The biggest problem with Mordekaiser's (and by an extend the other Juggernauts') rework

Malicious Metal··66 votes·8,130 views

There are no winners in this rework except maybe Riot trying to boost skin sales.

Let's start with the veteran mains of said reworked champions; I've lost count of how many times I've been flamed in the past four weeks when playing my all time favorite champion, Mordekaiser. They tell me I'm such a tryhard for playing something "So OP" in normals, telling me to abuse the freelo before riot dumpsters him. I get so much shit for playing my favorite champion and it really hurts being the target of such hateful comments. We also lost the connection we had to our champion in terms of lane matchups, gameplay pattern, identity and general play style for an extend.

Our main(s) will be perma banned in ranked and people will instalock him since they think he's a free win

The opponents; Mordekaiser sucks the fun out of the enemy bot laners like Vlad does top. Heck, riot told us Morde was unhealthy top but instead of pissing off ONE player he now makes the life of Two laners a living hell. And not because he's strong by his own right, oh no! His entire dominance relies on an unfair out-leveling mechanic that makes him snowball out of control. On paper his kit seems balanced against other top laners, heck, it even looks kinda weak but bot lane he gets everything he needs to become one boiling pot of toxicity and frustration. The funny thing is that those who complain about the new Mordekaiser aren't the ones you expect. Not the assassin mains or vaynes getting pissed at not being able to kill him while he tears them apart. No, it's often the supports who feel so goddamn powerless against Mordekaiser and get flamed by their own teammates for what isn't even their own fault.

The other Juggernauts have weaknesses during the early stages of the game and simple number fixes can balance them properly since they don't have as many unfun gameplay patterns/skills like Mordekaiser does but rely on high base stats to succeed. Mordekaiser went from being a not so healthy, yet balanced champion to a gimped mess that can only succeed based on an unfair gimmick and broken stats. He's balanced solely on him being able to stomp the opposition and that's just plain bad design since there's no satisfaction on the Mordekaiser player's part and laning phase's a living hell for his opponents. Riot reworked him to fit the juggernaut persona and adamantly believed he was unhealthy but the current Morde...Well, he isn't healthy at ALL. Heck, Darius' is healthier and that's saying something.

Mordekaiser, like every other Juggernaut should be balanced according to their individual kit/ as a champion rather than entirely on a gimmick

Edit: I'm not saying that Mordekaiser isn't any fun at all. He is strong, yes, he is kinda fun to play as but at what expense? Making laning phase a living hell for two people based on you simply having an unfair gimmick and over the top stats. Late game coming around may even bite YOU in the ass if your team didn't think they'll need ANY form of tower sieging by taking their usual mage mid and tank top.

Morde is unfun to play against not because of his kit per se but the whole strategy surrounding this gimpy rework

62 Comments

Stars Shaper27 votes

As a Mordekaiser player I find the new Morde not really engaging. It surely is nice to wreck the hell out of an enemy that was cought in your third Q but all his gameplay ends there and with tanking tower with dragon.

Helmight27 votes

That's the main thing I dislike about the Mordekaiser rework - his ENTIRE KIT now revolves around Q and getting dragon's ghost. The rest of it is just so meh as to not really even exist. Even his ultimate is bland nowadays. Beforehand I felt as though I could slam my ult on someone and kill them myself, but for the most part nowadays the ult does piss-all damage.

And why, for the love of Bard, does Morde get free xp? I understand that Riot wanted people to have the option of breaking the meta, but by giving Morde's W that passive they're outright shoving him into botlane.

Stars Shaper8 votes

I usually forget I got an ultimate at all. Not because enemy ghost has become weak but because the current way you build Morde and how his kit works make it a rather bland excuse of a skill that stops you while casted making it harder to land that Holy 3rd Q.

Malicious Metal9 votes

Sad but true :P

Dextix LT19 votes

CenrtainlyT wanted to make morde actually viable in bot lane. How do you make an immobile melle champ viable in bot lane? You give them a completely unfair advantage which basically wins for them.

Helmight10 votes

Exactly my point. Morde CANNOT win in botlane on his own merits. The only reason it works is the random passive on his W. It's a silly part of his kit that makes no sense, unless you're a designer who wants to see him get played in place of an ADC. And in that case, why not let every immobile melee champion get a passive that gives them bonus xp?

The Ecdysiast2 votes

Let's give Taric that passive.

Ace Access 2 votes

out of curiosity what purpose does a bruiser/mage/whatever he is have to do in a bot lane ? he belongs either in top or mid not in bot lane where he gets a shield that blocks majority of incoming damage which lets him farm with impunity and gets for free what everyone else has to work for

Dextix LT3 votes

Experimentation. Riot wanted to see a bruiser bot working. So they gave Mordekaiser to the most broken champion designer in the game and told him " Do anything with mordekaiser to make him viable bot".

And then we got that abomination of a rework.

Malicious Metal9 votes

Indeed, it's a great thing that riot wants him to be a Juggernaut, heck, I always loved AP bruiser Mordekaiser but they warped him way too much. He's only tankier because he builds tank items since he doesn't rely as much on his shield anymore. He IS IRON MAN! They deliberately shifted him into a more Soul-enslaving wraith type of character and made him less of a Master of Metal, which is his goddamn title after all!

It's sad that the shield from Sterak's way better than his own bloody passive...

MasterVidallis15 votes

The mordekaiser rework was poorly thought out and an utter failure. As someone who played morde mid very often i was super excited about him getting an updated kit. Until I saw what they were doing. I played two games with him after he came out, one bot one mid, and my conclusions were what Riot was told so many times by players who looked at his new kit before release:

He is too strong bot in lane, but causes issues late game since he denies his team an adc. He either gets utterly fed where none of that matters, or he is useless and now you don't have have an adc to siege and do sustain damage from a safe position. It just doesn't work and is not fun for anyone.

His solo laning pattern got destroyed and is not viable, even with these upcoming PBE changes, he will still not be viable solo lane. The fact his Q requires 3 hits means he needs more room to work which won't work mid without cc, the lower range on his E makes his pushing and poking a lot less effective and not being able to cast W on minions removes a key strat for mid solo morde. It just no longer works.

Riot really pissed me off with this one. And it's not like they weren't warned this would happen.

hgjkdlsaf jeldvb15 votes

Morde level advantage is actually reminiscent of old deny plank. Also, CertainlyT got let out of his cage. I legitimately don't understand how he's employed.

Dextix LT14 votes

CertainlyT reworked mordekaiser, Nuff said. What did you really expect? A fair champion coming from THAT guy? From the guy which created yasuo, darius, kalista?

The real point of that resork should have been to make him less binary. But now. He is even more binary and forced to go into a lane for no reason because CertainlyT likes to experiement with "Fun(my ass)" "kits".

Stars Shaper7 votes

CertainlyT has worked on several champions that might be conisdered nasty opponents but offered a wide gameplay experience while Mordekaiser has been flattened up.

Adrian Blackbear8 votes

I really hated that they pretty much took away any sort of solo-lane capabilities that Mordekaiser had. He was my top mastery champion before the Juggernaut update, and then I have only played him in co-ops since. I hate playing him in a duo lane. It just feels clunky, and most of the time it seems like it would end up just being an awful matchup for Mordekaiser anyways.

My disappointment really stemmed from that Riot said they were "experimenting" with Mordekaiser with his duo lane changes. Experimenting isn't for live servers. Experimenting should have been on PBE, and for a lot longer than just one cycle.

LithiumWednesday8 votes

getting cced on morde tho :c http://imgur.com/jrmIWZg

Jotunheimr1 votes

Hahaha yes, you understand my pain

Mortekaiser8 votes

screwing over 98% of a champs original playstyle for some gimmicky bullshit is just dumb as shit. and morde's kit got even more unhealthy

fuck dude, even sion's kit retained some reasonable relation to his old one, and sion's kit got better overall for it

morde's new kit is a mess of being completely toxic and unhealthy

can we have morde's old kit back yet

agbudar5 votes

the biggest problem is that after the 5.18 patch he will be even more useless then he was before the rework.

and before you start mouthing of how he has a 50-51% winrate look at the pickrate he enjoyed other champs with a higher pickrate but were considered niche have a much higher winrate then old morde.

means that even his mains can't really make it work. unless they get carried this gets worse the lower elo you go.

JedenVojak4 votes

Edit: I'm not saying that Mordekaiser isn't any fun at all. He is strong, yes, he is kinda fun to play as but at what expense? Making laning phase a living hell for two people based on you simply having an unfair gimmick and over the top stats. Late game coming around may even bite YOU in the ass if your team didn't think they'll need ANY form of tower sieging by taking their usual mage mid and tank top.

I think he's not fun at all. The fact that he can't do anything by himself whatsoever kills any appeal or desire to play the champion for me.

He's squishier, does less damage, has less range, and is slower; the rework was nothing more than a gigantic nerf.

Vincent Lucius2 votes

Nerf to solo Morde. He's strong now, he needs a buddy to ruin your life.

Jotunheimr3 votes

About Morde being unstoppable... I beg to differ. I've been playing him a lot recently, and I don't always do well. I tend to get stunned and simply bursted to death because Morde is so squishy early game. I fall behind, and cannot escape when I'm targeted as morde because he is so slow. I tend to shove lane early, but strong range with cc gets me every time. The only reason I have a decent winrate with him is because I push objectives hard.

Also, the attack speed is so slow, I don't always land last q, than Im screwed when my abilities are on cooldown and than YOU GUESSED IT stunned and bursted with no shield since I'm also silenced, and by that time my shields degenerated a lot. If you play Morde bot, one MUST be careful until you have your ult, and watch for ganks. People say Vayne dies against Morde, but every bot lane vayne I play against destroys me. I just cannot catch her! Ill be lucky if I land e on her as she just zips around everywhere than gets fed for killing me so much. Than the ganks come to assert dominance. Morde is either really op bot, or worthless. Also, you need the proper support.

Another thing that's tough to work around: If my supp gets killed, I will DEFINATLY get killed, as I suddenly lose my w. Ouch.

Jotunheimr3 votes

About Morde being unstoppable... I beg to differ. I've been playing him a lot recently, and I don't always do well. I tend to get stunned and simply bursted to death because Morde is so squishy early game. I fall behind, and cannot escape when I'm targeted as morde because he is so slow. I tend to shove lane early, but strong range with cc gets me every time. The only reason I have a decent winrate with him is because I push objectives hard.

Also, the attack speed is so slow, I don't always land last q, than Im screwed when my abilities are on cooldown and than YOU GUESSED IT stunned and bursted with no shield since I'm also silenced, and by that time my shields degenerated a lot. If you play Morde bot, one MUST be careful until you have your ult, and watch for ganks. People say Vayne dies against Morde, but every bot lane vayne I play against destroys me. I just cannot catch her! Ill be lucky if I land e on her as she just zips around everywhere than gets fed for killing me so much. Than the ganks come to assert dominance. Morde is either really op bot, or worthless. Also, you need the proper support.

Another thing that's tough to work around: If my supp gets killed, I will DEFINATLY get killed, as I suddenly lose my w. Ouch.

MalzaharAnyLane4 votes

No one said he was completely unbeatable bot, just toxic.

He's more binary than the previous kit was.

Mind you, they made the same mistake with Fiora and have the exact same problems now. If she's behind she's blowing up in teamfights, if she's ahead the heal autowins the teamfight as soon as one of the enemies dies.

Jotunheimr1 votes

{quoted}

No one said he was completely unbeatable bot, just toxic.

He's more binary than the previous kit was.

Mind you, they made the same mistake with Fiora and have the exact same problems now. If she's behind she's blowing up in teamfights, if she's ahead the heal autowins the teamfight as soon as one of the enemies dies.

It's true. Only in a limited circumstance does morde seem viable. I tend to either get destroyed, or I'll get fed and get a nice amount of kills and assissts. If only that w was selfcasting. His kit should have things that can be used WHENEVER NEEDED, for the exception of cooldowns. I mean abilities are what makes a champion a champion, and defines that character sipicifficly. It is unpleasent to constantly rely on someone being in lane with you in order to acsess your full kit.

But, if they do something with him this upcoming patch, I hope that they don't increase damage dealt to yourself from using abilities and w. When farming solo, between minions and morde consantly hurting himself, the health runs low a few waves later, and you have no way to defend even 1 v 1, if the enemy has more health than you. Yes, developing a team mindset is an amazing asset in a game, but that should be variable upon you and your team communicating properly as Summoners, rather than having an ability that can only work when you have a buddy. What if your support gets killed? Sure you're dealing nice damage with q and poke with e, but that will not help at all when it is even just a 2 vs 1 that you cannot escape from because you are slow. It's even worse when Morde is cc'd. You've now lost lots of health from one cc done on you, without even a full kit to use as a champion. What if, in a team fight, all of your surrounding teammates are killed, and you are left. Say 2 or 3 enemy champs remain, with fairly low health. How will you stand any chance without a full kit? You are too slow as Morde, so you cannot escape; running is not an option early on. Without w, there really seems to beno chance, even with hitting a hard q or to, and maybe ane, which both before dying. Keep in mind q and e both use health, and without w you have no heal aside from ult if it is not on cooldown. With only 3/4 of a kit, and taking your own self inflicted damage on top of multiple enemy damage are terribly awful stats for morde. Maybe if you had more attack speed, it'd be diffrent.

Mordepool1 votes

[{quoted}](name=jotunhelm,rea-id=3ErqAd

But, if they do something with him this upcoming patch, I hope that they don't increase damage dealt to yourself from using abilities and w. When farming solo, between minions and morde consantly hurting himself, the health runs low a few waves later, and you have no way to defend even 1 v 1, if the enemy has more health than you.

Thats exactly what they are doing making health cost go up on w and when you use w at optimal effect you gain a net AA worth of health

Big Lincoln2 votes

probably just needs a kit retooling

his Q makes sense being so powerful but I think that, seeing as he has the least utility by a wide margin of the 4, he needs a bigger damage crank to his other skills. like, give his E some kind of delay like Darius' Q (let him move while casting it) but make it really hurt and as always give me my selfcast W. put a little bit less power into his Q (it needs to be strong, but might be too good)

Dengeden2 votes

The problem with the old Mordekaiser was simply that he was bad. I'm sorry old Morde mains but playing him meant gimping your team (with the possible exception of the Runeglave meta).

Can we take this as a sign that he's impossible to balance? Possibly, even if his counterplay is way more obvious now.

Mordepool4 votes

{quoted}

The problem with the old Mordekaiser was simply that he was bad. I'm sorry old Morde mains but playing him meant gimping your team (with the possible exception of the Runeglave meta).

Can we take this as a sign that he's impossible to balance? Possibly, even if his counterplay is way more obvious now.

By contrast old morde was better than current morde. 1- feast and famine is worse on morde than ever before 2- old morde could turn around a long game 6v4. Data shows new morde cannot 3- defeated at champ select morde struggles with more now than before ( his old counters are still there+ his own support can counter him (soloque))

Overall rework = less healthy champion and less healthy game

Dengeden2 votes

2 - Does data show that he could turn around a 6-4 too? 3 - Implying he countered anything? I beat him as freaking TwistedFate

Mordepool1 votes

Not sure what you mean elaborate please also you inferred I did not. Imply

Stars Shaper1 votes

Morde was the perfect anti-assa pick.

I also lured a lot of ppl into fighting me when at low HP but made it fast enough to egenrate shield, plus his combo was dangerous in any occasion. TF is a long range with easy to land hard cc, a single counterpick doesn't make a character useless expecially when I on the other side had feasted on many TFs.

DragonShea1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Stars Shaper,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=ajwYlGLo,comment-id=0019000000000001,timestamp=2015-09-10T09:23:09.372+0000)

Morde was the perfect anti-assa pick.

I also lured a lot of ppl into fighting me when at low HP but made it fast enough to egenrate shield, plus his combo was dangerous in any occasion. TF is a long range with easy to land hard cc, a single counterpick doesn't make a character useless expecially when I on the other side had feasted on many TFs.

True that. I was fighting Yasuo in top lane and won with low hp(25-30%) when I got jumped by Rengar after I killed him, kill him too. And then TF came at me. Decked him too and I told the enemy Fuck Y'all, that was a fine day to show how badass morde is.

Stars Shaper2 votes

Indeed, and right before the rework I started to meet lots of Riven toplane and basically got their tower at level 6 when they dared to engage me xD

Riven ghost OP.

Dengeden1 votes

Morde got ignored and kited unless he was super fed. "Anti-Kassa"? If that Kass was dumb enough to waste any damage on him I guess.

Stars Shaper1 votes

Where di I say "anti-kassa"?

Anyway in lane he just destroyed Akali, Fizz, some Zeds and had a fair chance against Talon. Kassadin way of survival was trying to keep him at bay with his silence.

In LCS he didn't see any spotlight because he reallyw as weak at kiting but he is not in a better spot right now. It's just that now he deals the same amount of damage of his old full combo with his 3rd Q.

Dengeden1 votes

Aah you meant "anti-assa(ssin)", fair enough. Even then, they'd still do more in teamfights unless they fed him, which wasn't much of an accomplishment.

I have mixed feelings about him right now. Yes, he's incredibly obnoxious during the laning phase, there's little the opposing duo lane can do but sit there and farm under tower. The only real counterplay I have in mind is letting the ADC get solo EXP by making the support roam. This could either be accomplished with lane swaps (which really isn't that hard, even if he calls it and meets you top lane, he can't ult dragon) or by rushing item 3117.

DragonShea1 votes

{quoted}

By contrast old morde was better than current morde. 1- feast and famine is worse on morde than ever before 2- old morde could turn around a long game 6v4. Data shows new morde cannot 3- defeated at champ select morde struggles with more now than before ( his old counters are still there+ his own support can counter him (soloque))

Overall rework = less healthy champion and less healthy game

Yeah true. Now he feels Less "stable" and more of a wreck.

Razgriz9901 votes

As far as the actual rework is, I enjoy Morde. Never played him beforehand though. Anywho as far as "He's freelo you abuser." that pretty much goes for any champ that was "low tier" and is now "God tier". I'm a Viktor main for example, first starting I would get called a troll pick or "Who the hell is that?" now he's in the meta as one of the strongest mages. He actually gets banned now, like wtf?

Vexatiously5 votes

Mordes gameplay is basically: flash third q

what an amazing rework

BattleBalladeer1 votes

I feel sorry for people like Fish who main Garen atm. Ive got a lot of mixed feelings about garen, but anyone playing him a lot is sure to get flamed hard at least once every other game (which is sort of one of the reasons I never use allchat anymore).

I played a game where it was a Beyblade lane (garen v garen). Because I worked with my team and roamed before the other one got to it, I got to be first to snowball.

My Beyblade opponent's team only had salt for me in post chat.

Sadly a lot of the "juggernauts" are experiencing this sort of thing right now- balanced or not- people hate them even more because Rito did experiment with a bunch of crazy mechanics that put them in these questionable states.

Champion Skin1 votes

Some of the problem is that the juggernauts.. who are supposed to be slow but powerful got released/reworked as item 3742 was released giving them a tank + mobility item + the other good items... Making the small buffs/improvements from the rework/changes be compounded by the juggernaut changes

also item 3742 +item 3071 kind of removes a lot of that lack of mobility that the juggernauts are supposed to be limited by especially those that deal continuous physical damage to keep procing the rage MS buff (from Black cleaver)... like Darius bleed or Garen Judgment (Spin to win)

Mordepool1 votes

Thats the major problem with mordes rework the forced hybrid with no new hybrid items. The items they made were tailored for the other 3 moreso in mind and riot wonders why people rush gunblade. sry Certainly T wonders.

hybrid builds were supposed to die that is what riot said sry akali

Shosuko1 votes

I think it's a difficult game to play. Whenever Riot approaches a champion to re-work them the are a constant odds between what a player is accustom to and what the game can no longer allow, and possibly hasn't allowed for a while (olaf, eve, ect).

I respect them for trying, but almost wish they would err on the side of throwing a champion into the recycling bin entirely rather than trying to adjust what is already a kit. They try to stick so closely to what we know they are hardly re-working anything. The framework is too limiting. If they instead just decided to say "Yes people who like Morde, he won't be what you knew before. His ABILITIES may change COMPLETELY. We're only trying to keep the spirit of Morde in tact, and create a NEW champion we can all like. This new Morde should be successful in the game, and will retain the story and concept of the original champion but we will NOT hold to old abilities just because that's what was.

Really it's something the players of these champions need to break from too! You like Morde, that's great. I like him too. He's an awesome CONCEPT for a champion, but his ABILITIES just don't work well enough. So let go of the ABILITIES and let's save the CHAMPION.

Vexatiously2 votes

Allowing 100% exp in a duo lane is what the game has come to? lol its such bs Imagine that passive on someone actually decent at early lvs like Riven for example.

G1Radiobot9 votes

BUT THATS WHAT WE WANTED. Morde mains wanted him to get a full rework, because we knew that he was somewhat toxic, we KNEW that he was unbalancable. We wanted to get a rework like Sions, where the champion is recreated from the ground up to better suit his theme and be balancable. What we got, was a halfassed rework from a designer (known for his flashy mobile champions) who has already proven that he can't make balanced designs.

Blue Moon Wolf1 votes

I really hope the upcoming changes in patch 5.18 help balance him out. I know it's not going to be the end all fix for his kit, but hopefully it's a step in the right direction so he's not oppressing bot lane, but viable mid again.

Ace Access 1 votes

off topic: is mord worth buying at this point ? his current OPness makes me hesitant

Stars Shaper1 votes

They are thinking of nerfing him in duo lane and giving him the AoE boom from W self castable for solo lane. Maybe you should give it a try when in free rotation.

WarlockLaw1 votes

I enjoyed morde mid a lot before his rework and the reason I liked it is because he shoved lane super hard while taking almost no harass. He couldn't really kill early but my goal was to just farm until I could one shot the enemy adc and walk around with said pet doing my dirty work.

New morde took a lot of nuances away from his kit that I liked. He can no longer harass an opponent with all of his abilities. He cant cast his shield on a melee minion to harass, nor can he q a minion to harass. I'm only going to enjoy morde while he is op, once he becomes balanced (~50% winrate as 'adc') I doubt I will play him again

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