how I feel about morde...

I have never tried morde pre-work so I can't tell whether or not he feels weaker or stronger than the pre-work and so I won't have much bias to or against him. After the work, I felt like that might as well try him out and bought him to see how a bruiser works in bot. To be honest I have played just under 10 games and he does feel like a good champ for bot (I won most games I played with him. around 75% winrate, I think). It may be the fact I build slightly more ap than ad. My runes are ap+ad+ some armour and my mastery is mostly offensive (25) and 5 defensive. It may also be my play style and build which might be different to how others might build him and the reason why he is getting so much hate.

I start off with 3 pots and which i upgrade it to once i get 500 gold. (I don't upgrade this further) I always start with W then upgrade my E at lvl 2. My Q comes at around lvl 4/5 when most junglers start to come and just poke with my E when their adc is trying to farm the mages (the shield after that protects me from aa so i win the exchange mostly). When my sup is with me i just use w and walk in the middle of a minon wave (unless i'm in range of a blitz or thresh q) and get the heals by pressing w. The shield helps me farming since I might get harrased by the opponents if i take ages meleeing the big minions and 1 hitting them gives both me and my partner an advantage.

My first item is always . Since Q is useless early stages, it is why i upgrade it lvl 4/5 until i get this item. all skills scales with ap too and this item's slow means if i land my e, I can walk up to their adcs w/o problem most of the time (morde has more base ms than adcs and with boots he can reach them most of the time) and his Q will slow them even more cuz of ryali.

Next item: I max my e first for the harassment and slow (from ryali). I go for and 3rd item is The shield is very useful in team fights as you can tank quite a bit plus with that bonus shield you have the bonus attack which scales with q and e. I build (since it has ad, ap and hp. perfect for morde!) followed by . (NB. you should sell once team fights are starting. you got your sup some good amount of gold which helps your team overall and during laneing phases this item helps restore hp from using your e early game)

I don't know if it is intended but I have and can solo baron when i have drake ghost once i am lvl 13/14 (drake takes aggro onto himself instead of me so i get to live. by lvl 14 your skill ranks should be Q:5 w:2 e:5 r:2 ).

I haven't been in a game long enough for me to decide on what is a good 6th item would be. Also I have only played solo Q, blind picks in normal. I have played 9 games and won 6 (1 game i lost I was in mid. didn't work out that well. another loss was because my sup dced but also they had an awesome blitz so bad game for me too and 3rd loss cuz we had 2 junglers so it was hard for me to solo vs 2).

My lack of games along of the fact I never played as morde pre-work may cloud my judgement but over all, I like him and he seems good going bot.

I personally find the best sups for him are (maybe blitz too, havent been with one yet).

Finally if you really are skeptical about him, it may be a good idea to check out my recent match history since i literally played 9 games in a row with morde. ( I also gain a lot of assists and not actually be part of fights due to w's decent range.)

PS. if you wonder what my skill build is it is: W,E,E,Q,E,R,E,Q,E,Q,R,Q,Q,W,W,R,W,W