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So this just occured to me, Morganna's kit is scary as hell.

JusticePauldrons·3/7/2015, 1:07:10 PM·2 votes·944 views

I always knew Morgana was a very popular pick and that she had a pretty strong kit. So after a few bad games against and with some I decided to go and give her stats a thorough look at it to figure out what exactly made this champion tick.

So let's break down the kit a bit here by skill

Dark Binding RANGE: 1175 COST: 50 / 60 / 70 / 80 / 90 MANA COOLDOWN: 11

ACTIVE: Morgana releases a sphere of dark magic that travels in a line, dealing magic damage and Root icon rooting the first enemy unit it hits for a duration. PROJECTILE SPEED: 1200 MAGIC DAMAGE: 80 / 135 / 190 / 245 / 300 (+ 90% AP) ROOT DURATION: 2 / 2.25 / 2.5 / 2.75 / 3

Alright, so this skill seems pretty basic, basically a more damaging version of Lux's Light Binding managed by the fact it only hits a single target. The real key of this skill is the long rooting effect which makes it incredibly useful for locking down opponents but overall it seems manageable.

Tormented Soil RANGE: 900 COST: 70 / 85 / 100 / 115 / 130 MANA COOLDOWN: 10

ACTIVE: Morgana infects target 175-radius area for 5 seconds, causing enemy units who stand on the location to take magic damage** every half second**. The damage is increased by 0.5% for every 1% of the target's missing health. MINIMUM DAMAGE PER HALF SECOND: 12 / 19 / 26 / 33 / 40 (+11% AP) MAXIMUM DAMAGE PER HALF SECOND: 18 / 28.5 / 39 / 49.5 / 60 (+16.5% AP) MINIMUM TOTAL DAMAGE: 120 / 190 / 260 / 330 / 400 (+ 110% AP) MAXIMUM TOTAL DAMAGE: 180 / 285 / 390 / 495 / 600 (+ 165% AP)

Holy Biscuits Batman. Let me just draw some attention to the bolded parts above. I never noticed these before and this is what I think contributes a major amount to her damage output throughout the game.

Yeah, didn't notice that the damage on that was every half second at first, and I certainly didn't notice it was also an execute, as such I thought the base damage was relatively lower in terms of dps. Boy was I wrong. For an ability on such a low cooldown why does it have these absolutely godly stats? I realize that avoiding the pool isn't the hardest thing in the world, but take that into account with her snares, slow, stun and a Liandry's Torment and this will absolutely melt people.

Black Shield RANGE: 750 COST: 55 MANA COOLDOWN: 23 / 21 / 19 / 17 / 15

ACTIVE: Places a shield around target friendly champion for up to 5 seconds, absorbing magic damage and preventing disables while the shield holds. SHIELD STRENGTH: 70 / 140 / 210 / 280 / 350 (+ 70% AP)

This skill is just a utility sandwich, while the shield strength is definitely strong towards ap heavy teams the real kicker here is the bolded part, this allows Morg or her teammates to shrug off CC while the effect holds and because the shield protects against magical damage this equals 5 solid seconds of disable prevention while fighting against physical champions.

Soul Shackles RANGE: 600 / 1050 COST: 100 MANA COOLDOWN: 120 / 110 / 100

ACTIVE: Morgana latches chains of energy onto nearby enemy champions for 3 seconds, dealing initial magic damage to them after a brief delay of 0.5 seconds and Slow icon slowing them by 20% if they stay within the tether range. MAGIC DAMAGE: 150 / 225 / 300 (+ 70% AP) Targets who do not leave the tether range are Stun icon stunned for 1.5 seconds and dealt the same magic damage. TOTAL MAGIC DAMAGE: 300 / 450 / 600 (+ 140% AP)

Morgana's ult and rightfully so, this ability allows her to slow and her stun up to 5 targets for 3 while dealing damage to them. This makes the ability perfect for with chasing or escaping and allows Morgana to engage hard on an enemy team while absorbing damage and crowd control with either a Zhonya's or her black shield. I don't see anything wrong with this ability really it's power relies on a mage getting close to enemy units but where it absolutely shines is in tandem with Tormented Soil.

Conclusion

Morg has a lot going on in here as both a mage and support, her high ap ratios and execute allow her to excel in dealing damage even at low AP values and her constant lockdown insures that the enemy is always taking a huge risk just by having her nearby, she presents an easy method of escape to both herself and her team and makes for a dangerous threat while trying to retreat for the same reason. Couples with her lockdown abilities, her Black Shield further allows her team an easier method of either escaping or engaging and while the magic component of it may have initially been meant for balance purposes, it actually makes the disable freedom last even longer. All in all, she has a ton of strengths and not very many weaknesses, while he black shield only prevents magical damage, her constant lockdown effects allow her or her team to avoid many physical threats, especially from melee targets.

Recommendation

Right now Morg has plenty of strengths and not very many weaknesses, I would like to tone down some of her more excessive abilities or move the power elsewhere so she has to focus on being either a great utility mage or a damage dealing monster rather than being both.

  • Try turning the Black Shield into a general purpose shield and lower it's ap ratio slightly. This will allow it to absorb more damage from all enemy threats but not be spammed as a "get of crowd control free" card. It will make it more powerful in terms of damage mitigation but prevent the constant frustration it currently provides.

  • Either lower the damage on Tormented Soul (either the base or by removing the execute) or increase the cooldown. The cooldown is only an issue because of how long the ability lasts and the fact that the cooldown begins at first cast rather than when the ability ends. This essentially allows Morgana to maintain constant Tormented Soil for as long as she has the mana for it.

  • Reduce the root duration on Dark Binding. Right now Morg can essentially scout bushes and stroll past the snared enemy before they ever get a chance to react. The duration is simply too long for a ranged nuke ability with an 11 second cooldown. I suppose another solution would be to reduce the excessive damage it boasts, but I feel like being able to deal high damage while maintaining some crowd control is pretty essential to Morgana's overall playstyle.

8 Comments

Mathbalnase3/7/2015, 2:24:43 PM3 votes

Weaknesses: immobile as fuck W deals negligible damage to anyone not locked in place (assuming they have half a brain); very mana intensive E doesn't block physical damage half the ults damage and its stun can be avoided simply by walking away all abilities have relatively long CDs, leaving Morg incredibly vulnerable if she misses a Q

Sona Ping3/7/2015, 6:23:06 PM3 votes

I don't know how you don't already know all this, but hey! First day for everything.

To the point: Of course, Morgana's Tormented Soil does a lot of damage, it's her damage spell. It's the only real damage she has, so of course it's going to be concentrated there. Also, the half second ticks are not a case of it being made stronger, it ticks that way so they DoT is applied appropriately/consistently. Her ability design is COMPLETELY normal and standard for how champions were made at that time. There's nothing outrageous here.

OH! Another point I forgot. Again, or course it's given a lot of damage. It has to have a good amount of damage because there is a great tactic that severely mitigates the amount of damage that her W can do, and it can be done by every champion: walking in literally any other direction. (A bit of counter-play that was forgotten about by the guy who reworked Soraka).

I could go on, but I'm not keen on being exhaustive right now. In short: No. No, Morgana does not need any changes, she's fine the way she she is. A champion have strengths and reasons to choose them is a good thing, not signs of needing a nerf.

Ice Weasel X3/7/2015, 2:10:10 PM2 votes

{quoted}

Morgana's ult and rightfully so, this ability allows her to slow and her stun up to 3 targets while dealing damage to them.

FYI, Soul Shackles can actually hit all 5 enemy champions.

Miku Lv993/8/2015, 11:06:05 AM1 votes

I don't think she's op. She has no mobility, and her abilities are pretty short range. Well, except Q, but that's pretty easily avoidable at long range. So it's hard for her to make all that much use of her abilities in a lot of situations.

Skia Asteri3/9/2015, 3:40:05 AM1 votes

The weakness is being unreliable for everything except for her black shield (Being able to avoid all her damage except half of her ult and the first couple of ticks from her very costly Tormented Soil). And long cool downs that cause her to fall off as a damage threat late in the game. In that regard it is clear she was designed to be used in double AP compositions, especially when you consider her W use to shred magic resist instead of increasing damage based on % HP missing.