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[ FOLLOWUP ] Mordekaiser Update

RiotStatikk·11/25/2015, 2:39:07 AM·1 votes·42,588 views

Hey all,

We're going to be trying out methods of making our internal design reviews player-facing. These reviews are mostly done on major champion releases, updates, and systems tuning that we roll out. We may dig into our archives for recently released champions as well.

These reviews will probably not be very 'polished' in their presentation, rather, they're meant to be a way of showing how we examine our work. By looking back at our original goals and then examining what's currently working (or not working) in the present day, we can be more transparent about followup changes while also being able to discuss what 'good' looks like.

This is very much an experimental process, but hopefully it proves valuable in the long run. Our first trial is going to be... Mordekaiser.

Goals

  • Solidify Mordekaiser in the Juggernaut space (low mobility, high close-range threat)
  • Offer a different non-Marksman duo lane experience
  • Add new strategic meaning to Dragon

What's Working

  • Strengths / Weaknesses profile aligns with Juggernaut space
  • Provides a different bot lane experience and has unique ally synergies
  • Dragon creates unique and memorable moments

Concerns

  • Extremely early / mid game dominant - lacks true, exponential late game scaling
  • Both Morde and Dragon follow this power curve
  • Too difficult to interact with in lane, due to sustain on top of sustain
  • High AP ratios (especially on R) still leading to Morde being potentially too bursty
  • Q damage ramping is extreme and readability is poor - leads to weird "what happened?" moments on Q3 hits
  • Tankiness is extremely inconsistent (unlike other Juggernauts) due to Passive's scaling with direct damage output - increases snowball dependence
  • Dragon / pet controls are still clunky
  • Experience bonus passive may not be the optimal solution - it is effective and functional, but low in satisfaction and hard to understand

Next Steps

  • Lower sustain early, better damage scaling late
  • Dragon needs more late game relevance and potentially less early game power
  • Flatten Q damage out (more on 1, less on 3) while still preserving the 3rd hit as a big, high moment
  • Increase the importance of effectively utilizing Passive / E to survive in lane and fights

Hopefully this gives you guys a bit more insight into our current thinking on Morde and helps explain the direction we're moving him in with the recent patch.

Feel free to chime in with any thoughts, questions, or concerns.

110 Comments

Wobly11/25/2015, 2:57:54 AM25 votes

Hey,

Leaving aside my personal opinions about the Morde rework, this kind of insight into specific design projects is really interesting to see and helps me feel like I understand what the Riot balance team is thinking as they make changes. I hope you guys keep making this type of post in the Dev Corner.

Nefas11/25/2015, 4:33:33 AM24 votes

Honest question: why is there literally no mention of solo lane Morde in this post?

Malicious Metal11/25/2015, 5:30:35 AM16 votes

As for his "reliance on Ap" Mordekaiser should be AP, he should be the magic damage dealing Juggernaut. I know that his burst pattern didn't exactly make for healthy gameplay but with how his whole no mobility/cc identity pans out for him he has to keep some burst.

Also, I heavily favor AP bruiser builds as have I pre-rework. Rylais is core, now more than ever

Steraks helps him out tremendously seeing that he has to stay in the fray to deal damage as well as his total AD scaling making the 25% increased bade ad delectable

A carry needs some ways to stay alive and that's why i favor Hextech Gunblade. Having hybrid scalings makes him scale really well with it as well as adding a point and click 30 second slow to his kit as well as all the sustain he needs.

On that note; Spirit visage increases said spellvamp and makes him heal for even more with Gunblade, W And ult.

Zhonyas is still too good to pass up

All in all I think Morde's bruiser identity could be reinforced by giving him more base stats to base his tankiness on as well as making him get rewarded for building juggernaut-ish more than pure AP. DON't Remove his ap build but rather make it less attractive compared to a tankier approach.

Also, please fix his solo lane? Not having a W hurts quite a bit.

~MM

Keevalroy11/25/2015, 3:03:59 AM13 votes

Dragon needs more late game relevance and potentially less early game power

Dragon does not need to be involved. It was a neat concept sure, but it's a forced gimmick that reinforces how unbelievably toxic he is when he gets a lead in lane.

Experience bonus passive may not be the optimal solution - it is effective and functional, but low in satisfaction and hard to understand

Well thank christ for that, get him out of bot lane. The rework aggressively pushed him into a lane he doesn't belong in, and over the course of the next few months, until this point, Riot has done all but realize this was a bad idea.

The best case scenario in my eyes would be to remove the experience passive and the stupid dragon ghost, and in turn, continue to buff his base abilities to solidify him as a solo laner.

Malicious Metal11/25/2015, 5:12:36 AM10 votes

There are actually a few things that make Morde feel less like a real Juggernaut, which is him having abysmal base stats on top of having to invest so heavily in tank stats to actually survive fights.

The Q change is one I fully support, it makes less of a cheese factor and gives him a consistent damage threat beyond his third Q The dragon scaling into late game is a great call and his E gives it incentive to max once more.

Now, how to make Morde less "bursty". The worst offender seems to be Children of the grave who pre-rework could potentially reach 70% max hp damage with pure AP builds. Yet, there's more to this ultimate than just damage; -The % damage is necessary for Morde to deal with tanks and squishies alike -The heal is important as a dueling tool and feeds into his shield sustain -The clone is a great way to clean up fights

If you truly want to hit his ultimate one could bring forward the notion that a base damage increase in favor of reduced scaling might be the best course of action.

As for some other grievances; -Mordekaiser's base stats need to be beefed up to fit with other Juggernauts -He has no cc/mobility yet sits at the lowest MS -His solo laning should finally be addressed and put up to snuff -His W's restriction is still way too icky.

Eagleheart11/25/2015, 4:23:09 AM8 votes

I'm going to go and say a few things, and echo some others.

Pushing morde into bot lane was a horrible idea. It's forcing a major gimmick on players and really starving people short who want to play that champion Solo, and have for some time. It'd be like telling Nasus he's now botlane support and he cant Q stack a minion unless someone else reduces it to under 100 HP first in exchange for having his W go and give his ally 10HP per killed minion. You'd kill him entirely, and that's what it felt like you did when you allowed Cert to go and push Morde botlane. I must also point out that this doesn't fit well with the theme of the rest of the juggernauts, which have all been focused on renovating toplane into a more engaging experience. This has made Mordekaiser the odd one out, and it's bizarre.

To remedy this, the thoughts I'd put forward would be:

1: Remove the EXP split and stop balancing him around it, most people who pick morde bot are only doing so because they couldn't go top/mid anyway.

2: Remove the dragon ghost: It's a horrible gimmick, just like the EXP split. Plus, it's limiting his power that he can sometimes go and have a dragon pet for a few seconds at best.

3: Change his shield from being a weird "Ally magnet" into an "Enemy magnet" in that you cast it on an enemy and yourself. Thus the enemy running away from you is slowed and you gain a speed boost. In exchange, remove the healing from detonation and make it a lifesteal on contact. (You are within range of enemy A, they take damage and you heal from that damage.)

These three changes would allow him to go back into the lanes that he has always belonged to: Mid and Top. Doubly so now that mid and top are swamped with mobility focused champions, that W would be a major help.

As for "What I want to build" on morde, There's two options that I think would work out, maybe three.

To start with the "Maybe" build, you could change him into what basically amounts to AD Vladimir. But since we've got Aatrox, this would probably be redundant and boring.

The two that I think would be the most liked would be:

1: Hybrid damage Mordekaiser.

Using your new W as a gapcloser, you can build hybrid to max out your damage and focus more on damage than being a tank. You'd be focused down pretty easily since you're not building much in the way of resistance. Maybe some health through items like item 3022, item 3116 and item 3071 but nothing really major. Not like Mundo going and stacking warmog's.

2: Sustain tank "Death Knight" Mordekaiser.

The other build that I'd probably look into would be sustain mordekaiser. This would use your W as more of a "Find the tank" spell and use it to spellvamp off them while focusing on items that would give you resistances, HP, and Lifesteal/Spellvamp. That way you can keep yourself alive through your damage and act as a sort of "Death knight" from world of warcraft, hence the name.

Right now, I'd never want to play morde since he's outclassed by other tanky supports at the moment. (Taric, Leona, Blitz, etc.) and since his entire kit has been gimped and gimmicked into being in bot lane due to things like wonky EXP splitting and the nigh-worthless dragon pet he cant do much mid or top.

That's my thoughts on the matter. Use them as you will.

CCmi8bSMkW11/25/2015, 12:35:21 PM8 votes

Despite the fact that he's better as duolaner people play him more as both top and mid. (source: champion.gg) Play rate is also less than what it was before the rework.

He is both extremely frustrating to play and to play against. He is INFURIATINGLY clunky to downright maddening level. The slow movement speed, reduced range of the R, the delay on casting E and the change of it's hit detection, the fact that you can't use an entire spell (W) without having an ally near you (try explaining to your support that he needs to stay on your lane just so you can use your spells), the obscure mechanic of the areas having to overlap, the very slow attack frame, and finally the entire ghost mechanic along with many of its frustrating bugs, such as the ghost constantly forgetting your commands for no good reason, all contribute to making him probably the most frustrating champion to play in the game.

Even when he was very strong, people didn't want to play him and rather opted to ban him. I know this is a negative toned post, and I'm sorry for that, but It's painfully obvious that most people don't find Mordekaiser a great champion.

Nymphß11/25/2015, 6:51:28 AM6 votes

Instead of making him go bot, what's wrong with making him a top lane juggernaut like the others?

It may have been a good idea to capitalize on his strengths like I've heard time and time again as a philosophy with champion reworks. Morde was most known for pushing waves and then never dying in teamfights unless focused a.k.a being a juggernaut. Now with the Rift Herald added, perhaps changing his ult to affect it as well could be somthing worth experimenting with. I just feel like he's so out of place bot lane.

Going to the extreme, maybe turn the neutral minion ult into his passive and allow it to work on jungle camps?
Jungle Mordekaiser coming at you with the ghost of Red Buff could be interesting XD

Basically any lane suits him more than bot lane.

Selegun11/25/2015, 7:35:26 PM5 votes

Can I ask a quick question about why Morde has to be a hybrid AD AP champ? Would it be entirely out of the question to give his abilities Armor and MR scaling instead so he can build tanky and still have damage? Maybe I'm just crazy but how I see Morde now is that he is a spirit USING armor to fight and without that armor he wouldn't be able to interact with the world around him.

Neryth11/26/2015, 12:00:18 PM4 votes

I've been playing Mordekaiser since S1, and to be honest, the rework made me very, very sad. Right up until the rework, I was still playing him successfully in top lane at a relatively high range in ranked (low-mid Master). I thought the W change (magnets, how do they work) actually made him good again and made it a lot more fun and interesting to play him, so it was quite a disappointment that solo lane Morde got the treatment that he did in the rework. I've pretty much completely stopped playing him at this point.

The direction of the rework is totally perplexing. The three-hit burst mechanic feels both frustrating to play with and against, the Dragon ghost is either totally overwhelming/snowbally or you never get it because your team is being slowly starved out and denied of objectives (classic season 5 style), and his dependence on teammates for the majority of his W's impact makes it total hell just to lane most games, and incredibly cheesy/easy to double kill the enemy bot in others.

I enjoyed Morde the most when Hextech Gunblade wasn't catering almost exclusively towards Akali, so I could just rush Hextech Gunblade -> Guardian Angel and play as a tanky DPS (EWQ max) while using the slow to catch people out. The way Mordekaiser currently plays feels sort of similar to that, but is fundamentally different due to the amount of power Mordekaiser has with teamwork/coordination (with teammates that he can't control) and his feebleness without it. After the rework, he was even more helpless than AD carries normally were without their support, which was frustrating beyond belief.

I don't think solo lane Mordekaiser can exist in a healthy state while bot lane Mordekaiser is the focus of your balance and design changes. By this point, I think I've moved on. He's just really cheesy in a way that's not healthy or enjoyable, and playing him is less about yourself and more about whether or not someone on your team wants to work with you and baby you, which just feels kind of stupid thematically.

Quality Content11/25/2015, 2:53:44 AM4 votes

It's difficult to build tanky with Mordekaiser when AP itemization doesn't support him very well. He doesn't have a lot of options for health without gimping his damage, and while CDR would help him keep his shield up his options for that got hit pretty hard with the pre-season changes to masteries and lucidity boots.

How do you plan to remedy this?

ZylotheWolfbane11/25/2015, 3:30:19 AM4 votes

I think that one thing that Mordekaiser needs most is more innate tankiness in his base stats. He's one of THE squishiest 'Juggernauts' even WITH his passive shield. His base HP pool especially is frustratingly small compared to the likes of Garen, or Darius, the other Juggernauts.

I think toning down his damage in exchange for more durability would go a long way in helping Morde out.

Subundu11/26/2015, 12:35:23 PM3 votes

Hello everybody!

I am a low elo italian player. First of all i want to say that my english isn't good at all, so i'm sorry for the gramatical mistakes i'll probably do. I've been waiting for this thread and, in general, for anything concerning changes to morde.

As i said i'm low elo, i don't think i can call myself a ""main morde", just a "true morde lover" :)

I felt in love with him since the first time i saw because of all his peculiarities:

  • He's a slow but, when in range, unavoidable death machine;
  • Simply is appearance
  • His waveclear and his unique way to manage lane -the sounds of his old spells
  • His references to metal
  • The possibility for an -after all- squishy champ to 1v5, if well played
  • everything else about him

When i noticed the rework it was a couple of months i hadn't played lol and i started again to see how he became. Well, i was a little disappointed. Yeah, he was op in botlane but...simply he wasn't mordekaiser anymore, in my thoughts...

Everybody knows it, i don't say anything new if I talk about morde as The solo lane champion or about the fact that forcing him botlane maybe was not a good idea.

I know that i am one player in more than a million (and my opinion counts as it) and i haven't any cognition of balancing. I think Riot have the right to make its own choices, even if unpopular. The game is doing well and i appreciate riot's job in keeping it fresh (i don't know if that's the right word :)) and in showing the intelligence to continuously invent something new to improve and diversificate the experience in game.

I also believe that it is in the "smartness" of a good company to recognize its own mistakes and to put a remedy.

I'm not asking you just to bring him back like before rework...it would be the best for me and i think for many morde mains, but maybe it's too much...

My only request is for a "change of direction". Ok, you tried to make a brand new meta, but this thing brought to you more problems than solutions, as we say in Italy...last season he was always banned because of his opness, this season he's always up because every marksman outplay him and patch after patch you have to apply fixes\changes...in my opinion the only meaning is: simply it's not his role...

I don't want to go in any sort of speech about his spells (i just hope that a solution could be find by mainteining his historical kit), there's people who knows this job far better than me. My only wish is that a unique champion could recover his role and identity for the joy and happiness of a lot of users :)...and riot's too, obviously

thank you. A common lol player

ps remember "when the dust has all settled the master of metal is the only thing left to record"

Mordepool11/25/2015, 2:57:04 AM3 votes

You highlight inconsistent tankiness. Fixing the Shield decay rate from almost immediate to more prolonged duration would help. Not last forever obviously

Azirious Mistake11/25/2015, 4:28:02 AM3 votes

I'm not a Morde main but I've played him a bit prior to his rework, the duo lane juggernaut thing was a nice try but cant we just have a mid-lane AP juggernaut instead? I'm not asking for the impossible, am I?

Stars Shaper11/25/2015, 10:58:13 AM3 votes

I wanted to add a concern about this actual thread.

It feels from what you wrote that you are not any step forward compared to what you wanted to address since 4 patches ago. You already made Q damage really less spiky and now Morde feels unable to deliver any kind of noticeable damage unless he gets and ADC ghost, how are you going to make him actually be a treath now outside of Dragon/Ghost?

Pyro11/25/2015, 1:32:34 PM3 votes

Offer a different non-Marksman duo lane experience

Wouldn't it be nice to have a point of comparison to other non-Marksman duo laners? Having Morde being the only alternative seems to be a symptom of a bigger problem (champ needs to be broken to match up with Marksmen).

terkmc11/26/2015, 12:57:29 AM3 votes

His W right just feels bad. The passive is in no way healthy and it drains so much power out of his power budget, while leaving solo lane W incredibly weak and just feels bad to even use, and taking away from his heavy aoe power that was pre-rework Morde and leaving his shield generation lack luster outside of E

Selegun11/25/2015, 4:00:38 AM2 votes

Would it be worth adjusting how his damage is affected by his ult? What I guess I'm trying to get at is instead of a damage over time effect on his ult could you try out a scaling damage per hit on only the cursed enemy? This would give his ult a very 'I choose you to die' feeling while broadcasting to everyone where the damage is intended to go.

As far as increasing the importance of his Passive and E, would it not make sense to lower the shield generation on his E and apply a stacking debuff to targets directly damaging Mordekaiser? I'm not a ghost expert by any stretch but alot of spirit lore I used to be into had spirits that could weaken targets in some capacity so this sort of thing could be right in line for a Revenant.

The Yetii Rider11/25/2015, 8:52:52 PM2 votes

I have a suggestion. You want Mordekaiser to feel good as a marksman who builds Juggernaut items. Riot has also stated that they aren't sure what would be necessary to change the overall game thematic to make marksmen less necessary so they could open up bot lane to more diverse strategy.

Here's my suggestion that may help both issues: Allow champions to deal damage to towers based on their bonus health.

The idea behind Zz'rot Portal was to give tanky split pushers some power to take turrets, but the problem with that is that A) they have to buy the item and B) tanky split pushers don't build attack speed, so even if they're hard to push out of a side lane they need to stay there much longer.

Zz'rot already gives this idea of Health as damage to towers. Why not just make that a core mechanic? If, say, 20% of your bonus health is higher than your total AD or 50% of your AP, you deal that as your tower damage instead. That will make things much easier, and also allow games to close out faster when one team has won a fight but the marksman has fallen.

This would essentially reward tanks for actually lasting out the fight if they're ahead, as well as give them some lane pressure to compete with champions like Tryndamere and Malphite.

The LVL100 Baka11/25/2015, 9:37:51 PM2 votes

This comments in this thread kinda annoy me.

First, before I say anything, yes, I am not an amazing player, probably only low silver. However I play solely with my gold and plat friends so as a group we have a high mmr.

Now, as someone who plays morde in the bot lane and praises it for being very strong, all the duo morde hate gets to me.

So I played this last night against a Lucian/Bard and I had a Naut supp. Mind that I was in a call with everyone on the team, importantly my supp.

I hadn't played morde in a while and all I remembered was to get my supp and w on the wave to almost out heal their damage. I haven't played in a while and it turns out that this doesn't work so well. Come back to lane I focus more on getting cs with e until i can put a second point into w. At this point you heal a ton and can out heal your enemy. Constant harass with e means you start hurting them, more than they do to you.

This is how i think morde plays best. All you need is one successful gank and you're good for the rest of the game.

In terms pf build I build rylai's into full tank. This gives you damage to kill early with enough tank to get into range. Late game with a high ap build I trnd to die immediately in a team fight. This could be becasue I'm awful at squishy champs though.

Maybe making morde tankier early but way less tank late could encourage tank build as you want live a second in a fight. Building ap would simply be too risky.

LaoBushido11/25/2015, 2:47:24 AM2 votes

so your plan with dragon is to scale it with his ult? say it does less damge and duration is shorter type thing at ranks 1 and 2?

Stars Shaper11/25/2015, 8:35:18 AM2 votes

You are analyzing a lot what you want him to be in terms of "single play" but what will his role be in a Team environment? Do you want him to be a kill securer (with the addition of Ghost to make the Teamfight/objective easier to take) or a kill deliverer? (the one who actually does the killing).

Right now if we stretch a bit what you want him to be (a slow guy who needs to be in melee for building up his damage relying on his team for that to happen) I honestly fear we'll get a champion whose work can be done from every1 else but better because they are more focused on one other aspect of the game.

As a matter of damage control, improved tankyness I have some suggestions that would require minor changes to what he currently has as kit:

  • Make his Q damage scale with the enemy missing HP adjusting other kind of scaling, this could help lowering the spike damage plus giving him a reliable source of damage without building fully offensive.
  • Make his shield give him tenacity or (if that isn't the case already) make it so damage mitigated by it is first mitigated by armor/mr.

I hope this thread is still going because my time zone won't make me able to join discussions in the time you held this.

Kürama11/25/2015, 2:53:40 AM2 votes

Not a Morde main, don't even play Morde frequently, but I'm happy that for all the Morde players! Thanks Statikk and Riot!