From a Yorick main: Yorick's ult needs some kind of limit
So first of all, proof of my credentials: https://na.op.gg/summoner/userName=Toxic%20Control
I picked up the reworked Yorick in season 7, when the enchanter meta was running high. As a champion whose ult never did what you told it to, Yorick came with an abnormal learning curve: learn how to cheat the dysfunctional system or choose a better champion. Except that I love Yorick, and did then as well - so if I wanted to keep playing him, I would have to force myself to learn how to work around his (poorly programmed) ultimate. This involved figuring out how to redirect the maiden, when to call her, and how to really bait enemies hard to guarantee they'd stick around long enough for my ultimate to kill them. Shit like throwing my E on jungle camps in order to pull the maiden away from her lane or trying to pull an enemy champion closer to my lane to toss my E on them instead; things like "do I E first to guarantee I'll have the enemy targeted before I call my maiden, or call her now and gamble on missing it?"; ulting to clear the entirety of one side's jungler just to ensure you got your gold's worth out of the ult before taking back to lane - there were a lot of fine lines to tread and tricks to pull in order to have the maiden not push herself to death into the enemy's turret and to really squeeze every meaningful second out of an ultimate with two and a half minutes of cooldown time.
So when I saw the QoL updates to Yorick, I can only say I was beyond thrilled - but even before they were released I knew there would be an issue.
No, this isn't a "Oh the good ol' times when Yorick actually took 'skill'" kind of post. This is a "My completely dysfunctional champ has finally become functional oh god oh fuck he's murdering everyone Yorick plz not the children too NOT THE CHILDREN TOO" post.
Yorick now has about as much control over his ultimate as can reasonably be expected and it feels, for once in two years, fucking phenomenal - but by removing the unreliability without adding any other changes, Yorick's become near unstoppable without some kind of severe intervention. I have kept the maiden alive and pushing for 10 minutes before - yeah, 10 entire bloody minutes of the maiden just doing her thing with me as I out-duel, outmaneuver, out-push, out-clear, stomp one after another people with an ult that has no end until the enemy kills it, except they won't kill it once I'm so fed and already bulky that my maiden's sitting on 4k health as well, huh?
The issue is that Yorick's ult has practically no downtime unlike something like Annie's or Shaco's ults that, while they have other effects beyond simply existing, they too still pull the weight of being an extra body to soak up turret damage or tank out objectives or just to have something else around to deal damage to enemies, and their summonables aren't even particularly great. Yeah, they're not something to ignore, but they're nowhere near what the maiden can pull off once out.
#So while Yorick's stats are high - and may yet still continue to rise a bit further as his new-found fanbase becomes more familiar with him - I want to urge Riot once again not to hit his power directly first but instead try to give his ult some kind of limit besides just getting killed. Perhaps a limit on how much can be healed at the fountain? Maybe a limit on how long she can stay out of combat? Even just a limit on how long Yorick can control her within a lane. But there needs to be a cap on his ultimate because right now this much control on this powerful an asset simply cannot happen if we want to make Yorick remotely fair to fight against.
Thank you for your time.