Old Yorick had a unique class combo: Juggernaut + Enchanter

I mained Yorick from 2013 until his rework in 2017. Yorick is still my highest mastery champion, I own every Yorick skin, etc., but I have barely played him since his rework, even though I still love his aesthetics and lore.

For me, the problem is that the rework weakened Yorick's role flexibility. I never mained Yorick in top lane. I would typically play him either in the Jungle or as a Support. Because I played a lot of support Yorick, my perspective on Yorick is probably pretty different than most people's, and I considered Yorick unique out of all Juggernauts as the only one with a secondary class of Enchanter.

Here is how support Yorick worked: As a primary Juggernaut, Yorick would provide a strong front-line for his lane partner even on a support budget. Melee divers and assassins wouldn't want to jump onto Yorick's partner, because then they would get a shovel a few inches into their brain matter. In this regard, a support juggernaut is sort of like a body guard who relies on the enemy to gap close onto him to try to reach his squishy lane partner.

Support Yorick would also use his W ghoul to block abilities, such as Thresh and Blitzcrank hooks, and could also body block some abilities for his partner while relying on his E and relic shield sustain to allow him to do so. Yorick also provided pretty decent lane harrassment to occupy opponents and whittle them down.

Yorick's old ultimate is what made him into a secondary enchanter, and is what I miss the most. His ultimate would summon a revenant of an ally, which Yorick could control like Mordekaiser controls his ghosts or Annie controls Tibbers. If the ally died while the revenant was active, the revenant would sacrifice itself to give the ally a temporary revive lasting 10 seconds. The revenant itself was also great as a damage amplifier on a fed marksman for example, since its stats scaled with whoever the ultimate was cast on rather than Yorick, which made it work well when Yorick was on a support budget. The revenant's damage output could provide a lot of value when knocking down objectives. The revenant could also be made to sit on top of an ally, thereby protecting them from being targeted, but that was honestly cheesy to do and I don't miss that even though it was a powerful technique only known by experienced Yoricks.

For me, this Juggernaut Enchanter playstyle was really compelling and I'd love to see a future Juggernaut Enchanter released to fill this unique niche. I'd love it if Yorick could have the Enchanter returned as his secondary subclass as I think that it fit really well with his visual/lore theme, but if that isn't going to happen, then a new champion with this kind of playstyle would be welcome.

If Riot is willing to hear the plea of a player has been close to Yorick for years, here are some tweaks that I suggest:

Passive: Make it more likely for Yorick to spawn graves early on when Yorick's allies kill nearby minions. Support Yorick can't function properly because he can't constantly farm graves with his Q, meaning he hardly gets to use ghouls in laning.

Q: Nerf its early rank cooldown but buff its early rank healing. Support Yorick can't spam Q often because he has limited relic shield charges, but he especially needs laning sustain because he will often be taking poke from both the enemy bot laner and support. Make it so that if Yorick maxes Q first, then its cooldown will quickly become spamable for the regular top laner Yorick playstyle.

W: Make W into a satisfying skill to max first in a supportive role. Make it so that its cooldown scales better with ranks. Make it so that casting W instantly causes ghoul hands to rupture from the ground at the target location and grasp at enemies within the wall radius. The ghoul hands would reduce the enemy attack speed, making trapped champions at a disadvantage to duel unless they escape the walls or kill the hands. The ghoul hands would also have collision boxes and health bars (with very little health, making AOE damage easily remove them) allowing them to block skill shots like old Yorick's W could. If balanced properly, this would make W a powerful supportive tool when prioritized to max instead of Q, without adding too much power for top laner Yorick who will continue to max Q instead. The ghoul hands would also be helpful to jungle Yorick by providing targets to tank camps for Yorick other than his mist walkers which are very important to keep alive for jungle Yorick's clear speeds.

R: I would love to see the revenge-revive mechanic brought back, but I don't expect that it would be due to the issues Riot had with coding it in the past (it would occasionally break and result in a loop of infinitely dying). If it could be made to work, I would love it if the Maiden of the Mist would sacrifice herself to temporarily revive an ally killed within a small range around her. The temporary revive could also be changed to a Guardian Angel effect, where the ally receives a true revive but balanced out by the ally regenerating only a % of their maximum health. I personally think that the temporary revive was thematically great and very fitting with Yorick, as a sort of statement that death is inevitable, but a Guardian Angel effect would likely be less problematic to code. I also wish that Yorick were able to call the Maiden of the Mist to return to him by re-casting R, because her AI can be a frustration. I know that it's been said that Yorick is meant to feel like he doesn't fully control his minions, and it's fine to lack micro-management, but an option to call her to return to Yorick as long as she is within a certain range of him would be good.

If adding these new mechanics to Yorick's W and R make him overpowered, then other strengths could be lowered to make room in his power budget. For example, his Maiden's stats could be reduced to make room for a revive effect. I am not suggesting any specific balance numbers and that sort of thing along with keeping Yorick viable and fun in top lane would come down to fine tuning. I am just providing ideas to bring back some of Yorick's old role flexibility and class uniqueness. Unless I am the only diehard Yorick support who remembers the old Yorick, I am sure some other players would appreciate this too.