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Mordekaiser Changes - Time to Shred

Lord Boltrix··1 votes·392 views
Proposed Changes to Mordekaiser - Taken from my PBE thread

This is in response to a great deal of frustration regarding Mordekaiser, with the intended name change to Lord of Death being the straw that broke the camel's back. I would much rather he remain the Master of Metal, or at least be Paladin of Pain. Murder Emperor, the Lord of Death; redundant much, redundant? Well, you want him to match the theme, well then: here you f*cking go, here is a new direction to take Mordekaiser, without harming the rework and making the best of everything he has and more.

Iron Man - Reworked as a two-part passive, one part Iron Man and one part new portion. Shield cap is reduced to 17.5% maximum health, increasing by 2.5 at levels 6, 11, and 16. When Mordekaiser is above 85% health, shield gain is reduced by 50%, and when between 85% and above 70% health shield gain is reduced by 25% instead, and at 70% or less health, shield gain is normalized.

Screaming for Vengeance - When Mordekaiser is at 55% or less health, he gains the following effects. Level 1 - Mordekaiser's abilities deals an extra 0.2% damage per 1% of Mordekaiser's missing health, and Mordekaiser's base shield cap is increased by 0.1% per 1% of Mordekaiser's missing health. Level 6 - Mordekaiser's Siphon of Destruction echoes out a harsh heavy metal sound, revealing the location of enemy champions - without revealing said champions if stealthed - struck by the ability. Level 11 - Mordekaiser gains an additional 15% of his bonus Armor and bonus Magic Resist while Harvester of Sorrow is active and dealing damage to an enemy champion, reduced to 7.5% when Harvester of Sorrow is applied to an ally. Level 16 - Mordekaiser gains double the amount of shield normally gained when dealing the damage of Mace of Spades to enemy champions.

There, a way to balance the passive and preserve his identity as a behemoth whose pain is his power, and it makes me wonder why something like this wasn't done a long time ago.

Mace of Spades - Mace of Spades damage multiplier changed to 1.2 / 1.4 / 1.6 / 1.8 / 2, Mace of Spades multiplier is applied upon re-activating the ability, which can be done three more times after initial activation; each time, the window to reactivate the ability shortens.

New Passive: Mind over Metal - Mordekaiser's basic attacks deals 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 (+20% AP) on-hit magic damage, and increase Mordekaiser's movement speed by 5 on-hit, up to a cap of 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30. Basic attacks apply Grievous Wounds to the target for 0.5 (+0.5 per 50 AD)(+0.5 per 50 AP) seconds.

A fair nerf to his Mace of Spades, making it vulnerable to silences and spreading out the monstrous damage farther out in 4 hits versus 3, but in return it more easily meshes with the Spellblade effects. It now has on-hit passive magic damage because you should be able to do magic damage even without Mace of Spades (something he should always have had in my opinion) and he also has Grievous Wounds because... WHY DOES MORDEKAISER HITTING SOMEONE WITH A SPIKED MACE NOT SERIOUSLY INJURE THEM IN SOME WAY?

Harvester of Sorrow - Magic damage over time now also scales with AD, now changed to 15 / 25 / 35 / 45 / 55 (+ 20% AD)(+20% AP), maximum single target also now 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+ 80% AD)(+80% AP). Harvester of Sorrow reactivation heal is reduced by 20% for every second the ability is active, Harvester of Sorrow reactivation damage increased by 7.5% for every second the ability is active.

Passively, Harvester of Sorrow grants Mordekaiser an aura of 250 range that passively reduces the attack speed of enemies by 2/4/6/8/10%. When activated, the aura's attack speed reduction is doubled. Mordekaiser can pass the aura onto an allied champion when Harvester of Sorrow passes onto them, but their aura's attack speed reduction is not doubled; if the auras overlap upon an enemy, only Mordekaiser's aura is applied.

Creeping Death - When no allies are nearby, Mordekaiser gains Creeping Death while Harvester of Sorrow is active. Creeping Death is lost when Harvester of Sorrow is reactivated, or when Harvester of Sorrow passes onto an allied champion. Mordekaiser deals Harvester of Sorrow's magic damage over time without an ally present, as well as dealing 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 (+ 20% AD)(+20% AP) bonus magic damage per second if Mordekaiser is within 150 range of the target. When Creeping Death is active, Mordekaiser's Armor and Magic Resist increases by 3/6/9/12/15 (+1 per 25 AP), in addition, when Mordekaiser reactivates Harvester of Sorrow when he has Creeping Death, he may heal from 4 units rather than 2.

Removed: The Exp buff from W, Mordekaiser gains experience as normal.

A way to empower solo-lane Mordekaiser and giving Mordekaiser a REASON to go bot lane without some unfair gimmick.

Siphon of Destruction - Range increased to 700, and the damage dealt by Siphon of Destruction decreases by 20% for every 100 range from Mordekaiser, up to normal damage at 300 range. For every 100 range closer to Mordekaiser an enemy champion is past 300 range, Siphon of Destruction deals 25% more damage. This does not affect enemy minions or non-epic monsters.

New Passive: The Punishment Due - Siphon of Destruction now deals bonus damage based on enemy champion's missing health. Siphon of Destruction deals 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5% bonus damage when striking a wounded champion, and another 0.5% for every 1% of that enemy champion's missing health. The Punishment Due's bonus damage is not affected by Siphon of Destruction's distance-damage modifier.

Remember Siphon, one of two abilities - the other being Creeping Death, which obviously can't be cast on a minion - that made Mordekaiser toxic as shit? Now it's balanced: you have to get close to do meaningful damage, but in return you can do even MORE damage if you're right up in their faces, blasting said ugly mugs.

Children of the Grave - Now deals 5 / 7.5 / 10% (+2.5% per 100 AP) of the target's maximum health initially, plus 0.3 / 0.6 / 0.9% (+0.1 per 100 AP) over 15 seconds. Children of the Grave now reduces the target's magic resist by 0.5 / 0.75 / 1 (+0.5 per 100 AP) per second. While Mordekaiser is within 650 range of an enemy champion cursed by Children of the Grave, Mordekaiser and his allies become invulnerable to damage from on-hit effects sourced from the cursed champion.

Dragon Force - When Mordekaiser's ghost dies from Dragon Force being activated, the ghost's leftover power is absorbed by Mordekaiser, and Mordekaiser benefits from You've Got Another Thing Comin.' Dragon Ghost now deals 25% damage to enemy structures and 50% damage to enemy champions.

New Passive: You've Got Another Thing Comin' - Mordekaiser gains 10% of his champion ghost's bonus health, and 10% of the ghost's AP for 10 seconds. Mordekaiser's movement, basic attacks and abilities, as well as the movement and basic attacks of the dragon ghost, charges the power of his next basic attack, and at 200 charges, his or the dragon ghost's next basic attack arcs magical lightning, damaging the target and up to 4 other nearby enemies for 50 / 75 / 100 (+25% AP) magic damage. When Mordekaiser battles an enemy champion and/or an enemy champion's pet, it will refresh the duration of You've got Another Thing Comin.' After You've Got Another Thing Comin' has been active for ten seconds, the next refresh will only last five seconds.

There, Dragon Force is now far from oppressive by its lonesome, his ultimate is now more strategic and meaningful in it's use, and now Mordekaiser has a reason to lose his champion ghost when getting the dragon ghost.

8 Comments

Pyrodinium2 votes

What is the purpose of this rework? It basically just makes Morde way more numerically complex and hard to understand, without adding any significant value, neither strategic nor in gameplay.

It also introduces both existing mechanics that have been historically difficult to balance (Grievous Wounds, passive debuff aura), and new, unneeded mechanics that just clutter his kit and create problematic edge cases (on-hit nullification).

Lord Boltrix1 votes

Mordekaiser has too much power currently, and he has power in all of the wrong places, and most of all: he has the same issue where he relies on the opponent being an idiot to do meaningful damage.

His Mace of Spades? Considering people can still just walk away from him, it's either they walk away and have nothing done to them after possibly the first hit, or they stay around Mordekaiser like a complete retard and are three-shotted into oblivion. I spread out the damage there and made it possible to stop the Mace of Spades through silence, which it couldn't before (silencing him after he already activated Mace of Spades? He still has the buff to his auto-attacks), and gave that some counterplay right then and there.

Siphon? It doesn't encourage him by any means to get closer, and has contributed in the past to the toxic Mordekaiser playstyle. Now it does, and it makes Mordekaiser have to get closer to do his damage, but it rewards him for getting even closer.

Harvester of Sorrow? Right now you give up way too much power NOT going bot with the xp passive, and nobody is really happy about it, and even still... it is too weak to take to a solo lane.

Dragon? Too much power, but then what do you do about Mordekaiser's power-shift from sieging beyond in a duo lane, considering that a simple purchase of a Quicksilver Sash basically gives a middle finger to Mordekaiser's ultimate?

Can I ask you? Did you see a bunch of numbers and new things, and thought to yourself 'too complex, therefore not good.' I'm not trying to insult or denigrate you, I'm simply asking.

Here is the problem: Mordekaiser is difficult to balance if you want to keep his identity, and Mordekaiser mains would probably have to wait a few years to be able to get a Sion-level rework - considering that there are quite a few champions already in front of him, with his place in line being pushed back farther due to what they already put out - that departs from what he already has. Say what you will about overloaded kits: sometimes they are too much, but there is a lot you can tweak without having to entirely gut a champion.

Right now Mordekaiser is in a bad state, nobody is generally content with him at the current moment, which presents a problem. But rather than simply b*tching about it, I decided to propose something rather than sit on my @ss and complain and hope something gets done. What Mordekaiser needs is meaningful changes, tweaks and changes that alter him, giving him fair power without making him broken, and leaving room for tweaking as needed without having to shred entire parts of his kit.

Pyrodinium1 votes

Can I ask you? Did you see a bunch of numbers and new things, and thought to yourself 'too complex, therefore not good.' I'm not trying to insult or denigrate you, I'm simply asking.

What I actually did was read through your proposed changes, consider them, and then read everything again trying to analyze every element. Then I formed an opinion. My first comment was very brief precisely because I failed to grasp on the high-level purpose of the changes, not as means to dismiss the whole post.

That being said, excesive complexity is a problem, as you should not be designing just for the complexity-attracted and very skilled Mordekaiser fans, but also for new players, people driven towards Morde due to thematic appeal, players in the lower tiers of skill and so on.

Your rework is neither one that introduces a high skill-ceiling (What awesome #BigPlays can I do with this champion?) nor strategic identity (What does this champion brings that no other has?) but rather brings numerical complexity (How much damage do I have now again? How tanky am I?) and raises the skill floor, as a player would need to know a lot more things in order to just start playing your Morde.

Creating a champion with too high a skill floor is a serious issue. You can see it in champs like Azir or Ryze, were they need to be balanced so they are reasonable in the hands of the extremely small pool of players that can unlock their potential, while leaving the rest of the audience in the dust.

Lord Boltrix1 votes

You have a point and I thank you for making such considerations, and taking the time to look through them.

And I will be honest, I am not the best at making a revamp, but I tried to make changes within the confines of the current rework, considering that with Riot's scheduling and how they consider Mordekaiser's current iteration acceptable, it will be a few years before we get a meaningful, possibly Sion-level rework.

Now, going with that, I would honestly settle for a few things: making the Q more fair in how it deals damage, giving Morde some of his solo-power back, giving him something besides the experience buff of his W, and tuning the power of the dragon ghost to something a little more fair.

But the question is how, and more so: how does this solve the problems Mordekaiser has that contributes to his toxicity?

Riot didn't address the vast majority of his toxicity issues, instead they removed one aspect of it - letting him put his W on a minion - and the rest was 'fixed' by putting Mordekaiser into the only lane that could by nature bypass the toxic aspects of his kit entirely.

That would be like trying to solve Riven's insane mobility by putting her in a lane where she can get kited for days by every champ that goes there: it doesn't solve the issue, you're just moving your problems to somewhere else and only marginally improves the entire situation.

One issue of Mordekaiser pre-rework was that he had effective range beyond his supposed melee strike zone with his E and putting his W on a minion, and it was pointless to trade him since he could build shield to negate damage and with Hextech Revolver he essentially became a perpetual motion machine of damage and sustain. The only way to beat him was to not play against him, as in play ranged champions who could poke and/or cc him from Mordor and never approach him directly, which is one reason one of his significant weaknesses is still being vulnerable to kiting.

Now, his W requires a champion than a minion, meaning he has to go bot to use it the way he used to. His E isn't as strong as before, but it still presents a problem by the nature of what it does: mindless ranged poke, not a skillshot. By itself, it's not bad, but it feeds into the Iron Man passive which again creates a problem of how do you deal with that perpetual motion machine of the Iron Man Passive?

The answer is that the perpetual motion machine and that which feeds into it must be addressed. Mace of Spades is not a major problem, simple tuning of the multiplier, and as I suggested, spreading the damage possibly with a fourth hit rather than three, and the damage isn't to outrageous since it requires Mordekaiser to BE in melee range.

Harvester of Sorrow is not in itself a problem in regards to the perpetual motion machine of Iron Man due to it being conditional, because by nature to make the most of it, you have to go bot, where you will face people who can poke you safely with dangerous auto-attacks from a distance. Of course, the experience buff is a problem, but that is a band-aid to the issue of forcing Mordekaiser bot and thus more inclination to go there.

The dragon ghost would not be that much of a problem if it's damage was tuned down so that it was more useful for aggroing the turret in a siege rather than damaging it, in that way it would just be an empowered champion ghost.

Iron Man and Siphon are the problems, nerfing the damage at range of Siphon would cull a good amount of the problems it provides without gutting it entirely. Iron Man needs to be altered because as it is, it becomes too powerful of a passive, but nobody wants it to be replaced and it doesn't have to be entirely useless or virtually insignificant.

The other things I added as ways to give Mordekaiser new paths to go and giving him tools to push him in a certain direction and stand out as an anti-melee ADC champion.

Lord Boltrix1 votes

Also, you asked about Grievous Wounds? Grievous Wounds, like Thornmail, was intended to counter ridiculous healing, including lifesteal and spellvamp, and it fits Mordekaiser both thematically and functionally. Functionally, it allows Mordekaiser to counter ridiculous lifestealing when fighting hyper-carries like Master Yi, Vayne, and Aatrox without giving him more direct power, as in damage or dots. Thematically, Mordekaiser is all about causing pain to his opponents, and when you get hit with a giant, spiked mace bigger than yourself, with or without magical amplification, how are you expected to just shrug that off without getting something done to you?

The passive debuff? How exactly do you propose Mordekaiser hold an edge over bot-lane opponents without something absolutely ridiculous like the experience buff? How is that fair, but then... what else could you give Mordekaiser to promote him in the bot lane, again, without giving him more power that affects other kinds of opponents? How effective is an attack speed debuff going to be against mid-lane opponents like Leblanc or Katarina? The majority of top laners don't deal their damage through auto-attacks alone.

On-hit nullification? It nullifies the damage from on-hit effects as a means of indirectly zoning out certain champions, directed mainly at those champions who get hyper crazy when fed through items like Blade of the Ruined King, it is targeted mostly at melee ADC's, and certain ranged ADC's who are hard to pin down, like Kalista or Vayne. The majority of ADC's don't rely on on-hit effects to deal the majority of their damage, they build straight up AD and/or AS and go to town, and again: it nullifies the damage of on-hit effects, it doesn't negate anything else. The CC and other stuff? That still applies. And again, Mordekaiser's ultimate already has counterplay in that said ADC's would likely still build a Mercurial Scimitar, which by the way cleanses the ultimate, which this doesn't change. So either Mordekaiser puts his curse on an ADC who saves their Mercurial Scimitar for the curse and them removes it, or he puts it on a mage or a tank, of which the majority of whom aren't really affected by that on-hit damage invulnerability.

Pyrodinium1 votes

Also, you asked about Grievous Wounds? Grievous Wounds, like Thornmail, was intended to counter ridiculous healing, including lifesteal and spellvamp, and it fits Mordekaiser both thematically and functionally. Functionally, it allows Mordekaiser to counter ridiculous lifestealing when fighting hyper-carries like Master Yi, Vayne, and Aatrox without giving him more direct power, as in damage or dots. Thematically, Mordekaiser is all about causing pain to his opponents, and when you get hit with a giant, spiked mace bigger than yourself, with or without magical amplification, how are you expected to just shrug that off without getting something done to you?

Why does Morde needs to explicitly counter those champions? What is he giving up in exchange for the ability to counter Life Steal?

Not to mention that the champions that would be most affected by this change aren't hypercarries at all. Champions like Mundo, Hecarim or Swain stand to lose way more as Mordekaiser basically becomes a hard counter to them (something that's against LoL's design values).

The passive debuff? How exactly do you propose Mordekaiser hold an edge over bot-lane opponents without something absolutely ridiculous like the experience buff? How is that fair, but then... what else could you give Mordekaiser to promote him in the bot lane, again, without giving him more power that affects other kinds of opponents? How effective is an attack speed debuff going to be against mid-lane opponents like Leblanc or Katarina? The majority of top laners don't deal their damage through auto-attacks alone.

You are very right in that it would hardly matter against mages. However, at a range of 250, the passive aura would also do very little to his laning phase in Bot lane (as most Marksmen would rather retreat than face him in melee range). What it would do, however, is making him tremendously strong against melee champions that rely on basic attacks to trade, which is basically every Fighter. This change, rather than making him attractive as a duo laner, would make him a very oppresive Top laner.

On-hit nullification? It nullifies the damage from on-hit effects as a means of indirectly zoning out certain champions, directed mainly at those champions who get hyper crazy when fed through items like Blade of the Ruined King, it is targeted mostly at melee ADC's, and certain ranged ADC's who are hard to pin down, like Kalista or Vayne. The majority of ADC's don't rely on on-hit effects to deal the majority of their damage, they build straight up AD and/or AS and go to town, and again: it nullifies the damage of on-hit effects, it doesn't negate anything else. The CC and other stuff? That still applies. And again, Mordekaiser's ultimate already has counterplay in that said ADC's would likely still build a Mercurial Scimitar, which by the way cleanses the ultimate, which this doesn't change. So either Mordekaiser puts his curse on an ADC who saves their Mercurial Scimitar for the curse and them removes it, or he puts it on a mage or a tank, of which the majority of whom aren't really affected by that on-hit damage invulnerability.

That's really my point when talking about edge cases. It hard counters certain champions (Vayne, Master Yi. You mention Kallista but that would actually do nothing about her) and items (BotRK, Sated Devourer) while doing nothing against others. Again, this is not a hallmark of good design in LoL (it may be okay in other games).

Also: Counterbuilding is not the same thing as counterplay. While related, each one exist on a different level in the game.

Lord Boltrix1 votes

You are right in regards to him being oppressive against top laners, but how many top laners lack a disengage? You have to remember: Mordekaiser is the poster child for immobility.

Swain, for example, doesn't have to get close to Mordekaiser if he doesn't want to, and Mordekaiser can do nothing about that.

Mundo going top obviously knows he isn't going to kill Mordekaiser, his job is to sustain against Mordekaiser and keep him at bay with his cleaver and hang back and regen and generally piss Mordekaiser off, he isn't going to spend his time trying to 1v1 Mordekaiser, because that would be a bad Mundo who doesn't understand his champion.

Hecarim, in turn, is the poster child for mobility, he can engage and disengage as he desires and Mordekaiser can do nothing about it, try to compare a 5 movement speed on-hit to Hecarim's Devastating Charge.

Mordekaiser top isn't meant to chase and pin down and kill a champion, going top means he is trying to take the tower, and your job is to make it as difficult as possible by opposing him, getting ganks and punishing him for pushing the lane. The proposed changes are meant to increase his short-distance damage while cutting down his long-distance damage, as a means of making him manageable when facing him, because his distance E poke was what made him so toxic at the top lane.

As for the argument about counter champions and mechanics, what is Heimerdinger to every melee champion that isn't Zed? What is Kassadin and Veigar to every AP mage? What is Rengar to squishy carries? What is Rammus and Galio? There will always be some champion who is a hard counter to others, and they are allowed to exist, there is no way to prevent one summoner from taking a champion against another summoner who is a hard counter.

My proposed power shift was to weaken the range of Mordekaiser's ranged damage (his E and the dragon) and balance out his power budget, and push him towards a niche that he already had. Mordekaiser was always strong against melee champions who lacked the sheer burst, cc, and/or sustain to defeat him, he has always been someone who punishes melee but is vulnerable to range with very few exceptions, I have simple made that abundantly clear in my revamp, and the reason he was pushed to the bot lane was BECAUSE he was insanely oppressive against the majority of top-lane opponents in dueling on top of his insane pushing power.

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