The deal with Yorick is because he is a split-pusher Juggernaut. And considering Towers are made of toilet paper, basically, he now does his job TOO WELL, in their opinion. (I'm an L7 Mastery
player, just for clarification. I should think I know what I'm talking about.) I think, now this is just MY opinion on the Yorick ordeal, is that it's because now that Yorick's Q can be used on Towers, it gives him a watered-down version of the Demolish Rune for free (And if he chooses to take the Demolish rune, which I have JUST to see how well it has synergism with him) he can level the things faster than you can say Mist Walker. So I think all that is REALLY needed is just tone back the bonus damage that his Q does, and he should be A-OK.
I compared it with how much I would do with
and
who are my other go-tos in the top-lane, and when they use their AA Resets on a tower, they'd do roughly 20-25 extra damage in comparison to a normal AA. Yorick, on the other hand...
My general build with Yorick by my first siege of a tower in a single game is usually as follows:
And a random starter towards an Armor or MR item as the case may be with the Enemy Team-comp. Commonly I'm about Level 4, MAYBE Level 5 if I've managed a near-on perfect farming rate.
One unaltered AA usually deals 20-30 damage or less with no minions around. Boosted with his Q, that would get ramped up to maybe about 50-60.
Thing is, Yorick's Q is often the first maxed skill, (At least for ME) so and combined with his natural growth from leveling, that damage reduction becomes PRETTY NEGLIGIBLE. I got to the point where I was doing about 250 with a Q that was a 3 sec cooldown. So he CAN get pretty ridiculous if he gets his traction going. Now, as I said above, Yorick is basically THE Split-Pusher Juggernaut of his class. So in order to work in that identity, he NEEDS a tower-leveling capability.
So in conclusion, all I think our dear Shepherd needs is a BIT of a tone-down on the Q damage to towers. Otherwise he's perfectly fine in my book.
Now Darius... that's a whole 'nother ball game.
It's sad to see how far down he's fallen, considering he's my favorite champ of all time. I've been struggling to take on AI with him, so that should attest to the slump he's in. Unfortunately, I'm not all that certain what to suggest by way of buffs/changes for the old Dunkmaster, but he needs some love.