What’s up guys it’s me Jeremy!
With the Taric rework finally being released, the Yorick rework isn’t too far off, and
a lot of you have been asking me to take a look at and share what I know about the Yorick
rework, and there is actually a boatload of information available for him, since his rework
has been in development for an extremely long time.
So today we’re taking a look at what we know about the development for Yorick’s
rework, as well as what we know about the design and potential abilities for Yorick,
and there’s a lot to learn, and it’s honestly really easy to see how his rework is probably
going to end up once it finally launches.
And if you guys enjoy the video don’t forget to leave a like or a dislike if you didn’t.
Anyway, the Yorick rework now is currently being developed by the same team that work
on the poppy rework I believe, and they are planning on having it out before the end of
2016, or at the very latest early 2017, and it’s going to be a rework on the same level
as Sion and poppy, where he’s going to get a totally new and revamped kit, model, splash
art, lore, and just about everything else, and the fact that it’s gone through so many
delays and missteps is probably a big indicator that the final product is going to be pretty
damn awesome.
A lot of the delay for Yorick’s rework really comes down to a lack of direction, and uncertainly
of how to design him to be an awesome champion.
Riot Ghostcrawler commented on Yorick and said that he’s been a real challenge, and
he said essentially that finding the right theme has been tough, so it is still possible
that the Yorick rework may not be exceptional.
Now although he is now being worked on by the team who did Poppy, which is being led
by Riot Solocrushed and Riot Scruffy, the original development for Yorick’s rework
was worked on by Riot Xelnath, which began sometime around 2013 or so, who teased a handful
of different designs that he had tested out, and shown on a long forum post.
Xelnath planned out the rework with community feedback, and came to a lot of conclusions
that you can be almost certain will occur with Yorick’s future design.
The Xelnath versions of the Yorick rework did get iceboxed for a bit, but he eventually
passed on the project, and Riot Solocrushed and Riot Scruffy are finishing it up.
But from the Xelnath projects and forum posts, we can take multiple things that will be pretty
much guaranteed for Yorick.
The first thing Xelnath brought up was why Yorick needs a rework in the first place.
Loads of champions just get a little tuning, or maybe some minor mechanics tweak and they
can be fine, but Xelnath described Yorick as “He is a brick wall in lane, with no
counterplay, who often loses the game when he can't turn that power into a victory later
on.”
And he would go on to say that Yorick is the most toxic kind of experience a champion can
bring to league of legends, and that he is definitely going to get a completely new kit,
rather than one that just feels like it had some tweaks or improvements or maybe just
one new ability, likely all 5 of Yorick’s abilities will be effected, and most of them
will be significantly changed.
It’s possible that the Yorick rework will be the biggest and most significant rework
to ever occur in League of Legends, and I mean that’s not hard to believe considering
it’s also the rework that has had the most development time overall take place.
And during the discussion that he had about the rework with the community, Xelnath was
having a really hard time coming to a direction of where to take Yorick’s theme gameplay
wise, and there was a big conflict of Yorick being either this melee fighter that brawls
out with people, or with him being this minion commander and he brought the conflict to Riot
Morello, who said that Yorick being this necromancer kind of guy, that’s Yorick’s niche, that’s
his unique design space, and the potential for a champion that revolves entirely around
summoning ghouls and being an undead summoner is unique, and that doesn’t mean that he
has to be a squishy caster, but that theme is definitely the way to go for Yorick.
So from that we know that Yorick is still going to be somewhat bruiser-y, but his gameplay
will revolve entirely around summoning ghouls and interacting with them in some way shape
or form, and that design will be much more interesting.
This way Yorick’s character also gets kept in tact at least a little bit, I mean if you
took away Yorick’s ghouls at that point you aren’t really reworking yorick anymore,
you’re just designing a totally new champion and that’s never something you want to see
in a rework, regardless of how poorly designed the initial champion is.
And from testing out a couple gameplay kits, Xelnath made a few things clear for any potential
redesigns that Yorick will have.
First off, Yorick must feel like he’s controlling an army, so he’s going to still have multiple
ghouls, and an ultimate that summons like some crazy amount like 10 or more ghouls is
one of the more prominent ultimates that were tested.
As well, his ghouls need to have some element of decision making for the yorick player to
make him feel like he can make skillful plays, which means that he’s going to be able to
interact with and do stuff to his ghouls after they are already summoned.
And the players playing against Yorick also need to feel like there is meaningful counterplay,
so his ghouls are likely going to be killable, but the reward for killing a ghoul will be
meaningful, or at the very least there will be some sort of decision that opponents will
be able to make with ghouls and the mechanics surrounding them.
As well, Yorick is still going to be able to duke it out in the front line, and ghouls
are going to last much longer and be more meaningful, as well as probably giving some
gold for opponents when they are killed.
Xelnath also brought up some things that the Yorick rework will most definitely NOT have.
Those things include but are not limited to, short duration ghouls that are attackable,
as well as gameplay that has the illusion of counterplay, and gameplay that punishes
players for attacking ghouls.
The current version of Yorick has all three of those things, and from that it’s pretty
clear that Yorick’s ghouls will not be temporary and short lasting.
They will either be permanent or long lasting and will still be a massive part of his kit,
even moreso than before most likely.
He is also not going to have the same ultimate that he does now, and almost certainly will
get a totally new ability, likely based on interacting with his ghouls.
Yorick’s current ultimate makes the gameplay moments for the Yorick player have a lot of
problems, and the ability is too situational to ever feel good as an ultimate.
Xelnath also mentioned that Yorick will not be a hybrid champion, as one of the things
he has now that causes a lot of hidden power, or creates the illusion of counterplay, as
well as making him confusing to play, is the mixed damage and mixed scaling in his kit.
So yorick will definitely be strictly attack damage or strictly magic damage for sure,
barring some kind of design that forces an exception.
Fast forward a couple years later after the Xelnath forum posts, and Riot Meddler also
commented on the forums a few months back about the Yorick Rework, and shared some of
the design concepts for the Yorick rework.
Meddler said that he will most likely be a Juggernaut type of class, and based off of
his minion theme he will likely have strong pushing power, with good sieging, counter
pushing, or split pushing power, or some combination of the three, and it’s pretty clear that
his character is going to be all about Ghoul Minions and Melee Fighting, and Riot Scruffy
also commented saying that Yorick will be rebuilt from the ground up, with the core
elements that they are going off of for his design being the character of a ghoul summoner
and an imposing melee fighter.
Xelnath also presented about 6 or 7 full example gameplay kits to mess around with ideas for
what he could maybe make Yorick into, and those kits were taken by the Rioters who took
on the Yorick project after Xelnath passed it on, however since it’s literally about
6 complete and fully designed gameplay kits with all 5 abilities made, I’m going to
be taking a look at his potential abilities sometime later this week in a new video, since
I didn’t want to make one 25 minute video talking specifically about yorick, so stay
tuned for that coming in the next few days.
Either way, one thing is pretty clear is that Yorick is very likely going to be the most
significant and gameplay changing rework league of legends has ever seen, and it’s been
in development for a little over 3 years now, so it’s hopefully going to be awesome, and
I can’t wait to play a revamped version of Yorick and try out a more necromancer undead
army summoner kind of guy once he hits the live servers!
Anyway looks like that’s it for me today, if you enjoyed the video drop a like, subscribe
if you want, thanks for watching, and I’ll see you guys next time!