League of Legends: Yorick!

Alas, poor Yorick... I knew him not at all. So two weeks ago when Yorick was rotated in as a free champion I took the opportunity to play him a few times to try to figure out what he was capable of. All I knew going into the experiment was he summoned ghouls in some way, he had a pretty substantial amount of self healing, and that Nasus can totally farm his Q on the ghouls. (I'm pretty sure my best Nasus games have come against Yoricks that felt like tossing ghouls at me from a distance. Ghouls aren't worth any money but do count for farming up Q.) But he's played top with some regularity so I should really know what he can do so I can properly play against him.

It turns out all 3 of his normal abilities deal damage and summon a ghoul but all 3 work in different ways and have different secondary effects. One is a unit targeted ranged attack which heals Yorick. One is an area targeted ranged attach which slows everything in the area. One is an auto-attack enhancer which hastes Yorick. The ghouls stick around for 5 seconds, preferentially target enemy champions, and do 35% of Yorick's damage when they attack. They also continue to provide a toned down version of the benefit (so the healing ghoul keeps healing Yorick as it attacks and the slowing ghoul keeps slowing things around it.) On top of that Yorick's passive gives him 5% more melee damage and 5% damage reduction for every living ghoul. His ult also summons a super ghoul so he can realistically take 20% less damage and deal 20% more auto-attack damage in a big fight.

It's that damage reduction coupled with the healing ghoul which gives Yorick such great sustain and makes him a bit of a beast in 1v1 situations. The fact that two of his abilities are ranged and do reasonable damage is pretty powerful too. An enemy champion with no way of sustaining themselves can quickly get harassed out of lane. (I don't think I've done Tryndamere against Yorick but it can't be pretty. Either Trynd can burst Yorick out in one go or he can never farm at all. I'm leaning towards never farm at all.)

So how did it work out for me? Tune in tomorrow to find out.