Why is it so hard to balance Mord?

FancyKiwi·Sep 9, 2015·2 votes·379 views

Now I've only ever played Mord once or twice during his free week so this is as someone outside looking in. I played against him every now and then before the rework. He seemed to have a straight forward kit. An auto attack with some AoE, a armor and magic resist boost that does AoE damage around the target, a AoE nuke and a never ending DoT mark that makes a pet if the victim dies. The only thing that seemed crazy on him was trying to get through his passive shield felt like trying to break down a wall. What about him makes him so hard to make viable?

13 Comments

MisterHealYoGirlSep 9, 20153 votes

No CC and no gap closers, in a lane dominated by ranged opponents.

DragonSheaSep 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

No CC and no gap closers, in a lane dominated by ranged opponents.

then being tanky should be what does the job.

MisterHealYoGirlSep 10, 20151 votes

Lategame, sure, but if you fall behind in lane, you're completely screwed, since they basically have free rein to harass you, and your W heal is NOT going to cut it against a Caitlyn/Sona lane.

DragonSheaSep 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Lategame, sure, but if you fall behind in lane, you're completely screwed, since they basically have free rein to harass you, and your W heal is NOT going to cut it against a Caitlyn/Sona lane.

True. Placing Morde in bot lane while nerfing his solo lane power was a dumb thing to do. because he doesn't either have the tankyness(at early game) or the utility to work in bot.

MarthianSep 10, 20151 votes

Take a good support like Leona or Thresh, and that weakness is gone. Not to mention Morde outscales the other lane so hard early game and outside of being poked super hard (extremely high risk if they have a support to punish you for it), he's impossible to force out of lane. Come level 6 (Which he hits BEFORE you almost always) and he gets dragon, he COMPLETELY forces you out of lane (You can't even stay under turret since it's so insanely tanky and deals a lot of damage.)

And it's not hard to start tanky as morde either. Seen a lot of mordes start tanky, take next to nothing from poke, and still crush the carry due to his insane Q damage.

MisterHealYoGirlSep 10, 20151 votes

Hard engage supports with tons of CC (Leona, Nautilus, Thresh, maybe Blitz) definitely help, but he's still vulnerable in the laning phase.

MarthianSep 10, 20151 votes

Not very. I ended up in a game against a Mordekaiser we forced under turret and kept poking him under there (Zyra and Ezreal). His annie support was afk.

Not only did he never die or recall, a bit later around level 8, he gets a kill on Ezreal when Morde had very little damage built. As mentioned, it's not hard to go tanky as morde and be impossible to force out.

He doesn't have a vulnerable laning phase, his whole laning phase WAS DESIGNED to counter most issues of standard ADC bot lanes. (and he does that too well.)

He does have issues still, such as if the other team survives that nightmarish laning phase, he falls off. That's not fun for him, and it's especially no fun for ADC's early game. You face off against competent Morde and his support, it's impossible to punish them for anything, to the point if you can't make any damage stick, there's no point in trying to interact with Morde and his support, which is the one of the worst situations for gameplay.

The rework was basically a fail. (In general, that whole patch was an awful mess. For ADCs, it hit non-meta ADCs harder than it did meta carries like Vayne, Jinx, Sivir, Ashe, or Draven, all of which weren't affected much by it to begin with.)

Big LincolnSep 9, 20151 votes

his gameplay pattern revolves entirely around his Q so it creates a strange case of high reward and high frustration that other champs don't really have to deal with

there's not really any in-between with him any more. you either smash hard or you fail

on the upside, he's a lot more threatening when behind (sort of) beyond hoping his team will kill whoever he picks with his ult; a Mordekaiser who's behind in gold, maybe even levels, still exerts force in teamfights by being a good damage soak and fighting the enemy front line

DarthSpectrumSep 10, 20151 votes

Pre-rework was kinda bland. He was an immobile champion with short ranged abilities and no CC. Almost every other champion have one of these attributes: Mobility, Range, or CC.

Pre-rework Garen , one of the easily kited champions in League had a reliable slow cleanse and MS boost. DrMundo , another immobile champion, can perma-slow a target if he landed his cleavers and has a MS boost on his ultimate.

Mordekaiser is seemingly left entirely out of the water because his Ghost ultimate is so powerful. It potentially turns a 5 v 5 to a 6 v 4.

Old Mordekaiser was boring to play, and boring to play against. His abilities are all basically targeted, if you get in to his range, he kills you, if you don't he can't kill you. Fighting him is basically a stat check,

However, new Morde really isn't better. Rather than giving him something so he can be viable no matter what, Riot made him even more gimmicky. First, his EXP gimmick means that he essentially win lanes by going even. His W healing gives unparalleled sustain in lane. His Q gimmick can one shot most champions early on, and perhaps even late game. However, if he mis-use it, he has no kill potential until it is back up. His ultimate Ghost gimmick is even more powerful now that he can ghost the dragon.

Fighting new Mordekaiser is a guaranteed loss unless you can bait out his OP abilities. Otherwise, he will 100-0 you with R, Flash, third Q.

But if we nerf his Q, exp bonus, or R, he becomes suddenly useless. The rest of his kit still is in the same spot as before the rework. It is hard to balance new Mord. If he gets close to a ranged champion right now, he will win almost 100% of the time. The times he loses the fight is when he can't get to his target and kill him/her in one hit. However, if you remove or tone down his 900% AP/AD scaling, suddenly getting close to someone is a lot more risky.

DragonSheaSep 10, 20151 votes

TL:DR Morde Needs a more Polished Kit and Riot REALLY need to make him a slow moving machine of death.

Personally I think it's because Morde is such a simple Champion. His main shindig is Walk up and fuck up anyone within his reach 7 ways to sunday. In one sense You could be buffing morde into being good but he would then be too good, and vice versa. Personally as a morde player, He should have been designed in a way which he is somewhat weak Early game, but scales up well, with high late game base stats and medicore ability scaling as to not make him a snowballing champ as well as not making him too Item dependent. Pre-Juggernaut, Morde had too much AoE, he was a monster pusher and I would end games at around 15-19 mins when I was winning lanes because minions were dropping like flies. Now Morde feels really broken, as if CertainlyT Took a hammer and smashed Morde into pieces. The Hybrid scale was a good idea as well as the dragon ghost. But the really issue this that it playing morde more wonky than before.

Morde being the definition of a Mighty Glacier as what is appealing about him. Him being slow but tough and a heavy hitter is something that is part of his playstyle, having being jumped by an assassin is certain death for some more fragile champs but for Morde it should be an "issue to a challenge". So He should be a Champ that Assassins need to think Twice about jumping him. Also if he is a doing to be a the bot lane then he needs something that is gonna buff his utility, Harvester of Sorrows(HoS) needs to be a self cast that works on any ally but is also going to benefit Morde. For one I think It should give Him some health when minions or allies that dies under the effect of his W. Either way his W should either return to being Creeping death or HoS needs an revamp. His Q is good for trading but most of the damage(69%) is on the third hit. Morde's Q should be Dealing 80% of the total damage on the first hit and 120 on the last or else he would miss out on dealing a truck load of damage and have to wait until his Q's CD was finished.

EIther way these are just my opinions him as a Mordekaiser player.

Maximum MordeSep 10, 20151 votes

Because his mace and armor weigh a ton. I mean have you seen it? That's gotta be tough to balance, both the armor and the mace look pretty top heavy to me.

101100111000Sep 10, 20151 votes

Mordekaiser gets a solo lane xp curve in a duo lane, so every Mordekaiser is basically hellbent on winning the game as quickly as possible, because they ALWAYS have an xp advantage.

Then he has a 3x on top of a 3x damage modifier on a single-target ability.

They put random crap into his kit to make him more "interesting" when all they're doing is creating more and more cancerous gameplay where your extra advantage comes from simply playing a duo lane.

MarthianSep 10, 20151 votes

Lots of reasons. Some of the biggest ones lie in basically getting a free champion on your team when things go right (not to mention screw the other team and make it a 6v4), and being manaless.