Yorick Rework is out! Feedback from a Tier 7 Yorick main

https://lolstatic-a.akamaihd.net/frontpage/apps/prod/rg-yorick-champion-update-2016/en_AU/1c2f93d8a655bf7e0750ac468c0030bc494e5c04/assets/img/Yorick_comic_V1.png

Alright, so the Yorick rework has been brewing for years now, and it's finally on the horizon. As a Yorick main with around 200k mastery, I've been both excited and worried sick about this day. The re-reveal was recently posted to OCE: http://oce.leagueoflegends.com/en/featured/yorick-champion-update

First off, the new artwork is excellent, and I must congratulate whoever worked on it. It captures the old Yorick much better than I expected, while also broadening his appeal. Really good job - I especially like the new Undertaker Yorick, which I happen to already own. https://lolstatic-a.akamaihd.net/frontpage/apps/prod/rg-yorick-champion-update-2016/en_AU/1c2f93d8a655bf7e0750ac468c0030bc494e5c04/assets/img/skin-2.jpg

Secondly, turning ghouls into Mist Walkers is a nice surprise. I like this much better than the old Inky, Stinky, and Hungry idea that was in the older rework concept. I will miss the original riders of the apocalypse references on ability, but overall this is a fair trade.

Saving the most important for last, is his kit. Overall, some aspects look quite good, while others leave me still feeling worried. To me, the most crucial part of making a rework land well with a champion's dedicated playerbase is that it must leave their established roles/positions intact and viable. Without knowledge of ratios or scaling, it's not yet possible to say if Yorick will still work in his 3 pre-rework positions, top, jungle, and support. Hopefully, the developers will keep an eye on Yorick's performance in top, jungle, and support, and will ensure that he is still capable of performing in all those positions/roles.As a primarily Yorick support player, I am most concerned by the loss of his revive on his ultimate. I have always seen Yorick as a supportive/enchanter bruiser/juggernaut, and his ability to cast his ultimate on an ally was key to his supportive/enchanter side.

I think that his new Q will work quite well with relic shield to allow him to continue to survive in bot lane IF the heal is high and balanced around a long cooldown (Yorick can't CS often as a support, so bigger heals less often works better in this case). I am thankful that he can generate graves similar to how Thresh generates souls, so that Yorick won't necessarily need to take the CS to use his full kit. I am a bit concerned that the mechanics for graves/mist-walkers described in the reveal are going to be very hard for jungle Yorick to make use of however, since he will need to generate at least three graves in one small location, which will be hard to do moving from camp-to-camp. Hopefully, this can be looked into somehow if jungle Yorick struggles. Perhaps large monsters should always produce a grave on death.

The new W looks like it has a lot of potential for supporting, though it turns him into more of a lockdown/disruptor support than an enchanter, which makes his role a bit more homogeneous with other tanky supports... I think that the concept behind Dark Procession (W) could be improved by adding a resistance debuff to enemies trapped within the walls, which would essentially work as a damage amplification for allies targeting the trapped opponents - this could be balanced around making the walls shorter-lasting if needed or the cooldown longer, etc. The damage amplification would make the ability feel more fitting on an enchanter-class champion, which is important to Yorick's identity in my opinion. This would also make the ability more jungle-friendly by improving clear times by allowing Yorick to cast it on camps to improve clearing by debuffing monster resistances.

The new E looks nice. It's essentially a combination of Yorick's old W effect and his Q proc's ghosting passive. Also, I imagine this will be his main poking tool, so it should feel comfortable on his E for existing Yorick players. I am really grateful that the developers tried to keep Yorick's new kit familiar to his existing playerbase. Thank you for this.

Lastly, the new R - I loved Yorick's old ultimate, and I am hoping I will enjoy his new ultimate. His old ultimate helped him win duels, splitpush, support his carries, and turn close teamfights into victories. I doubt that I will like not being about to directly control the maiden of the mist. I personally consider controlling 2 characters in fights to be a fun aspect of champions like Yorick, Mordekaiser, or Shaco. Sure, having the maiden control herself is one less thing to focus on in a hectic fight, but the chances of the uncontrollable AI reliably doing what you want is probably pretty slim. If for example, the AI sends the maiden off to go hunt minions during a teamfight, then that would be an utterly disappointing waste of an ultimate. I am actually very concerned with Yorick's ability to control any of his new minions, since if the AI of the mist walkers cannot be conveniently controlled, they will create havoc for Yorick by auto-pushing any lane now that they don't even decay while they are near Yorick - if there is no way to prevent them from autopushing, it will kill support Yorick and harm top Yorick.

Without knowing the numbers on the new ultimate ability, it will be hard to imagine how it will stack up to the old revenant. I doubt that it will scale as well as an ulted adc clone, but it might still be pretty powerful and may be even stronger than the old revenant early on. The loss of the ability to revive an ally in a teamfight is a pretty huge blow to Yorick's lategame impact as well as his utility. I am really sad to see the old ultimate go, and I don't mean to be critical but I am truly not convinced that it has been given a replacement that will be as flexible, powerful, unique, or interesting. I would really, really like to see some unselfish utility potential put back on the ultimate. Perhaps it could be given the Lissandra ultimate treatment, where the effect differs based on whether it is cast on an self/ally or on empty-ground/enemy. For example, an enemy-cast could send the maiden of the mist to haunt the targeted opponent, casting on empty ground could spawn the maiden with the split-push AI described in the reveal article, while an ally/self-cast could provide the original revenant + temporary revive. This might make balancing Yorick more challenging, but it would vastly improve his gameplay, providing flexibility and interesting decision making. It would also fit his lore theme, as he is torn between choosing to use his power to help protect and guide his allies (ally-cast utility), or whether the powers of the mist corrupt and motivate him to devastate his opponents (enemy-cast offense). I really hope this one ability will receive major attention to make sure it is completely satisfying to Yorick's established playerbase.

Thank you for reading. I apologize if this is too much feedback or if I rambled on in parts, but this is an important topic for me. I really appreciate the attention Yorick is receiving, and I hope we, the players and developers, can work together to make Yorick the best and most satisfying champion that he can be. I am really hyped and I hope that this rework is going to go all the way in creating an ideal Yorick who keeps his identity while modernizing.

Edit: I listened to Yorick's new voice-over last night: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgBHy5ddnCY I really, really like it. His script is excellent, and the quotes reveal a lot about his new character. The voice actor also did very well - reminds me of Legacy of Kain, Blood Omen. I think that adding a filter effect for a slightly more gravelly tone/echo and slightly lowering Yorick's voice pitch might be a marginal improvement, but it is already very good as-is. I definitely think the new voice-over is a great improvement.