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@Riot, some suggestions on how to improve Mordekaiser for season Seven

Malicious Metal··32 votes·2,084 views

Now with the initial hype over the Assassins being calmed and 6.23 and 7.1 starting to draw nearer I've wanted to seize this opportunity to put forward some suggestions regarding League's favorite Tin can; Mordekaiser! He's been in a weird spot ever since his rework an ENTIRE year ago and with preseason shaking things up in terms of his build, masteries and co he's going to be impacted in some way or the other.

Mordekaiser's current design makes him a tad tricky to balance as he'd be very oppressive if his numbers are too high but really falls short when they're too low/mediocre. So with that in mind I'd like to suggest some potential changes to make Mordekaiser feel better to play as well as to be fairer to play against. So, let's get started!

Why does Morde need base stat changes? It's actually pretty simple. "Damage Creep" Back when Mordekaiser was reworked Keystones and free damage weren't really a thing and he was moderately tanky to fit into the meta, his low base hp pool being justified by him getting a lot of benefits from building hp and trying to make him not scale too well due to the BOT LANE GIMMICK.

Now we have way too much damage flying around, with ranged top laners making his life hell. Not only this but a Keystone some Morde mains were using (SOTA) is being removed so he'll lose an entire 300 HP once preseason hits.

But WHY exactly does Morde need better bases? Well, it's mainly to allow his Mid and late game to become better and make him more flexible in terms of build. I myself run SOTA so that I can actually build item 3146 as my THIRD item without being too fragile for it to matter, currently I get about 1100 bonus HP beforehand, it will be a mere 800 after strength of the ages gets ditched, which makes it harder to actually incorporate the Gunblade into my mid game build.

Not only this but it makes Morde way too feast or famine due to him having to be ahead to actually be tanky and be borderline useless when underlevelled.

His early should remain weak though, which I'll explain in a minute.

Concrete changes:

This is a tricky one due to Morde having a tight power budget but in order for him to gain some base line durability I suggest the following

Iron Man; Shield generation on minions changed from 12.5% to 10% or EVEN 7.5% (very drastic, not really advised unless compensated with larger buffs)

Morde can be really uninteractive in lane due to his constant pushing and him building up a huge shield on enemy creeps can make fighting him a chore. This is why I suggest making his shield gain less effective on minions so that the enemies would have more chances at cracking his defenses and actually trading with him, making Morde actually engage in battle with his enemy laner to get a big shield and actually think about how to use his skills properly.

This would open up ways to give Mordekaiser actual decent base stats that would allow for more build flexibility and more baseline durability without having to rely on Iron Man's snowballing aspect but also cutting down the levels of frustration he can cause when having to actually lane against him.

His team fighting and skirmishing would NOT be affected by the Iron Man nerf but he'd be more bearable in lane

So, this would open up for some of the following buffs

Base HP 525-555 +30 HP/level 73-82 +9 per level Total base hp changes; 1766->1949 Base Armor; 20->23

These small buffs to his base stats would make Mordekaiser scale better with levels and allow him to have some baseline durability beyond his shield, its efficiency being based on too many factors like enemy MR, being fed and so on. His Mid game would be a tad better, his late game would be pretty much the same but he'd be able to actually invest in some different item choices in the mid game as well as having a bit more standard defenses.

The aim of these changes would be to cement Mordekaiser as this calling Juggernaut like Darius while allowing his opponents to trade with him more often in lane due to Iron Man's effectiveness being reduced against minions. His early would be a tad better IF, and only IF Morde would chose his fights wisely but worse if he were to just try maintaining his shield. He'd be more susceptible to poke due to not being able to fill his bar as quickly while helping him in the long run.

It would also give him the OPTION to run grasp of the undying of he so desired, the mastery being rather lackluster at the moment due to Morde's pitiful base HP

I do NOT want buffs to his MS nor his ranges, Kiting does have to be his bane, but he should be a bit more durable due to the metric amounts of damage flying around making him struggle when behind and even keeping him from investing in damage due to low base durability.

All in all a somewhat small buff that comes with a decent tradeoff. Because let's be honest, if Morde should get a buff it should come with a more bearable laning phase for his opponents.

That'll be all! -MM

https://66.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_me9yefozsX1ri5zfvo1_250.gif

11 Comments

oSEXYPLATYPUSo11 votes

TOO LONG DIDNT FUKIN READ BUT

[slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

FOR MONTY PYTHON HOLY GRAIL REFERENCE

Burnt Iron King6 votes

I like this idea but what if, and I know this may sound crazy: Morde's passive doesn't work on minions but he'd get actual Juggernaut base stats?

Malicious Metal4 votes

That actually doesn't sound all that crazy at all.

It would need to come with a slight change in his passive ratio but it does show some promise, not really impacting Morde's team fighting at all but making his laning phase actually mean something.

Would love to test this out if Riot were to push it unto the PBE for a patch or two :9

WiegrafOfValor2 votes

Just want his old Q back.. I think they need to do this, just like they did with Kog.

New Q is holding him back, he doesn't have the mobility to keep up for the third proc, farming feels terrible and overhaul the old Q fits better on his kit.

Very Hard Engage3 votes

why morde does not need - base stat alterations

see passive.....

morde functions as is, just not in all situations against all other champions. as intended. and from a completely biased morde main like you, base stat changes are the wrong way to go.

his ult is weak. and his W is weak. and he has 2 damaging abilities not 3, and you expect tons of damages....

..... he even has above 50% win rate in all 3 roles hes seen in, top, mid, + jungle, (why not bot lane.... oh right, because W is trashy and ranged harass is awful)

you're not even trying to hide it, you know assassins are going to be uber popular come season 7 and you want to cash in. having bulk is going to deck them into the dirt, mordekaiser is a bulky champion, get over it.

HazyCloud73 votes

Don't really think I would call nearly an additional 200 base health a small buff. I don't think I'm qualified to really say whether or not reducing the shield generation on minions is a big enough trade off.

He's losing SoTA but he'll benefit from whatever other keystone becomes standard on him instead. Also keep in mind that if they go the route of increasing the HP that Rylai's provides and reducing the AP, he'll benefit from that too.

Ale non è male2 votes

Boo-hoo, you didn't answer to the call when we needed you to help Morde :(

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/PhdrgWt7-ideas-for-a-mordekaiser-overhaul

DJ S0NA1 votes

His W 2nd activation should slow for a % for 1.5-2-5 seconds (scaling ranks). Also want movement speed buff. 325 for a melee is very very atrocious and slow for a top laner/jungler. Needs about +10 or +15 if Rylais is gone for good. What Soul Furnace said is a very excelent idea. His base stats should be buffed alot, but his passive wouldn't work on minions. He would still gain his passive on jungler monsters.

YuushaMajin1 votes

What if his passive was like Tryndamere's? Your gauge fill up and the higher it gets, the more bonus armor/MR you'd get (instead of trynd's crit). That would be generally less visible admittedly. But at least if you're hitting the 'kaiser, you're still dealing damage. After all, the issue is that the big shield gotten from blasting minions just negates most trades. And if the shield is not enough, then Morde falls behind due to his base stats not being up to par. He'd keep his whole shtick of being a metal murder machine who gets stronger the more he beats you up, except those scratches on the metal will stay, instead of, oh, too bad, you were only hitting his deathly aura.

Now of course this would also imply a lot more tweaks rather than just changing base stats, like how much the gauge goes up when abilities are used, how much bonus armor(/mr) he gets, how his abilities affect it... A fixed 0-100% gauge that way would also make him less reliant on dealing damage and more on properly using his abilities to get the most out of it. Possibly other sources could affect it? But no matter your damage, that gauge would keep going up at the same rate, which would give more overall pacing for playing around with your abilities, and your lane opponent(s) playing around yours. After all, right now, the more damage he does, the faster his shield stacks up, which also contributes to the whole feast/famine thing. Get ahead, and your damage/HP assures you stay topped off. Fall behind, and it's not gonna be enough.

How the armor(/mr) scales would also affect many things. A % scaling sounds tempting, but it could be counter intuitive. You'd be building armor on a character whose only source of CC is items/summoner spells, so you'd end up with a cc-less tank. Unless you made it scale on his attack stats? Bonus armor based on bonus AD and bonus MR based on bonus AP perhaps? I actually like the sounds of that, but it would also require a lot of fine tuning. Heck, we could even work in mechanics like bonus movement speed (literally picking up momentum) for being above a certain threshold, or make his abilities slow if above said threshold (rylai who?). Something something giant textbox passives.

Orrrr maybe I'm completely off the mark. That's also possible.

MilamberZ1 votes

There is too, just fix his bug first ._.

Ultîma1 votes

How to fix Mord

Give him a VGU

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