Yorick Build Guide by eyemite

Introduction

Yorick is a support/tanky dps champion who is often underestimated in my experience. He can be a semi-carry but most of the time I find supporting my team with my Omen of Pestilence, making good choices when it comes to using Omen of Death, and being the most annoying character I can be for the enemy team is really when he shines.

Summoner Spells

I take Ghost and Flash because Yorick is very prone to CC, and you need a way to escape. This also will server you well when chasing players because your Omen of Pestilence will not always be enough of a slow especially at low ranks to catch up to fleeing enemies.

Other Viable Options:

• Exhaust-Great for stopping those runners and disabling those ad carries.
• Ignite-Great for those life stealing pricks and people who "barely got away".
• Teleport-One of my favorite spells, but I don't think you will benefit from it as much as the other summoner spells playing Yorick.

Runes

greater mark of desolation These I take because your auto attacks and Omen of War will account for most of your damage output, and since we are not taking any armor pen items it's good to supplement that here.

Greater Seal of Armor and Greater Glyph of Magic Resist I choose these for early game survivability. Between these and your Omen of Famine it should be very difficult for the enemy to prematurely make you return to spawn.

greater quintessence of desolation I choose these for the same reason as my marks. Just a little more armor pen never hurts.

Greater Quintessence of Health These are also viable if you are having a hard time surviving early game.

Masteries

I go 9 9 12 which may seem odd to some.

I go down the offensive tree for Archaic Knowledge because your Omen of Pestilence and Omen of Famine spells domagic damage!!! I feel that these abilities do enough damage early and mid game that they deserve a little magic pen here.

I go down the defensive tree slightly for, again, early and mid game survivability, and Strength of Spirit is going to help you lane better initially, and keep serving you all game because you are building Manamune.

I go down the utility tree for Haste and Awareness mostly, but Greed and Meditation will help as well.

***The other option that is viable if you don't want to go offensive is taking the utility tree all the way down for Quickness , Intelligence , and Presence of the Master . I just like the slight damage boost but Yorick is slow as hell, so Quickness does help a little with that which is mostly what your getting instead of the minor damage boost.

Skill Sequence

Alight my explanation here is:

Take Omen of Pestilence at level 1. This will give you some harassing right out the gate but try not to spam it too much or you will just go OOM. This move will also help even at level 1 if you jungle comes in for a gank.

For levels 2 and 3 take Omen of Famine. This will give your enough lifesteal to harass even more and heal from a distance while the enemy gets mad because a little ghoul is biting their heals. This move should sustain you in lane.

Starting at level 4 take Omen of War. Your are taking this for another way to last hit minions and because when you buy Sheen you don't want this to be at level 1 still. You want it to start hitting with some authority right away. This is why I start alternating leveling up Omen of War and Omen of Famine alternating which one I choose each time. So when you get to around level 10, hopefully you have a Sheen and 3 levels invested in Omen of War.

Of course take Omen of Death at levels 6,11,and 16.

Items

I build Yorick almost the same way regardless of the enemies team makeup because in terms of defense my masteries and runes are usually enough for most of the game to mitigate enough damage where i don't have to focus on defensive armor and magic resist items till late game.

***With tanky health items it also helps his passive Unholy Covenant by keeping his ghouls out longer with more health and damage.

Star off with:
x2 Your can start out with boots but i like to try to rush my Tear of the Goddess which helps sustain your mana during the laning phase.

1st trip back:
If you can get these 2 on your first trip back your doing well. I take the Tear of the Goddess before boots speed 2 to get the bonus mana maxed out by the time I get Manamune

2nd trip back:
This item is a must on Yorick and pretty much made for him. Without it you will have mana issues the entire game and since you spam abilities like Ryze its really the only way to solve the mana problem and increase your attack damage at the same time. Unless of course you hog the golem buff which most of the time isn't happening.

Boots are pretty standard, I like ionian boots for the cooldown reduction, but of course take Mercury's Treads for heavy cc. Personal preference get what you like or need.

***You may not be able to afford both of these items on the 2nd trip back so just get what you need first. If you are having mobility problems get the boots first.

]Mid game items:
Here is when you will start commanding respect out of your enemies. When you get sheen your Omen of War will start hitting hard and essentially be your burst damage move exactly like wukong's Crushing Blow, but you get a speed buff and a ghoul instead of the armor debuff wukong gets.

At this point you should do sufficient damage and need to think about survivability. You can go with anything at this point but i prefer to focus on damage and survivability so i take Warmog's Armor which will synergize nicely with the Atma's Impaler we will get next.

Alernate Mid game items:
You may also take this instead of Warmog's Armor if the slow is important to you but your total health and bonus attack damage will be greater with Warmog's Armor "IF" the game last long enough for you to get the health bonus out of it and "IF" you follow it up with Atma's Impaler. However these are expensive items.

If you feel that you are not having any survivability issues I would recommend rushing this mid game because the increased speed movement, damage, and slow are very beneficial to Yorick. Get this if the game isn't going for the long haul.

End Game items
Synergizes well with your Warmog's Armor if you choose it giving you more damage and armor. The crit is kinda whatever since your not depending on auto attacks.

If you choose not to get this mid game get it now. All stats will benefit you greatly as I said before.

This goes well with both you Atma's Impaler and Manamune plus giving you magic resist and a shield.

Other Viable options
I like to build Yorick tanky so your last items can really be whatever the situation calls for I try to get items that go with Atma's Impaler and Manamune to give me more damage as I get more tanky I would suggest considering items like:





Of course you can build any dps items you want as well, it just depends on how you play him. I find that since i'm in the thick of things most of the time I just need to survive as long as possible and be the most annoying champ I can be for the enemy team.

Rotation and using his ultimate

Yorick I have found isn't that difficult to play, you just have to be smart about what your doing.

My basic rotation is: Repeat.

This is just based around cooldowns so you will be able to cast very often with only short gaps of auto attacking in between.

Using Your ultimate
SO there are 3 scenarios where you can use your ultimate Omen of Death which include:

• I'm going 1v1! If you get caught with your pants down or just want an edge in a 1v1 fight use your ult on yourself. This will give you almost double damage to your opponent and even if you die you should be able to finish them with your ghost.
  
• My teammate is going down for the count! You can use your ultimate on a teammate you know IS going to die and can't do anything about it until after the fact because you arrive at the scene of the crime to late and too far away. Use this if you think it will be enough to exact revenge for this hideous crime.
  
• We Are taking them down to china town!In a team fight setting you can also use this on your carry AFTER the engagement begins. This will give your highest dps champion a clone for a short time which will increase their damage dealt. Be careful though because if you are premature and the fight doesn't start like you thought, you just wasted your ultimate....

Summary

Yorick is a great champ that I have been having blast with. I like being in the middle role of support and tanky semi-carry. This is my first build on mobafire please comment below.

thanks you JhoiJhoi's Good Karthus Guide for showing me the way. Cheers!