Ideas for a Mordekaiser overhaul

Mordekaiser is in a very bad spot right now Looking back to Juggernaut update, Riot tried to make what was an old concept, non-interactive, ball of stat champion in something new, that could fill a niche they have never been able to fulfill in league, aka a melee bot laner (a thing they have never being able to do because every champ they tries to put in that role ended up playing somewhere else, think of Yasuo for example), giving him an even more unique gimmick with him capable to acquire the freaking dragon ghost to empower him and increased experience from sharing minions in a duo lane

The experiment was frankly a disaster, since it turned out he became a huge problem in release state in bot lane, so they had to nerf him to oblivion and let him stay in that situation waiting for a way to solve the problems with him What are his actual problems? Well, if you check out on boards, there have been notorious hardcore Mordekaiser mains explaining them, and there have been periodically various threads resurfacing that highlight various different points.

What I have observed, though, is that everyone debated about the champ, assumed as axiom that he HAD to have his current passive. And I agreed with them, because it makes sense for a champ like him BUT, thinking again about it, I found that is incredibly difficult to balance a champ around two super strong abilites like having a huge shield off damage dealt AND having a ghost pet that heals you without being forced to gut everything else, as morde has actually no mobility and no CC... which in the end turns him in being either overpowered when he is a total ball of stats or being completely trash when the stats do not justify him having no mobility and no CC, that was exactly the problem of old Morde

So how can we make Mordekaiser viable and especially easy to balance while having him keeping most of his signature abilities?

And then, finally I had the intuition.

GET RID OF THE PASSIVE… at least, as a passive.

If we shift the passive to one of his active spells, it is much much much easier to achieve both the goals, make him keep his signature skills while making him a champ that can be balanced the same way the other can and is not anymore in a situation where he is either pick/ban or disappear into the oblivion

Here is the idea for a possible kit (no numbers):

PASSIVE: Malleability ( P.S. it is a bad interim name, it is just to give a quick reference to the idea)

Morde has a resource bar, the resources are Metal Shards. Morde receives Metal Shards by dealing damage to enemies (capped at %max health). Morde gets different stats, depending on the percentage of Metal Shards available. Morde gets a MS boost, which decreases once the bar % surpass 50%. When the bar is full, Morde loses all the remaining MS boost, but gets resistences. The Metal Shard stacks do not decay over time. After using Creeping Death, Morde can't acquire Metal Shards for X seconds

**Q: Mace of Spades **

Morde's next TWO basic attacks gain range and are empowered like in the old Morde Q (bouncing to enemies, increased damage if no enemies nearby). Each empowered AA apply Resonance. , and a stack is applied to every enemy hit, including the one hit with the bounce. Applying two stacks of Resonance silence the enemy and slows them briefly for x seconds. Only the first enemy which receives two stack of Resonance is silenced, the others which would eventually receive the second stack off the bounce are only slowed

AA reset as well

W: Creeping Death Morde summons a cloud of Metal Shards, consuming them all immediately, to shield himself and deal damage to nearby eneies. Shield decay over time. Works like old Morde W (when applied on an ally give the damage and when Morde and ally are moving each other), but an ally target receive only a reduced % of Morde shield During Creeping Death duration, Morde get no stat gain from the Malleability passive

E: Siphon of Destruction Stays the same

R: Children of the Grave Works as has always done. Morde AA and abilites curse Dragon and Baron for X second. Morde can't get anymore the dragon ghost, BUT Morde ghosts get dragon and baron buffs if Morde or his team slain a dragon/baron that morde has cursed

Thoughts?