The BEST Farming Champion
Welcome to my guide on how to itemize on Yorick. This will be aimed at beginners who are just picking him up for the first time, but even Yorick mains may learn something new.
For the fundamentals of playing the champion you can check a video guide at the bottom of this page.
Yorick is actually very straight forward in terms of builds, you will be running lethality probably 100% of the time. There is a bruiser build that is viable but it's never actually better than lethality. You will also be taking Flash + Teleport every single game.
Rune Options
You take this setup vs champions that will fight you early game to give you a chance to retaliate.
Only things you should look to change is Legend: Alacrity for Legend: Tenacity if they have an enemy team with full Crowd Control; as for your secondary runes, take Second Wind against ranged champs and Bone Plating vs melees.
Early game items
Even against Ranged champions you will have a lot of healing using this so there is 0 scenarios where you don't start Doran's Blade.
The AloisNL certified first item is Profane Hydra, so we are looking to rush that to get 10-12cs per minute.
These are your possible early game purchases when you reset:
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At 1000 gold: Serrated Dirk. Really good early game spike but will delay your Profane Hydra
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At 1250 gold: Pickaxe + Longsword. Lots of Attack Damage and builds into your first item.
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At 1350 gold: The Brutalizer. Main component that gives AD and Lethality.
You DO NOT want to buy Tiamat early game since it makes wave management harder while giving very little AD for the cost.
Core build
Your go-to every game will be Profane Hydra into Opportunity combo. This is your happy meal.
After them, your next item will depend on how much **Armor ** the opponents have.
Profane Hydra is what lets you waveclear super fast and efficiently to easily reach over 10 cs per minute.
Opportunity gives amazing stats that make your life a lot easier. Bunch of damage and some movement speed to run around so your Wife and kids can beat people up.
Yorick Full Builds
This is what a 5 item Yorick looks like with full explanations for each item purchase
For my early game recalls you can see how I prioritize getting as much damage as possible while actively avoiding the Tiamat purchase. Since I got an early lead there's kill pressure, so buying Serrated Dirk is good here even if it delays my first item.
The second item Spear of Shojin looks very weird based on what I've written in this guide, but it works as a great example of the flexibility you should have when buying items. At that specific recall I had 3100 gold in my pocket which was exactly the cost of the item, this made it a much better purchase than completing dirk. WIth me being ahead by 3-5k gold having defensive stats like Spear of Shojin's HP I'm more likely to keep getting fed without dying. I'm essentially a full item ahead the entire enemy team which made Shojin "free".
Afterwards the build carries on how it would've were I not this fed. Opportunity into Serylda's Grudge. I will point out that if I wasn't this far ahead in gold, Serylda's would most likely be my 4th item and I would have either Shojin or Edge of Night, which I bought as a last item.
The biggest thing to takeaway here is that once you are fed you should focus on getting defensive items so you can stay fed.
A 6 item example for a First Strike build.
The only reason I rushed Eclipse was that I was missing 200 gold for Profane Hydra and more than enough to complete Eclipse. With the early recalls I mentioned at the start of the guide you will have this option in your games. In this situation I opted for Eclipse so that I could snowball, having a bunch of components would be worse in that scenario. This is kind of a risky move but definitely a route to consider.
Build is completely standard afterwards. Profane Hydra since it lets me waveclear really fast, Opportunity as my main Lethality item, Serylda's Grudge for the armor pen and amazing synergy, Edge of Night since it's the best (and only) defensive item that gives Lethality and Youmoo's Ghostblade since it gives Movement Speed and I had to sell my boots in order to buy it.