League of Legends: Yorick Early Game

When I first started playing Yorick in League of Legends I read a fair number of different guides to get an idea for how other people play him. Some people recommended running armor penetration runes. Some wanted magic penetration runes. Some wanted straight attack damage runes. I ended up running with the attack damage ones because I didn't realize the armor penetration ones would help my ghouls do damage. The question I have now is which of those options is better early?

For starters I'm going to assume my opponent has 50 armor and 20 magic resist. Recalling that the damage reduction formula in this game is to multiply by 100/(100+X) where X is armor for physical damage or magic resist for magic damage. Also, I have 10% magic penetration from my masteries. Therefore, for y incoming damage:

MR(y) = y*100/118  = .85y
AC(y) = y*100/150 = .67y

My current way of playing involves leveling my W spell to rank 1, my E spell to rank 2, and pumping the rest into Q which actually is rarely used. I'm mostly concerned with the damage done by the W and the E while ignoring autoattacks and Q. The reason for this is my primary plan is to toss the two ranged spells at the enemy before they get close enough to really engage in melee combat.

W does 60 magic damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. The up front damage also includes 100% of my AP but I won't have any of that. E does 85 damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will again melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. It also includes 100% of my bonus AD, which is any AD gained above and beyond the base amount from leveling. I will have 3 of that from my masteries. So, without any runes my damage at level 4 will likely be:

MR(60+85+3)+2*1.05*AC(65) = .85*148+2.1*.67*65 = 217

Filling in both quints and marks I have a few options. All AD, all MPen, all APen, or a combo. I'm interested in two combos in particular: AD quints with APen marks and full duo-pen. Those 5 options would add:

- 15.3AD
- 15.09MPen
- 24.94APen
- 6.75AD & 14.94APen
- 15APen, 9.13MPen

How does my damage change?

.85*163.3+2.1*.67*80.3 = 252
.97*148+2.1*.67*65 = 235
.85*148+2.1*.8*65 = 235
.85*154.75+2.1*.74*71.75 = 243
.92*148+2.1*.74*65 = 237

Ok, one of these is just better off the hop. At low levels the straight AD looks to be right.

There's one other thing I wanted to look at. That's what leveling up each skill accomplishes. It's pretty obvious to me that Yorick needs to put at least one point into each skill due to his passive. (He gets 5% damage reduction and 5% stronger melee attacks for each ghoul in play.) But where should the extra points go? First we need to know how much damage Q actually does...

It's an autoattack modifier which means it takes the place of your next melee swing. It also resets the swing timer when you use it so theoretically it could be worth a full melee attack if you're engaged on a target and time it right. In practical terms I don't know how often that actually happens so I'm going to ignore the autoattack portion and just look at the extra damage. It adds 30 damage, and an extra 20% of your total attack damage, and the ghoul does an extra 8 damage per swing. Comparing rank 1 stats with 80 AD:

Q - AC(54+1.25*80) = 103 damage for 40 mana with a 9 second cooldown
W - MR(60)+AC(1.05*80) = 107 damage for 40 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(73)+AC(1.05*80) = 118 damage for 55 mana with a 10 second cooldown

Comparing rank 2 stats with 80 AD:

Q - AC(108+1.25*80) = 139 damage for 40 mana with a 8 second cooldown
W - MR(95)+AC(1.05*80) = 137 damage for 45 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(103)+AC(1.05*80) = 144 damage for 60 mana with a 9 second cooldown

There are two ways to look at things. Damage per second assuming you're spamming the spell on cooldown or damage per mana. Yorick is rather mana constrained early if you're going all out on spamming so I think that number is probably more important but both are worth considering...

Rank 1
Q - 11.4DPS, 2.575DPM
W - 8.9DPS, 2.675DPM
E - 11.8DPS, 2.145DPM

Rank 2
Q - 17.4DPS, 3.475DPM
W - 11.4DPS, 3.044DPM
E - 16DPS, 2.4DPM

At rank 1 E is the best DPS, W is the best DPM, and Q is second best at both. At rank 2 Q is the best at everything. If your goal is to burn down your opponent then you want to level your Q. If your goal is to make efficient use of your mana then you want to level your Q. Are those the only things to consider?

Well, no. Each skill has a different impact on the game which scales with rank. Q gives you a run speed buff which gets bigger as you level the skill. W slows the enemies and the slow gets better as you level the skill. E gives you back 40% of the initial damage done as health so while it doesn't have an extra scaling component you do need to make sure you're stealing back enough life to stay in lane. It's only 10 extra healing per rank of E and it does drive the cost up by 5. As far as the different speed buffs go I like buffing my own speed more than debuffing my opponent's. The reason for this is I mostly only care when I'm getting ganked and then the faster I can get to my turret the better.

Personally I'd been leveling E to 2 and then maxxing Q. I think I'm ok with this going forward. I haven't found I need more healing than a rank 2 E. I do wonder if maybe I could get away with only a single point in E. I certainly have no desire to put more than one point in W.