Yorick, the Gravedigger Review

The patch has been released and changes have been made to Yorick as he was deemed underpowered by Riot.  I will review Yorick now pre-patch and post-patch as I have played him in both instances.  Yorick, the Gravedigger is supposed to be Riot Games’ take on a fan favorite, the necromancer.  Yorick is a bit unique in being a tanky DPS as he has 2 ranged abilities, but is also a melee champion.  Yorick’s abilities are also unique in the fact that upon use, Yorick summons ghouls which are minions that take damage over time.  However, unlike minions gain a portion of Yorick’s health and attack damage and prioritize champions over anything else.  This makes pushing a bit difficult for Yorick as there is always a chance his minions will cause the tower to target Yorick over the ghouls.  This makes the player have to be cautious and aware of what is happening with his ghouls.

	Unholy Covenant Yorick’s takes 5% reduced damage and his basic attacks deal 5% more damage for each summon that is active. Meanwhile, Yorick’s ghouls have 35% of Yorick’s Attack Damage and Health.
	Omen of War Yorick’s next attack will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul that deals additional damage and moves faster than Yorick’s other ghouls. While the Spectral Ghoul is alive, Yorick moves faster as well.
	Omen of Pestilence Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. While the Decaying Ghoul remains alive, nearby enemies continue to be slowed.
	Omen of Famine Yorick steals life from his target and summons a Ravenous Ghoul that heals Yorick for the damage it deals.
	Omen of Death Yorick conjures a revenant in the image of one of his allies. If his ally dies while its revenant is alive, the revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them time to enact vengeance.

As for laning pre-patch Yorick, was pretty good.  He is capable of pushing in a solo lane and can definitely hold his own against squishy champions like any tanky DPS should be able to for the most part.  Yorick’s lane dominance is all about harassing with his W and E abilities. Above are his abilities and passive for reference purposes.  Omen of Famine is capable of keeping you in the lane as long as you have mana for it allowing you lane sustainability and the slow from Omen of Pestilence is amazing for keeping the enemy champion slowed for some initial auto attack hits.  Also when coupled with Omen of War you will constantly be on top of the enemy champion unless they have flash or ghost.  Yorick’s passive that allows him to take decreased damage and deal increased damage for the more ghouls he has out is great for making him a tanky DPS.  Overall Yorick’s kit fits him well as a Necromancer archetype.  Even Yorick’s ultimate fits this well because you create a ghoul that is similar to Mordekaiser’s Children of the Grave ulitmate but upon the targeted ally dying, control goes to the targeted person and not the owner of the ultimate.  So this is essentially a Mordekaiser pet to start and then turns into a Zilean ultimate except the person is not revived.  Overall a really nice job of Riot to create a champion that uses similar abilities to current champions but takes a different spin on how it is implemented and used in game to fit the archetype of the champion they were aiming for.
As for Yorick in a duo lane, the mana costs and his ghouls lose their strength and purpose.  The ghouls are easily CCed and easily killed when there is another person in the lane.  This causes Yorick to become a squishy melee champion that can only harass and poke for minimal damage.  This eventually leads to him running out of mana depending on how often he casts as the abilities for ranged harass for Yorick is relatively expensive.  Overall pre-patch Yorick felt underwhelming and was a fun concept but it slightly fell flat with the mana costs and the fact his ultimate deteriorated over time similar to his ghouls.  For an ultimate this shouldn’t happen as it makes the ultimate not fun to use and a waste of mana as it will never reach its effect as it can be easily killed on top of the deterioration.

Post-patch Yorick feels more like a bruiser as the Necromancer archetype Riot Games was shooting for.  Yorick’s abilities still feel like you have to wisely choose when to use his abilities as you put more ranks into it.  But, they feel a bit better cost for use wise then pre-patch as before you would run out of mana a bit quicker then needed as you need to juggle your ghouls to make use of your passive.  The increase to his mana per level for base stats also help to increase his mana pool despite how small to be able to throw out another spell cast if needed compared to pre-patch.  Yorick’s W getting increased range for casting helps for harassing even if it was only by a small amount.  The change to ghouls being immune to slows and taking 50% reduced AOE damage helped a lot as well.  This allows his ghouls to survive a bit which is the main part of his kit and actually be able to be useful harass on champions.  However, to some extent this helped the duo lane greatly for Yorick and jungling, but made his solo laning a bit OP.  Yorick can not only deal damage and harass well by poking with his ghouls but sustain very well in lane now.  He is by far no immovable object like Warwick or Udyr but definitely very strong in lane.  Overall the buffs were necessary but I believe that decreasing the cost of his abilities and increasing his mana per level was a bit unnecessary.  One or the other I believe would have been fine for buffs along with the rest.  Therefore, Yorick is a good tanky DPS now if not a hair OP.

Overall, a good addition to League of Legends, and a great champion befitting of the Necromancer archetype.  If built tanky DPS then he can do his job as a bruiser and go for the carries and definitely take them out, however building him as DPS is also viable but making him fairly fragile.  If someone wants to play a Necromancer in League of Legends, Yorick definitely is a champion one should check out as he is a fun champion to play, yet different from the standard Necromancer commonly seen in games.