morde adc - healthy AND viable - why i fear the rework
my stream, which ill be playing mostly morde ADC, seeing when i reach a point where it actually feels weak / nonviable
http://www.twitch.tv/withawonder
my mains p3 right now. reached d3 a year ago when i was tryharding. then had to do lots of lame work (jobs suck) and couldnt play as much. now im back to see what my true highest level can be if i focus my saiyan resolve to the next level
2 main things im writing about are: why i think morde adc feels strong and viable. and why i fear the morde rework and i think morde is actually in a good state right now and why i think the rework should be cancelled
ive been tinkering with morde ADC after looking at the kit and brainstorming how strong it could be if used properly. after much fun playing it and trying out many things, ive realized morde is hella fun and strong too. then i remembered hes due for another rework, then the fear hit me. i fear the morde rework and i felt i really should write up my thoughts. so here they are...
even after all the nerfs i feel mordes strongest position is still ADC (really "botlane" but adc is more fun to say). i feel adc morde has more agency than top morde
i hope the rework is cancelled because i feel eventually, pro play will realize adc morde is actually good, and that will be entertaining to watch when teams actually start using this balanced morde bot and we see new teamcomps with morde+kindred that are fresh and new and entertaining
as morde top, its like "who cares lol. morde top lol". but as morde adc you actually feel like you have hella agency and power
you do nothing for 12 minutes. then once liandry and rylais come online you feel like a beast. and as the game goes on, every item feels so strong with so much synergy
morde feels so strong that i bet morde could be viable in challenger with a challenger level player using him. he feels that strong to me. but meh, i guess until a challenger decides to test out my build/methods for himself we will never know. i personally feel im improving at a rapid rate, who knows maybe i will reach challenjuer skill-level soon.
i plan to keep playing morde until i reach a point where people actually win hard against me and show me how its "weak / non viable". because right now i havnt seen anything showing me morde is weak and non viable, he feels strong as hell to me. he has weaknesses and he has strengths. he offers powers to a team no other ADC can offer. while other ADC's can offer powers he cannot.
the things i noticed that make ADC morde feel strong are
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the items you get starting from the first feel like such a stronger powerspike than when your ADC and get items. you get liandry and its like dayum, im strong as hell. then rylais comes and its like dayum still strong as hell. then you get penn boots and go towards deathcap. the whole time you feel so strong. your only weak before 12 minutes when your farming, just tell your jungler "yo dawg, dont gank bot before i finish liandry ok. ill have it around 13 minutes. gank other lanes early"
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the items synergize so strongly with his loaded ultimate. you get liandry which adds hella damage to his ult. then rylais doubles the liandry burn and gives it a 20% slow which helps many more times than i thought it would letting your allies chase kills after you R. then deathcap + voidstaff add more multiplication. op synergy. once liandry is done you wait for your jungler to gank, then point-click-R the enemy ADC with cait auto range and half-health him with 1 ability. making ganks so free and easy after 13 minutes. while your this tanky god
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pretty much you feel so strong all game. compared to the average ADC that dies when looked at, your this tanky god with a shield, ulti that heals you, and midgame after liandry rylai pennboots you run around the map point-clicking people with cait auto range and -60% healthing fools with a 10second 20% slow making your teammates easily clean up the kill
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then lategame with the deathcap your ulti feels like it just point-click removes anyone, even their tank
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you can start relic shield. expect to be down 20 CS against good opponents, but who cares, you are down some gold but the god you become makes up for it. and lategame by the time you sell relic its made near 750 gold (like 2.5 free kills for your team)
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your kit doesnt even feel that bad for a adc. theres strongpoints and weakpoints. with 40% cdr your E outputs a ton of damage at 675 range (cait auto range whaat. but its actually a bit less since it comes from your model center). with a 3 second cooldown. your tanky, unkillable, your E fills up your shield, plus you R'ed someone and deleted them at the start of the fight and its a 4v5
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of course, morde isnt a "ADC". hes AP duh. its just fun to say "morde adc". im jus sayin botlane feels like mordes strongest position, probably its most ideal combined with kindred/graves jungle and AD in other positions
as for playing morde ADC heres pretty much the biggest things i learned.
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i tried a few item plans with morde ADC (hybrid, halftank, triforce, etc). eventually i felt the strongest plan was just spending 100% your gold into supercharging your ultimate. this feels 2me 2be the strongest way to use morde. so much of mordes power budget is in his ultimate, and you shove all your gold into dat thang and make it the most OP 1click spell in the game. and to top it off, so beautifully leagues items seem to be here almost like a christmas present to synergize nicely with the ultimate in increasing its power-output to seemingly unfair levels
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the gameplan with morde R is you never use it solo. use it with teammates to make easy kills. after liandry+rlyais+pennboots is done usually youll wanna be near your jungler when your ulti is up (or toplaner). farm when ulti is down. and wait for the perfect moment and R-click near 1-shot some unlucky fool and your friend can easily follow up on that 10 second 20% slow and finish the dirtywork
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usually you wanna tell your jungler this at 1minute "rengar friend dont gank bot before i have liandry ok. i get it near 13 minutes" ++ "gank other lanes early. but if you see a free kill bot, i dont mind. all good friend"
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and tell your support after "lux friend im weak before 13 minutes. play safe defensive before 13minutes pls"
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early on expect to be down 20 cs against anyone good. who cares. be safe, farm what you can, become a metal god. relic shield helps make up for less cs. also i normally type at 1:50 "support friend. if i cant reach a cs you may take it. all good"
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against a hard lane. just recall alot, refill your refill potion, lose cs on purpose and laugh. gods dont need cs. we came here looking for booty, we want dat "mans butt". we farm champs son. eventually, youll get your liandry and be a god. if you sense its a hard lane, type early "support friend. we cant win lane. we scale. we take turns recalling to sustain" then recall and if he tries to recall with you say "no stay. we take turns recalling. recall when i get back"
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the hardest lane is cait. mostly because of that ANNOYIG AF INVISIBLE TRAP ABOVE YOUR TOWER. if playing against cait, ALWAYS ASSUME theres a damn trap in the invisible spot above your tower (unless you see 3 traps on the ground already). easy to die to cait from that annoying af trap. as long as you always assume that trap is there, and dont die 4free to cait, you likely win the game hard
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pick morde if your team already has AD. if your first 3 picks, pick it and a teammate will likely get some AD. if your last 2 picks, dont pick morde if you already have 3 AP champs. or if you want, highlight morde in select and say "hey friends can 1 of you pls get sum AD? thanks ^_^"
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i feel the strongest support with morde is probably soraka. mostly cuz soraka feels like this lategame timebomb support weapon where after shes level 16, its donezo, she turns her whole team into immortal entities adding like 8000 health to her team in a teamfight. but ideally morde wants a range support imo. in champ select probably smart to type "support friend pls go ranged. any is fine. not zilean tho". i think zileans not too great with morde.
-in teamfights your W is a bit tricky. i like to give it to a 2nd melee and its nice it gives YOU + your 2nd melee (tank or duelist whatever) it gives you both the whirling aoe damage + slow + burn and a little heal. i thought the W sucked after midgame but it seems pretty decent and offers decent power after using it more. morde gets way stronger with a 2nd melee on his team. and most ranked players will go a 2nd melee as melee champs are popular
morde runes, at least for this AP version, is definitely 30% scaling CDR blue+quints. magic penn reds. as for yellow, scaling armor or hp (eithers fine)
items: relic+3potion start. > hopefully ucan recall at 540g for refill potion + amp tome (45g is generated during recall time), i like amp tome to let my E 2shot ranged at lvl 5 boots > liandry > penn boots > rylai > deathcap > codex > voidstaff > banshee or zonyas > sell boots for warmogs but game should be won way before that
i dont think targons is worth. slows liandry by 500g
mastery difinitely- deathfire, natural talent, double edge. 5% armor, bush speed, runic armor, fearless
so. with that said about playing morde. ill talk about why i hope he isnt reworked again and why i think hes in a fine, balanced, engaging state
first. lets look at what the original big morde rework did
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it highly increased the damage of his Q to anyone you hit 3 times
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remove the 30 armor/mr from W. allowed you to give it to a friend. gave it a bit of healing. allowed you to waveclear hard with a partner in lane. removed its solo-use but you got 1point in it before anyway
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gave him heavy extra experience in duo lane
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gave him dragon ghost
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kept damage of E about the same. made it bonus refill his shield a bit
so those were all the changes in the morde rework. it turned out to be ultra OP, and was nerfed alot.
it was OP mostly due to the insane W shoving with a partner. it gave you tons of free waveclear, shoving, and it healed you both too. you got ahead in lane for free, then got the ghost dragon, and got free towers and leads
but also when you look at the rework. it basically just gave morde a bunch of extra power without taking much away
morde GAINED: dragon ghost, more Q damage, more duo experience, insane waveclear+healing in duo lane
morde LOST: 30 mr/armor on his W at level 18, some Q damage if he gets kited
so yeah. when you look at what morde gained and what he lost, he clearly gained WAY MORE than what he lost. so would be easy to see in that logic why it definitely would be OP if the champ was balanced before the rework
the morde rework was eventually nerfed heavily by
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removing the W stacking. you and your partner didnt double the damage in the wave anymore. no more insane waveclear
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lowered W healing, lowered EXP bonus. now costs health (so "even less healing" basically)
that pretty much was the nerfs. and that was all it took to kill the duo lane morde in competitive. but did it REALLY nerf him that hard? is he really trashcanned?
i feel no. because mordes biggest strength, his OP ultimate, was unchanged
mordes OP ultimate, and how hard it scales with AP items, was basically left unchanged from old to new morde. and it STILL exists. and i feel its OP enough to make morde totally viable even after the nerfs
also after those morde nerfs. he got a pretty powerful buff
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making his E fill 25% of his shield when maxed instead of 15%
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also his Q does more damage first 2 hits now. less on 3rd
those 4 things are basically all the "morde nerfs and buffs" since his rework. and looking at all the numbers, i feel mordes lategame was BUFFED after all the changes (25% shield is alot), but his early game was MASSIVELY NERFED of course
even still. i dont know why morde isnt a solid pick in challenger. he seems OP as hell. am i really so wrong in my judgement of his power? i guess ill just keep playing morde, see how high of an elo i can reach, and ill see for myself when i encounter something that truly makes morde look "non-viable in high elo"
so thats the morde rework history.
really mordes rework didnt even change, at all, the "kinetic energy of the champion". all mordes spells do pretty much the same thing PRE and POST rework. the rework just changed the numbers a bit
he got a bunch of free buffs, little lost in return, thus was super op. then his free waveclear+healing+exp in botlane was nerfed, and people thought morde was trashcanned
but was he really? i think no. i feel morde is still super strong, but simply "balanced". he went from "OP" to "balanced", now he has strengths and weaknesses, but everyone just assumed i guess that he was trashcanned.
now for another important point. and this is pretty important. i feel its wrong to classify morde as a juggernaught.
sure. morde was in the "juggernaught update" and riot at one time liked to call him a juggernaught. but is he really?
no. i feel morde is a juggernaught/mage hybrid. hes not a "juggernaught". garen and darius and illaoi i feel are real "juggernaughts" that embody what that vision means
morde has qualities of a mage, and qualities of a juggernaught.
morde has powerful ranged magic damage, is pretty tanky (but not as tanky as garen/darius), he has very high melee Q damage (which is easily kited)
most people look at morde Q and morde being melee with a shield and think that makes him a juggernaught. but nawww i feel thats just one element of mordes kit. thats his "juggernaught half". and mordes "mage half" is his hyper-loaded ultimate and his constant ranged damage output with E.
morde is "half mage. half juggernaught. full alpha". thats how i see it. and the whole kit together seems to be beastly strong in the botlane. and its tons of fun to play as the metal god of decimation
next. does morde really need a rework? is he in a bad state? is his design bad? is he one dimensional? binary? non engaging? lacking counterplay? is he kept "weak" on purpose?
i feel the answer is no to all those questions
morde is just as "non engaging, binary, and one dimensional" as Fiora Renekton volibear nocturne udyr cait miss fortune
i mean come on. you can only get so "engaging" in a moba. and part of what makes a moba fun is making champions that "have counterplay while not having it"
i mean lets look at zed. whats the counterplay to a zed that goes 5-0 in lane cuz your midlaner is tilted off his ass? theres no counterplay, you just open mid. this is the deep down nature of a moba that makes it fun and unfun at the same time. fun for the winner. not fun for the loser. mobas are not for the weak spirited. or i guess i should say, ranked mode is not for the weak spirited. ranked mode is a competition. a competition of win or lose. kill or be killed. honor or dishonor. one winner. one loser. a moba is a game that mirrors life and war. there are winners and losers in war and you cant make losing "fun". you cant make losing "have counterplay". think about love. in love, its fun for the guy who gets the girl and gets to have sex with her, and its not fun for the guy who doesnt get the girl and has to wank it to his computer. LoL is like love. when you win, you get to bang the cute asian girl. and when you lose, your wanking it. you and your enemy cant BOTH bang the hot asian girl at the same time (well i guess in real life, you can, so i guess mobas dont work "exactly" like real life. only one guy gets the pussy in a moba)
in a moba, if someone is a god and spanks his opponent and gets ahead, you dont "counterplay" that shit, you just gotta pray you dont get the feed-artist tiltLORD on your team next game
you balance the numbers so overall the winrates are ok, and thats sort of all you should be expected to do.
champions have 4 dayum abilities, they do shit, you create it, you balance the numbers, and throw them all together and nerf the ones that have too high of a winrate. buff the weak ones. thats a moba. i feel these "counterplay, engaging, binary" buzzwords do morde a bad service. hes the emo kid people wanna pick on next.
i feel when you play morde he is just as hard to play, has just as much counterplay, and is just as engaging and has just as much skill expression as Fiora Renekton volibear nocturne udyr cait miss fortune
the main argument to rework is that he's stale or binary or offers little in terms of dynamic gameplay or counterplay. heres my argument to why I disagree
I feel counterplay is kind of another word for weakness. counterplay is found in the weakness of a champion.
for example swain is a draintank god and his counterplay is you have to kite him and run away when he presses r and wait for him to go oom. if you don't the massive power output of his r will probably smoke your whole team if the games close to even. also healing reduction exists too and is expected to be purchased eventually by someone on a team against swain. but likely not by Swain's toplane melee opponent as it's not the best laning item for melees, giving swain high lane power when picked to counter a toplane melee, but hopefully lower teamfight power after 20 minutes
that's swains main counterplay and of course he has other weaknesses too such as if his lanes pushed he has no escapes and he's more easy to gank than a leblanc or ahri
every champ has many weaknesses. swain has more to list but you get the point. those are some of his weaknesses. and his strengths are things like his r has insane power output and can near solo a whole team if they don't kite him
so that's one champion and his strengths and weaknesses. now let's look at morde. I feel morde has engaging strengths and weaknesses like any other champ. I don't feel he's too stale or binary. keep in mind the main argument to rework morde will likely be because he's "stale and binary with low counterplay if strong and doesnt offer much skill expression for his players". I just don't see it that way.
every champion has low counterplay if strong. thats a buzzword
whats the counterplay to a ahead annie that flash 1shots 2 people
i feel mordes just as engaging and difficult to play as Fiora Renekton volibear nocturne udyr cait miss fortune . hes around their skill level. while for example i feel champs like zed and katarina have the highest skill level in mechanics terms.
while someone like a hashinshin whos challenger level would disagree. he thinks zed and riven are among the most easy skilless champs in the game and the easiest to win with due to overloaded power kits and overtuned laning phases. hashinshin likely feels raw kit power is much more of a factor than mechanical ceiling when it comes to what makes a champ easy to win with. maybe that view is right
i know a few high level players who would argue zed is easy due to his powerful laning damage and free escapes. and maybe that's true cuz if u took a strong diamond zed player and made him play 50 games of Lux mid in his elo he would probably feed his ass off so maybe lux is harder to play than the games "highest skill cap leet mechanics assassin" due to the fact that zed gets free asspull escapes all day to outplay ganks and Lux doesn't. maybe just having all those asspull escapes on its own makes a Champion easier to win with. maybe "easy mechanical demands" are not as big of a factor as "raw kit power" in terms of what really makes it "more easy to win" with a champion.
i suppose at the end of the day it's all theory and opinion
wow this is getting so long. back to morde
I feel mordes about as difficult to play as Fiora Renekton volibear nocturne udyr cait miss fortune . hes just as "one dimensional, binary, low skill expression" as those champs. why do those champs get to be binary? but morde cant be?
mordes most important areas of skill expression, i would say, are
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knowing when to go in and use q damage and went to stay back and use your high damage adc range e to dish out the destruction. once morde goes in he has no way to get out. a morde that only goes in in the ABSOLUTE PERFECT TIME is much stronger than one that doesn't. and the gamesense to judge every Factor to know the "perfect time" is a skill, a skill that separates the best from the good. this "perfect time gamesense" matters alot more for morde than for champs like riven/ekko/zed/leblanc. morde requires a "different skill" than those champions.
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knowing how to play the map and where to be so you can not die while still farming to get strong. morde has no escapes and is squishy early. this is a big skill to have. it's not that easy to judge the whole map and to know the perfect place to be and the perfect place to be going towards in every moment. if it was easy every1 would be diamond. mordes that are better at this will be much stronger than bad mordes who make wrong split-moment judgements. and for example this skill is less important on champs like zed leblanc ekko riven who have asspull escapes on tap. those champs can make mistakes and get away with it. morde cant.
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knowing the perfect flank movements and map movements to make to create powerful R plays while still being safe. this is powerful on morde but offers tons of rewards. while on champs like zed/riven/ekko its much easier due to their mobility
and along with that. morde has strengths and weaknesses. i feel he isnt "binary" at all. he has as much counterplay as many other champs. counterplay is such a damn buzzword anyway. wtf is "counterplay". every champ has it. who gets to judge when its "too little counterplay"?
some of mordes strengths/weaknesses, as i listed, are
-weaknesses being low mobility, easy to gank, his juggernaught powers is kited easily
-strengths being super loaded ultimate, much tankier than normal adc, all around kit power that offers powers and things other ADC's cant offer
morde has plenty of areas of skill expression bad mordes will feed off their ass good mordes will dominate the game morde is engaging. morde has weaknesses. morde has counterplay, he has strengths too. morde is engaging. he isnt "binary"
after looking at the jokes that riot recently gave us in the form of the aatrox and zac works I must say I am highly fearing the coming mordekaiser rework after learning the ways of morde and seeing how fun he can be
I think the aatrox and zac reworks should be reverted. they ruined 2 fine n fun champs. and I'm sad that theres almost 0chance that will happen
i hope so badly that riot doesnt destroy morde how they assblasted aatrox and zac
after playing alot of morde, i simply cant see how his kit can change any more without ruining it somehow. mordes kit is FINE, GOOD, VIABLE, ENGAGING. if you change it from this "healthy state", you likely will ruin it
mordes completely healthy, right now, in his current state. theres comes a point where something is actually in a good state and shouldnt be changed. aatrox and zac were in that state. and morde is in that state now. riot started going down the wrong path recently. the galio and warwick reworks were great, the morde "rework" (even though it changed almost nothing in the actual kinetic energy of mordes gameplay) was pretty good... but i feel the aatrox/zac reworks are the first truly big things riot has done where you can honestly look at it and say "wtf is this. seriously. wtf is going on. something is wrong here. these changes are straight up bad. they make the game worse no way to argue that".
i guess riot put so much work on their plate, that they messed up some of it. many of riots changes in the last year have been good. the aatrox/zac reworks are the only thing i can see that are clearly super bad. so i guess riot is trying, they did good in 95% of their changes, galio and warwick reworks were sweet, but the aatrox and zac changes are the bad 5%.
i hope riot can admit, the zac/aatrox reworks were bad. please god revert them. nearly all zac/aatrox players would vote for the reworks to be reverted