. I think Yorick would be far more interesting. This ability, by itself, is slow to start up. Yorick has to slowly push a wave, amassing an army of the dead as the threat of the undead goes from a harmless "It's just Yorick splitpushing" to "THERE ARE ZOMBOS EVERYWHERE" This would also give Yorick a tool to heal up his ghouls while active.

• New R- Omen of Death:
• When activated, Yorick becomes an abomination of decaying flesh. Every second he spawns (3/6/9) ghouls with reduced HP. These gjhouls attack any nearby champion or minion but prioritize enemies that Yorick is attacking. During this time, Yorick has increased range and minions are dealt (50/75/100%) reduced AoE damage.

Once more playing into the hoard of dead that frighten people most when it comes to zombies. While the ghouls this time are weak enough to be taken out with auto-attacks, the reduced AoE damage means that these monsters can't just all fall from one ryze spellflux. Much like a horror movie, you either need to run or make a valiant stand, shooting away at the mob of zombies until you either stem the tide...or get overrun. (Trust me, with someone like Jinx this shouldn't be a problem)

#TL;DR

Back when Riot first talked about reworking Yorick, my main criticism was that he was false advertising. People wanted a minion master of the dead but instead got a very binary, simplistic kit with minions tacked onto it. I'm not proposing these ideas as 100% solutions but, as always, I like to share ideas and try to get the ball rolling when it comes to what can be done with champions like Yorick. Most of all, he's such a fantastic and interesting concept that I don't want to see him die. Necromancers and spirits of death have been done before but someone as apathetic and finding his purpose as Yorick is truly fascinating.

Yorick's too interesting of a person and a concept to see buried and I hope something is one day done with him.