Yorick Rework

Alas, Poor Yorick... I knew him, Horatio...

Without further adieu...

Lore-wise, I see Yorick as an exceptionally powerful Lich who inhabits multiple corpses at a time, disposing of broken ones when he's done using them and raising new ones as needed to restock. To Yorick, obsessed with never being forgotten (which is what leads him to become a lich), he sees everyone he kills as members of his "family", united in death. He sees Karthus as a monster who manipulates people into their own salvation-less demise, for what is an eternity without one's Family?

Passive, Lich Family - Yorick has Ghouls that passively follow him and attack who he targets if Yorick is in range. Yorick exhumes a Ghoul every so often if he has less than the cap and remains out of combat. The Ghouls benefit from Yorick's stats. Yorick's kills on enemy units lower the cooldown of this ability. Champion kills and assists spawn a Ghoul at that location. If more than the cap are serving Yorick at one time, the oldest Ghoul begins to rapidly lose health until it dies. Ghouls take reduced AOE damage and deal reduced damage to towers.

Q, Spectral Touch - Yorick conjures his spirit and fires it in a line, dealing damage and stopping at the first champion struck. If the champion is an ally, they are shielded temporarily and a Ghoul will rise to obey that champion for a short time. If it hits an enemy champion, they take some damage, are revealed briefly, and acquire the Haunted debuff.

W, Family Bonds (toggle) - While off, Yorick redirects a percentage of the damage he takes and heals among surviving Ghouls, prioritizing a higher percentage to the Ghouls with ranks. While on, Yorick redirects a percentage of the damage his Ghouls take to himself, prioritizing a higher percentage of damage to Yorick scaling with ranks. Automatically toggles off at a certain percentage of health.

E, Embrace the Inevitable - Yorick marks an enemy champion with his next basic attack or ability and deals bonus damage for a few seconds. If Yorick and his Ghouls attack the marked target so many times (probably scaling with rank somehow), the target becomes Haunted and is briefly rooted by hands from the ground. Resets Yorick's attack timer.

R, Omnipresence - Yorick can select a Ghoul he controls and, after a brief cast, swaps bodies with that Ghoul. If Yorick spawns a certain distance from his Ghouls, they decay and reanimate near him. Would have a fairly short cooldown at max rank since the Ghouls are almost never far from Yorick, but I'll get to that later. Upon death, Ghouls continue to fight as they decay and Yorick can cast this spell if he has at least one Ghoul alive. On cast, gain control of target Ghoul and you enter stasis for a couple seconds. Yorick spawns at that location upon exiting stasis with a scaling percent of his maximum health and mana with a debuff that prevents Yorick from swapping bodies for a period.

Haunted (status) - Ghouls within a larger radius than normal will pursue Haunted champions for the duration. Yorick and his Ghouls move faster in the presence of Haunted Champions and ignore unit collision. Haunted champions heal Yorick and his Ghouls when struck, scaling down per tick. Galio heal, but an applicable debuff similar to skillshot Malz AIDS.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Yorick shares a character model with his Ghouls but has special animations to denote his inhabiting a particular Ghoul.

Alright so here's my explanation of this whole mess. I tried to keep it kinda simple, but keeping in mind that "simple" isn't something Riot is too good at releasing nowadays (not a bad thing- just an observation), I figured I could have a little fun. So first, I wanted to really focus in on what I feel are the main parts of Yorick's identity: Necromancer/Lich, Lane Bully, Juggernaut, "Remember Yorick Mori" (especially after how long it's taken Riot to rework him).

The necromancer/lich thing was how his Ghouls came to life along side previous chatter and builds for Yorick in past forums. I have to credit Malzahar for helping lay the framework for how his Ghouls work, but I feel as though I've taken enough of a spin on it to make it unique in the form of a melee character and having a desire to keep those units alive rather than let them be disposable like Voidlings. According to myth, a Lich was an extremely powerful necromancer who would transfer his/her soul into an object that would last longer than their physical body and would effectively puppet corpses from there onward, kinda acting like a hive mind of sorts. His ult shows this off by letting him jump to a different body on command to dodge important abilities or re position, then being able to just ditch his body when it breaks for a new one just screams flavor and interesting game play choices. Think about it - you can swap bodies with ANY Ghoul with your ultimate. Shield a teammate to get away via the Ghoul that serves them. Get an assist or a kill in a teamfight and Yorick can re position rather favorably depending on who it is. Yorick can save a well-positioned Ghoul on an ally as a lifeline to dive. It gives him very conditional mobility, which is why I feel okay giving him so much power potentially in how much he can mitigate and heal damage since he's mostly immobile still (he requires another nearby champion to have any mobility and loses it altogether if he has to res himself). I tried to keep his ability to spawn Ghouls minimal and tried to keep the CC to a brief root on purpose because he needs a clear avenue of counter play, which is what he lacks right now, and because I feel that you getting the kill or assist in the first place means you should be rewarded for good decision making and/or the enemy should be punished for the inverse. Riot has stated in the past that they want him to be a Juggernaut, so I tried for that. Immobile mostly, sustain-heavy, toplane shoving, brawl and dive heavy tactics of the one character you're sure to never miss or forget in your games: Yorick. Goddamn. Mori.

Comments? I feel like it's pretty neat, at least as a first draft.