How is top trundle? He seems like a good counter to jax.
Trundle is a great top laner against most melee's, but he's not a good first-pick as he is prone to being kited. You don't want to risk running into a nightmarish top lane; Kennen, Karma, Quinn and a good Elise for instance are practically untouchable without help, among others. A Rengar who maxes his Bola Strike first is also painful if you ended up getting a Doran's Shield as your starting item. His only form of self-defense against that kind of opposition is enduring the punishment with your sustain and eventually becoming a brick wall of a splitpusher / dueler once you've reached a certain item threshold, never mind his splendid teamfight potential.
Blade of the Ruined King or Hydra are his go-to lifesteal items. The former for when you can continuously auto-attack multiple enemies or a key target (dependant on their mobility or kite abilities) in prolonged teamfights, the latter is the enemy tends to clump up during skirmishes / for faster split-pushing. I do not recommend outright rushing either of those unless you're really fed, since you're generally better off getting some health along the way. Phage (Trinity Force is a big power spike) and Spectre's Cowl (Spirit Visage is a must) are fine, and there's always the Giant's Belt for a Randuin's Omen down the road. Alternative items to consider:
- Frozen Mallet for when you just want to indefinitely slow someone down if you're better off tanking up when your team already has high damage output.
- Iceborn Gauntlet isn't terrible on him, but I prefer the above since I tend to purchase armor and cooldown reduction elsewhere.
- Frozen Heart if you have enough health and want to reach 40% CDR in conjunction with Spirit Visage.
- Zeke's Herald for those games where everyone does AD damage and can auto-attack. Far from a fantastic item, but it gives you additional health / lifesteal / another 20% CDR at least.
- Hexdrinker or Wit's End if you need more MR beyond Spirit Visage.
- Never go Sunfire Cape. Seriously. Shit sucks.
R > Q > W > E in lane for skill max priorities. However, you don't need to pump all your points into W to manhandle most melee's once you get ahead; sometimes the lower cooldown and increased slow (up to 50%) of a ranked-up Pillar is more valuable for dueling / teamfighting when you're already winning. You'd be surprised just how low the cooldown on his Pillar is with CDR, never mind his Ultimate. Nothing out of the ordinary rune-wise (2 lifesteal quints minimum though) and just grab whichever masteries suit your tastes.
Shyvanna, Susan, Jax, Renekton, Aatrox, Lee Sin et cetera all lose to Trundle if played correctly; they cannot directly fight you easily and you either scale just as well with items or much better if you're facing a wet noodle like Shen. Riven might be tricky due to how her kit works and Tryndamere
ought to be fine unless you're unlucky with early crits, but truth to be told I haven't experienced either match-up too often yet. He's a vastly better counter-pick against Yorick now than he was in Season 2 (common misconception back then), too.
I love playing Zac.. shame a fed Zac can't do anything :/
What? A fed Zac is a solid asset to any team given his engage/disengage and tanking capability.
It only seems like a fed Zac can't do much lately since all of them resorted to rushing Sunfire Cape no matter what like brainless sheep. Now if they bought items that weren't flat-out awful...
Yorick is so broken omg... just a chore to play against. Absurd sustain and poke.
Who do you play as? As one of my mains, Yorick hasn't been 'broken' for a long time now, and he's easier to deal with than many make him out to be.
The problem with him is that his enemies drastically overvalue him. 99% of whoever picks Yorick does not build him correctly (skill speccing included), largely due to bad habits inherited from Season 2 (Manamune + Spirit Visage rush). Riot actually turned the latter into a strong item though, whereas an eventual Muramana remains a trap for Yorick despite the gold / stat efficiency it offers today. What do most opposing laners do though as soon as he gets a Tear? They... back off, even though Yorick bought an item that throws away his immediate gold advantage (should he get an early kill or cs lead) in favor of fragility that turns into an ill-advised late game item. And he still runs out of mana anyways while ignorantly pushing his creep wave if he's spamming his ghouls, should he be maxing E > W.
Unless you chose a laner with a less-than-stellar early game (Vladimir, Nidalee, Susan come to mind), just go in and look to outtrade him relentlessly while maintaining bush control. With Tear he's a squishy melee with no proper escape with regards to a gapclosing ability, and he's very much susceptible to strong all-ins. Darius, pre-rework Olaf, Wukong, Akali, Lee Sin; many times have I seen them die to Yorick during the first few levels (mostly due to a level 3 ganks or bad calls admittedly) as they're favorable match-ups for the gravedigger, yet come level 6 (sometimes even earlier) they completely turn it around because they didn't waste their gold handicapping their own growth. It only gets worse for Tear Yoricks from there. Now imagine doing that with a laner that's strong at level 1. Or better yet; imagine a jungler backing you up, because with the 'favored' build he's one of the easiest gank targets a top laner / jungler could ever ask for. Which is how it should be, since they're willingly putting themselves into harm's way for needless amounts of mana.
If none of the above is possible, just focus on farming up and getting proper items for teamfights. Most Yoricks don't know what to do with themselves, so it's a win-win depending on your champion pick and how well said pick scales or transitions. Even competitive teams that participated in major tournaments / LCS fall for these same traps when they use Yorick, and each time I've seen them lose in lane (through itemization / 1 vs 1'ing) or virtually be a non-factor in teamfights the rare game where they do succeed.
Bottom line: if your champion can duel, show nothing but contempt for Tear Yorick. Badger your jungler into camping a free gold lane as well if he doesn't realize it himself, especially if you have strong CC.
Just don't pick Elise though, she's pretty much screwed against the guy.
Nasus stomps Yorick, just by the virtue of shrugging off harass and outscaling him. Free Qs are just icing on the cake.
Susan has a hard time against a sensible Yorick from early to mid game, but you're right about Susan scaling better in terms of raw damage. Cho'gath (max Vorpal Spikes first) or Trundle would be safer 'counter-picks' overall, since they're never really threatened by Yorick either way.
