Help me decide on Yrel vs. Leoric

General Discussion
1

I have 10k gold, and I’m thinkin’ two things about my next hero purchase.

It’s Yrel vs. Leoric.

I want to buy Yrel. I know from experience that she is fun and useful. She’s more defense/punishment oriented than Leoric as he is more suited to aggression, and yet there is overlap between them. She can provide damage reduction or increased control or damage at level 13, and Leoric can provide even stronger damage reduction or immense HP-shredding power. She offers the ability to chunk the backline and control the frontline, he offers the ability to chunk the front and backline. She has game-changing engages early with displacement/stun, while his E button or his damage lategame allow him to make gamechanging engages at will and he has Entomb or March. She is to a degree countered by CC, he is… not. They both doublesoak. She beats him in lane. She can support her team with armor or healing or a near-cleanse. Leoric just craps out damage all over everything. Leoric can ride the frontline into the dirt. Leoric can move right past the frontline and make huge engagements on the entire enemy team with near impunity and can come close to solo-wiping an entire team.

Help me decide. Is Yrel more applicable to more drafts? They both have a hard time with Malthael. My heart says I would enjoy Yrel but my entire body screams that Leoric is decadently disrespectful. They are different heroes. Part of me wants to give Yrel a chance, because I know she is good. The other part of me knows Leoric is the Skeleton King.

2

I think Leo is stronger RN. He’s impossible to gank and has massive impact in teamfights with Entomb. His damage reduction and/or tank killing powers are also amazing.

7 Likes
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If you’re Diamond + player I’d say go for Yrel.
Other than that I find Leoric generally more flexible choice. He doesn’t have the disruptive ability that Yrel does, and no hard CC, but he Scales extremely well.
Yrel needs a higher degree of team chemistry and coordination to actually be useful which is rare to find below Master.

4 Likes
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Long time Leoric player here. Leoric’s role has changed over the years, from main tank / lane pusher / duelist to his current incarnation.

Leoric’s strongest attribute is not his HP shred or wave clear. It’s his “unstoppable” effect. This means that against teams with strong lockdown, Leoric is your best counter. So if you’re fighting Diablo, Garrosh, KTZ, Arthas, ETC, Xul, etc. etc. Leoric is a strong choice.

3 Likes
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I think this sums it up. When I play with on my main account or with my friends I largely prefer Yrel except in instances where Leoric is a strong counterpick. She feels insanely strong when you can isolate people/disrupt enemy teams from following up on an engage or trying to help their isolated teammate, and coordinate huge engages off of E which is a potent and very available slow.

But then when I’m playing accounts like this one, Yrel seems to have so much less impact. Peoples’ reaction times barely kick in by the time her disruption has come and gone, yielding few results for her efforts while the one-man Skeleton King army mops up enemies en masse, leaving his clueless gold teammates to watch his majesty watch with jaws ajar.

I think I have made my decision. Itadakimasu, senpai.

3 Likes
6

I would have said yrel 100% before but not so sure now that you can get to level 20 even when losing all game and get buried alive almost always.
On an unrelated note, is leoric still at 10k golds?

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7k

8

Leoric because he has sturdy calcium-rich bones, and he can take a beating

3 Likes
9

My vote is for Leoric. He is more useful in more situations.

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10

Yrel isn’t fun and isn’t a very good solo laner anymore.

Leoric is both of those things that she isn’t.

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11

Honestly I think she can be great fun. She has a very altruistic vibe with burst-healing allies and good teamfight control that is especially good at peeling, but can also be used aggressively. And all of her utilities combine into a really useful package that is fun to get into flow with.

Leoric is a god king though

2 Likes
12

I would have said Yrel because you said you know for a fact she is fun where as you might hate Leoric and feel like you wasted the gold but whatever choice you made I hope it was the right one. :slight_smile:

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13

You guys made me want to give Leoric another try after years of neglect. Can you recommend a build?

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14

I prefer Yrel as I like the ability to play make and you’d be surprised how effectively randos in QM can respond to her CC. You just maybe have to pick a less than ideal target occasionally rather than the preferred one, based on enemy overextension or your teams focus. In early game team fights she is a bit of a monster due to the chaos. You either get to charge E with impunity and then DW to pick a target for high kill chance, or the enemies hold back due to the wings and thus allow your team plenty of poke.

She’s not the best solo laner but nowhere near bad. Maraads insight and Liberal use of Q make her sustain very good. She can’t out and out bully off the lane as well as others but she can play a long wear and tear pretty well. She’s also quite hard to gank if you save your D when solo laning for E.

Also like Leo Yrel can wade right Into the dirt if you pick her absorb heroic. Sometimes those three seconds is all you need to soak the big bad nukes. Not as consistent, but as game progresses you need impact more than availability arguably. And her heroic is big impact if used correctly.

The one thing is leo doesn’t need team mates to maximise play. They help secure, but not necessary to do so. Yrel needs team mates to secure kills unless your opponent is quite poor. I would argue that of course whilst Yrel benefits from team comm to shine to highest potential, you don’t need premade comma to get decent play from her, just teammates who aren’t complete idiots. I only play in QM atm and I’ve had just about equal of poorer games with her and games where I’ve done very well and got plenty of up votes and praise.

1 Like
15

I love Leo, he is hilarious and then really frightening lategame. I like both heroes a lot.

I agree. My experience with her is one of confidence, but you can’t always make enough of a difference to get the consistent carry wins that you can with low MMR Leo, for the reason you say. I ended up going with Leo but she’s going to be my next one. I need some good bruisers to play for times where Samuro doesn’t look good or I just don’t feel like playing him

Ossein Renewal 30% heal
Kneel, Peasants! Q waveclear
Willing Vessel increased healing from W
Entomb/March depending on setup-ability/raw damage needs
Ominous Wraith 50% damage reduction
Royal Focus E cdr, Q damage increase
Buried Alive/any: entomb silence or damage/shield w/e

1/4 you can change depending on need for over-time sustain vs. burst sustain, doublesoak needs. Often the Q range on 4 is good for TF+synergy with Q heal@1. 13-16 you change depending on if you can get away with Spectral Leech + Mithril Mace, 2.5% hp on cleaving* autos with twice the damage returned as healing + eventual 50% increased attack speed soon after selecting 16. It’s absurdly good at taking out high-HP teams that can’t do anything about you ramming them with rapid high-lifeleech autos. You can literally walk up to Diablo while he lightning breaths you and win the trade it’s braindead. Otherwise damage reduction 13+RF is insane for teamfights, nearly guaranteed value + huge engages. Some like W build sometimes, i’m not the person to talk to about that one

1 Like
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I still find it wierd yrel is classed as a bruiser. To me she doesn’t have the offensive presence of other bruisers. If an assassin isn’t nearby yrel has a low chance of killing someone unless they don’t know how or when to back off.

I mean she’s alright at duelling but lacks the damage speed to do it as well as others and her highlights she brings to duelling (like R2) can be played around quite easily. Other bruisers tends to one on one reasonably well. Yrel is limited as her opponent will typically kill her first due to how low her damage is (provided they actually attempt to dodge and interrupt her).

I find myself playing her like a tank, just that she’s good for burst tanking rather than long sustained tanking (in large team fights). I really don’t get bruiser from her, but she’s fun to play none the less.

I’d say blaze is more of a bruiser than her. But he’s classed as a tank.

17

Brother, all his talents are good. There’s no set build except leech and mithril.
It’s just looking for synergies with talents verses counterpicking what your opponents are playing.

For instance, you’re fighting an artanis. Usually you’d lose that fight but in actuality you clear far faster than him and can keep the sustain up while you clear, but he dashes away to break your leash, what do you do? Grab hopelessness at 7 to increase the range so he has to walk away from you and dash, letting you clear the wave.

Stuff like that.

1 Like
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LoL I diamond 2 and very rare see yrel, and if a team take yrel always lose :rofl: She now too weak

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Thanks all, I played Leoric today and went drain hope build. Went fantastic, and more importantly, it was a lot of fun.
Will try him more often now.

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Leo is probably more disruptive than yrel with the constant teamwide slows and damage reduction. Yrel just goomba stomps people and peels

OT:

Leo is probably stronger than Yrel rn, though the recent buffs did overtune her a little bit.