Hello ladies and gentleman. My friends and fellow summoners gather around! Welcome to A Guide to Yorick: Laid to Rest. This guide is currently still in the works. Please be patient as I am working on it to make it better! Yorick is my favorite champion and is a very strong solo queue pick if you play him correctly, which this guide is here to show you how to do. Yorick is a strong top laner with insane sustain and harass that make him very difficult to deal with during the laning phase and later into the game. Yorick has the power to bring back his teammates from the dead in order to come out on top of teamfights using his Omen of Death and the ability to heal large amounts of health in seconds with Omen of Famine making him a very tanky and destructive champion.

ArcticSwarmPro's Skill Explanation

Unholy Covenant
Yorick takes 5% less damage and his basic attacks deal 5% more damage for each of his active summons. All of Yorick's basic abilities summon a Ghoul. GHOULS: Each Ghoul loses 20% of its max health each second, limiting its duration to 5 seconds. All ghouls take 50% less damage from multi-target abilities.
This is Yorick's passive. Makes Yorick very tanky and increases his damage output. This is why you do not need to buy a lot of heavy defense on him as his passive makes him able to take a punch and helps to boost his defense and offense. Formidable passive with CDR.
Omen of War
Yorick's next basic attack within 10 seconds will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul. SPECTRAL GHOUL: Has higher attack damage than other Ghouls. Grants itself and Yorick a movement speed buff.
Yorick's main source of damage. Leveling this decreases the cooldown and gives Yorick monstrous melee damage. Gives a 15% movement speed boost as well, allowing for chases or escapes.
Omen of Pestilence
Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing magic damage in a 100-radius area and slowing enemies hit for 1.5 seconds. DECAYING GHOUL: Has a 62.5-radius aura that slows nearby enemies.
Yorick's only form of Crowd Control. Not very potent but can help in chases or escapes as well.
Omen of Famine
Yorick steals life from his target, dealing magic damage, healing himself for 40% of the damage dealt and summoning a Ravenous Ghoul behind them. RAVENOUS GHOUL: Heals Yorick with each attack (halved against minions and monsters).
Yorick's bread and butter ability. Gives him outstanding harass and healing. Gives Yorick high heal per second. Leveling this reduces the cooldown, making Yorick a healing machine, and if he is ahead, makes him almost unkillable.
Omen of Death
Yorick conjures a Revenant in the image of an allied champion. If that ally takes lethal damage before the Revenant dies, the Revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them 10 seconds to enact vengeance. REVENANT: A Revenant lasts 10 seconds. It has health and attack damage calculated from the target's totals.
Game changing ultimate that wins teamfights if used wisely and on the right champion. Timing is important. Add's a stack of Unholy Covenant. Makes Yorick a great duelist as opponents will be facing two of him at one time.

Pros/Cons

Pros

+ Very potent sustain and harass with Omen of Famine + Omen of Death brings back a teammate from the grave. This can turn a team fight but timing is important to make the best out of the ability. + Due to Unholy Covenant, Yorick becomes very tanky and gains very high DPS potential. + Very powerful lane pushing machine and can take down towers rapidly if left alone.

Yorick can be a very risky pick in Solo Queue. He excels in harassing and healing with Omen of Famine and also giving some burst with Omen of War. While he doesn't have an escape, quickly casting Omen of War and Omen of Pestilence can make for a get away. Yorick is mainly known for his ultimate Omen of Death. This ultimate has high potential for reviving someone as they kill from the grave. Yorick can throw this on the most fed person on the team or on a fed ADC. All of the spawns increase his damage output and his tankiness due to his passive Unholy Covenant.

Cons

+ No easy escapes or gap closers. + No hard Crowd Control. Omen of Pestilence is his only form of CC. + Doesn't fall off late game, but can if not played correctly or has no team synergy. + Squishy and prone to ganks in the early game.

Yorick can be game changing but he isn't a total game breaker. He can be considered a very damage filled support to his team. While Yorick can carry a game, he needs time to get there. A very fed and solo split pushing Yorick will require several champions to take him down. But he needs time to get going. Unlike other top laners, Yorick lacks a few things. He lacks mobility, crowd control, and good scaling damage. Yorick is capable of doing a ton of damage but he has DPS instead of burst. For example, Olaf can Ragnarok, Undertow, Reckless Swing and do a massive amount of burst in a short amount of time. Yorick can do more damage but it will come over a longer period of time.

• Greater Mark of Attack Damage: Flat AD Marks are good to have on Yorick for more damage AND healing with Omen of War and Omen of Famine.
• Greater Seal of Scaling Health: When we build Yorick, a lot of the items that make him very strong and help him utilize his kit are not really consisting health. The scaling health just helps to add a little more beefiness to him. Yorick has bad base health as well, and we build items on him that do not give health.
  
• Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction: CDR/ level glyphs let us max our late game CDR with only Black Cleaver.
  
• Greater Quintessence of Attack Damage: Like the marks, help to give Yorick more damage and more healing potential.
  
  No no's
  
• Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Magic Resist is rushed early to mid game in the build with Maw of Malmortius and Mercury's Treads.
  
• Greater Seal of Armor: Thornmail will be rushed mid game/late game.
  
• greater quintessence of hybrid penetration: These do about the same amount of damage as the AD quints, but do not increase healing as Yorick's healing scales with his attack damage.
  
  

Tier 1 Sorcery is a must on Yorick as it scales with his runes to give him 20% cooldown reduction at Level 18. Getting Black Cleaver early gives you a huge powerspike and will give you 40% cooldown reduction at Level 18. Tier 2 Expose Weakness synergizes with Yorick's passive and abilities too well to pass up. Makes his ghouls summons effective on his damage output. Tier 3 Putting points in Devastating Strikes increases the amount of Magic Penetration and Armor Penetration Yorick puts out. Since he is a hyprid damage champion, these affect his damage in a positive way. Tier 4 Putting Points into Brute Force all the way down to Havoc give Yorick the scaling damage he needs to be relevant as the game progresses. Tier 5 Block works well with Unholy Covenant to greatly reduce the amount of damage that is afflicted upon Yorick. Tier 6 Veteran Scars and Juggernaut give Yorick the extra beefiness he needs in the early game. These two masteries also compliment the Scaling Health runes we have set him up with.

Black Cleaver was not a very good item choice on Yorick before it got changed. Now it is a very viable item not only for Yorick but for other Top Laners as well. It gives 30 DOT armor shred(from 25 DOT), 400 health(from 200 health), 20% CDR( from 10% CDR), and 40 attack damage(from 50 attack damage). Armor Shred procs on the ghouls, making this a brutally powerful item on Yorick. I get this item first except if I am up against an AP champion such as Lissandra, Cho'Gath, or Teemo, in which case I would rush Maw of Malmortius. This will be your only HP item.

Maw of Malmortius grants 60 to 95 AD, 45 MR, and a 400 Magic Shield. Offers more damage, tankiness, and healing than Spirit Visage does. Maw of Malmortius gives an excellent amount of offense as well as defense against Magic Damage users.

Muramana is a cheap damage item on Yorick. Proc damage also works with Omen of War and Omen of Famine. Helps with his mana issues early and scales into a devasting damage item. Essential!

Mercury's Treads gives Yorick some more magic resist and tenacity is required on him as he's vulnerable to CC late game.

Thornmail will be your only armor item. This will give Yorick the potential to duel assassins like Master Yi, Zed, and Talon easier. Also helps late game with AD Carries. Gives 100 armor and returns 30% of the incoming damage back at the attacker as magic damage.

Youmuu's Ghostblade is a fantastic item on Yorick. Gives him 20 armor penetration from The Brutalizer, 30 attack damage, and 15% crit chance. This combined with Black Cleaver gives you so much armor pen for you and your ghouls to take your damage to insane levels. Active gives 20% movement speed and 40% attack speed. Helps to chase people( even when currently revived from Omen of Death), and while Yorick is already a good duelist, helps him to become a better duelist.

Destructive Mordekaiser's burst followed by Children of the Grave on an enemy ADC for a kill gets a ghost for the team. If Yorick is able to put Omen of Death on their ADC, the fight turns into a 7v4. You CAN NOT beat the guitar and the bass.

Destructive [Jinx]] is a hyper carry, which works well with Yorick. When the late game hits, Yorick has to Omen of Death Jinx for 2 hyper carries. All Yorick has to do is peel and let the two ADC's work their magic.

Destructive Same as Jinx. Vayne is good due to her Silver Bolts proc on the Revenant from Omen of Death. Vayne is also a very mobile ADC with insane damage from Silver Bolts.

Destructive Kog'Maw is arguably the best ADC in the game when it comes to late game. He is able to pump out monstrosities of damage as well as rip tanks to shreds. If Yorick can successfully get Omen of Death on Kog'Maw, it will mean death for the enemy team.

Destructive This is one team comp that will not involve an ADC. Cassiopeia is a game changer. She has incredible late game scaling, very, very high DPS, and stunning CC with Petrifying Gaze. If she is able to get her ult and some Twin Fang off, the enemy team will have to burst her down in order to keep the team alive. This is where Yorick comes in.

Strong Draven is a Marksman power house. When it comes to raw damage, he does the most damage out of an ADC, if the user can catch his axes. While Draven is a damage behemoth, the Revenant from Omen of Death does not get the Spinning Axe ability, which is what makes Draven....well... Draven. He is still a worthy ally to bring back to life if the user is a skilled Draven player.

Strong Nothing is more scary than a ravenously fed Olaf. The way to play Olaf is to be an anti carry. Putting Omen of Death on Olaf as he is runs rampant is the way to handle this in a teamfight. Of course Olaf will soak up a lot of damage but will also do big damage with and fail to be CC'd with Ragnarok, Undertow and a couple of Reckless Swing's. If he falls, he will just get revived and continue slaughtering.

Strong The easiest way to say this is that Karthus will not die. If Karthus dies during Omen of Death, he will just come back to life as a ghost and continue killing. When his time runs out, Death Defied kicks in, making him able to cast spells for another 7 seconds.