Main rune set

Greater Mark of Strength These runs give Yorick some extra life-steal and poking power early game. If you know you are duo-ing a lane, I strongly suggest you run with these runes. Yorick's and both scale with AD. This allows Yorick to not only hit harder but receive more from his lifesteal.

Greater Seal of Replenishment Greater Seal of Replenishment These runes are practically the best for Yorick. Everyone knows Yorick has a strong early game, and if you run these runs combined with the rest of what this guide offers, you will be unassailable, even while soloing top.

Greater Glyph of Focus Cooldown reduction is kind of an important thing for Yorick. With these runes and the correct build you still won't be reaching the CDR cap, but you'll be close, and your ghouls will be a-plenty. Keeping as many of your ghouls up as possible during team fights, pushing a tower/inhibitor/nexus crystal and, hell, at any time really, is important. This is to benefit from your passive as much as possible.

Greater Quintessence of Fortitude This will give you a strong early and mid game presence as a tank or off-tank, and allow you to intimidate and demoralize your opponents more efficiently combined with spamming your .

This mastery is entirely up to you- I don't find I need to flash that often, so I hold off on it.

Flash I better not ever see you without this. Ever. Yorick has absolutely no quick escape strategy. Sure you might try pairing and to try and escape, and this might work 1 v 1 or 1 v 2 on certain heroes, but if you are stuck in an ugly situation, your only hope is a brush-juke mixed with a well timed flash. End-game this is of more use as a chasing or positioning spell. It can also be used to initiate. Teleport If you're going to solo top, I strongly recommend you get this. Once your jungler helps you with a gank and you've successfully pushed the enemy back, you can quickly go back to base, purchase your items and come straight back if your tower looks like it will be in danger. In mid and end game this spell can also be used to scare away BD'ers and to BD as well.

Ignite Ignite can be useful when duo-laning to pick up first blood or an extra kill here and there, as well as stopping your enemy from replenishing HP during an encounter or team fight- this should obviously be put on enemies with a lot of damage and a lot of life steal, usually an AD carry. If your team has more than one ignite, coordinate ignite targets for a team fight so that their support, if it has a heal, can do very little to help their teammate. Exhaust Exhaust can be used if your team has many ignites already, and should most often be placed on the most fed enemy or greatest threat during a team fight. In early game you will want to lay off using this, just in case a gank in your lane occurs against you or for you.

Omen of war is the ability you'll be maxing last. This seems counter-intuitive, right? This attack resets your attack timer (in other words, use it right after a basic attack) and hits extra hard, then summons a ghoul that, while active, gives you a % speed boost.
You will want one point in early game to maximize the amount of ghouls readily available to you, and to help you with last-hitting minions in lane, or threatening your opponents if they get too close to your minion farming.
There is method to the madness of maxing this last- the speed boost is only while the ghoul is active, and that can be sometimes 0 seconds when your enemy shoots it down. You also need to have the ghoul active in order to gain the speed boost, and sometimes while running from an enemy gank, you will not have time activate it. It does good damage, true, but your other omens combined help you poke, stay in lane longer and escape better.


This is an amazing ability, and you will be maxing this by mid-game. The initial burst will slow enemies caught in the burst and deal minor damage, and then summon a ghoul that will continue to attack and slow the enemies. But the utility does not stop there- You can summon this ghoul in brushes to scout brushes, and even summon it over Baron/Dragon's wall to check for enemies. Combined with you can safely check if certain key places are warded.
That's not all. When running from an enemy gank or losing team-fight, pop this ghoul EVEN if you don't catch the enemy straight away in the initial blast. A good Yorick will do this as opposed to waiting for them to get in range. The ghoul will run towards enemy champions and give off it's slowing aura, giving you a split second longer to escape- simply re-cast when it is back up to aid your escape. If you try and land the initial burst on an opponent, you will most certainly be caught by one of their abilities.


Your bread and butter. I love this ability, so much. Okay, so it does a ton of damage and scales with AD, and it is a target-able ranged life-steal, and summons a ghoul that does a bunch of damage and gives back even more HP. I don't know how much more awesome that can get. Combined with this ability will allow you to stay in fights and in lane for a ridiculous amount of time. Max this first, by all means.


This ability allows you to summon a copy of an ally, kind of like Mordekaiser's ultimate upon killing an enemy- except that you can choose exactly when you summon this extra pair of feet. The best targets in my experience have been auto-attackers such as Vayne or Tryndamere, for a chaotic team fight. The ability also brings back one of your allies for a short amount of time if they are to die while the copy is active. Coordinate with a Tryndamere to properly set this off so his Undying Rage and your ultimate don't overlap right away. This is also a great ability to use if you find yourself 1 v 1 or defending a tower 1 v 2 as Solo top.

• Use your Q to reset your attack timer to give you two fast attacks.
• Use your W to check brushes and important objective points.
• Use your W early when running away from a threat- this way your enemy will not catch up to you, and your ghoul automatically will run towards them to slow them.
• Use your R on a target ally that does most of his damage via auto-attack.
• Your ghouls can be used to intercept certain champion abilities such as Blitzcrank's pull.
  
• Communicate. Knowing team strategies ahead of time is incredibly beneficial towards playing Yorick well.
• Yorick is an exceptional farmer, pairing W and Q over and over again clears minion waves easily.
• Allies can teleport to your ghoul, use this to your advantage in a brush to set up a gank.
• Remember, spam your ghouls for your passive, but spam the right freaking targets. Enemy carries and assists are always first on your slow/life-steal list.

The Tank

This is what I get no matter what lane I am in. The Mana regen from Meki will enable you to practically spam on cooldown your W and E. It will also allow you to push lanes much more easily with all that ghoul damage going out. Remember, you can last hit using W, don't be afraid to do so, you'll need the gold.

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These two should be your next purchases. The boots are obvious. The tear keeps you in lane even longer and now, you really CAN spam all your ghouls before returning.

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Finish off those Mercs and Manamune for extra damage and Tenacity- you are a tank, remember?

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Get this ASAP. You should have this by at least level 10 or 11 if you have been last hitting appropriately in a solo-lane. This will keep you in lane and enable you to push against even 2 enemies.

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This will be your final build at the end of the game, you should reach it fairly soon if you have been playing smart and getting what gold you can. Frozen Heart is just a great tanking item for any tank with mana. Veil is great to protect against initial nukes- try not to waste your shield though. Atma's is highly subjective depending on the game you are playing, but it does give you some extra umph for your E and armor.







Yes. You're right. And that's why are all viable options too, depending on the composition of the other team. Understanding the abilities and play-styles of enemy champions is useful to determining the proper build your Tank Yorick should lean towards.

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I suggest replacing Glacial Shroud with Phage and subsequently Frozen Heart with Frozen Mallet. The extra HP, damage and slowing capability really shows your place as an off-tank pusher.
Come on, help your team out, bro. This will turn you into an auto attacker late game, whilst spamming your ghouls to keep up the extra 15% damage/damage reduction. It also helps your allied carries. Replace Banshee's Veil with this.

If Stark's doesn't suit your fancy, your last but most expensive option is... Trinity is a remarkable item for Off-tank Yorick because of the amount of damage you'll be pumping out with this badboy. If the game lasts a while, you should look into ---> Trinity instead of Stark's.