Initial Juggernaut Thoughts

RiotMeddler·Aug 21, 2015·82 votes·56,638 views

Hey all,

Wanted to share our initial reactions to how the reworked juggernauts are doing so far, give you folks a bit of context into what we're thinking/planning:

Darius: Looks like he's potentially a bit on the weak side. Investigating possible buffs (most likely laning focused) should that prove to be true.
Garen: Potentially a bit strong, might be in an ok spot though, still assessing.
Mordekaiser: Too early to say. Seems to be at least in the right ballpark, since we're seeing a roughly appropriate mixture of success and failure. Lot of people relearning how to play as and against though, so can't judge usefully yet.
Skarner: Way too strong. We'll likely hotfix nerf as a result (start of next week is what we're looking at, which would be the earliest available opportunity)

463 Comments

Solidair3Aug 21, 201568 votes

Oh wow, thank you. I've always wanted to hear Riot's follow up thoughts on things like this. I hope you plan to do this more often.

RiotMeddlerAug 21, 201572 votes

Noted, will try to do so more often. A lot of the time though first day reactions won't be so useful (much harder to gauge smaller balance changes off one day's play for example), so might be more 'thoughts after a week' sort of stuff instead.

GarrotteAug 21, 20157 votes

Instead of just doing random hotfixes, can you make it more official and do like 5.16.X or something?

ProfirixAug 21, 201519 votes

I can't thank you enough for asking about for feedback. It makes us feel appreciated and our feedback goes to the top.

On the matter at hand: my one and ONLY concern about your upcoming potential hotfixes for Skarner is that you not remove too much damage from his kit. He is a bruiser-juggernaut and I agree that his alpha damage right now is far too high, but his sustained damage needs to be significant enough to keep him a very real threat without relegating him to the purely utilitarian role of old. I would be crushed if we once again found the scorpion sitting on the back benches and out of champion select.

Edge of DaybreakAug 21, 201535 votes

Skarner showing that PBE works as intended.

CrazedPorcupineAug 21, 201566 votes

Except, didn't everyone on the PBE say that Skarner was too weak?

Jungle Lux GodAug 21, 20151 votes

I think everything that was complained about with Skarner was based around him being too reliant on Spires and not having enough power outside of them and less that Skarner was too weak.

SelflessTeammateAug 21, 20151 votes

Yeah, but as to be expected from the PBE by now, they were wrong about that, too. Heck, a lot of players (and I mean a lot) don't read patch notes, ever. His E makes sure that's almost never an issue, unless he outright whiffs it (as long as he hits SOMETHING, he gets the same Spire bonus). So, that nullifies the entire argument about that one.

Sightless66Aug 21, 20153 votes

The E and ult giving the spire bonus wasn't initially part of the rework. Actually, he was pretty screwed outside of the zones when the rework first went on the PBE. The E and ult didn't trigger his passive, 15 movement speed was taken away from him, the zones were smaller than they are now, the spires near red buff covered the krugs instead of the chickens (it was much more out-of-the-way), his Q did less damage (11% less when maxed), and his attack frame was much slower.

Seriously, look at all that stuff. Imagine him with those problems, and it will make sense why people were complaining. He legitimately sucked when he was first put on the PBE. People weren't wrong about that, and if you look at the thread, people weren't complaining that he was weak after the 3 buffing patches had come out.

Troll for TrumpAug 21, 201539 votes

isn't a larger problem. PBE: Yeah uhm, Morde bot REALLY doesn't work, especially w/o mobility, being melee, 325 MS, squishiness, and easy kitability so--- CertainlyT: You just need a good support... PBE: Yeah but the enemy adc can get a good support and you would be behind---- CT: And don't forget a Targon's Brace! PBE: Wha- CT: Mordekaiser is too toxic for solo lane's he's an ADC PBE: Please don't release Morde live as an ADC... CT: WElcome to patch 5.16 where we will be discussing ADC morde PBE: :(

Seriously though, CT has done some awesome stuff too, designing some of the most popular champs: Darius, Kalista, and Yas. All of them are awesome lorewise and designwise, but are a bit tedious to play against. UNtil Darius got reworked, cuz now he's a little weaker.

TenSlashTenAug 21, 201510 votes

actually from my experience new mord has been a really cool champ to have on my team. he's like a bruiser than can have a pet.

Least thats what I see from their builds and such. Not much diff from old mord honestly. Idk about numbers and frankly idc about numbers because usually they're broken or too low anyway so why worry about it.

SilentConquestAug 21, 201534 votes

You missed a real shot to name this thread "Initial Juggerthoughts" but that's just me.

RiotMeddlerAug 22, 201514 votes

...

Yeah, yeah I did. Sad now.

MortekaiserAug 21, 201532 votes

morde's potential damage might be high but the ramp up is too difficult to reach to be anything more than purely situational

he lacks coherency, and he's become a more toxic champion as a result

5000000000000000Aug 21, 201523 votes

I remember how people were complaining about Skarner rework being the weakest.

Shroom JunkieAug 21, 20153 votes

{quoted}

I remember how people were complaining about Skarner rework being the weakest.

Yeah, I did too... just for the simple fact it was dull. But this is just maddening. Two games in a row, I'm top lane, Skarner's jungle, and by the time laning phase is over, I came back both times and found Skarner with 15+ kills, first time with only one death, the other by end game was like 22/0/5.

holer crawp. He was tanky af and did enough damage to 1v1 a fairly-fed Tryndamere. why.

EnosetcAug 21, 201521 votes

incoming salt:

ryze didn't get a hotfix when he was autowinning by the time he reached midgame elise wasn't hotfixed when she was 100-0ing squishies at level 4

meanwhile skarner

mind you "they didn't get a hotfix, so neither should he" is terrible logic, but i am curious as to what made you all decide to go the hotfix route this time around

RiotMeddlerAug 21, 201526 votes

Given the size of the changes in 5.16, and the risk that one or more of the juggernauts would be significantly off balance wise (whether weak or strong) we prearranged a hot fix window so we could respond to issues like this one quicker than usual.

As far as Ryze goes I do think we should have reacted quicker when he was effectively chain rooting people. Cases like that or Kass/Veigar being extremely weak earlier in the year, have led us to investigate using balance hotfixes recently for stuff like Fiora or Skarner. Hotfixes aren't appropriate tools for regular balance changes, we're trialing whether they're an appropriate tool in cases where a champion's extremely out of line however.

The Blue RajahAug 21, 20155 votes

I'm both glad to see that you're doing this, and glad that you're waiting a whole week before actually putting out a hotfix this time. I think hotfixing Fiora a single day after release was rather hasty. Honestly, whether or not the changes pan out, I would rather you never do it without giving people at least a week to adjust. Especially with reworks and the like when things need to be relearned.

MaikalAug 21, 20152 votes

During that hot fix window, would you be able to please fix master Yi? Since 5.13, his double strike no longer lowers the cooldown of alpha strike. Same with sated devourer's phantom hit.

This was supposed to be fixed by 5.14 but hasn't been.

RiotmoonstonesAug 21, 20153 votes

The Double Strike issue is something that came up again while PROJECT: Yi was undergoing testing. This issue has been resolved, and should be in the next patch.

Same with sated devourer's phantom hit.

I poked gameplay about this, and they're looking into it now.

Malicious MetalAug 21, 201520 votes

Any plans on improving Mordekaiser's solo laning? I've played him a decent amount and he struggles a bit in top, especially during ganks with his abysmally low movement speed. He's great in team fights though and ramps up really well during the course of the game, reaching the goal of him being a Heavy Metal Juggernaut. His Mace isn't just for show anymore and he actually feels a lot more like the Paladin of Pain, The Master of Metal, THE Murder Emperor. It just flat out sucks not to being able to Cast Harvester of Sorrow on yourself if you want to push out a lane by yourself. Heck, your support won't ALWAYS be there with you, give him the ability to use his W and we're sold Riot. Also, I must say he's hella lot of fun to play in lategame skirmishes and generally fulfills the vision of him being this unholy force stemming from the shadow isles.

But yeah, improving his solo experience while keeping the other juicy bits unique for his duo laning is probably the best way to go if you want to open up the positions he can be played in as well as pleasing all us former SoloKaisers.

~M.M

lightdragoon88Aug 21, 201513 votes

What kind of nerfs are you planning on Skarner? I know he strong now but we don't want **ANOTHER **repeat of Skarner being nerfed into the unplayable area again.

RiotMeddlerAug 21, 201519 votes

Not certain yet, though rank 1 W % and E damage are the most likely starting points.

ProfirixAug 21, 201510 votes

This seems like a really good spot to hit him. When people are Maxing E for its damage over Q, you know there are some issues. The shield...yea, he has a little too much tankiness when he presses W. I've had a really hard time gauging Q's damage because no one levels it first!

terkmcAug 21, 201511 votes

Morde feels very underwhelming without his W in solo lane. We really need it back. Smoothen out the damage scaling on his Q a bit, its really about that third Q or nothing now, might need the extra auto attack range on it back. He feels clunky

Malicious MetalAug 21, 20159 votes

{quoted}

Morde feels very underwhelming without his W in solo lane. We really need it back. Smoothen out the damage scaling on his Q a bit, its really about that third Q or nothing now, might need the extra auto attack range on it back. He feels clunky

New Morde's AA range's 200 :P But yeah, everyone I've talked to, especially Morde mains, think that he should get his Harvester of Sorrow back :I

terkmcAug 21, 201513 votes

Murder Emperor not Murder Need-a-babysitter damnit q_q

Only Play DariusAug 21, 201510 votes

Everyone says skarner is strong, but i'm just not getting it. He has to stay in the crystal zones to really be operating at 100%, enemies just have to stay out of the unclaimed ones.

Although the new stun actually makes him great at ganking pre-6, historically one of his main weaknesses.

ClambamAug 21, 201510 votes

Darius main here, the reason his laning is so bad after rework is because of his Q. Anyone who has any sort of jump or gap closer can avoid his Q. Keep in mind his Q is what you max and it's how you trade in lane. Another thing that I really don't like about his Q is that you have to align it now even to wave clear, previously it did max damage regardless of which part of the axe the minions were hit with. His bleed also got nerfed hard. Not only did the damage get reduced but now it does physical damage. Darius W also feels really underwhelming now, I don't understand why the attack speed debuff needed to be removed. If it were up to me I would have simply given him the +50 attack range and left everything else alone. Sorry for the salt, I'm just really gonna miss old Darius.

HeliostormAug 21, 201510 votes

Morde rework was a failure. Put aside whether he's strong or weak for a second, and let's just look at his playstyle. Morde changes have always set out to make Morde less and less of a binary champion. It used to be that he either got an ADC ghost and was godmode, or that he didn't and was useless. Through repeated changes, you guys took power off his ghost and put it on his other abilities. Great. But now the rework has made him more binary than he has ever been. By putting him botlane as a replacement for an ADC in an immobile, slow, melee champion, you by necessity have to give him so much power that he cannot be balanced anymore. Either he gets in range to get 3 autoattacks off and kills everything, or he gets kited and dies without ever being able to hit anyone. There is no inbetween.

The real sad part is that because you tried to balance him for bot lane against ranged champions, he is now far too strong vs melee champions. Ranged champions are now the only champions that can hope to deal with Morde, because no melee champion has a hope of being able to survive his damage no matter what they build (1500 from a single ability with only Gunblade and Rylai's?). The only way to deal with Morde is to never allow him to use his abilities, either by kiting or with CC. If the goal of the Morde rework was to make him a less binary champion, it has completely and utterly failed in this regard.

EnderForHegemonAug 21, 20159 votes

Garen's balance isn't my concern. Garen's direction as a champion feels all wrong to me. I chose Garen as a super-scaling regen tank with the ability to silence and sit on a scary caster for his team. I don't want any of this random damage, I don't want the game to choose my targets for me. I want to use my old tenacity, mobility, and silence utility to dive a team and lock someone down for several seconds while my team wins the game. That's my Garen fantasy, and these changes are not at all what I'm looking for in Garen updates.

JusticePauldronsAug 21, 20159 votes

I am a bit confused, I was feeling almost exactly the opposite about the Garen/Darius Situation. Darius appears to have gotten stronger across the board aside from reduced early game potential and the loss of his glitchy flash pull. He synergizes incredibly well with all of the new items as a character who relies on autoattacks just as much as ability usage (where things like Titanic Hydra and Dead Man's Plate focus on auto attack synergy) in comparison to Garen whose primary power is his ability usage.

As someone who mains Garen I am going to throw my two cents in on the changes by directly comparing the two fighters and my experience and review from my teammates regarding the changes.

Darius' heal gives him great sustain during teamfights and his bloodrage allows for maximum dunkage, all things that synergize well with his kit. The increase to his base health and resistances per level pushed him even further into the tank zone of the fighter category, allowing his strong crowd control and damage potential to make for great initiations.

Garen Garen on the other hand feels sort of clunky at the moment, his reduced health per level shows and the reduction to his early game power is rather prevalent. His lack of crowd control from his silence being nerfed, lack of tenacity from his W and the loss of mobility from the speed duration reduction makes him far more susceptible to being kited than ever before. The stacking mechanic on his W insures that you are in a feast or famine situation from the start of the game, either you gain zone control and begin stacking right away for maximum effectiveness, or you basically lose the passive from courage until the late game. While I like the villain mechanic I feel that it is flawed due to the inability for the player to control who is considered a villain on the enemy team, many times you will find yourself having bonuses against a low priority target or one your wouldn't want to focus effort on at all. Compare that to the ability to dunk an entire enemy team for true damage and leave them bleeding, and I think you can see why I feel that his changes are clunky in comparison to Darius'

A running theme I seem to notice on the changes to Garen's kit is the gating system to reduce his early game power while allowing him to have a better end game. While this is nice in the sense that Garen's primary weakness was the transition to late game the drastic reduction to early game potential harms his ability to get to that point where you can start feeling the buffs in his kit, rather than the nerfs.

With this in mind I have to ask: What was the goal when redesigning Garen? With the increase to his attack damage per level and reductions to his resistances the theme I was getting is that Garen was meant to be an offensive focuses fighter whose goal is to deal damage rather than a defensive focused one. However the reduction in his early game power (in both offense and defense) makes me feel as if that isn't the case at all. Right now I am not sure how I feel about the changes because it seems that in general, he traded a ton of his offensive and defensive ability during the laning phase for the possibility of becoming powerful later in the game. But with that in mind wouldn't we be better off with a fighter who brings more to the table in terms of crowd control and aoe potential like Darius? Someone who can function as both a damage dealer and an initiator?

Suggestions (keep in mind these are not meant to be stacked, I know that would be broken):

Normalize the ticks from judgement back to 6 during the early game: Five is just....really weird okay?
Slightly increase the BASE damage to judgement: This would allow it function as a good harass tool early game without dramatically increasing it's late game power.
Reincrease the duration of Garen's silence, this would allow him to function as a semi-initiator and would not require any buffs to judgement due to the increased time you would have to get off ticks.
I have no idea what to do about the W to be honest, you guys seem really keen on reverting it back to a stacking mechanic again.
Do SOMETHING with the ultimate to give Garen some degree of control over who is considered the villain of the enemy team, I have had too many situations already where the extra bonuses end up doing nothing to an enemy because I would in no way want to focus them over other high priority targets. Compare that to the ability to choose a free true damage dunk with the ability to reset, and I think you may understand why I find the villain system to be clunky.

On a side note: Would you mind elaborating on how you feel as if Darius is on the weak side while Garen is on the strong? For the most part I can see that any situation I would want Garen in, Darius would be able to do the same job better and with more control over his engagements. With the crowd control provided by his pull and slow, Darius is able to choose his fights a lot easier and has a better time locking down targets or punishing enemies out of position. While both champions have execution ultimates, Darius has the potential to put a strong damage over time on all of his enemies and then dunk them for true damage and resets. While boh champions certainly benefited from the introduction of new items such as item 3748 Darius benefits from them more as a champion who spends a great deal of his time auto attacking and applying bleed stacks compared to Garen who will spend the majority of his time in the judgement animation, unable to use those items to their highest potential.

Looking forwards to your responses, and I appreciate you guys from communicating with us during these changes.

KelgAug 21, 20158 votes

Mordekaiser's solo lane has been absolutely destroyed. He loses access to his best ability, and with it, his sustain and wave clear(his E is useless for wave clear now). His Q also lost it's echo effect, so you can't use it as a ranged attack anymore(good bye mid morde). He loses to anyone while trying to be a top laner, and of course with no gank potential, jungle is out of the question. This Mordekaiser relies heavily on CC to do any real damage, so why restrict his W to only be used when near someone? Giving him access to his W solo would not break him... Think about it: when you use this skill in bot lane, you are healing 2 people, but when used solo, you are just healing yourself. So in other words, it's already half as effective in that aspect. You could even really reduce the healing aspect of his W when used solo, but either way it should still be usable. Most of the Mordekaiser Feedback suggests making his W usable solo, so please, just bring back solo Morde.

RiotMeddlerAug 22, 20158 votes

As a quick update it's looking like we'll also make some hot fix changes to Garen and Darius early next week. In Garen's case we're now fairly sure he's too strong, and are thinking about reducing his mobility a bit (-5 base MS, -5% on Q's movement speed bonus). For Darius we're looking at higher Q damage, possibly plus something else.

For 5.17 we're also looking at whether Darius's E is now too unreliable, given the change to only pull enemies that are in the cone at cast completion.

ErijianAug 22, 20159 votes

In Garen's case we're now fairly sure he's too strong, and are thinking about reducing his mobility a bit (-5 base MS, -5% on Q's movement speed bonus).

Are you serious? Are you getting your feedback from freaking bronze players that don't know how to kite or peel? Don't nerf him in higher ELO just because low ELO players struggle against him.

RyanXDAug 22, 20158 votes

{quoted}

As a quick update it's looking like we'll also make some hot fix changes to Garen and Darius early next week. In Garen's case we're now fairly sure he's too strong, and are thinking about reducing his mobility a bit (-5 base MS, -5% on Q's movement speed bonus). For Darius we're looking at higher Q damage, possibly plus something else.

For 5.17 we're also looking at whether Darius's E is now too unreliable, given the change to only pull enemies that are in the cone at cast completion.

Please just nerf the villain passive and leave his move speed alone. Villain is already pretty useless again decent players, and the amount you're nerfing Garen to keep this new mechanic is ridiculous. Considering how easy it already is to kite garen, reducing his move speed even more is going to make him terrible at higher ELO.

I really want my favorite champ to stay halfways viable, and seeing him receive nerf after nerf just to maintain a silly gimmick is very painful to watch.

YfrappefortAug 22, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Please just nerf the villain passive and leave his move speed alone. Villain is already pretty useless again decent players, and the amount you're nerfing Garen to keep this new mechanic is ridiculous. Considering how easy it already is to kite garen, reducing his move speed even more is going to make him terrible at higher ELO.

I really want my favorite champ to stay halfways viable, and seeing him receive nerf after nerf just to maintain a silly gimmick is very painful to watch.

I have to agree. They already nerfed Garen's mobility, and now they want to nerf it even more?

Before the update, he was already easy to kite. Now, unless you just walk into him, how is he supposed to get to his targets with all the Q nerfs, MS nerf and tenacity nerf?

Looks like he will be forced to buy Dead Man's Plate/Mercury in order to do anything.

Pretty sure you guys are overreacting on this one.

RISE Shlack123Aug 22, 20154 votes

I would suggest adding a delay on Villain acquisition when one villain dies. It happens far too often that Garen is able to hit and kill multiple villains in a single spell rotation, and that's nuts. Plus, the items Garen has available that stack with tankiness make him a monster to deal with. You have to have a strong kite team comp to counter a faceroll champion. It takes more skill to kill him than it does to play him, and that's not considering the other 4 members of the team.

For Morde, you should really look into nerfing that Dragon ghost. That thing is absurd if the enemy team is able to capture an early dragon. It's way overboard.

In my honest opinion, you guys ignored the community and went way overboard on this one. This should have been a pre-season patch instead of being released at the last quarter of the season when people are grinding out ranked to reach their goals. Balancing around the LCS isn't fair to those of us who have spent hundreds of dollars on skins. We deserve consideration when you guys make changes like this. League of Legends is not sustained by the LCS. The playerbase can make this game die just as easily as we made it live. You guys would do well to remember that.

Oh, and while we're at it, can you guys please address the Sated Devourer? It's broken - you know it, we know it. Fix it. Please.

AkabaneKunAug 21, 20156 votes

Either buff darius W or give him some kind of MS boost, either base MS or some buff on the Q when he Q's near a bleeding champion, right now he has no way of winning someone who engages him and stays on him until he dies with that AS and W, and since he has no way of disengaging he just dies, and the AS...i understand darius having a decent amount of AS would prove broken with the passive but 0.70 at lvl 18, really?

troy owoAug 21, 20156 votes

New morde would be waaaay better if he actually had a way to get to his target to q.

HiemdolAug 21, 20156 votes

I'm sad to read that the initial thought is that Morde is in the right ball park. I do not think the rework is healthy at all. He went from a low mechanical ceiling to a low mechanical ceiling champion with a built in cheese factor. Morde's only way to win seen to just out stat you, his kit does not include any skill to actually facilitate wining, only hoping you either stand still long enough to be killed or are pinned down long enough to be killed.

Unfortunately the experience passive he has and the fact so much of his power was shifted into his scaling means he has a rather easy time out stating you. Not out playing, his kit doesn't offer much by way of interaction, just pumping out number that are big enough to do the job. So if his support is doing a sub-optimal job of pinning you down you win, but if they can cc you for a bit he can win.

This new Morde does not strike me as satisfying or engaging. I like the attempt at broadening the strategic choices for bot lane, but in the past I thought Riot was shifting away from deciding the meta for us with the paradigm shift to roles as opposed to lanes. This feels forced and clunky, an odd decision to make a bot-bruiser viable in a game where that exact thing is not a natural occurrence. A champion who's only option to out stat you will either be to strong and become a must pick, or to weak and be out classes by other options for their role. Not just my idea, many games, including League are full of examples of this.

On the plus side I like the dragon soul stealing. If his kit had some points of interaction between him and his opponent other than just stand out of his range with other interactions like the dragon soul I would really be on board. As it stands however strong or weak I find the Morde rework misses the mark and because his only option is have bigger numbers than you unhealthy as a whole to the game.

VhalthoriaAug 22, 20155 votes

The Morde rework has potential to go solo lanes but it is all hindered by his abyssal MS and overall more squishiness when it comes to the early game so here's some suggestions in order to find a middle ground between the design team and the old and new Morde users:

Right now he is this big guy that deals titanic damage but can't freely do so till like 20 minutes into the game as that's where he gets his artificial stat boosters in order to feel a little more functional.

People are really mistaken if they think being able to self cast his new W will save his solo laning. It will take more than that. If we were talking about the old W then yeah it would really make a BIG difference but unfortunately that's no the case.

For starters, I honestly think his most brutal nerf was the MS, even more than losing the ability to self cast his W. If you compare his MS with champions with the same as let say, Gnar or Anivia. You can easily see their kits really are there to make it up for it. Anivia is ranged, has lots of great CC in her kit and a wall that can easily get anybody else killed if they don't have flash, or save herself for that matter. Gnar is ranged, has lots of CC, an escape and a ranged skillshot slow. I would understand why lowering the MS of such champions. But with Morde this is pretty much overkill in my opinion. The guy is MELEE, lacks any form of CC, gapcloser or anything to make up the loss of mobility without mentioning he kills himself by casting, I completely understand this is like this because his Q now deals titanic damage, but lets face it, he can't apply that at will due to the aforementioned nerf. So it pretty much makes him support-reliant and a very inconsistent yet situational champion by himself.

He is now designed to be fully used in close quarter combat but his shield decays really fast and is a non factor early in the game. He feels like he is forced to go in without the right tools.

His balancing would consist on his MS, his Q overall and how W would work while self casted.

Suggestion #1: Trade Movement Speed over Q scaling and damage.

I personally value being able to move freely than having massive damage. So I would take a large amount of his Q's scaling in order to see his MS restored to 340.

Suggestion #2: Leave Morde as slow as he is but Tweak his shield regeneration on his Q

Leave his MS at 325 but make it that each hit of his Q fill his shield for a fixed amount. Something like 1st - 10%, 2nd-25% and third 35%. I think it is much but considering how fast his shield now decays this will at least give him chance to survive his brutal early game when solo. Mind you, I only suggest this if he is still not able to self cast W in solo lane.

Suggestion #3: Give the 3rd Q hit a Knockup but increase it's cooldown

If we look closely to that hit, we can see it is his Critical Strike animation and hence he is hitting mega hard. The animation is a slamming blow that would make a Knockup CC ideal considering it would fit the effect pretty well. Again, only this if he can't still self cast W while solo.

Suggestion #4: Allow him to self cast W but with damages and effect significantly reduced

Allow him to do so but with something like 50% less effective during solo and 100% when used as originally intended (Conjunction of an ally). Also change the part where he heals to just regenerate that exact percentage of damage as shield instead when solo.

The range nerfs to his E and R are totally livable but if you are designing the champion to be more close combat oriented than ever then at least give him the right tools to help him do so.

I liked his old Q because if was an excellent ranged harass tool and could be used very strategically with the ricocheting shards, and it was simple and practical. His old W would have fitted better in this version because it makes him tankier like juggernauts should be. I feel like this rework could have been done better with some stuff from old Morde and some from the new one. I personally would have liked his old Q and W, with the current E and R (Without Dragon) and the movement speed nerf, but he would have been overall better and less painful that way regardless of the ms nerf. This version indeed has potential but it feel it was implemented the wrong way. I'm willing to give it balancing/tweak chances in the upcoming months. If it's certainty staying towards this new direction then I'll accept this champion is no longer for me and will quit him.

If we could see a matchup between the Old Morde vs the New One, you know for a fact the old is superior by almost everything. It is simply hard to love a champion who was intentionally crippled in order to serve a new direction when the older version was practically better and more practical.

This is just my grain of sand and hopefully someone give it at least a try into consideration. I would be more than happy to still be able use my champion in the role he was originally meant to be. Even if he is weaker. As long as he not intentionally crippled.

Thanks for reading.

UkuleleJayAug 21, 20154 votes

Could you possibly give us an idea of what other Juggernauts might be getting changes as well or are these four the only ones receiving changes?

RiotMeddlerAug 21, 201510 votes

We'll look at Olaf and Shyvana at some point, see if they're good fits for similar work. That won't be for a while though.

Captain AishiAug 21, 201511 votes

If anything is done to Shyvana please keep in mind that her original design is some kind of melee autoattacker, and unlike caster type juggernauts, she loses all her damage output the moment she gets kited because of her being a DPS type instead of a burst type

Ben SharpioAug 21, 20154 votes

Garen is NOT healthy as of right now. I played one game with him today and his new justice passive is incredibly overpowered. After that one game i played with him, he was ALWAYS banned in draft pick. I don't know how you could have made a braindead champion like Garen op but he is. He has been instakilling ADC's and is unbelievably hard to kill. On my team I was the only one able to itemize against him, but even my build was not enough. The true damage is just ridiculous and his silences on top of everything in his kit makes it really difficult to fight back. The part that confused me the most is the fact that Jax and I shut him down HEAVILY during the beginning. Gank after gank. I am not lying to you guys, he was instakilling all of my teammates. Jax, Tristana, our support, GONE. Of course after they die the passive rotates between champions and its just a slaughterfest. This needs to be addressed immediately. I hope other people have experienced this. Before the rework, garen was in a fair spot. He could tank damage and output a FAIR amount himself. Now, he is a god damn sponge, and he is able to kill nearly anyone he pleases. I even built randuins to counter his critical strike, but nope. Silence after silence my health drops even faster with the true damage and BAM thats it, i'm dead. And so are my teammates.

This is the game: Someone please try this build and determine if this dude is broken or not. It was a really bad experience i had with him, and the person playing Garen admitted that garen was a bit broken. I also think that the consistent banning of Garen is a sign too.

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/1925525458/49006880?tab=overview

RyanXDAug 21, 201512 votes

Your team gave first blood to Leblanc at 2 mins and 48 seconds...and you're the only player on your entire team that had a positive kill:death ratio....of course you're going to have a bad game when that happens.

Looking at the stats, I don't think the problem is that Garen was too overpowered - it's more likely that your team just under-performed. Xerath, for example, went 1/19/5; how do you expect him to do ANY damage to a 27 kill Leblanc or a 21 kill Garen after they've already snowballed into godliness?

Additionally, It doesn't appear that you even shut him down in the early-game. Garen had 291 CS (which is nearly 150 more than you had), and even if you got a few early kills, there's no way a few meager kills can make up for that kind of CS difference.

SalmonSprinklePiAug 21, 20151 votes

Mordekaiser: Too early to say. Seems to be at least in the right ballpark, since we're seeing a roughly appropriate mixture of success and failure. Lot of people relearning how to play as and against though, so can't judge usefully yet.

I have been laning with a friend of mine who is extremely good at Nautilus, and I have yet to lose lane with that as of 6 games in a row. (A 7th without him) Mordekaiser is exactly what you set out to make him, an alternative to the ADC. The problem is that his power is so extreme, the lanes that don't get crushed by him are only the safest (Caitlyn + Soraka). Even then, he's quite capable of laying down greater than 1000 damage burst with his Q in fights, so he can easily put down the enemy fronline. He needs some serious tweaks, but I have been having a lot of fun as him. The only issue, none of my enemies seem to. My entertainment should not be held above the five on the other team. (I have yet to play against Jinx and Kalista, those could be rough, we'll see though.)

Level1BulbasaurAug 21, 20155 votes

{quoted}

I have been laning with a friend of mine who is extremely good at Nautilus, and I have yet to lose lane with that as of 6 games in a row. (A 7th without him) Mordekaiser is exactly what you set out to make him, an alternative to the ADC. The problem is that his power is so extreme, the lanes that don't get crushed by him are only the safest (Caitlyn + Soraka). Even then, he's quite capable of laying down greater than 1000 damage burst with his Q in fights, so he can easily put down the enemy fronline. He needs some serious tweaks, but I have been having a lot of fun as him. The only issue, none of my enemies seem to. My entertainment should not be held above the five on the other team. (I have yet to play against Jinx and Kalista, those could be rough, we'll see though.)

the only reason youve been having the wins is cause morde needs to have a giant cc train to be unstopable without it he gets kited easy and wont touch an adc he may damage a melee but its only worth if you lane e then can hit all 3 q casue if you dont you took a lot of damgae for nothing