Views: 1896 Rework Concepts: Yorick, the Gravedigger
|
Report
Hey guys. I keep forgetting to do these. Been busy busy busy. But an idea struck me and I had to write it down. I know 
Yorick is getting a rework (eventually) but I thought I'd give my thoughts on how he could be reworked while keeping nearly all of his theme in tact.
So yeah. My idea is to rework him for the support role. Why? He's always *kind of* been a support via his ultimate. He's like Zilean except he doesn't completely suck. Ask GMD. Support Yorick is awesome. His ultimate is theoretically one of the most valuable ults in the game. Yorick's job as a gravedigger kind of works for the support role too; he's guiding people to their graves. (You'll see how that pans out in a second.
There was quite a bit of inspiration for this kit idea, some major ones being; the death system in WoW and Viktor's Hex Cores. I tried keeping a lot about his characterization in tact while broading his playstyle and making him more than a ghoul throwing clone-the-adc-bot. Also, ghouls are gone (you'll like what they've been replaced by). So let's get into the rework concept!
Tags: Support, Tank
Health: 563 (+85/Level)
Health Regen: 8.175 (+.9/Level)
Mana: 300 (+50/Lvel)
Mana Regen: 7(+.55/Level)
Range: 150
Attack Damage: 58 (+3/Lvl)
Attack Speed: .625 (+3%/Lvl)
Armor: 25 (+3.5/Lvl)
Magic Resistance: 30 (+1.25/Level)
Movement Speed: 335
The Cryptkeeper (Passive): Yorick begins the game with his Trusty Shovel in his inventory, which can be augmented for gold as the game progresses. By default it grants bonus magic damage on hit, and it will later offer more stats, and will upgrade Yorick's abilities.
Actively, Yorick may choose an ally that he will guide to the after life. Once chosen, it cannot be undone and Yorick may choose a location for their grave. The grave can be destroyed by enemies (similarly to Rek'Sai's tunnels), and Yorick can move it once every minute. Upon death, Yorick's chosen ally's spirit will break free and be directed towards their grave. Enemies can see the spirit, but cannot attack it. Upon arrive to their grave, they regain their body and live again... in death. Upon awakening, they gain bonus attack damage, lifesteal and movement speed for 30 seconds. This effect has a 5 minute cooldown.
Bonus Attack Damage: 10/30/50/70
Bonus Lifesteal: 5/15/25/35%
Bonus Movement Speed: 10/20/30/40%
Yorick's Trusty Shovel:
+10 (1% of Yorick's Max Health) Magic Damage on hit
Upgrade 1: Lantern
Cost: 1250 Gold
Adds +400 Health
UNIQUE – WARD REFRESH: Holds 4 charges and refills upon visiting the shop.
Active
UNIQUE – GHOST WARD: Consumes a charge to place a Sight Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time.
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Upgrade 2: Blade
Cost: 1250
Adds +30 (+3% of Yorick's Max Health) Magic Damage on hit
Now holds an additional Stealth Ward charge
+50 attack range
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Upgrade 3: Necromancy
Cost: 1250
Adds 10 (+1% of yorick's Max health) Magic Damage on hit, for a total of +50 (+5% of Yorick's Max Health)
Adds an additional 150 Health for a total of 550.
Raised Minions now deal half of the Shovel's bonus magic damage on hit
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Awaken (Q): Passively, Yorick can see the shallow graves of slain minions and neutral monsters (Except Gromp, Scuttle Crab, Dragon and Baron). Yorick can raise a target grave to summon a zombified minion or monster to fight for him. Raised minions and monsters have modified base health, attack in melee (125) range, deal magic damage for their basic attacks and lose health at a rate of 1% per second. They will fight until killed and Yorick may have 3 zombies at any time. Spawning a new one will kill the oldest one still active. Q can be activated on a target to direct their attacks, but they will automatically try to prioritize champions, and automatically draw turret aggro over normal minions. Their attacks will still cause turrets to aggro Yorick.
Shovel Upgrade: Risen Minions and Monsters ignore CC effects.
Zombie's Attacks: 20/40/60/80/100 (+30% of AP)
Zombie's Health: 100/150/200/250/300 (+10/20/30/40/50% of Yorick's Bonus Health)
Cost: 50 Mana
Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 Seconds
Pestilence (W): Yorick unleashes the putrid stench of death at a target location for 5 seconds. Enemies within the zone are dealt magic damage and are slowed every second. Additionally, enemies attempting to use channeled abilities in the stench cloud can be interrupted by basic attacks made by champions.
Shovel Upgrade: Yorick's first basic attack made against an enemy in the field will stun them for 1 second.
Magic Damage: 10/20/30/40/50 (+50% of AP) per second
Slow: 15/20/25/30/35%
Slow Duration: 1 second
Cost: 60/70/80/90/100
Cooldown: 13 Seconds
Necrotic Reversal (E): Yorick sacrifices 10% of his health and creates a shield for both him and his selected ally for 5 seconds, equal to the health sacrificed. He also heals all of his risen minions for this amount. Each of his risen minions will grant Yorick health on their next auto attack within 2 seconds.
Shovel Upgrade: Yorick's risen Minions and Monsters gain 50% attack speed while his shield persists.
Healing: 25/50/75/100/125
Cost: 60 Mana
Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 Seconds
Foot in the Grave (R): Yorick sinks his shovel into the ground, empowering it with deathly magic as he heaves, unleashing a massive, necrotic shockwave forward that deals magical damage and knocks up and pulls enemies hit towards him, then stunning them for .75 seconds when they land. The farther away the enemy is when hit, the farther they are pulled in. (At max range, a target would land right in front of Yorick.)
Magic Damage: 150/250/350 (+60% of AP)
Range: 1000
Width: 300
Cost: 100 Mana
Cooldown: 150/130/110 Seconds
So what do you guys think of this kit? Would he be fun to play as a support? Would you just play him top lane or jungle anyway? I wanna know your opinion! Tell me what you'd build and run on him as well. :]
Yorick is getting a rework (eventually) but I thought I'd give my thoughts on how he could be reworked while keeping nearly all of his theme in tact."Death is only the beginning."
So yeah. My idea is to rework him for the support role. Why? He's always *kind of* been a support via his ultimate. He's like
Zilean except he doesn't completely suck. Ask GMD. Support Yorick is awesome. His ultimate is theoretically one of the most valuable ults in the game. Yorick's job as a gravedigger kind of works for the support role too; he's guiding people to their graves. (You'll see how that pans out in a second.There was quite a bit of inspiration for this kit idea, some major ones being; the death system in WoW and
Viktor's Hex Cores. I tried keeping a lot about his characterization in tact while broading his playstyle and making him more than a ghoul throwing clone-the-adc-bot. Also, ghouls are gone (you'll like what they've been replaced by). So let's get into the rework concept!Yorick, The Gravedigger
Tags: Support, Tank
Health: 563 (+85/Level)
Health Regen: 8.175 (+.9/Level)
Mana: 300 (+50/Lvel)
Mana Regen: 7(+.55/Level)
Range: 150
Attack Damage: 58 (+3/Lvl)
Attack Speed: .625 (+3%/Lvl)
Armor: 25 (+3.5/Lvl)
Magic Resistance: 30 (+1.25/Level)
Movement Speed: 335
Abilities:
The Cryptkeeper (Passive): Yorick begins the game with his Trusty Shovel in his inventory, which can be augmented for gold as the game progresses. By default it grants bonus magic damage on hit, and it will later offer more stats, and will upgrade Yorick's abilities.
Actively, Yorick may choose an ally that he will guide to the after life. Once chosen, it cannot be undone and Yorick may choose a location for their grave. The grave can be destroyed by enemies (similarly to
Rek'Sai's tunnels), and Yorick can move it once every minute. Upon death, Yorick's chosen ally's spirit will break free and be directed towards their grave. Enemies can see the spirit, but cannot attack it. Upon arrive to their grave, they regain their body and live again... in death. Upon awakening, they gain bonus attack damage, lifesteal and movement speed for 30 seconds. This effect has a 5 minute cooldown.Bonus Attack Damage: 10/30/50/70
Bonus Lifesteal: 5/15/25/35%
Bonus Movement Speed: 10/20/30/40%
Yorick's Trusty Shovel:
+10 (1% of Yorick's Max Health) Magic Damage on hit
Upgrade 1: Lantern
Cost: 1250 Gold
Adds +400 Health
UNIQUE – WARD REFRESH: Holds 4 charges and refills upon visiting the shop.
Active
UNIQUE – GHOST WARD: Consumes a charge to place a Sight Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time.
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Upgrade 2: Blade
Cost: 1250
Adds +30 (+3% of Yorick's Max Health) Magic Damage on hit
Now holds an additional Stealth Ward charge
+50 attack range
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Upgrade 3: Necromancy
Cost: 1250
Adds 10 (+1% of yorick's Max health) Magic Damage on hit, for a total of +50 (+5% of Yorick's Max Health)
Adds an additional 150 Health for a total of 550.
Raised Minions now deal half of the Shovel's bonus magic damage on hit
Choose one of Yorick's basic abilities to upgrade
Awaken (Q): Passively, Yorick can see the shallow graves of slain minions and neutral monsters (Except Gromp, Scuttle Crab, Dragon and Baron). Yorick can raise a target grave to summon a zombified minion or monster to fight for him. Raised minions and monsters have modified base health, attack in melee (125) range, deal magic damage for their basic attacks and lose health at a rate of 1% per second. They will fight until killed and Yorick may have 3 zombies at any time. Spawning a new one will kill the oldest one still active. Q can be activated on a target to direct their attacks, but they will automatically try to prioritize champions, and automatically draw turret aggro over normal minions. Their attacks will still cause turrets to aggro Yorick.
Shovel Upgrade: Risen Minions and Monsters ignore CC effects.
Zombie's Attacks: 20/40/60/80/100 (+30% of AP)
Zombie's Health: 100/150/200/250/300 (+10/20/30/40/50% of Yorick's Bonus Health)
Cost: 50 Mana
Cooldown: 15/14/13/12/11 Seconds
Pestilence (W): Yorick unleashes the putrid stench of death at a target location for 5 seconds. Enemies within the zone are dealt magic damage and are slowed every second. Additionally, enemies attempting to use channeled abilities in the stench cloud can be interrupted by basic attacks made by champions.
Shovel Upgrade: Yorick's first basic attack made against an enemy in the field will stun them for 1 second.
Magic Damage: 10/20/30/40/50 (+50% of AP) per second
Slow: 15/20/25/30/35%
Slow Duration: 1 second
Cost: 60/70/80/90/100
Cooldown: 13 Seconds
Necrotic Reversal (E): Yorick sacrifices 10% of his health and creates a shield for both him and his selected ally for 5 seconds, equal to the health sacrificed. He also heals all of his risen minions for this amount. Each of his risen minions will grant Yorick health on their next auto attack within 2 seconds.
Shovel Upgrade: Yorick's risen Minions and Monsters gain 50% attack speed while his shield persists.
Healing: 25/50/75/100/125
Cost: 60 Mana
Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 Seconds
Foot in the Grave (R): Yorick sinks his shovel into the ground, empowering it with deathly magic as he heaves, unleashing a massive, necrotic shockwave forward that deals magical damage and knocks up and pulls enemies hit towards him, then stunning them for .75 seconds when they land. The farther away the enemy is when hit, the farther they are pulled in. (At max range, a target would land right in front of Yorick.)
Magic Damage: 150/250/350 (+60% of AP)
Range: 1000
Width: 300
Cost: 100 Mana
Cooldown: 150/130/110 Seconds
So what do you guys think of this kit? Would he be fun to play as a support? Would you just play him top lane or jungle anyway? I wanna know your opinion! Tell me what you'd build and run on him as well. :]
I'm thinking something more like a huge summon (tibbers) or a big "graveyard" area that roots/slows people inside it so that your zombies can kill them. The ult isn't too bad as it is now, it's just a bit disappointing considering how good the rest of the kit looks :P
Some concepts seem interesting and make Yorick feel more like what I expected him to be prior to release (focusing on using summoned ghouls to do stuff), but the main problem I have is the oversaturation of his kit. Oversaturation is never good as it either makes the champion broken - being able to do what multiple champions can do, or simply useless as a jack of all trades and master of none.
Creating abilities like revival also touch upon concepts that are extremely hard to balance.
What do you think is the prime offender to the oversaturation? The passive probably? I tried to keep a lot of the kit as simple as possible. Might have a lot of words, but the actual functionallity of the abilities would be simple enough. Raise a zombie to fight for you. Make a slowing AoE zone. Shield you and a carry. etc.
Good to know that you guys like the concept of him being a full support rather than hating it entirely though. I've been chastised before for wishing champions were entirely different roles than they currently are.
Huh, I like the idea of moving him to support role. Allowing him to revive carries is nice and fits his core fantasy. I guess the support role would actually be a 10/10 idea for a yorick rework.
Some concerns.
- The passive allows little counterplay. I would make it so that yorick needs to either be alive or dig the grave (or whatever else you decide), so that your enemies can do something instead of waiting for the adc to just get up again after burning all their cooldowns because the grave was next to a safe inhibitor tower. Maybe have yorick stand on top of an ally's dead body to revive it.
- The shovel seems too powerful. This one is minor. It could also fit an "offtank support" niche and that's currently unexplored territory.
- The decay on "zombies" seems too slow. The fact that they become melee is a great touch though, and may balance many awful cases. They could use a temporary movement speed buff somewhere in the kit (best candidate is E).
- The ult is either out of place or I'm not getting it. It seems like a reverse nami ult, and might not fit the kit at all. I would give him something more... zombie-related. I don't have any good idea for it right now, so I might check this back in the weekend :P
The rework is overall great. I totally dig it.
Responding to each point 1 by 1.
Yeah the idea to make him be a true support stems from the niche support Yorick. As mentioned, GrandmasterD, and Nameless Bard by extension, are big fans. ;p
I figured it'd have enough counterplay by having the grave be destructible, and allowing enemies to simply follow the spirit to it's grave to kill it. I forgot to write it down too, but I'd imagine there'd be a delay before the ADC actually emerges, allowing time for "set up" on either sides for when they actually crawl out of the grave. Perhaps your idea would make it more fair and allow me to remove the destructability of the graves?
The shovel being powerful is kind of intended. Though I feel this is mostly with it's actual effects rather than it's stats. It's more expensive than
Giving the zombies MS would be a great idea. Perhaps remove them healing Yorick on the E? I figured he needed that though to make up for the rather pricey health tax (similar to Soraka's heal/Q combo).
The ultimate was intentionally kind of "just a big CC" as the kit seemed lacking of any hard CCs, which is bad for a support. This would give give him a bit more counterplay in that regard; being a support that might not be that great at laning until he gets rolling at level 6. I don't think it's massively out of place, except maybe thematically. It's intention is to pull people backinto his minion range or into his W, or obviously, into your team. I may have worded how I extpect it to work poorly though. Think of it like a big Ori ult that's a line rather than a circle, or perhaps a big Thresh Flay that can only be used in one direction.
Creating abilities like revival also touch upon concepts that are extremely hard to balance.
Some concerns.
- The passive allows little counterplay. I would make it so that yorick needs to either be alive or dig the grave (or whatever else you decide), so that your enemies can do something instead of waiting for the adc to just get up again after burning all their cooldowns because the grave was next to a safe inhibitor tower. Maybe have yorick stand on top of an ally's dead body to revive it.
- The shovel seems too powerful. This one is minor. It could also fit an "offtank support" niche and that's currently unexplored territory.
- The decay on "zombies" seems too slow. The fact that they become melee is a great touch though, and may balance many awful cases. They could use a temporary movement speed buff somewhere in the kit (best candidate is E).
- The ult is either out of place or I'm not getting it. It seems like a reverse nami ult, and might not fit the kit at all. I would give him something more... zombie-related. I don't have any good idea for it right now, so I might check this back in the weekend :P
The rework is overall great. I totally dig it.
1. This passive does nothing until the ADC actually uses the grave to revive.
2. The cooldown is on par with GA or Zac passive.
3. Enemies can simply follow the spirit to it's grave and kill them as they emerge, OR they can find the grave before hand and destroy it. Yorick can only make a new one every minute.
I think I added enough counterplay for it. D: Thoughts on the other abilities?