Mordekaiser Players: Have you been building him wrong? Tank Mord vs AP Mord

Right now, Mordekaiser players build 1 of 2 ways:

Some weird ass Liandry's + Rylai's combo which is horrible because in reality only his ult synergizes well with this, and your ult is easily countered by QSS rendering this combo completely and utterly useless. These items also do nothing to strengthen your passive as they give no armor or mr, aside from the minimal AP they give compared to other AP items.

The more common method: Using Luden's as your primary AP item (before Deathcap) while building Zhonya's Hourglass and Abyssal Scepter for defense+AP then building full AP.. maybe with GA as final item.

What is wrong with the common method? Mordekaiser has shitty AP ratios, but his abilities have nice base damage and hit a range of targets. His damage can be great even when backed by minimal AP. His Q has a .4 ratio, his W a .15 ratio, and his E a .6 ratio. Combined, he has a 1.15 ratio. That is HORRIBLE compared to other AP champions. I do not include his ult because it should be used as an execute rather than an addition to your combo because it is easily countered by any competent ADC as they will buy QSS. He also has terrible mobility and is one of the easiest champions in the game if not THE EASIEST champion in the game to kite. The main argument to what I have said is "But but... LifeCycles... by building AP you are also tanky because your W gives you armor and resists and your damage builds your passive!" Thats cute, with your minimal armor and resists from your core items you will be cut through like butter and blown up if focused in a teamfight. And awesome, you got a ghost, too bad you won't live long enough to see the whole duration of it. How many Morde's have you seen die before their ghost? Probably not many because so few people play Mordekaiser, but I assure you as a Mordekaiser player after you get focused then you burn your Zhonya's you are screwed if you get CC'd or focused because you will die.

Your ghost from your ult, like your Q and E, does a great amount of damage even without you building AP. So what does that mean for you?

This is where the optimal build comes in... we are taking it back to pre-season 1 folks: CDR/Tank/Magic Pen Mordekaiser You do loads of damage without building AP, your base damage is so damn good and once you get a ghost your damage overall is awesome. Keep in mind all of your damage is AoE. Your ghost's attacks build your shield up for you btw, so why don't we maximize upon that? There is a huge difference between 600 shield with 100 armor and mr, and 600 shield with 150 armor and mr. And yes, I know armor/mr do not scale well passed 100 (which provides 50% damage reduction) but with the prevalence of items such as the Black Cleaver, Last Whisper, runes and masteries, etc... it is damn necessary to build that shit up. You want to build Mord to be an unkillable god on the battlefield that still is able to deal fuckloads of damage despite his lack of AP. How do you do this?

Runes/Masteries: Run 4-21-5 masteries This will give you 5% of much needed CDR for more uptime on your spells, much needed tankiness, and additional movement speed (which Mord needs really bad) with a point in Alchemist so your potions take you further.

There is not really just 1 optimal rune setup, but if I had to give a generalized setup it would be Marks: 9x Magic Penetration Seals: 9x Armor/level Glyphs: 9x CDR/level Quints: 3x Magic Penetration

total: 15% CDR @ level 18 27 armor @ level 18 15 magic penetration

Magic penetration is extremely important on Mordekaiser, not only because it synergizes extremely well with his ultimate, but because of his high base damage. If you build AP runes on Mordekaiser, you are a huge flaming noob to Mordekaiser. Lets say you went apeshit and were to somehow come up with +100 AP from your Runes. Between your Q and W congratulations you just did an extra 100 damage and +2% max health damage on your ult. Woop-dee-fuckin-doo. 15 magic penetration will give you more than 100 extra damage and more than 2% more of their max health in damage every damn time, so please for the love of god take Magic Penetration runes on Mord. Again, his AP ratios are total shit but his CDs and base damage are awesome and hit multiple targets.

PS: If you still want to build AP Mord and totally ignore everything that I have said, replace your Quints with Spell Vamp quints. This will save you 1200 gold from having to invest in a Hextech Revolver and double/triple that to upgrade it. You are allowing yourself allocate your precious gold elsewhere. Against difficult matchups, I'd recommend flat HP regen quints for an extra 8.1 hp every 5.

15% CDR + 5% CDR from Masteries allows you to itemize elsewhere, frees up building.

27 armor @ level 18 btw is awesome, especially against these 3-4 AD teams you will be seeing a lot of. Maximize that shit ASAP, scaling runes are better on Mord imo because he levels more quickly than other champions. Ask your jungler if you can take 1/2 of their camps and outlevel the shit out of your laner and maximize on all your per level runes.

ITEMS:

Alright, everything is situational as hell. But you want synergy with these items, magic penetration is a must and so is armor and mr. So here goes:

One of these 3 items will be your first, it all depends on your matchup. Eventually, you should have all 3. You will notice most all items on this list are cheap, you should have full build ASAP and end the game. If the game is some long-ass 60 minute endeavor you may or may not fall off.

Core Items: (Tier 1 Importance)

Remember to upgrade your god damn trinket for fuck sake. You are perhaps the easiest champ in the game to gank, do yourself and your team a favor.

vs Highly mobile champion such as Ahri are necessary. +15 magic pen + your +15 from your runes is +30 magic penetration already early game. You are pretty much doing true damage at this point.

vs AP champion Everyone within 700 range of you gets their MR reduced by 20. 35 magic pen with just this and runes, 50 magic pen with boots. Hot damn you are a boss and are possibly doing BONUS damage because Abyssal Scepter can reduces someone's MR below 0. The +50 MR helps as well.

vs AD champion I know, I know. Who the hell gets Sunfire Cape anymore when Cinderhulk is around, right? Wrong. Mordekaiser NEEDS the armor. His passive works as an additional health pool on top of your own, you want that to be as strong as possible. Armor and MR make this shield stronger. Why this instead of Zhonya's? It is cheaper and synergizes very damn well with your Abyssal Scepter. Between this and your W, you are dealing over 100 magic damage a second to everyone around you at max level. Over 5 seconds that is 500 damage to anyone dumb enough to try to kill you. It also provides you with some health, which you will need because you are not picking up Spell Vamp. However, you will have masteries which regenerate your health and raise the effectiveness of your health potions.

Typical Mordekaiser player: OH SHIT WHERE IS THE HEXTECH REVOLVER?!?!?!?

Hextech Revolver costs 1200 gold and builds into 2 different items that are imo shitty compared to others (WotA is crap late game, and I'd rather spend 3400 gold elsewhere, sorry Gunblade), especially when it comes to building tank Mordekaiser. Many Mords I see buy the Revolver, then if they make it all the way to late game and need to finish their 6 item build sell the Revolvers in favor of another . Great plan, but that means 1200 gold was kinda wasted. Why not just buy a fuckload of potions? 35 gold a pop. 1 Revolver = 34.285 potions. You'd have to be doing very shitty to buy even half of that.

Alright, so here are your items:

What is next?

Situational Items (Tier 2 Importance)

vs OMG TANK META!!! 35% mag pen? Really? If someone had 100 MR, it would get cut down to 65, then reduced by another 50 because runes/core items. They have 15 MR. You are basically doing true damage. 150 MR? 47.5. That is about 30% damage reduction? You are ripping through people.

vs OMG they have idgaf + any ADC Thornmail + Abyssal Scepter = GG to these guys. Yes, Abyssal Scepter's flat magic resistance deduction does apply to the magic damage inflicted by Thornmail, which makes the 2 sync very well. Abyssal Scepter + Sunfire + Thornmail = You can stand still and watch someone beat the crap out of themselves, just add in your W for shits in giggles. BY THE WAY!!! 100 armor from Thornmail + 45 Armor from Sunfire + 27 from Runes + I'm not even going to include masteries lol + 30 from your W = 202 armor. Now, add in Mord's base armor value at level 18 (84) and you get 286 armor. Hey bro, nice Black Cleaver. Nice Laster Whisper. Nice Brutalizer. You are still getting all of your damage cut by what... 60% ATLEAST? Your passive will be very damn powerful vs AD champions and few AD champions will be able to duel you. I take this over Randuin's because the damage and the 30 additional armor that you would want against a very auto-attack heavy team. More Armor = Stronger Passive.

vs Heavy AP Team Why Banshee's over Spirit Visage you ask? Spirit Visage synergize very well with the typical Mord builds where you are packing atleast 20% spell vamp, but with this Mord completely negating a single spell takes priority over that, not to mention the better base stats. This + your = 105 MR. Add 53 due to Morde's base stats, 158, not including Masteries.

vs AD Heavy Team that isn't Autoattack Heavy Can be helpful vs teams with etc....

After picking the items from above that you need, you go onto the next tier. (Tier 3 Importance)

Alright, they can't kill you and you want to pack more of a punch. Much needed movement speed + 120 AP + the movement speed. By the way, the passive from this benefits from Spell Vamp in case you didn't know. For those reasons, that is why this item is core in every AP Mordekaiser's build, in addition to giving some more much needed AP Scaling. However, this isn't AP Mord, this is Tanky-Penetration Morde.

Need more MR? Obvious, bruh

Heavy CC?

And last but not least: Should grab this if your team lacks decent initiation or maybe if the game makes it to the 40+ minute mark. Reason being that if you die and your GA pops, you lose control of you ghost but it still attacks the target you are fighting, more uptime on your ghost = Hell yeah!

Alright all, thanks for reading. A typical build would look like this: ....

just kidding there is no typical build. Everything is situational. Be tanky as hell. Prioritize armor and mr over your AP. Remember, if you successfully kill someone and are able to ghost 'em, your AP doesn't change how much damage they deal and their damage raises your passive shield the same.

Playstyle: Same as AP Mord, but less vulnerable to CC due to how damn tanky you are. You do less burst damage, but you aren't too far behind. You have impressive magic penetration and with your core your damage is more sustained and you will wind up doing more damage over time compared to the AP Mordekaiser of today. You are more of an AP bruiser/tank now, similar to Amumu, Singed, or Malphite. With your free 20% CDR, decent AP, high base damage, and uber high resistances, you have real staying power in a fight.

If you get jumped on, don't be afraid to use your ult on their tank. This will give you a ton of health over time and fill up your shield. This in itself is a huge benefit to your team, however, try to save your ultimate for the enemy ADC. Also, if possible, use your ult as an execute. The worst thing that can happen as Morde is when you ult their ADC and their support heals/puts a shield on them. Or they QSS your ult off. You want your ultimate to for sure land to kill, so try as hard as possible to ensure that because if you ult their ADC and you don't get the kill you wasted your ultimate.

So remember: If you know you can secure the kill on the ADC, ult their ADC. If there is any doubt, ult someone else.