Logical, In-Depth Analysis of why Mordis now Inviable as a Solo Laner (Long, Has Maths, Summary)

This is a long thread and I won't be offended if most of you don't want to read the whole thing. I will include periodic summary statements and a short summary at the end.

As you will figure out, I do not like the changes made to Mordekaiser. This is because I have exclusively played and enjoyed him as a solo-lane champion. Although Riot claims that Mordekaiser is "still serviceable in a solo lane" [Patch 5.16 Notes], I will attempt to demonstrate that this is not true. I do not wish to address his viability as a duo-lane or jungle champion; that is outside the scope of my argument. If that is his new, permanent place in the meta, then so be it and I will have to adapt or give up playing the champion. At this juncture, however, I believe that Riot is trying to peddle the fantasy that he is still viable as a solo-laner. The only point of this thread is to provide a clear, well-reasoned counter-argument to that fantasy (while using as many hyphenated-word-phrases as possible).

Although I am (slightly) interested in community feedback, I'd love to get a response from a red on this one. I know, I know, who doesn't want that, right? I understand that I can't simply wish this into reality, but given the amount of consternation and, uh... unrefined feedback the most recent patch has generated, I hope that approaching the issue in this manner can attract a quality moment of interaction and understanding between Riot and the community.

Let's begin.

I will first discuss the three abilities that most strongly affect Mordekaiser in a solo-lane: his passive, Q, and E. I assume that W is only available during a friendly gank and will not discuss it.

In this discussion I focus on laning as Mordekaiser before he has acquired a few major items. In many of the numerical examples, I examine level 6 - 9 as typical examples of Mordekaiser in a laning situation. I assume the skill leveling order E-Q-E-E-Q-R-E-Q-E. Mordekaiser's deficits at these levels are characteristic of his entire laning phase (considering these levels is probably generous to his early laning phase) and result in Mordekaiser decisively losing the laning phase in all matchups.

Passive Several changes were made to Mordekaiser's shield. Mordekaiser's old shield maximum was 90 + 30 x lvl. The new shield maximum is 25% of Mordekaiser's maximum health. Mordekaiser's base health is 525 + 80 x lvl, meaning, without building bonus health, Mordekaiser's shield max is now 131.25 + 20 x lvl. The new maximum is higher until level 4. Mordekaiser must build 635 bonus health by level 18 in order for the shield to have the same value. Mordekaiser now maintains a minimum shield of 25% of his max shield, or 25% of 25% of his maximum health, or 1/16th his max hp. Without any bonus health, the minimum shield is 32+5 x lvl. For comparison, until Mordekaiser builds some health, this will always be less than one auto-attack worth of base damage.

Mordekaiser's old shield decayed at a rate of 3% (of max shield hp) per second, or 2.7 + .9 x lvl per second. His new shield decays at a rate of 1.5% base health per second, or 7.87 + 1.2 x lvl per second. To compare, without any bonus hp, Mordekaiser's new shield decays at a rate of 6% (of max shield hp) per second. In order to achieve a relative decay rate as low as the old one, Mordekaiser must build as much bonus health as his base health (build 1585 bonus health by level 18, doubling his health). The absolute decay rate will always be significantly higher.

Perhaps most detrimental change to Morde's shield is that the amount of damage which is converted into his shield has been reduced from 35% to 25% (17.5% to 12.5% vs minions/monsters).

The bottom line for lane phase is that Mordekaiser's shield is much weaker than before. The new shield decays around twice as fast, is harder to charge, Mordekaiser must stack health in order for it to have as much capacity as the old shield (building health instead of damage will diminish his ability to charge the shield), the damage on E (and therefore its ability to charge the shield) has been reduced, and W is no longer available in lane to charge the shield. I will show that the increased damage on Q is insufficient to compensate for these changes.

Q The first thing that must be addressed concerning the new Q is that, without specific and expensive itemization, it is impossible for Mordekaiser to use about 90% of his Q damage against an enemy champion in a solo lane if the enemy champion is competently played. Even with the aforementioned specific itemization (Rylais, phage/phage items, gunblade, etc.) doing so is very difficult. Developing sufficient itemization to become sticky enough to use Q to full effect as a solo-laner takes enough time and gold that the laning phase has been decided before such itemization is possible.

With the movespeed nerf, Mordekaiser now has the lowest base movespeed in the game: 325. Several champions are tied with him; however, now that Mordekaiser must have another champion in lane with him to use W, he has regained the dubious honor of being the only champion with no mobility or cc abilities (but now with the qualification that this is only true so long as there are no teammates present). That fact alone is fairly astonishing: the only champion in the game with no independent mobility or cc has the slowest movespeed in the game. The consequence is that every champion can simply walk away to avoid Mordekaiser's Q. They also have the option of using their respective mobility/cc to control the distance between them. This relegates Q's usefulness in lane to a zoning threat over a very small area. However, even in this situation it is fairly easy to call Mordekaiser's bluff. If the opposing laner enters into a melee exchange with Mordekaiser, once Mordekaiser activates his Q, the opposing laner only has to back up in order to avoid the second and third hit which contain the bulk of the damage. If Mordekaiser does not consume those auto attacks within a few (three?) seconds, he loses the ability to do so, and the threat of his Q is gone while the ability is on cooldown, which is 10/8.5 seconds at ranks 1/2 (until level 8). He can stop and use them on minions to generate a low amount of shielding (as explained below). Furthermore, of the champions that are tied with him for movespeed, only one two are melee (blitzcrank, nautilus). This means that Mordekaiser must primarily trade damage with E in a solo lane.

With the new shield, at rank 2 Q, with 60 AP, Q will generate 44 shield total over the course of three auto attacks (this generation is largely hampered by the fact that, for the first two attacks, the shield will completely decay before the next attack animation). If Mordekaiser successfully gets all his Q procs on an enemy champion, at this point in the game it would generate 88 shield. This all happens at a cost of 23 hp for casting Q.

The bottom line for lane phase is that, despite it's impressive exponential damage, Mordekaiser cannot stick to anyone long enough to use this ability without expensive itemization. Even with sticky itemization, any kind of mobility or cc from the enemy laner will likely foil using Q on them anyway.

E The observation that E "Deals much less damage" [Patch 5.16 Notes] is somewhat accurate. The base values for the damage have been drastically lowered. The base values were 70/115/160/205/250, but have been reduced to 35/65/95/125/155. However, a total attack damage ratio of .6 has been added to the ability. Assuming you take ranks in E at level 1,3,4,7,and 9 and your base AD will be 61/71/76/91/101, this contributes a value of 36.6/42.6/45.6/54.6/60.6 to the old base values. Old Mordekaiser needed to build AP to deal damage. If new Mordekaiser did the same (which, from the standpoint of E, is more gold efficient) and did NOT buy any AD, the new E effectively deals 72/108/146/180/216 + .6 x AP. Should new Mordekaiser insist on building AD, he would need to acquire 756/1080/1404/1728/2052 gold worth of AD (calculated using the value of a longsword to determine the gold/1 point of AD; actual costs will increase depending on items) to break even with the old base damages. Overall this is a very harsh nerf, mildly offset by a slightly lower cooldown per rank. However, pointing out that the ability is now weaker does not, by itself, adequately demonstrate that the ability is insufficient for trading in lane. I have not discussed here the added shield generation per champion hit, but will examine it later in a theoretical trading example.

The bottom line is that the damage to E has been reduced. This is highly detrimental to his solo lane kit because it is his most reliable method to charge his shield.

Trading I have attempted to establish above that using Q for damage on the enemy laner is generally impossible during most of the laning phase for significant damage. I will continue to operate under this assumption and examine what will happen in a theoretical trade between Mordekaiser and his lane opponent.

For this example, I will assume level 6 with a skill order of E-Q-E-E-Q-R. I will examine two cases.

If Mordekaiser attempts to maximize his early damage with a cheesy AP runepage and an amplifying tome as the first item, he now has around 60AP. Rank 3 E will generate about 23 shield when it hits a creep. If it hits all 6 creeps in a wave at once, It generates 138 shield. For the sake of this example, let's say Mordekaiser, in an effort to trade with his lane opponent, manages to hit 3 creeps and the enemy laner. Assuming an MR of 42 (typical base 30 plus flat mr glyhps) for the enemy laner, it will generate 69 (eyyyy) shield by damaging the creeps, 32 shield by damaging the enemy laner and 35 shield for hitting a single enemy champion. This totals 136 shield, or pretty much the same thing as hitting all 6 creeps. This shield will decay at a rate of 15 hp per second. It will reach your minimum shield level of 62 in 5 seconds. Incidentally, If Mordekaiser is running 5% CDR masteries, the cooldown on his E will be 5.22 seconds.

Instead, if Mordekaiser uses a more conservative rune setup and starting item, like MS quints, AD marks, armor seals, scaling AP blues, and a doran's shield, he'll have about 17 AP, but more hp, armor etc. Although this lowers his damage, the shield generation when striking a champion is almost the same. If rank 3 E hits all 6 creeps in a wave, it will generate 20 shield per creep, or 120 shield total. Although this shield total is lower, it has more resistances and more effective health thanks to armor seals and the dorans shield. However, its rate of decay relative to the amount shielded is faster, and the rate of effective health decay in the shield is faster. If Mordekaiser hits 3 creeps and an enemy laner, as in the above scenario, it will generate 60 (boring) shield by damaging the creeps, 28 shield by damaging the enemy laner, and 38 shield for hitting a single enemy champion. This totals 122 shield, again pretty much the same as hitting all 6 creeps.

Consider the damage dealt to the lane opponent in this trade. With the AP-loaded setup, E will deal 182 dmg, and with the conservative setup, E will deal 162 damage. To a target with 42 mr (normal base 32 mr and flat mr glyphs) this will deal 128/114 (AP heavy/conservative) dmg. The spell will cost 48 hp to cast. At this point Mordekaiser has dealt 128/114 dmg to his opponent, 48/48 dmg to himself, and (assuming he hit 3 creeps, too) generated a shield of 137/122, which will decay at a rate of 15/second. His E will come back up in 5.22 seconds. This means that the enemy laner has about 5 seconds to deal 137/122 damage to the shield (which is decaying) and deal a further 80/66 damage to break even in the trade. Let's illustrate how easy this is with a ridiculous example: laning vs a Karthus. At level 6, It will take Karthus less than 5 seconds (4.43 + a little more because of the animation time for the first auto to get off) to put out 4 auto attacks. Each auto attack will deal 58 damage, which is 42/31 damage to Mordekaiser after resistances. Assuming a single tick of shield decay before auto attack projectiles begin to arrive, your shield will be down after three auto attacks (3 auto attacks takes about 3 seconds, 3 ticks of decay + 1 initial tick = 60 dmg decayed from shield, 126/93 dmg in auto attacks) and you've taken about 50/31 dmg. The final auto attack will bring the damage dealt to Mordekaiser's health 92/62 and win/~tie(-4 hp) the trade with a Karthus who has only auto attacked.

Mordekaiser simply cannot win trades against any ranged champion using only his E in lane. It is worth mentioning that I am ignoring the damage that Karthus will take from minion aggro, but then again, I am also assuming Karthus didn't use any abilities at all, and Karthus might be the worst ranged auto attacker in the game in terms of attack speed, damage, and attacking animation. He might have trouble sticking with Morde through all 4 autos since his animation is so slow, but he also has 10 more MS than Morde to help him keep up. The specifics of whether or not Karthus can, in fact, out-trade Mordekaiser using only auto attacks are fairly academic; the point is that trading successfully with any ranged champion is impossible for Mordekaiser. If you want to argue that the situation is contrived, go ahead, but I think it's very, very hard to argue that it's contrived against Mordekaiser when his opponent isn't using abilities, only auto attacks. Mordekaiser has the option of stopping to use Q on minions to gain additional shielding, but, as discussed in the analysis of his Q, the shield gained on minions barely covers the health cost of activating the ability.

Against Melee champions, Mordekaiser can threaten to use his Q but, as discussed above, it is improbable that he will be successful in actually doing so. This is further frustrated by the fact that melee champions (especially many meta toplane picks) usually have higher movespeeds, attack speeds, and base attack damages than a Karthus.

The bottom line is that trades with melee champions will not favor Mordekaiser during lane phase and trades with ranged champions are laughably one-sided in the lane phase.

Farming As I've established above, trading in lane highly favors Mordekaiser's lane opponent. Mordekaiser's only other option is to farm his lane without trying to trade. If Mordekaiser wishes to farm from melee range, the enemy laner is free to initiate trades with Mordekaiser at will, which Mordekaiser will lose, and lose terribly if he does not use his E. Mordekaiser can also stay back from the enemy laner and farm from range only using E. In both scenarios Mordekaiser cannot trade with his opponent and pushes the lane quite hard thanks to the AoE damage from his E. Sustained use of any ability in lane for Mordekaiser is difficult because of the health costs and reduced damage on his E. If Mordekaiser uses the conservative rune/item start discussed above but replaces MS quints with spellvamp quints and rushes a Hextech Revolver in an attempt to offset these costs, at level 9 he will only recoup the health cost of E if he hits five or more creeps at once. Although hitting champions generates shield more effectively with E, it does not do so with spell vamp, and in fact the magic resistance of champions strongly reduces the healing. The healing from Q is more significant and efficient when used on creeps, but does require him to invest three auto attacks onto minions from melee range in a short span of time, which, when you can't trade with your lane opponent, is pretty risky.

The consequence of this farming pattern is that Mordekaiser invariably shoves his lane towards the enemy turret. This exposes Mordekaiser to ganks. With the slowest movespeed in the game and no mobility or cc, Mordekaiser is uniquely ill-equipped to avoid ganks in a solo lane. Old Mordekaiser shared this weakness, but it was not as pronounced for several reasons:

• Old Mordekaiser could push faster. With W and old E, he could drive a wave to a turret while shielding harass and force the wave to bounce off the turret or the enemy to tank the wave and Mordekaiser's damage to freeze it. He could then roam or farm jungle.
• Old Mordekaiser could successfully duel many enemy champions, and even win some 1 v 2s. However, with the nerfs to his E and shield and removal of his W from the solo-lane equation, his is reliant on landing successive auto attacks to deal damage, which, as discussed above, is typically impossible.
• Old Mordekaiser had 15 more movespeed and an (admittedly unreliable) movespeed boost.

The bottom line is that Mordekaiser still naturally shoves his lane, but he no longer does so as well as he used to. He is now more susceptible to ganks as a solo laner than he was before, and cannot duel anyone, let alone try to succeed in a 1 v 2 situation.

TO SUMMARIZE (While laning) -Mordekaiser's new shield is worse than the old one in nearly all respects (all except minimum value) unless you build a lot of health, then it's only worse than the old one in most all respects. -Mordekaiser's Q is nearly impossible to use on the enemy laner but contains most of his kit's damage. -Mordekaiser's W is inaccessible in lane without assistance -Mordekaiser's E is weaker in all respects and, despite now being his primary shield generation tool, does not generate shield as effectively as before. -Mordekaiser's R is still pretty awesome but good luck actually killing someone by yourself in a solo lane. -Mordekaiser's primary weakness in a solo lane (beinged ganked) has been amplified, while his primary strengths in lane (pushing, dueling) have been diminished. -For these reasons, Mordekaiser is no longer a viable solo lane pick against almost any champion in the game, and loses lane hard to viable solo lane picks.

Thank you for your attention.

EDIT I can't seem to correct the typo in the title (lack of a space). Darn :(