Click to open network menu
Join or Log In
Mobafire logo

Join the leading League of Legends community. Create and share Champion Guides and Builds.

Create an MFN Account






Or

MOBAFire's first Mini Guide Contest of Season 14 is here! Create or update guides for the 30 featured champions and compete for up to $200 in prizes! 🏆
This build has been archived and is for historical display only

This build has been archived by the author. They are no longer supporting nor updating this build and it may have become outdated. As such, voting and commenting have been disabled and it no longer appears in regular search results.

We recommend you take a look at this author's other builds.


x
Not Updated For Current Season

This guide has not yet been updated for the current season. Please keep this in mind while reading. You can see the most recently updated guides on the browse guides page

x
Yorick Build Guide by UsernameSayWha

Top Reviving Yorick Top - Updated for Patch 6.12

Top Reviving Yorick Top - Updated for Patch 6.12

Updated on June 25, 2016
8.8
17
Votes
2
Vote Vote
League of Legends Build Guide Author UsernameSayWha Build Guide By UsernameSayWha 17 2 954,787 Views 57 Comments
17 2 954,787 Views 57 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author UsernameSayWha Yorick Build Guide By UsernameSayWha Updated on June 25, 2016
x
Did this guide help you? If so please give them a vote or leave a comment. You can even win prizes by doing so!
Vote
Comment

You must be logged in to comment. Please login or register.

I liked this Guide
I didn't like this Guide
Commenting is required to vote!
Would you like to add a comment to your vote?

Your votes and comments encourage our guide authors to continue
creating helpful guides for the League of Legends community.

Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Yorick
    vs AD
  • LoL Champion: Yorick
    vs AP
  • LoL Champion: Yorick
    vs AD Hybrid

Spells:

LoL Summoner Spell: Flash

Flash

LoL Summoner Spell: Teleport

Teleport

Threats & Synergies

Threats Synergies
Extreme Major Even Minor Tiny
Show All
None Low Ok Strong Ideal
Extreme Threats
Ideal Synergies
Synergies
Ideal Strong Ok Low None

Introduction

My goal is to create an updated, easy to understand guide on one of my favorite champions, Yorick, and how to play him in the meta game. The majority of the information in this guide has been learned through Inverted Composer and his website, League of Legends Math. I encourage everyone to go to the website if you want a more in-depth look at the character and the game in general.
Back to Top

BEFORE WE START

HOW TO USE THIS GUIDE


Find the character you're up against in one of the 3 builds up top. The guide will tell you what to build against them. If you want a more in-depth look at the match-up, you can hover over the character on the 1-10 difficulty ranking. If you want a more in depth look at what to build, find the header in the Table of Contents for vs AD, AP, or AD Hybrid. The rest of the guide is general gameplay.

Enjoy!
Back to Top

Bulletin Board

Basically a to-do list.
  • Item update very soon! (I'll be updating the items within 24 hours of posting this!)
  • More match-ups? (Pretty much every non-cheese top laner is in the matchups but I'll eventually get around to adding more.)
Back to Top

Pros and Cons

Pros

+ Lane Bully
+ High DPS
+ High Sustain
+ High impact ult
Yorick is most commonly known, (or was) as a champion with a very hard to counter lane phase, and for the most part that is very true. His amount of sustain and DPS are very high in the early game, and continue to scale, only falling off in the late, late game. His ult also has the potential to be extremely powerful depending on how good your backline is. Even in the situation where your backline isn't, ulting yourself is still very powerful and lets you output even more damage.



Cons

- Melee with no gap close
- No hard CC
- Weak waveclear
- High mana costs early
Yorick is an extremely outdated character and it shows it in his kit. He lacks hard CC and a gap close, making him a lot weaker in the meta in comparison to other picks, like Gnar and Shen, and other bruisers, like Olaf and Jarvan IV. His only AoE spell is commonly maxed last, and scales off AP, and he doesn't itemize well with items like Ravenous Hydra or Statikk Shiv, giving him fairly weak waveclear. Using a high cost spell to sustain is also fairly costly on his mana pool, especially early on.
Back to Top

Abilities




Unholy Covenant: Yorick 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.

Yorick's passive is one of the main reasons he is so difficult to play against in the lane phase. With a full rotation he effectively gains 20% attack damage and reduction. His passive also gives the ghouls health and AD based off Yorick's stats. This is important to the build due to the reliance on healing from ghouls as the ghouls heal you based on the damage they deal.

Tips and Tricks
  • Try to use all your ghouls at the same time to maximize passive
  • Your ult is a ghoul!
  • Use ghouls to tank jungle camps


Omen of War: Yorick's next basic attack within 10 seconds deals bonus physical damage and summons a spectral ghoul with bonus attack damage and movement speed, which also grants Yorick its bonus movement speed while active.

Probably your highest damaging spell, very strong in short trades. Max this second.

Tips and Tricks
  • Use as an auto-attack reset in trades to maximize damage
  • Use on minions while chasing to get bonus movement speed
  • When the ghoul is active you ignore unit collision



Omen of Pestilence: Yorick deals magic damage to the target enemy and all enemies around them, slowing them for 1.5 seconds and summons a decaying ghoul that continuously applies half of Omen of Pestilence's slow to all enemies around it.

Another sign of Yorick's outdated kit. This spell isn't very good, it's just an AoE slow, but Yorick is fairly reliant on it as it's his only CC. It's also magic damage and scales with AP, making it even harder to use effectively late game. But it does have one saving grace. It doesn't require a target, unlike the rest of Yorick's spells. This makes it extremely flexible and almost like a mini Summon: Tibbers. Max it last.

Tips and Tricks
  • Use it to check brushes, very useful in lane if the enemy uses brush to avoid the ghouls and in baron bait situations
  • With good timing you can block skillshots, including Rocket Grab, Dark Binding, Sonic Wave and much more. It can't block Jinx ult though!
  • Try to use it behind the enemy when they're fighting in creeps to make them take more damage by slowing and potentially creep blocking their escape



Omen of Famine: Yorick deals magic damage to the target enemy and heals himself for 40% of the damage done and summons a ravenous ghoul that heals Yorick for 17.5% AD on each of its basic attacks, doubled to 35% AD against enemy champions.

Yorick's bread and butter spell. This spell is responsible for literally all of Yorick's healing, and the majority of his poke damage throughout the early game. In lane you basically want to use this whenever you are missing health, preferably on an enemy champion. Max it first.
Tips and Tricks
  • The spell deals magic damage, don't know if there is any use in-game, but hybrid pen runes could be useful
  • You are guaranteed one auto attack from the ghoul when you use this spell
  • Use in combination with your W to maximize the amount of autos, healing you and damaging the enemy more



Omen of Death: Yorick conjures a controllable revenant of the target allied champion or himself with a portion of his target's health and attack damage at the time of cast, which lasts up to 10 seconds. If Omen of Death's target dies while the revenant is active, it sacrifices itself to reanimate them for 10 seconds at its location, healing them to full health.

Very powerful spell in 1v1's and teamfights. In 1v1 all ins you can use this spell to eat skillshots, body block for you, and on top, with your passive multiply your damage by 50/65/80% based on level. In teamfights you should use it on the highest damage dealer on your team, which around mid game may be you. Put points in this whenever possible.

Tips and Tricks
  • Hold R and right click to control the clone
  • Try not to use it as a Zilean ult and attempt to clone someone about 5 seconds before you think they will die so you can make use of the clone's damage
  • The clone can tank towers, but it is treated as a minion, so as soon as a champion hits an enemy, the tower will aggro them
Back to Top

Summoner Spells

Flash is the standard on 90% of characters and Yorick is part of the overwhelming majority. As a melee without a reliable gap close or escape, he definitely needs Flash. Infinite applications defensively and offensively, maybe if there was a sandbox mode we would find more. /s



Teleport is also the standard on 100% of top laners, and again has near infinite uses. Teleport allows you to split push, do a camp at level 1, back for tear without losing creeps, get a teleport gank bot, split push late game and teleport into teamfights etc. Try not to use it to teleport back to lane so much, and really look for points in the early game where you can use it to help the team.


Back to Top

Other Summoner Spells

Exhaust is a good replacement for Teleport if you are not confident in your use of the spell. Exhaust is particularly good against chracters with strong all-ins, like Fiora and Riven, and can also be used late game on enemy assassins and carries to help protect your back line and front line, respectively.



Ignite is a good summoner if you choose to take Yorick mid lane. I don't feel like it's particularly good top lane, as Yorick lacks hard cc and thus kill potential, but it is good for use against low mobility mid laners like Xerath and Ziggs. Pay attention to see if the enemy mid laner is running Heal. If they are, use Ignite earlier than you would usually to negate the healing from their summoner.
Back to Top

Runes


Back to Top

Masteries






Tier 1: Take points in Savagery for extra waveclear and Unyielding for bonus defensive stats.

Tier 2: Assassin for extra damage and Tough Skin because it's broken.

Tier 3: Assassin to aid your trading in lane and Runic Armor for increased healing on Omen of Famine.

Tier 4: Dangerous Game for teamfights and close exchanges and Insight because Yorick is a melee without a gap close and is reliant on Flash.

Tier 5 and 6: Finally, put points into Precision to give Yorick penetration stats and Thunderlord's Decree for a big damage increase.



Why don't we take -blank- mastery?

If you think that my mastery page could be improved, please leave a comment below and explain what you would change and why. I am completely open to your opinions as it is still the preseason and am still experimenting myself.
Back to Top

Effective Health

To understand why we itemize the way we do, we're going to start with the general theory of the build. You may notice that there is a distinct lack of health in this build, and it generally focuses on building resistances and damage. You may also notice that we have 10% cooldown reduction from our runes alone.

The theory behind this is based around effective health.

Effective health is basically whatever damage you can take if you use all your spells and items. For example, Nidalee's effective health is her health + however much she can heal for. Kayle's effective health is her health + her heal + however much damage she absorbs with her ult. Your effective health with a health potion is your health + 150.

Yorick's effective health is how much damage his Omen of Famine deals, multiplied by the amount of times he casts it. To maximize the amount of healing his Omen of Famine does, we build damage and we cap out our cooldown reduction as fast as we can. We can also take resistances into effect to calculate our effective health, but to make it so I don't have to throw in a whole bunch of math, we'll just leave it at, more restances = more health.
Back to Top

Core Items (Offensive)

Bought to sustain mana pool, but the amount of damage it gives with it's active and the AD based off mana is very strong.



Reworked Black Cleaver brought new life to Yorick. He uses every single stat provided by the item, and uses both passives incredibly well. The rage passive is incredibly good for a character with no gap close and has great synergy with Omen of War. Often times you can one shot caster minions with Omen of War, and in combination with Rage, can give you almost 100+ movespeed. The Cleave passive is also very good for an auto attack reliant character, and the best thing about it is that it applies on auto attacks from all your ghouls. It's also incredibly important to the build as it caps your cooldown reduction at 40%.



Maw of Malmortius offers protection against magic damage dealers and provides a lot of damage. It increases your effective health by quite a bit thanks to the magic damage shield and the passive that gives a good chunk of spell vamp and lifesteal. The bonus armor penetration is also very strong and has good synergy with Black Cleaver


Back to Top

Core Items (Defensive)

Dead Man's Plate gives more and health than Randuin's, around the same amount of armor and the passive gives you some more roaming potential along with damage in trades. Great for offense, defense, and utility. However, there are situations where you should go Randuin's Omen and I will talk about them below.



Zz'Rot Portal is an incredibly under rated and under used item. Zz'Rot Portal gives the most amount of armor and magic resist combined, and gives Yorick the ability to split push late despite his relatively low waveclear. The movespeed passive is also very strong when you are pursuing or escaping through a lane as it applies to towers dead, or alive.

Guide to using Zz'Rot Portal here.



Thornmail is very powerful item for characters like Yorick. It gives him an alternative form of waveclear and a way to damage the backline, but most importantly, it gives him armor to survive teamfights for a longer period of time. But it only offers armor, and should only be picked up against heavy physical damage team comps.

For math on how to kill the ADC without doing anything, click here.



Spirit Visage is a powerful item on Yorick. This item used to be overshadowed by Maw of Malmortius, but with the season 6 changes, the tank meta and the 6.7 nerfs, Spirit Visage quickly overshadowed Maw. The health and magic resist ensures you won't get one shotted by the enemy mage and the healing passive also gives you even more effective health. The 10% CDR is vital to ensuring we hit 40%.



Sterak's Gage is a good item if you are ahead against a balanced amount of physical and magic damage, or against a team with a lot of burst. The shield and additional attack damage help increase Yorick's effective health by large amounts and gives you a decent damage boost.



When I should get Randuin's Omen instead of Dead Man's Plate?
Due to the crit damage reduction passive of Randuin's Omen, it is strong against characters like Ashe and Yasuo who are reliant on or scale well off crit damage. It is also strong against characters like Vayne who scale hard off attack speed. In a situation where any of these 3 champs you are against are strong, get Randuin's Omen.
Back to Top

Itemization (vs AD Lane)

Against AD




Starting Items


Usually I start Corrupting Potion. You can start Cloth Armor and 4 Health Potions against tough lanes ( Renekton)as an alternative.

Early Game Core


Once you have enough gold farmed up for Tear of the Goddess, you can either shove the lane out and back, or back and Teleport back to lane. (If you are having lots of trouble, skip the Tear and go straight to Dead Man's. You can buy Tear once Dead Man's is completed.) Once you have Tear of the Goddess, you're going to want to start building towards Dead Man's Plate, getting Boots and your choice of the recommended tier 2 boots along the way.

Follow Up


Once you have completed your Tear of the Goddess and Dead Man's Plate, you're going to start building towards Black Cleaver in the majority of your games, or Spirit Visage if they have a heavy magic damage threat. Once you have your Black Cleaver or Spirit Visage completed, build the other, and once both are completed, build Manamune.

Side Note: In situations where they have 0 magic damage, you can skip the Visage and get a Sterak's Gage or build another defensive item like Thornmail or Zz'Rot Portal.

Last Items


At this point you can round off with Zz'Rot Portal against balanced team compositions, Thornmail against heavy physical damage compositions, Maw of Malmortius against heavy magic damage compositions, or Sterak's Gage against heavy burst. (AD or AP)
Back to Top

Itemization (vs AP Lane)

Against AP




Starting Items


I start Corrupting Potion in every magic damage match-up top.

Early Game Core


Once you have enough gold farmed up for Tear of the Goddess, you can either shove the lane out and and back, or back and Teleport back to lane. Once you have Tear of the Goddess, you're going to want to start building towards Spirit Visage, getting Boots and your choice of the recommended tier 2 boots along the way.

Follow Up


Once you have completed your Tear of the Goddess and Spirit Visage, you're going to start building towards Black Cleaver. Once you have your Black Cleaver completed, complete Manamune.

Last Items


At this point you can round off with Zz'Rot Portal and/or Dead Man's Plate against balanced team compositions, Thornmail against heavy physical damage compositions, Maw of Malmortius against heavy magic damage compositions, or Sterak's Gage against heavy burst. (AD or AP)
Back to Top

Itemization (vs AD Hybrid Lane)

Against AD Hybrid




Starting Items


I start Corrupting Potion in every hybrid damage match-up top. You can start cloth armor if you are uncomfortable in a match-up like Olaf

Early Game Core


Once you have enough gold farmed up for Tear of the Goddess, you can either shove the lane out and back or back and Teleport back to lane. Once you have Tear of the Goddess, you're going to want to start building towards, Black Cleaver, getting Boots and your choice of the recommended tier 2 boots along the way.

Follow Up


Once you have completed your Tear of the Goddess and Black Cleaver, you're going to start building towards Spirit Visage or Dead Man's Plate depending on the game. (Enemy's composition, scores, etc.) Once you have your Spirit Visage or Dead Man's Plate completed, complete Manamune. Then finish whatever item you didn't purchase before.

Side Note: In situations where they have 0 magic damage, you can skip the Visage and get a Sterak's Gage or build another defensive item like Thornmail or Zz'Rot Portal.

Last Items


At this point you can round off with Zz'Rot Portal or Sterak's Gage against balanced team compositions, Thornmail against heavy physical damage compositions, or Maw of Malmortius against heavy magic damage compositions.
Back to Top

Gameplay

Gameplay tips taken directly from InvertedComposer's Yorick guide.

In Lane

- E - Omen of Famine + Basic Attack + q - Omen of War is your major harass combo. Flee immediately after if a lot of enemy minions are attacking you.

- Do not cast abilities 1 by 1. Ghouls are stronger when they are supporting each other.
However, if you are running out of mana, use E only

- Basic Attack should be followed by Q - Omen of War because the ability resets your autoattack timer.

- Before you make an offensive move, check your minimap to see where your enemies are.

- Freezing lane is an effective way to deal with unpredictable ganks. Guide to freezing your lane here.

- A good time to recall is when your enemy recalls. You need to recharge your mana before your enemy gets back in lane again.

In Team Fights

- Because Yorick heals a lot over time and excels in duels, try to stay alive as long as possible.

- Continously attack, even if the target is a tank! Yorick has high DPS so let him not be kited or waste time running around.

- Before level 16, use your ultimate only to revive an ally who would turn the fight upside down. (jncluding yourself)

- After level 16, use your ultimate on your ADC when the fight is going on for sure. Manually command your clone to target nearby enemies because otherwise it will not attack.

- Position yourself among your front-line and the back-line. If your front-line is dead, kite your enemies and protect your adc until the very end.

- Always stay close to who you are planning to clone.

- When you know you won't be kited for sure, you can go all-out on the enemies.

Videos/Replays



Liquid Quas v Inverted Composer (Video)

Inverted Composer's op.gg (Hit "Replay" on his Yorick games in his match history and run the file it downloads)
Back to Top

Summary

Thanks for reading my guide! If you have any questions you can add me on league @ "usw". If you're not on the NA server, send me a message on MobaFire or leave a comment below.

I also stream at http://www.twitch.tv/usvvv occasionally, I probably won't play Yorick unless someone requests it.

Please check out InvertedComposer's website League of Legends Math.

You can also request lessons on lol-coaching.com

Good luck and have fun!
Back to Top

Change Log

August 17th, 2015 - Guide released

August 26th, 2015 - Changed Randuin's to Dead Man's Plate in most builds and added a section on when to build Randuin's.

November 11th, 2015 - Updated masteries for pre-season.

November 17th, 2015 - Updated starting items and itemization sections for pre-season.

April 17th and 18th, 2016 - Swapped the situations where you buy Maw and Spirit Visage, updated runes and masteries, and added 8 more match-ups.

June 25th 2016 - Fixed masteries
Download the Porofessor App for Windows

League of Legends Champions:

Teamfight Tactics Guide