The Leona patch was a bit of a botch job, as I’m sure everyone is well aware at this point. Not only did she not launch, the patch also brought down the servers, led to Yorick being pulled from live for a bit, and generally made people pretty unhappy. Riot has said that Leona will be going live this week, which could mean as early as tomorrow. I wouldn’t count on it, though.
Apparently Leona’s being held up due to some technical issues, which likely means Riot will need to spend at least a little bit of time assessing her effect on the servers now that the rest of the patch has been rolled out. I doubt that happened over the weekend. Riot will likely take the day tomorrow to do some final testing and we’ll see her on Tuesday.
To pass the time, I’ve been finishing up my Shaco games for the week and thinking about next week’s Champ of the Week. I’m still not sure who that will be – I might contrast him against another melee jungler just for kicks, but I wouldn’t mind getting back to the lane, either.
I saved my Yorick impression post for late in the evening because I figured Riot would have to weigh in on his current status. Most everyone is claiming that he is horribly underpowered, and for the most part I have to agree. His early game is incredibly lacking and he is highly reliant on a strong team comp to maximize his potential. That said, late in the game with the right comp he does pump out some damage. Riot recognizes his relative weakness and has already stated that he’s going to receive a buff, but we all know that won’t stop me from sharing an opinion or three.
One of the biggest problems I’ve had with Yorick is his damage output from level one to eleven. The burst from his ghouls seems just barely too low, mostly because he doesn’t have the damage to improve them for quite some time. They also die fairly quickly, which isn’t a big problem when they don’t deal much damage but becomes a larger issue in the mid game. I think a mana cost reduction would also help a lot here, and I’m glad to see that Riot is considering that sort of adjustment.
The other major issue plaguing (yeah, I did it) Yorick is the design around his ultimate. Pet design that is based around champion clones feels misguided at the very least. The scaling gets really hard to manage late game and can even be overwhelming in the early game. When a jungler comes around for a gank and Yorick also ults, the 4v2 is frustrating. I haven’t felt outplayed by a Yorick yet, just outnumbered (only by his ult, the ghouls die too fast to really matter), which is pretty boring. Getting outplayed is a good thing – it teaches me how to play better. I wish he had something that felt more skill based.
One of the biggest problems facing Yorick, at least for me, is that he’s following Orianna. I’m starting to realize just how perfect a champion release Orianna was. She’s a blast to play, fairly difficult to pick up, and strong with a quality team around her. She takes more than one game to learn and a whole bunch of games to master, both of which are great things for a champion. Her design makes me want to get better with her, while Yorick’s design just makes me wish he was better. Hopefully the upcoming buff will give him a little boost in the early game.
It looks like I was wrong about the Yorick release schedule. We got the “champion approaches” post today, which usually means he’ll be out in the next week. While there certainly are a solid number of Rioters overseas, there are also quite a few on domestic soil, working to keep the game going. Hopefully that will translate into Yorick’s release on Tuesday.
Omen of War: Yorick’s next attack will deal bonus physical damage and summon a Spectral Ghoul that deals additional damage and moves faster than Yorick’s other ghouls. While the Spectral Ghoul is alive, Yorick moves faster as well.
Omen of Pestilence: Yorick summons a Decaying Ghoul that arrives with a violent explosion, dealing damage and slowing nearby enemies. While the Decaying Ghoul remains alive, nearby enemies continue to be slowed.
Omen of Famine: Yorick steals life from his target and summons a Ravenous Ghoul that heals Yorick for the damage it deals.
Omen of Death (Ultimate): Yorick conjures a revenant in the image of one of his allies. If his ally dies while its revenant is alive, the revenant sacrifices itself to reanimate them and give them time to enact vengeance.
Unholy Covenant (Passive): Yorick’s attacks deal more damage for each summon that is active. Meanwhile, Yorick’s ghouls deal some percent of Yorick’s Attack Damage and have some percent of his total health.
I mentioned the other day that I wasn’t as worried about Yorick as I have been about Mordekaiser, but I am a bit worried that his passive will allow him to snowball in lane the way that Mordekaiser does. If his ghouls get too tanky, too quickly, he’ll be able to zone just about anyone out of lane while sustaining himself with a healing ghoul. I am glad to see that the collision ignore has been removed from Omen of War.
Morello dropped by the announcement forums today to give us a mini-preview of Yorick’s playstyle and ability set. Riot also released the art spotlight, which you can see above. I’m actually very excited to see Yorick on the Fields of Justice, much more so than the other Tanky DPS in the game, and mostly because I think he’ll be a bit different. Granted, I still think he’s going to be nasty in lane, but his ultimate sounds kinda cool without being the mess that is Mordekaiser’s Children of the Grave.
Yorick deals damage in lane by summoning minions that have both immediate and persistent effects. One minion deals damage in an AoE and slows nearby targets but also leaves behind a ghoul that slows nearby units. The ghouls have a limited life span that can be further shortened based on the damage they receive.
Yorick’s ultimate, Omen of Death, allows him to create a revenant of a still-living ally. If the ally dies while the revenant is up, that player is revived for a short period of undeath, during which I can only assume that player has control of his/her character again for a short time. It sounds less punitive than some deaths to Mordekaiser can be – often turning a fight into a 6v4 – while still being strong enough to warrant its use. I’ll be interested to see the different shenanigans people find for this ult.
Don’t forget, Yorick isn’t due out until Dreamhack is over, which I would assume means the Tuesday after next.
Riot has graciously stepped onto the E3 news scene with its own explanations of the champions and features in development for League of Legends. Thank god. That Gamespot video just wasn’t cutting it.
The video rehashes a lot of the information I’ve put together on Yorick, Leona, and Skarner, though Paul Bellezza did expand on Skarner’s design direction a bit. In case there was any doubt, it looks like Tanky DPS is here to stay. Bellezza called Yorick a “tanky fighter” who can “pretty much tank down anyone.” Skarner is a “vicious and aggressive fighter tank” (the extent to which that’s different from a tanky fighter is unclear) who allows you to “focus on enemies and the more you attack them, the more you debuff them and are able to take them down.” Wedged in between these two is an archetypal tank with some crowd control abilities. If ever there was a bad time to be a squishy, July and August will surely top it.
I’m hoping that those releases will also come with some itemization/character updates that help deal with Tanky DPS. The idea behind tankier champions is a fine one – longer fights means you get to play the game more – but when it comes at the expense of so many characters and when so much of the playstyle revolves around skills like Jarvan’s passive, the gameplay isn’t very fun. This is the big reason I don’t play Tanky DPS toons – they aren’t enjoyable. It’s fun to get a ranged carry farmed up and burn through enemies. It’s fun to drop Tibbers on a group of opponents and see huge chunks of health fly off. If Riot can find a way to make these longer fights similarly enjoyable, I’ll gladly take the addition of more Tanky DPS champions to the League.
