Yorick Build Guide by TVMan

Intro

Hello and welcome to my guide for Yorick, the gravedigger.

I play Yorick as a solo-top off-tank. This means giving him lots of staying power along with a healthy dose of damage to go along with it.

Now, you might be wondering why you would play Yorick when there are so many other "better" solo-tops right? Well take a look at my guide and you might think differently.

Pros / Cons

Pros! -Can be an amazing farmer with ghouls and nice AD. -Great pusher. -Ultimate can change the outcome of a fight. -Great 1v1 champ -Amazing sustain in lane. -Can be built pretty tanky with only a couple items. -AMAZING harass. -Passive makes him super tanky in team fights.

SPACE

Cons. -Mana hungry early game -Squishy early game -Damage drops late game -Requires good positioning skills

Summoner Spells

I take Teleport because you're probably going to be heading to solo top lane and you cant let the other laner get an advantage because you took too long to get back to your turret; late game it allows you to save towers and halt pushes.



I take Exhaust because to use your Omen of War you need to be within melee distance and this allows you to get there faster, also it can stop ganks in their tracks and allow you to 1v1 someone with little to no trouble.

Runes

Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration

These along with your Quints will allow you to do lots of damage with your attack damage of and magic damage.


greater glyph of replenishment

These glyphs along with your seals will keep your mana pool full during the first few levels before you build up a good engine.


greater seal of replenishment

These seals along with your glyphs, will allow you to harass more often and recover from bursting.


Greater Quintessence of Hybrid Penetration

These along with your marks will allow your magic and physical attacks to punch through their resistances.

Alternate Runes

These runes give good bonuses to Yorick but I feel that the above runes are better suited for him. Your tastes may differ from mine so feel free to use these, or any other that you think might be useful.

Greater Mark of Attack Damage will give you more damage on your attacks early game and give your ghouls more punch, but allow you to use them less often.

greater mark of desolation will give your physical attacks more damage, but does nothing for your ghouls.



Greater Glyph of Magic Resist will give you some extra defense against magi (whoa the proper plural of mage!) who can burst you down before your Omen of Famine can heal you.

Greater Glyph of Cooldown Reduction will allow you to drop your ghouls more often and give more teammates a chance at revenge


Greater Seal of Health will give you and your ghouls more health so yuo can out lane your partner.

Greater Seal of Mana will add flat mana to your pool, which some people like over regen.


Greater Quintessence of Life Steal will give you a small amount of life steal, its very small, but still noticeable if you're hitting more than just for last hits.

Any of the above runes in quintessence form.

Masteries

All of these masteries are aimed at giving you early game resilience, and staying power. Late game they give you CDR, and keep your teleport ready so you can save towers.

Items

Meki Pendant and later Tear of the Goddess give you mana and mana regen so you can drop your ghouls fast and often.

Mercury's Treads give you movement speed and tenacity allowing you to escape from all forms of CC 35% faster.

Manamune as said above will transform 2% of your max mana into Attack Damage. This scales with your ghouls, allowing them (and you) to deal more damage. It also increases the amount that Omen of Famine heals you because the heal scales off damage delt.

Sheen, Phage, and Trinity Force will give you even more mana and health while giving you some ability power and attack damage. The slow from Phage and Trinity Force will give you even better chasing power.

Atma's Impaler transforms all the health we've been building into even more attack damage for you and your ghouls. it also gives you some armor to keep the attack damage carries from doing too much damage to you.

Giant's Belt and Warmog's Armor will give you even more health for you and your ghouls and atma's will turn it into more AD. The Health regen is often over looked but important to keep your large health pool up.

Hexdrinker built into Maw of Malmortius will give you magic resist, attack damage, and a nice shield. it also gives you additional attack damage as your health goes down, so the closer to death you become the more damage you do. Even better is that when you activate your Omen of Death you get the bonus for missing 100% of your health.

OR

Spirit Visage will also give you some magic resist and health. It gives you 10% CDR so you can keep spamming your ghouls, it also gives you a bonus on healing you do to yourself from Omen of Famine. Not as cool but cheaper, and more balanced.

Skills

Omen of War deals bonus damage, plus 1/5 of your total attack damage, to the next thing you hit, meaning it can be queue up before initiating a fight. The undead that it summons has a higher movement speed than your other undead and increases your move speed by a percentage as well.



Omen of Pestilence is an AOE nuke that deals magic damage plus 100% of your Ability Power. it slows things in its area and continues to slow things around it as long as it survives, for a lesser amount. This is useful for catching up to an enemy before hitting them with your Omen of War



Omen of Famine drops an undead behind the target that deals damage, plus all of your bonus attack damage, and heals Yorick for the amount of damage delt. This is what gives Yorick his lane sustainability and lets him be solo-top so effectively. The healing is only applied when the undead hits something though, so casting it when there are no champions around will allow for more healing because the undead wont have to chase a champion it can just attack the minion giving you at least four hits of health.



Omen of Death summons a revenant of the target ally that deals damage and follows them around until they die or the timer runs out. If the ally dies first then they gain control of the revenant and can attack for up to 10 more seconds without worrying about death because they're already dead. This is a great thing to drop on your AD carry because it allows them to continue to deal their constant output of damage without hiding behind the tanks.

Laning

(finally)

I, like many others, play Yorick solo-top so that he can get lots of farm and get his fight changing Omen of Death faster. Take Omen of Pestilence and a Meki Pendant and some Health Potions if you think you'll need them, then run to top. Your goal will be to out farm your opponent without pushing the lane too far. If you cant out farm them then they will get their item and become stronger than you, if you push the lane too much then you're open to ganks, and the tower makes it very difficult to poke your opponent.

Anytime you see them standing with a group of their minions, drop an Omen of Pestilence to hit them and their minions. Doing this along with Omen of Famine will give you good zoning and sustainability. If your opponent gets confidant and comes in to hit you, use Omen of War hit them to spawn the ghoul, Omen of Famine to make you even more likely to win, and when either they or you start to run back drop Omen of Pestilence to make your job of chasing/escaping easier, if they're really low you might pick up a kill.

Once you hit level six you should start pushing toward their tower. If you can clear the minons when your opponant is not there you can use Omen of Pestilence to deal some extra damage. If you get close to destroying the tower and are about to die using Omen of Death to finish the tower off is a good use of it.

Team Fights

In a team fight Yorick's job is to take damage and deal it out while supplying some CC. After the fight starts, use Omen of Death at the beginning on your AD carry (or anyone else with high AD, as the revenant does not use skills) to turn a 5v5 into a 5.75v5 and if the other team focuses them down then they will have 10 seconds to not fear death and deal as much damage as they can, OR use it at the end to make sure that the revival will happen if it would take more than 10 seconds for the carry to die.

Omen of War makes for a good boost to the attack that you use it for, it also resets the attack delay, so using it right after hitting will up your DPS. Hitting a squishy target with an Omen of War charged attack will deal considerable damage so your carries can melt their health down faster. Omen of Pestilence will deal some magic damage but mostly a hard slow, Omen of Famine will help keep you alive and deal damage to a target.

Remember: for each ghoul you have out, including your Omen of Death's revenant, adds 5% to your damage from any source, and remove 5% of all damage you take before resistances. That maxes out at +20% damage given, and -20% damage taken making you a very dangerous tank.

Summary

I hope that I have shown you how Yorick can be a very good champion despite what most people say about him being bad. They only say this because they probably only tried him before the buff that made him very good indeed.

UPDATED TO REFLECT ITEM CHANGES!

Thank you for reading my first guide and don't forget to rate, comment, and leave me suggestions if you have any. See you on the field, Summoner