Experience, discoveries and concerns about Yorick so far.

So first off... Hi, plat 2 top main here (pleb).

I played alot of the old Yorick, along with "Juggernauts" in general. Main Darius and Mordekaiser kinda, and in no particular order, I played alot of Illaoi, Dr. Mundo, Volibear, Garen, Nasus etc. Not too experienced with Shyvanna and while Cho'Gath and Skarner has juggernaut elements (high damage/scaling) they play better as CC tanks IMO.

Anyway, here's my experience with Yorick:

He was REALLY hard to get into, as micromanaging situations were beyond what I'm used to. Graves, Maiden CD, distance from Ghouls, E/W CD... Everything.

His kit flows well together, but managing his high cd's properly during laning is rough. Especially against other no/low resources and low cd champions. He has such huge downtime between moments of strengths, that he basically becomes the euology of counterplay.

You see 2/no graves around Yorick? Zone and punish. Yorick used W recently? 22 second window to burn his summoners. Yorick missed his E? Kill ghouls and continue to zone and punish. Yorick used his ultimate just 2 minutes ago? Still 40 seconds to kill him with your ultimate.

Almost impossible to lane with him as he is now. If you survive lane however, I admit, he becomes an interesting beast with the right items.

If he builds a little sustain he sustains alot, since he has high base hp he benefits greatly from steraks and with 40% cdr he becomes quite disruptive with E and W. I really like his ability to nuke/solo jungle objectives and how setting up waves properly rewards you with pretty insane pushes.

A lot of people find him meh mid and lategame unless fed. But while he is reliant on items, like Jax for instance, he is IN MY OPINION reliant on the right items at the moment. So here's my build, which will be reasoned with my discoveries.

I run Warlords Bloodlust, Sorcery and Runic Armor for masteries. Turns out his ultimate can lifesteal, so Warlords is far better than Grasp of the Undying.

Runes can be pretty much whatever you feel like, but AD of some kind and scaling resists gives him alot of power level 6/9 (when you're at your strongest anyway).

I build Corrupting potion and try to get Sheen and Cull at some point. As pre-6 I mainly want to farm due to shitty laning. If you get zoned or expect to be, Coin is pretty solid to sit on as a recovery.

Now Sheen is all you need, because early on you'll one shot caster minions with Q. Now you start building Gunblade components.

"Rofl, this boosted troll building AP Yorick, gtfo!"

But wait, hear me out!

Yorick's abilities all scale with total AD and gets base damage per rank/level. He doesn't really NEED AD. So you want gunblade for 2 reasons, your maiden/ghouls will heal you (which adds up to alot of healing), and the nuke/slow of the active is great for either bursting people with sheen+Q or chaining E's and W together.

Yorick Q heals him, but not nearly enough mid/late game. To get survivability, you'll need additional healing and Gunblade does just that.

Now you ought to be pretty obnoxious, but pretty squishy despite scaling resist runes. Your weakness at this point is getting bursted. So now, I recommend after finishing an armor/mr component, you get Steraks Gage. This'll make you harder to burst and give you time to get your healing rolling. Also the base AD increase will affect all your damage except E and W ofc.

Yorick has no shields, so it'll do wonders to make up for his survivability weaknesses.

At this point you'll get Spirit Visage and Armor item of choice. If you're stupid fed, you can rush Trinity Force, but the safer route is Iceborn Gauntlet either 3rd or even last if needed.

This'll make you hard to even 3v1 if melee/low range champions try to gang up on you, but alas it sucks for teamfighting until you're at 4-5 items. Yorick has a relatively weak and low presence teamfighting capabilities anyway. His strength is his ability to push advantages after teamfights. After an ace, ghouls will be everywhere and if maiden is up she will kill an objective. Be it a tower, herald, dragon, baron, a full enemy jungle clear, she kills everything. A "win harder" juggernaut basically, kinda like Mordekaiser after a successful ghost.

He is interesting and has great potential, but I still have concerns.

His laning is too bad, one can argue worse than Nasus. Nasus can hard disengage with his W, Wither early laning. It kills pretty much all attempts at killing him if used properly. He also have lifesteal, free sustain, as his passive while towerfarming.

In a time where toplane is defined by missing hp heals, shields, damage reduction, resist steroids, hp regen, etc, etc, his Q alone simply doesn't cut it for such a true melee champion.

Another thing is his Grave/Ghouls mechanics. The Grave build up is fine, but early levels is far too punishing. Also the Ghouls pose too little threat when you miss E. They are supposed to be acting like minions, yet they don't aggro like minions when Yorick gets basic attacked. His ghouls and maiden are also pretty slow, even when you hit E, you can just walk away from them most of the time.

His other abilities are mostly fine, he has a strong mid and late game in terms of objective control. W is good for cc follow-up and disruption when maxed, but when attack-moving adc's and the likes destroy it instantly, it feels like a waste, also the in between levels feels really underehelming. His E could haste his ghouls more maybe. MAYBE. His ult is fine as a means to discourage engaging or do prolonged fights with him and good for objective nuking. Would be nice if the bonus magic damage on autos could be applied to turrets in some way, since weaving sheens are scary in case people come to stop you.

If I were to buff him in any way, and doing so with moderation it would be as follows:

Ghouls attack in retalition when Yorick gets auto attacked. (Like minions)

Q cooldown 5 seconds at all ranks. Heals for half of it's bonus damage; 15, 27,5, 40, 52,5, 65 (+20% AD), base value is doubled when below half health; 30, 55, 80, 105, 130 (20% AD).

W is untargetable for 0, 0,25, 0,5, 0,75, 1, 1,25 seconds after creation.

E hastes Ghouls and Maiden by 20, 25, 30, 35, 40%

R cooldown 140 at all levels. Yoricks basic attacks deals bonus magic damage vs turrets 10, 20, 40 (+50% AD) when the maiden is attacking it. (2 second cooldown).

These changes would help his laning, teamfighting, dueling and tower killing. I also doubt they would bring him too over the top and might even introduce different builds without the need to rush cdr or damage vamp. His passive and Q are in more urgent need of help than the rest of his kit, but still, leveling up W and E feels underwhelming. These are just my ideas mind you.

Anyhow, this became a wall of text, sorry. Here's a tldr.

TL;DR

Yorick has potential and is strong enough in his niche mid and late game. His early game however is far too weak, given his reliance on items. Warlords works with ult, Sheen one shots caster minions, Gunblade heals off everything, high base hp compliments Steraks. Abilities are fine functionality-wise, but needs a few number tweaks. Passive Ghouls need to aggro without E somehow, Q need lower cd early and more healing, W needs something in between hit point gains, E needs to haste ghouls/maiden more, R needs lower cd early and to push turrets a little harder.

Feel free to discuss or ask questions. Thank you for reading. :)