[Suggestion] Mordekaiser Changes, Upcoming and Future

As a big melee fan, I'm glad to see Mordekaiser getting some changes.

I think moving him away from damage and more towards tank/utility seems like the right idea. He never really seemed like someone who should be able to show up, magic you to death by waving his hand and laughing over your head. As fun as burst-assassin Mord was, I don't think it was the best he could be.

I saw the patch rundown and liked that the balance dudes mentioned they adopted the "help you help me" approach with W. The upcoming changes seems pretty reasonable so far and fit the whole less damage more tank but I'm surprised to see the Ultimate untouched.

Mordekaiser's original fantasy was about sickness and his ultimate is/was the in-game manifestation of that. He curses someone with a sickness that slowly wears them down and if they succumb to it they are enslaved; I thought that was a pretty neat idea and it was the reason I picked him up back in 2009 so that I could go feed for a few games.

Mordekaiser's thing, niche, trademark, is that he can give you an extra member right? Now that he's being moved into more of a tank role, why not make the ultimate less selfish?

What do you mean selfish? He ults to steal HP and deal damage, some on-cast and more over-time. If he happens to be alive when his target keels over, he gets a friend.

Is that tank or assassin? It's like halfway of both while also being neither. I'd imagine a tanky Mordekaiser should still be ult-centric but in a different way. Mordekaiser's teammates' motivation to hit the ult'd target shouldn't just be to maybe get a friend. There should/could be more interesting interactions here.

The basic concept for Mordekaiser's ult should stay as follows:

Mordekaiser curses a target champion. If the target dies while cursed, they are enslaved. Morde gains ... stats, ghost gains ... stats.

I think the heal and damage component should be altered to allow more diverse target selection. Fizz and Zed mark a target for themselves; Mordekaiser should mark a target for the entire team.

Possible defensive self-utility: 1. On-cast, Mordekaiser's shield is fully-charged. If the shield is already partially or fully-charged, Mordekaiser recovers health equal to the difference. 2. While the curse persists, Mordekaiser's shield bar does not decay automatically while out-of-combat. 3. The cursed target deals a % less damage to Mordekaiser.

Possible defensive team-utility: 1. Mordekaiser's gains shield whenever the cursed target takes damage from champions. (This way Mord could ult a Sion in his backline and cause trouble for the enemy team while they deal with it.) 2. Mordekaiser and allied champions heal for a % of the damage dealt to the cursed target. (Might help an ally or the team turn a fight around after a poor start) 3. The cursed target has their attack speed slowed when attacking and their movement speed slowed when moving towards Mordekaiser or his allies.

Possible offensive utility: 1. The cursed target is stunned for 0.5s any time they take damage greater or equal to 20% of their maximum HP. 2. The cursed target is slowed by % for 1s when damaged by a champion. 3. When damaged by a champion, the cursed target takes extra damage equal to the relevant resistance. (n.b. if the target takes physical damage and has 100 armour they would take an extra 100 physical damage, 50 after damage reduction) 4. If Mordekaiser is killed by someone other than the cursed target, the cursed target takes damage. 5. The cursed target suffers the same CC effects as Mordekaiser. 6. If the cursed target's HP falls to a certain %, they die immediately.

Possible miscellaneous utility: 1. All positive status effects are disabled on the cursed target and rendered ineffective for the duration of the curse. 2. Healing effects on the cursed target will damage them instead. 3. Shields placed on the cursed target are only 50% effective. (n.b. Would only affect magic shield value and duration of Black Shield but not the spell immunity, only affects Intervention's duration.) 4. Disables summoner spells and items (except QSS) for the duration of the curse. 5. All abilities, items and summoner spells of the target which are not currently on cooldown are put on a 1.5/1.75/2s cooldown at the start of the curse. 6. Reveal target for the duration of the curse. 7. Cursed targets that die take longer to respawn.

These are just examples.

At the end of the day, no amount of changes to the ultimate alone will make Mordekaiser the best he can be. I think the current changes are a step in the right direction and that once there is a clear direction for Mordekaiser's role/identity, it will be easier to choose what combination of abilities work best.