Why morde as a "melee marksman" is a fun concept. and CAN be balanced

i actually like the concept of "ADC morde"

however first off "ADC" to us really just means "marksman". someone who sits in the back and throws out ranged damage. but ADC is a much more fun way to say it.

sure, master yi is a "attack damage carry". but hes not a "adc". no. "adc" has no set definition but overall the way we use the term is its fun for us to say adc to simply mean ranged damage dealer. or a source of "ranged damage" for a team

also. another thing that defines a "adc" to us is normally the carry on the team who farms while being protected by a support

sure, vayne can go top, but the "adc" is still basically the "carry on the team who is protected by the support"

yeah. i think thats also a good way to put it

the "adc" is the "carry on the team who is normally protected by the support and normally lanes with the support"

yeah. boom. there we go. thats a good way to term it. i just wanted to get initial terms out of the way

now. back to morde

i really like the concept of morde being a optional "melee marksman" who can solo lane or flex role as ADC

here is why. lets look at marksman ezreal and lucian. both these champs have no CC in their kit and only output ranged damage

how can morde, a melee juggernaught class champion with zero CC and no mobility function as a "ADC" ?

well. i think i sort of see where the riot designer was going when he envisioned morde ADC. here is what i started to see in "ADC morde" that made it make sense to me

1. mordes E is basically like a targeted AoE ADC attack. it does comparable damage normally more than an ADC auto most of the game, in a full AoE to everything. and the cooldown is only 5 seconds. and trades in lane are maybe once every 5 seconds or so in lane. This means when a morde is CS'ing in lane, he can use his E to trade with the enemy ADC decently and function as an ADC. also, the shield mechanic on mordes E is also pretty cool i admit, because it allows riot to balance ADC morde in winning trades with the shield along with the damage. this made it so morde didnt need to have tons of damage on his E to let morde trade well, instead the E was made to give morde alot of extra shield power to make it stronger in trades

i max E when i go ADC morde and from the strong shield i find morde outtrades pretty much every ADC even draven with his E max

so basically im saying, mordes E functions as his "adc autoattack"

2. and next, mordes Q. mordes Q allows morde to deal with the fighters that close the gap on him because otherwise morde has very squishy stats comparable to most ADC's and morde also has no mobility. where as ezreal and lucian deal with fighters by kiting, morde deals with fighters with his Q. and if no fighters ever get in range of morde, then morde can just enjoy sitting back in range and using his E for decent ranged damage

3. and then mordes ultimate. mordes ultimate serves as mordes "tankbusting power". normal ADC's like lucian or ezreal will use their sustained damage combined with kiting to deal with tanks. while morde gets to use his ultimate to deal with tanks.

so if you look at mordes kit, in many ways he can have the tools to be an ADC for his team. decent constant ranged damage, ability to deal with fighters that close the gap, and tankbusting

i feel looking at mordes kit like this, you can really see how he can be a fun balanced "melee marksman" and is probably the best designed melee champion in the game to be considered as possible role-flexing into the marksman role

next i feel morde gaining a bit more EXP in a duo lane was a good idea. because morde being melee definitely has trouble farming in a duo lane and will be down in some CS, so giving morde some of that extra EXP was a good way to balance out the power and give morde some power he needed to compete as his teams marksman

morde gaining FULL EXP was a little broken, however i feel the current +50% is pretty balanced and good for him

where im going with all of this, is im trying to point out how i view morde as really being a really fun champ to be designed as a "optional adc" who can also go in a solo lane or role flex as an ADC

FIRST i wanted to explain how i view morde as being a melee champion with the qualities of a marksman (ranged sustained aoe damage from his low cooldown E, ability to deal with fighters that close the gap, ability to tankbust)

and NOW i want to get to where i think the PROBLEMS are in mordes kit

i feel the biggest problems in mordes kit are his W and the dragon ghost. and ill just get right to what i think is the best way to balance these things

mordes W: harvestors of sorrow i think it should be changed to this

mordes W when casted will instantly put the buff on him and the nearest allied champion (with the current big range). cannot pick the champion. it goes on the ally closest to morde. or only morde if no allies are near can no longer target minions or ghosts mordes W will now always last the 4 seconds and cannot be triggered early. it will get triggered early if the allied champion dies however. also mordes W now always starts spinning immediately and the champs dont need to get close

mordes W will have an effect that says "any minion that takes damage from this and dies within 4 seconds will count as being killed by morde even if morde didnt get the lasthit. so morde gets gold/exp"

this will let morde lasthit better in a duo lane. now you have to prevent morde from farming by bullying him off the lane, since lasthitting with mordes W doing constant damage is very hard this makes morde simply need to shove the lane quickly for farm. but the disadvantage is hes ganked easily

next the dragon ghost: i feel the dragon ghost right now is a bit too strong and is like a free tower after a dragon. i feel it should be changed in some way. it can exist. but it just feels too strong

for my idea, i think it should be changed to have health equal to 200 x mordes level. with damage scaling off mordes level too. and 20 armor/mr at all levels. make the dragon ghost last 5 minutes. give the dragon ghost caitlyin range on its autos. make the ghost have a warmogs passive out of combat. but make the ghost move very slowly 300 movespeed. so if its ever in tower range its not hard for a team to just walk it down and kill it. make the ghost give 0 gold when killed

because of my scaling health, 3600 hp for the dragon at lvl18 really isnt that much and its really not that strong considering its damage will be weak and scale off mordes level

also i intend for this to be a NERF to the dragon. meaning much less damage. but its a mild siege tool for mordes team to use

also, when morde has the ghost he cant even use his ultimate. even on live due to the low damage of my dragon ghost i usually try to get it killed off asap so i can use my ultimate