My opinion on the Yorick rework

KoalaDoll·8/24/2016, 11:01:49 PM·1 votes·843 views

Disclaimer: I didn't play the new Yorick cause I don't own a pbe account. I base my information of the rework on the league wiki and gameplay from YouTube. If I mention something that is false, I apologies in advance.

THERE'S A TL;DR VERSION AT THE END

Dear Rito, I write this post because I really like the direction you're taking with the Yorick rework, and I really want it to work (I main juggernauts and Yorick feels like something I'd enjoy a lot), and as a result I feel it is my obligation to write this opinion post, and even if it will only have a slight impact (or any at all) on the final result of the rework, then It'd be worth this wall of text :)

Artistic Design: First off, I gotta praise the person who thought of incorporating wind-chimes into his sound design, absolutely love it and I wish it'd be more accentuated. His voice-over also sounds really cool, but I'm not the biggest lore fan so I didn't really dig too deep. On the visual aspect though, I can't shake the feeling he's looking more like a biker with a shovel than a gravedigger. That's cool if you don't want him to BE a gravedigger anymore, but I'm just sayin'. But even if you do I'd personally like to see some wear over his cloths and character, like how old Yorick's clothes were all torn up and he had a hump, befitting someone who's working with corpses all day. And personally I think it'd be cool to see him lean over the shovel as he walks, like a walking cane, rather than just carry it around like any other "brute with a big weapon" out there. And personally I don't really like how the W is looking.. Some hands or something to make it look like it's made of corpses not ghosts would go a long way..

Gameplay Design: REMEMBER I DON'T OWN A PBE ACCOUNT AND I HAVEN'T PLAYED THE NEW YORICK. I BASE MY OPINION PURELY FROM GAMEPLAY VIDEOS AND INFORMATION FROM THE WIKI.

First off, I don't really understand his purpose. I mean, what does yorick bring to the table that any other champion can't achieve with item 3512 ??

Passive:

  1. The most urgent matter I wanna bring up regarding his passive is how small the mist walkers are, and therefor hard to hit (a similar problem to the corrent Yorick's ghouls dodgy hitboxes). To add on top of that his new kit makes them jump around all the time like crazy which makes it even more confusing. Walkers should be more visible (especially in a teamfight, with all the crazy graphical things going on the screen, you can barely tell you're being attack by creep-sized mist walkers doing tons of damage) and it should be clearer when and how they're doing damage (like Illaoi's tentacles for example).
  2. I think the range at which your mist walkers start to decay should be displayed more clearly, so you'd be able to make better choices while having them ("can I clear this camp real quick before they walk on ahead and die because I wasn't near them?).
  3. I feel this passive is crying out for a sustain mechanic (walkers transfer portion of damage to yorick as health), because as of now the walkers are just there just for some damage, but i'd like to see some other mechanic displayed into it. The decision to put the sustain mechanic on Q is imo not ideal, because it's boring and with the current numbers quite negligible. It would also incentivize his opponents to strike the walkers to prevent his healing.

Q: Just a bread and butter skill, nothing special really. Really reminds me of nasus' gameplay with the whole "use this to last hit in order to be useful and to have some sustain". On the subject of mist walkers AI, I truly think that this is the skill that should cause walkers to leap on targets (currently E's function), simillar to how elise's Q affects her spiderlings. That way yorick has way better control over his main source of damage, and if he misses his E he doesn't have to pray to the gods of minion block and AI that his walkers would get the message. Read more when I talk about the E.

W: Again pretty niche utility skill with some counterplay. What's more important is the question: why aren't other champions getting the same treatment? Why does Yorick's impassable terrain lets allies walk through but Anivia wall, Trundle pillar, JarvanIV /Taliyah ult doesn't?

E:

  1. I like the direction, but I can't help feeling this skill is lackluster AND mandatory at the same time. At it's current state, his kit pretty much revolves around yorick hitting his E, enabling him and his walkers to get up close to his enemies in order to dish out damage. As I've said while I talked about the Q, putting the leap mechanic of the walkers on the E doesn't feel right, considering it is a skill shot with a pretty small hit box, and the AOE effect can confuse the AI causing it to attack someone you don't want it to. I'd suggest putting it on the Q.
  2. It'd be pretty neat to see an attack speed reduction mechanic on this skill, since it would work really well in conjunction with the W, and I feel it's otherwise kinda dull.

Ult:

  1. First off, Yorick should be able to control the maiden. The fantasy of having a personal backline falls short if that said backline just decides to attack a random creep in the middle of a teamfight/Attack the support while you're trying to take on the ADC/stand in the middle of the teamfigt.. Plus if he decides to walk on a certain lane and suddenly a teamfight happens at another one he needs to sacrifice his ult for the teamfight (because the maiden would continue to march down the lane).. Not okay with that.
  2. Yorick and the maiden should have different mist walkers cap. Having the maiden come with her own walkers that count towards the walkers cap kinda kills the entire build-up that yorick has to do before a teamfight in order to be useful. This limits his (potential) skill-ceiling unnaturally and won't allow great yoricks to differentiate themselves from the mediocre-ones. That also means that if the maiden and yorick split-push different lanes, one of them will have to sacrifice his mist walkers, which goes againts the fantasy of the "dead horde".
  3. I don't understand why the CD should start when the maiden dies. Tibber's CD starts when annie casts the ability, and tibbers survives until he's killed or the ability is off-CD. At the current state, the maiden doesn't survive very long either way, (because yorick can't control her, and keeping her from harms way) and it just unnecessarily prolongs the cooldown.

TL;DR:

Artistic Design: VO sounds dope, W should be more corpse-y and less ghost-y, and I can't shake the feeling he's looking like a biker with a shovel (probably the leather-y feel of this shoes and pants, and maybe also his beard). Some wear over the clothes and skin would go a long way. (P.S. wind chimes OP more plz)

Gameplay Design: Passive: Make it clear when someone is being attacked by the walkers, and make it easy to auto-attack them. Add a leash indicator of some sort to the max range yorick can be away from them amd maybe integrate some sort of sustain mechanic into their attacks (for yorick and/or themselves).

Q: E mechanic of walkers leaping on marked targets should be moved here (Like elise's Q). Heal feels underwhelming as the game progresses.

W: It's okay, but why does Yorick can have the "Ally can pass" mechanic while JarvanIV is still "helping"?

E: Walkers' damage relies on Yorick hitting this too much. Otherwise they're slow and can barely get any damage off (if they even prioritize the right target). I think It'd be really cool to see an attack-speed debuff here to synergise with W.

Ult: Make it controllable, give the maiden and yorick different mist walkers' caps and make the cooldown start when yorick summons her (not when she dies).

AND THAT'S IT FOLKS! Please don't roast me too hard over MY OPINION.. I just felt I have to get it out there, in-case Yoricks goes out live in poor shape and I know i could've helped mitigate the damage.

Feel free to dump your own thoughts, and correct me if I've forgotten something. It's very likely I did so I'd probably edit the post in the future..

Sorry for any bad english. Cheers! Yorick [slayer-pantheon-thumbs] Yorick

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