Yorick and my thoughts
Skip to final point on cons if you want to get to the point.
So I have no clue how the Yorick fan base feels about the rework. (referring to the orignal Yorick players) I can however speak about my thoughts on the Yorick rework.
So let's start off with the things I liked about the Yorick Rework
1-The new direction of his lore and how it still holds true to the old concept So the old concept of Yorick was this man who was cursed to suffer guilt over what happened to his people and carry the eternal burden of being a spectral grave keeper. While the new yorick completely changes why Yorick is suffering, it does stay true to the actual character he once was. The new Yorick is a monk who must hold the burden of the fall of his entire country, as he uses the same powers of the darkness around him to help him save it. He sorta has the whole Riku from Kingdom Hearts vibe going on. Fight darkness with darkness. It really fells more fleshed out and makes him feel very relatable
2-The voice acting Gonna keep this short, but now that riot has more money to spend on actors and writers, as usual with recent new champions the new yoricks acting and the lines written for him are truley spot on and really help get you in the mind set of a wondering warrior burdened by his own powers.
3-His new job (game play) So the old Yorick for those of you who had the fortune of never facing..oh dear, you think teemo is bad? You think renekten is a bully? You guys find yasuo to be cancer? Let me tell you a think about the old Yorick, Yorick was basically this shit head with no cooldowns who would basically constantly summon 3 ghosts to chase after you, these ghosts would target onto you and chase you to the ends of the earth, and they did pretty high damage. If you were facing a good Yorick, you only farmed when he gave you permission to farm. That being said though outside of lane phase Yorick felt pretty useless and brought nothing to the table. Not to mention his ultimate sucked because to use it to the full potential, it invovled giving the enemy team gold.
However Yoricks game play was preserved but greatly improved upon in what it should be with his rework. Now to summon ghosts you had to gather 3 stacks of souls near by to than press Q once again to summon your ghosts. Unlike the old ghosts which would glitch out all the time, these ghosts could be controlled with your E, and to help keep your opponent in place to take his ass whooping you have to trap him in your cage/W. So the new Yorick you feel more in control, and you offer you opponents room for counter play. I don't want to go to deap into yorick game play here for i want to save that for later. All I want to say is, new yorick for me and I feel many others is much more fun than the old.
TLDR 1-Super cool new lore that does the orignal idea justice 2-Spot on voice acting 3-Feels more defined in terms of game play
But here comes the Cons...
1-He doesn't feel like a monk..like at all So this problem is honestly impossible to fix without another full rework, but I will say if you are a lore nerd, this is a pretty big issue. Most culture agree that monks are 1 of two things. Bad asses who know kung fu, or religious travelers seeking enlightenment. (this is honestly pretty accurate to be honest). Yorick in game play and even personality is nothing like this. First of all he makes no religious or philisophical references at all, and if they are they are to few to notice, and he clearly has no care for enlightment or higher knowledge. Secondly...no he doesn't know any martial arts, or at leaste it's not shown.
Q-I'm gonna smash your brains in as hard as i can by swinging my shovel down onto your head. (literally a 5 year old can do this in real life) W-I'm going to trap you in my dark prison E-RELEASE THE HOUNDS! R-Say hello to my ex wife and my kids : D
So personally i have no issue with this toolkit as a whole, I think it's fun, but if you are going to say he's a monk, at leaste give him ONE monk like ability, or at leaste put it in his auto animations. Frankly I feel Riot went all or nothing into his darkness theme and completely forgot about his monk theme. Do I have a problem with this as a player? No not really, but as a lore nerd? Yes I do. In both art, personality in the acting, and in game play Yorick does not feel like a monk at all. Frankly i don't get why even have him keep his shovel at this point, Riot should of just stuck with the old story and improve upon it.
2-His item pathing just never feels good. So I know their are going to be some fan boys who are going to jump on me hard on this one but I feel it has to be said. With how the way his damage works, Yorick just feels odd to play when you are building items. You briefly feel powerful once you complete a tri force or a iceborn. But than every item after that is a downhill struggle. I feel it's fair at this point to put Yorick in the juggernaut class, Mainly for he does what they all do. He runs at you and if he gets ontop of you and your team isn't helping you, youre donezo. If he is in a team fight and everyone ignores him, your team is donezo. However the same weakness all juggernauts share, is they can be kited and with ease. So the only real way for a juggernaut to engage is a well time flanked, or set up from the team. Going back to subject it's this juggernaut feel that really makes every item after yoricks first/second feel like he is quickly falling off, and I think the reason for that is for unlike darius or garen, Yorick isn't going to walk up to your adc and legit nuke them.
3-Clunky, mainly Q and E So I feel these two abilities are Yoricks biggest problems
Q-Is how you gather souls to summon zombies but at the same time with the way it works, the souls are berried where they died, so you must be near where they died. Not to forgot the zombies spawn from where they died. I feel a better idea would have been to simply have the souls follow yorick and than once he has three he can summon them infront of him
E-If you don't have zombies out, what is even the point of this ability? The damage is nothing to be proud of unless your opponent some how gets hit by every single one, easy skill shot to dodge btw. And honestly zombies behave so dumbly without your E. So frankly this ability could use some type of more usefulness when you don't have zombies. Perhaps give it a ability it only has when no zombies are out, or amp the damage it has for when you have no zombies out.
What is holding Yorick back most though?
Frankly some QOL, I don't think Yorick will ever be a hit, for he has and always will be a juggernaut, which aren't to popular among the community in the first place, but what Riot can do at leaste is give Yorick some QOL improvements. In doing this they will be helping the current yorick community while potential drawing in others. Frankly it's not to hard to do this, they did it for Illaoi and it worked, so i believe it's time they have a another go at Yorick.
At the very least at least give him a damage buff to please the fans, you allready broke your promise on giving them a new skin
#Give yorick fans love
