I've played Yorick for a while now, even back before Elementz and all of them started using him, back when people begged me not to play him and he was "bad". This is how I play Yorick solo lane, and I can succeed against almost any champion and even dominate most 2v1 lanes. Before I get any criticism on build order or rune choices, please at least READ why I chose them, and understand it works for me.

If you don't like the first build I have, theirs a more offensive Yorick build that works just as well.

On a side note, this is my first build, so sorry if anything seems sloppy.

Pro's

-Can hold and push lanes VERY well
-Has great lane sustainability, and rarely has to leave
-Can get out of situations easily and prevent escapes (move speed increase/slow)
-Ghouls!
-His Ulti lets you be really reckless after you die, usually guaranteeing a kill
-Can lane easily without many items
-His passive gives unpredictable survivability

Con's

-Mana hungry for those that want to spam (pretty much required to hold a lane)
-Not much damage early on
-His build is costly and takes a while to get good in teamfights

Greater Mark of Desolation

I love these marks, I use them on most AD characters. Mostly because I don't get any other penetration in my build, and this provides 15, which is most characters armor at the beginning of the game.

Greater Seal of Resilience

I get these to be beefy, as my build doesn't come with much armor or magic resist (due to Atma's I stack health, obviously)

Greater Glyph of Warding

For the reason stated above, I get these for magic resist

Greater Quintessence of Replenishment

Let's face it, Yorick is mana starved, and these glyphs help a lot while in lane. One of the things I love about Yorick is I never have to leave lane, so long as I watch my mana; these help a lot.

Side note

The Glyph of replenishment is very optional, I just like to round out the mp5 I get from quints for 4 mp5, though some may prefer more resistance.

My Masteries

I go 0-11-19 for my masteries so that I have the mp5 I need as well as the survivability. It may seem odd, but this is what I find works best.
The only thing that makes me unhappy about this build is I don't get to finish the defense tree for that 10% tenacity, but I don't feel its too necessary on Yorick.

I will say I used to go offensive with him, and it works well, but sometimes I feel like I really need that sustainability in lane as well as the never-dieing factor, but to each their own.

Just be sure to at least get Resistance and Hardiness in the defensive tree, that's the best place to put those extra points.

As for Durability, its very optional. the health is pretty minor, I just don't feel like I need Mastermind at all. If you really want it, just throw some points into Preservance instead.

Offensive Masteries

Here are the masteries I used to go, or a list of some of the important ones. This works just as well, and has a better damage output.

First off I ALWAYS go Resistance/Hardiness on almost all my builds, that extra 6 AR/MR is great, even if it seems small.
Obviously Weapon Leathality and Sunder are good options, as well as the Lethality. Vampirism is nice, but I don't value lifesteal on Yorick much (during laning you may not be able to melee, and late game you never die anyway) but it's better than most of the other stuff you can get (though some people like Havoc). In the end, I have 3 extra points I put into Vigor.

The only real difference between my offensive and defensive item builds are the order that you buy, which I will list the pro's and cons of each.

Meki Pendant

You can get the Sapphire Crystal over this, but this WILL help you sustain better. If you wanna spam your spells in hopes of getting enough money for your next items, then feel free. Sometimes it works, just depends who you lane against and how well you farm. Either way, the regen is better if you can hold back on the spam a little

Tear of the Goddess

Great item, and if you don't spam all your ghouls at once, you get stacks really fast. After this item, you shouldn't have to leave the lane at all, so be sure before you leave, be sure to get this.

Sheen

This is where you can burst. I wouldn't suggest going into any risky gank situations without this item. I love this item, especially on Yorick; it makes your Q pretty scary, too. Another reason I get sheen first in all the triforce items is the extra AP makes your W deadly as it scales by 1.0 per AP and gives extra mana.

Mercury's Treads

Personally, I love these boots, mostly for the tenacity, but there are other options, too. The magic resist is nice as well, and it goes well with the armor from Atma's

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Atmogs

Makes you unkillable, and you deal great damage. Every offtank should get Atmogs

Manamune

Once you get this, you scale off of mana and health, plus if you haven't finished your stacks you will start to get them much faster, since melee also gives it now. One of the reasons I like my offensive tree is so I can get stacks on this faster

Trinity Force

This is a great item, and gives all the stats you need. Movespeed, health, damage, and and amazing proc. Getting this early still gives survivability because of the health, and if your dominating your lane, I would get this before Atmogs.

Last Item

For the last item, I see three possible choices

Frozen Mallet

Mainly for the health to go with Atmas, but the slow is nice if your ghoul is on cooldown

Infinity Edge

If you want to go more damage, this item is great. Harder crits, more damage, and all that.

Bloodthirster

If your fond of lifesteal, this is nice. I don't personally, as I think your E will keep you alive. Since the heal from your E scales on AD, then infinity edge seems fine (though I'm not gonna lie, lifesteal does give way more healing)

Alternate Items

Here are some other good items for Yorick I used to use. There not bad, I just feel my build is the best.

Ionian Boots of Lucidity

Cooldown reduction is always nice, I liked it to spam with. The reason I dropped it was I didn't exactly spam early due to mana, and late game I take pauses between my casts for triforce procs (which by then all your stuff should rotate nicely off cooldown except for W)

Spirit Visage

This item is cool and all, but I don't feel like I need it. I get enough MR, the health is minor, and the 15% doesn't seem necessary, as you can survive without it easily. Some people love this item on Yorick, but I feel I need to rush Triforce/Atmogs so theirs no room for this item.

Frozen Heart

If you want to be more of a support, this item is nice. CDR if you like it, plus a great debuff with some mana for your manamune.

I go Omen of Pestilence first, just to prevent any opening ganks, and to push minion waves, as the AoE and the slow is great. I like to max Omen of Famine first to stay alive, HOWEVER Omen of Pestilence is much preferred if you don't need the survivability. It slows, it farms, and it hurts. Its also magic damage as opposed to your other attacks, so watch what your enemy is building. I Omen of War at level 4 and use it to last hit creeps, then run away. It's a great move, and your hardest hitting one which gives a great movespeed increase. It also makes your sheen procs beastly.

Also, on a sidenote aboutOmen of War, it procs on-hit effects and scales by 1.2 AD, which is really good scaling. In other words, most of the damage from this move comes from AD, so leveling it up is mainly for the cooldown reduction and better movespeed, NOT damage.

Another option is to go all into one, then back and forth on the other (such as all W first, then Q,E,Q,E....). Since all your moves are fairly strong it works out better than it does most characters.

I'm going to list this in tiers of how valuable I find these for Yorick

Teir 1

Teleport
This is good for any solo lane. Not only can you get back, but you can assist other lanes and get back to your instantly. Not bad for ganks, either. However, this is a very common spell and please don't get it if everyone else has it. Your team doesn't need 5 teleports when there could be something valuable
Flash
Good spell on anyone, really. Pretty obvious.
Exhaust
This spell is pretty great. While I don't prefer it as I don't go for early ganks, its great if you want to. If they push far enough away form their tower in a lot of cases its a garunteed kill for you after sheen.

Tier 2

Promote
Not a bad item, you can push lanes really good and get your tower faster. Yorick already pushes well so its not necessary
Ignite
This item is good for ganking, but Exhaust is better to me, because your an AD and can get a lot of hits in with it.
Cleanse
Pretty nice...with tenacity boots and so much health you probably won't need it but its not a bad spell.

Teir 3

[Surge
This spell isn't that great for you, it would be better if it gave AD, but i could see someone using it.
Ghost
Its nice for chasing and getting away, but you have a slow and a sprint so you really don't need it.
Clarity
You only have mana problems for a little while. Once you get tear you shouldn't have too many problems and late game you won't need it at all.

Laning

Yorick is great at laning, especially in solo. Grab your pendant and head top. The main thing about yorick is you have to watch his mana. He can spam a LOT, but you also need to spam, just don't get out of hand. In the beginning, focus on just getting minions, if you can get your W on champions and minions at the same time. Once you get your lifesteal you can go on the offensive, though I like to continue to farm. If you can control the lane (depending the champion) farm with your W and hold them off with your E. Another good thing to remember is your Omen of War moves faster than your other ghouls, so you can last-hit minions and have it chase the enemy champion.

One thing to remember if your ghouls prioritize champions, so you can farm with your actual spell, then have the ghouls chase champions away. However, at the beginning be sure to hit the enemy champion with your strongest spell a few times, this makes them think your ghouls hit harder than they really do. Lets face it, your ghouls hit for 1/3rd of your AD, it doesn't hurt much early, and a lot of champions will just kill it for forget about it. If you burst them once and they start running, they remember that and fear you doing it again.

Once you have 955 gold for Tear of the Goddess and Boots of Speed then push the lane some and head back. At this point you can spam reasonably more, and I would suggest using abilities often to get stacks on your tear (just be sure to wait on the 2 second cooldown)

Keep up your farm and harassing, then go for a gank if they get ballsy. One thing about Yorick is he doesn't have the greatest damage output early, so I would NOT suggest going for kills. He's an amazing farmer, and I would take advantage of that. The goal here is to get enough money for Sheen and possibly Merc Treads before you head back

At this point I usually push hard, depending on the champion and try to take the tower. Remember that sheen procs affect towers, so use Q, W, and E accordingly every 2 seconds to get the sheen procs out. You could have the turret down in one or two pushes. Use your ulti to get it down faster. Keep in mind, if your ghouls attack the champion the turret will switch to you, so be careful about that.

WARNING

When you push a tower, in ranked or regular, ALWAYS get a ward and put it up the river. If they have a jungler, he WILL come after you unless he is just bad, and watch for MIA's. It's your job to have map awareness just as much as it is for other lanes to call them. Honestly, its a lot easier for you to look at the map every few seconds then for another lane to stop farming just to type MIA. It is YOUR responsibility as much as it is theirs. Ever play call of duty? Those guys probably watch the map more than they do the actual game, the same rules apply here.

Lane Assisting

At this point, just push your lane back some, and gank if you can in your lane. Don't continue to push to the next tower or you'll get ganked. Go assist other lanes in pushing/go gank. Your ghouls and CC will help, even if their tower hugging, the ghouls will chase them away and you can get the turret faster; Yorick is great for pushing towers. Just be sure to watch your own lane, as not losing your tower is your main priority at this point.

Late Game

Once your build is about done, you can pretty much push any lane and take on anyone 1v1, or at least get away. Keep all the lanes pushed to at least the river, as you can farm minions exceptionally, and this will prevent a character from backdooring. In teamfights, if you don't have a tank, engage with W to slow everyone, then try ot get Q off for the movespeed. Once Q is maxed out it has a 5 second cooldown with the ghouls buff lasting 5 seconds, so as long as you can get the hit out, you will have 35% movespeed increase. With the bonus from triforce and the slow from your W you can prioritize almost anyone and take them out. Don't forget about your ulti! Watch health bars, and use it on whoever they prioritize first, as its usually the most beneficial to your team. This makes them waste all their cooldowns only to have your carry come right back up. If it doesn't seem like anyone is going to die, use it on your best AD for the most damage output.

This section is about the behavior of ghouls and some little facts about yorick that people may overlook that really show his potential.

His passive is NOT armor
his passive doesn't just give straight up armor/magic resist. This means 2 things 1) There are no dreaded diminishing returns with it, and 2) An enemy champions damage has to go through an armor check then a passive check (20% with all ghouls) which greatly reduces damage. This is why he is so tanky, and people don't expect it.

Ghouls scale off of your AD
Your ghouls do 1/3rd the damage you do, this means with your 3 main ghouls out, its almost like having a second Yorick (with 0.67 attacks speed, of course) plus an additional 8 / 16 / 24 / 32 / 40 from your Omen of War

Ghouls have a lot of movespeed
Ghouls move fast and will chase down most champs. Starting at 350, it ends up going to 433 by the end of it. This means your ghouls will get in hits in almost every situation

You DON'T have to land your slow
Omen of Pestilence does in fact slow by up to 40% if you land it, but it also has a persistent 20% slow in the area, and since ghouls move fast, using this just a little early on people you can't catch could put you in range. Keep in mind it only stays out for 5 seconds and without your Omen of War it's hard to catch, but I've gotten people with it before

Crit Yorick?

I wanted to make this short section to explain why I get Infinity Edge. First off, of all the BF items, its the highest AD, and my ghouls scale off of AD, which is the primary reason. Secondly, I get crit from Atma's and from Triforce, which puts me at 33% chance to crit, so it goes well with my build. While crit is viable on Yorick, please don't go anything too crit heavy like Phantom Dancer. This is because AD is very valuable on yorick because his ghouls scale off of this, so AD is your highest priority.

I think I've covered everything, but if you have any other questions or opinions just ask. I'm open to suggestions (saying "this guide sucks" doesn't help me any) so any feedback is welcome.