Yorick is a new champion, and right away there are rummors saying he's weak, useless, overall bad. Judging by the current builds available, you bet! In order to play yorick well, you need (a) Mana, (b) Damage. In that order. Why? Because Yorick works a lot like Urgot, just imagine Urgot playing with no mana items and you'll get what people are usually trying to build from Yorick nowdays.

Early game, get mana regen. As a caster, yorick is very strong early game because of the spellvamp from ghul - he can literally survive on mana only. Since yorick is a damaged based champion, get a Manamune.

Mid to late game battles, caster yorick sucks hard, cause he only has 2 spells with not enough damage. Even when he gets bloodthirster / other damage items, it simply isn't enough and he ends up using his combo and dying / being useless for ~8 seconds. To avoid this, get Trinity Force.

I take Armor/MRes runes with yorick (seals and glyphs), since he is a spellvamp char and resistances really help to keep him alive against enemy bursts. Plus i dont get any resistance items for a long time in game.

On marks, i take ArPen. Since ghosts get it as well, it's even better than usual.

For quints, i get gold per second. Wierd choise, but i don't really feel a need for anything else. If i had Armor / MRes / Movement speed quints, i would get them instead of the GPS.

Starting items:
Meki Pendant + Health Potion + Mana Potion if you are on 1v2 or feeling scared
OR
Meki Pendant + double Mana Potion if you are on 1v1 / 2v2 or feeling brave :)

Now the item sequence:
Manamune, rush for it. Yorick excels in harasement through farming with spells. Plus, by doing that, he heals himself. If he has mana, you cannot out-poke him. Remember that in laning, mana can be turned into health, while reducing the enemy hp at the same time .

Once you have Manamune, get Boots of Swiftness. The movement speed is crucial with this campion, since he has to get close later on. On lane, swiftness boots can help you poke better and stay alive.

As your third core item, get Trinity Force. And please, do not start with sheen (i will explain later why). The thing is, before you get trinity you are weak if close combat. Melee dps have greater damage output, ranged dps usually kite you to death if you try to chase. Don't play their games, use your ghosts to outpoke them and play like a caster until you farm for your trinity. Cause when you do, thing are gonna get fun.

Yorick with Manamune, Boots of Swiftness and Trinity Force is a very good champion. He has amazing self-healing skills, awesome damage burst + really good continuous damage output due to trinity. Plus, the healing his ghost provides is really off the scale and usually keeps him alive for long enough to get a kill and stay alive.

Other builds usually completely miss yorick's early game, trying to play him as a dps right from the start. That is a mistake, mainly because yorick is able to dominate a lane early on when played like a caster, because his ghouls are very strong in early game. For being of any use later on, he has to get Trinity Force. But don't get it before mana regen (which means Manamune for this champion), or you will pay with poor laning and being called a 'useless champ'.

So yes, the main idea of all the builds is correct - trinity and damage damage damage. But you need mana before that, or you'll never farm enough gold for trinity force in the first place.

Max the lifesteal ghoul - Omen of Famine. He's awesome - can be used to lasthit minions, which (a) give you the lasthit without endangering yourself against ranged champs, (b) replenishes a LOT of health, (c) the ghost usually scares the enemy away or keeps him occupied enough for you to get another lasthit with your auto-attack.

Since you are a caster and don't like people getting close to you, max Omen of Pestilence next, while getting one point in Omen of War on level 4 and leaving it that way.

If you are on a 2v2 / 1v2 lane, start with the AoE ghul, since he can spot brushes.

I personally like Exhaust Teleport. It is the anti-ganking combo, since you can usually teleport in when allies are under attack, and quickly turn a 2v2 battle into your team's favor. Exhaust, apart from being a great chasing tool, also keeps you safe early on, plus it can really help during teamfights later on.

In a teamfight, when ulting yourself, always remember to land your summoner spells before you die , since they are locked after your "revive".

I've been experimenting with Flash, which also seem viable.
I wouldn't recomment getting Clarity or Ghost, since you should have enough of those stats already. But again, if you like some summoner spell and know how to play it (for example Ghost), just grab it and buy different boots.

This is a yorick build that puts together a strong early-game with a strong mid- to late-game - with a small gap of weakness in mid-game before trinity force. You can get a good score AND have fun with ghosts, which i think is the main reason most people bought yorick in the first place.

I mean, really? Look at the stats of that thing.
(a) + 250 mana. Well, if you are taking manamune, you don't really care about this. If you are not, it might help a bit (250 mana is ~7 ghuls), but still no regen.
(b) + 25 ability power. No effect at all.
(c) *2 damage every time you cast a spell. Now wow, you have 70 damage and you are going to deal double! every time you cast a spell. So, you run up to your opponent and hit him for 140 damage.

The problem is, that by doing that you pull minion aggro, so even if you didnt get hit by enemy champ at all, you still get damaged by minions. And if the enemy champ decides to fight back, you end up getting more damage than you originally dealt. You might try to heal with Omen of Famine, but there is a slight problem - you don't have enough mana to keep it up. So you do your combo ~4 times and you are done. Then recall for mana or just stop doing anything at all and just try to lasthit and occasionally send a ghoul.

For the price of sheen, you can have a Tear of the Goddess and Boots. That way, you can actually do more damage with continuous usage of your long-ranged spells instead of running around wildly trying to hit enemy champs with an auto-attack.

To conclude, i have no problems with sheen, it's an awesome item. But since it's stats are really not that hot on yorick, i fell other items have a higher priority before sheen.

I'd like to give credit to my friend Yarda, which has also been playing Yorick ever since he got availiable. It's his build just as it's mine.