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Some math for the Mordekaiser changes

4 Sail By Owner··2 votes·1,013 views

What i've done first is lay out a probable build, and some general ideas for you to toss around as if Mordekaiser had never existed in any other state before. This is to allow people to see how much power he has now, as opposed to how much he was throwing around before.

The build (items)

Will of the Ancients: +80 AP, 10% CDR, +20 Spell Vamp Liandri's Torment:+15 Magic Penetration, +50 AP, +300 HP, Burn passive Rylai's Crystal Scepter: +100 AP, +400 HP, Slow (15/35%) Sorcerer's Shoes: +15 Magic Penetration, +45 MS +2 Items of Choice (Void Staff, Randuin's Omen, Spirit Visage, etc.)

Additional Stats: +230 AP, +700 HP, +30 Mpen, +10% CDR, +45 MS Total Stats(@18 w/ items): 2715 HP, 230 AP, 30 Mpen, 10% CDR, +45 MS

So just to toss some numbers out for easy reference:

*4% (hitting any target with an unisolated Q or an E) is +108.6 shield

*8% (isolated Q) is +217.2 shield

*1% (hitting 1 target with W) is 27.15 shield per second

*2% (hitting 1 target with 2 W's, or an R ghost is out) is 54.3 shield a second

*Maximum shield is 630.

*Generation on a minion is reduced by 30% (.3)

Some before/after examples:

Pre/Post Q on an Isolated Champion (shield generated): 481 Damage (168)/ 379 Damage (217.2 shield)

Note: The amount of damage (and shield) pre 5.4 would actually be lower because it is reduced by the enemies magic resistance

So just looking at an isolated Q, it looks like the rework is working as intended. More reliable shield, and less damage overall just as planned. However, there is a catch.

On multiple targets (that aren't champions) you lose significantly more shield.

On a 1 champion 3 minion E (a typical harass pattern)

Pre/ Post E damage on 1 champion and 3 minions: 1552 Damage (543 shield)/ 1460 damage (206.34 shield)

Note: In this case, minions have no resistances to this build (~30 mpen), so while the shield would be mitigated to some degree (on one target), getting an E on 3 targets is 1164 damage (or 407 shield). Just to expand that point, the shield generated from E'ing just 3 minions before the changes is almost TWICE the total shield generated by hitting 3 minions and a champion after the changes.

At lower levels these issues become even worse. You basically HAVE to take E at level 1, since the other methods of generating shield and pushing the wave are more unreliable and unsafe (that being said, if you were a god you could get 864 damage out of a 6 second 6 minion W).

At level 1 you have a base health of 555. 4% of your base health (hitting a champion) is 22. Hitting a minion will give you ~6.66 shield per minion hit, so in an ideal world you could get 41.98 shield for a standard harass combo after the changes. Before the changes you would gain 98 shield.

I could belabor the point more, but I think the evidence speaks for itself. The only way these changes will come out ahead is if you remove any kind of priority to building damage, and go straight tank (building health+resistance items) but i'm not really sure that's a viable option. As pointed out many times in the past, the part of Mordekaiser that makes him strong is his combination of damage and tankiness. If you have no damage, but are much more tanky, why would anyone feel the need to kill you?

My conclusion: I'm hard pressed to see any way that these changes make him tankier (in terms of having more shield) except that it no longer decays, and it is not longer effected by your opponent's resistances. It may open more viable build paths for him, but probably only ones that are less engaging than currently.

If for some reason you got to 4,000 health (+~2100 health from base stats) a 4 champion E or Q is worth your full shield, and an isolated Q is worth half of your shield. Your W is generating 40 shield a second per target you are near, with a max of 10 targets (5 each) for 400 shield a second. A more likely scenario is 2 targets with 2 shields, so 160 shield a second. Is this tankier? Yes, but you're probably generating TOO much shield at that point. At base health (~2000 hp) you're still getting half of your shield out of your E/Q if it hits 4 champions, and 80 shield a second for hitting 2 targets with your W (or you and your shield buddy are hitting 1 target each).

This also relies on you hitting only champions, otherwise you will ALWAYS generate less than pre-5.4.

I'm an avid Mordekaiser player who goes by Zealokaiser on LAN, and i'm not really seeing the benefit to these changes. At the end of the day though, I probably stand against the crowd when I say that the change I hate most is the W change. Mordekaiser was the only champion in the game with no form of CC, move speed, or dash. In return for this lack of mobility, he was given a lot of damage and tankiness, which could be utilized a number of ways (the least interesting of which was DFG-style press R delete enemy) but also as an AP Bruiser (such as WOTA, Zhonya, Voidstaff, plus defensive items) that was also incredibly fun and gave opponents plenty of time to react as well.

As unlikely as it sounds i'm looking forward to any rebuttals. I'm really hoping to find a way to see these changes as a buff that isn't "if you divebuddy with a friend you gain 60 ms (reduced by the MS cap)".

13 Comments

Talamare1 votes

I am thinking more along the lines of WOTA, Rylai, Zhonya, Sunfire, Lichbane

380 AP, 950 HP, 95 Armor

Talamare1 votes

You have a pretty good point, as I was choosing my items I constantly felt that WOTA was a bit of weak point of the build

{quoted}

I am thinking more along the lines of WOTA, Rylai, Zhonya, Sunfire, Lichbane

380 AP, 950 HP, 95 Armor

Replacing WOTA with Liandry here would change it to 350 AP and 1250 HP, 95 Armor for 14,700

{quoted}

I am also thinking of a heavy tanker utility build WOTA, Banner, Rylai, Sunfire, Randuins +1550 HP, 240 AP, 115 Armor, 40 MR

Replacing WOTA with Liandry would change the stats to 1850 HP, 210 AP, 115 Armor, 40 MR for 14,450

Major Sparkles1 votes

wow nice

Talamare1 votes

I am also thinking of a heavy tanker utility build WOTA, Banner, Rylai, Sunfire, Randuins +1550 HP, 240 AP, 115 Armor, 40 MR

4 Sail By Owner2 votes

To be honest with you, depending on your role in the team, there doesn't seem to be much point in building any significant amount of AP, and since you scale off health so well now, you may as well get your recovery capacity (WOTA) from warmogs, since it will be better at basically everything except increasing your damage by a little. Spell Vamp is a little overestimated on Mordekaiser (because it falls off so hard for AOE abilities, landing a base E on 3 targets will net you 50 life from spell vamp (750*.2[spell vamp coefficient]*.333[aoe coefficient]. The cost of E was reduced by 36 (from 72) so at level 8 with a warmog you have ~1900 health, so between the health regen mastery (3 health a second) and the warmogs passive (3 more health a second) plus your base regen (2 health a second) you have a total of 8 health a second, or 40 hp/5. Given that casting ALL over your spells costs you 66 health, and they have cooldowns, you recover more than you can spend casting on spells from just the warmogs alone (the shortest CD is now 3 seconds with no CDR, but if you can land your Q on CD you're a god).

Realistically if you want to be a tank with some punch you build Warmogs/Rylai/Liandri/Spirit Visage/Boots/Voidstaff. WOTA is almost redundant in the face of that much raw hp regen (that build places you near the 4000 hp mark, where your spells start giving you large % of your shield back). At that point your natural regen is, quite frankly, ridiculous also [39.29(warmogs)+39.26(mastery)+16.7(base regen)+16.7(+100% hp regen from spirit visage)+22.39 (spirit visage passive)]=134.37 (26.87 health per second). Build a randuin's omen

ExiledTyrant1 votes

[{quoted}](name=4 Sail By Owner,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=dVVph5q4,comment-id=00020000,timestamp=2015-02-15T08:22:11.335+0000)

To be honest with you, depending on your role in the team, there doesn't seem to be much point in building any significant amount of AP, and since you scale off health so well now, you may as well get your recovery capacity (WOTA) from warmogs, since it will be better at basically everything except increasing your damage by a little. Spell Vamp is a little overestimated on Mordekaiser (because it falls off so hard for AOE abilities, landing a base E on 3 targets will net you 50 life from spell vamp (750*.2[spell vamp coefficient]*.333[aoe coefficient]. The cost of E was reduced by 36 (from 72) so at level 8 with a warmog you have ~1900 health, so between the health regen mastery (3 health a second) and the warmogs passive (3 more health a second) plus your base regen (2 health a second) you have a total of 8 health a second, or 40 hp/5. Given that casting ALL over your spells costs you 66 health, and they have cooldowns, you recover more than you can spend casting on spells from just the warmogs alone (the shortest CD is now 3 seconds with no CDR, but if you can land your Q on CD you're a god).

Realistically if you want to be a tank with some punch you build Warmogs/Rylai/Liandri/Spirit Visage/Boots/Voidstaff. WOTA is almost redundant in the face of that much raw hp regen (that build places you near the 4000 hp mark, where your spells start giving you large % of your shield back). At that point your natural regen is, quite frankly, ridiculous also [39.29(warmogs)+39.26(mastery)+16.7(base regen)+16.7(+100% hp regen from spirit visage)+22.39 (spirit visage passive)]=134.37 (26.87 health per second). Build a randuin's omen

the defensive mastery is actually 1% of missing health unlike warmogs so you will be missing a chunk there. I would actually be surprised if going full regen out healed a spell vamp slot but I'm sure it will negate health cost for the most part.

I'm probably going to build : item 3146 item 3259 item 3151 item 3116 item 3065 item 3075

That should get me right around the 3200+ mark on hp 200+ armor and 130+ mr while still hitting 300+ ap with dragon and pot. 3000-3500 hp is just about the right make for shield gen% without being excessive for me. The constant shielding means a lot more thorn mail damage as well.

I can sub in visage and thorn mail for banner of command, abyssal and sunfire depending on the situation. I'll be going 20 armor, and 25% cooldown over level when i jungle and swap the armor for about 12 magic pen if I am laning. Morde gets a large dps increase ( looks to be even bigger than magic pen) all the way up to 40% CDR working that in is going to be important for me. 25 from runs, 5 from mastery and 10 from visage caps it off easy enough at 18.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

i'm not really seeing the benefit to these changes.

im bad at understanding everything else but this much is true right? ;l

Stephenizgod1 votes

Personally i never liked the idea of Morde being a tank despite his visuals. Now before i go on my rant i just want to say that i am waiting to try him on the PBE, so my these are just my current thoughts, im hoping they will change.

The compensation of his lack of mobility and CC was high damage, but his damage was too high so they nerfed him. Now we see champions with high mobilty, plenty of CC, and very high damage (like Jarvan, Riven, Lee, etc.) So i always thought they needed to compensate Mordekaiser a bit more, his burst was on par or less then some of the Top-tier high mobile champions who also come stacked with CC. Instead i see they nerf his already low ratios, give him no compensation for his lack of mobility and CC and instead give him a kind of annoying movement speed boost mechanic on his W (why couldnt it have just been a straight up move speed boost? Magnetism has nothing to do with his design...) and made his Ghost slightly worse in the stats it gives him, because now it makes him a tank.

Morde has been pushed down the road i feared they would push him down, the tank road. Now i love tanks, it is my preferred role, but tanks have their issues in viability right now and the only good ones are ones with Massive CC or Tons of Damage. Morde has no CC and with these changes he will do less damage then on Live. So honestly im a little unhappy they are pushing him away from the damage monster that he was, there was no counterplay directly with his E other then staying away, but there was a lot of overall counterplay to Morde, counterplay that kept him seen as a weaker champion.

I always thought they would give him amplified damage towards targets effected by his Ultimate, instead they gave that to Fizz a change no one wanted because the nerfs that came with it pissed Fizz players off. MORDE IS HIS ULT! That change would have been beautiful on him instead of Fizz.

Im going to try out Mordekasier soon and i hope my fears are not true.

Talamare1 votes

I am a huge fan of Thornmail but it is a massive deterrent to being attacked

Your build would provide 40 AD, 230 AP, 1100 HP, 100 Armor, 55 MR for 14,150

ExiledTyrant1 votes

{quoted}

I am a huge fan of Thornmail but it is a massive deterrent to being attacked

Your build would provide 40 AD, 230 AP, 1100 HP, 100 Armor, 55 MR for 14,150

I prefer incorporating some type of life steal counter into my build. Fighters usually want to soak damage but not be the main damage soak. If your ignored you still let off a chain of AOE every 3 seconds with proper cdr.

Talamare1 votes

What about Liandry, Rylai, Sunfire Cape, Randuins, Thornmail

150 AP, 1650 HP, 215 Armor for 13650

It lacks MR but Runes, Merc Treads, Ally Legion and the fact that you have a constant rapidly generating shield should be enough to protect you as long as the enemy is not double AP If they are, trade Randuins for Spirit Visage or Locket or Banner

ExiledTyrant1 votes

Its all really situational isn't it? I mean as far as core its looking like liandries, rylai and gunblade for me but what you build for resists can certainly vary. I certainly love going from from 100 dps a second with creeping death to 150 just for having a sunfire but a lot of times I need the thorn mail instead. if the team is AD heavy though I may just get my wish. It's good to have gaps like this. I am pretty wary about leaving my MR open in general but there are places for it.

Grant the Ant1 votes

Landries/Rylias are strong on champions with the following 3 Aspects: AOE (Lots of Targets take Landries damage) Some Form of CC (This procs the double landries damage) At least one single target ability (Able to proc the 30% Rylia's slow)

Example: Vladimir Nis Q procs a 30% slow His other abillities are AOE giving the landries dmg to multiple targets His Sanguine Pool slows multiple enemies to proc double landries Damage.

Mordekaiser only hits one of the requirements for Landries/Rylia's: AOE YES Form of CC NO Single Target Ability NO

The Issue is because all of his abilities are AOE (Q,W,E), or Damage of time (R) he never procs more than a 15% slow. He is already so weak to kiting it's not practical to think your going to catch anyone proccing such a minuscule slow.

Sure it might be possible to proc a 30% slow if you find an isolated target who steps on you with your Mace of Spades (Q), but this is not a practical scenario. In a 1v1 scenario morde will be kited and killed outside of his Q range. If you think you're going to get close enough to a platinum level Kalista or Caitlyn to Q them by proccing a Rylia's 15% slow with an E you are sadly mistaken.

Landires is great on AOE champions that that have some cc in their kit because you can proc the bonus double damage and hit multiple targets, but a champion like Morde doesn't have that. Rylias only lasts for 1 tick of landries then you start proccing the 1/2 damage which doesn't do much.

IMO:The only thing that is really gonna work for him is Pure AP on 5 items and a Warmog's Armor. He'll basically be the same champion he is now with much lower burst potential .

You are going to feel very weak on him with Landires/Rylias unless your team is rolling over the enemy. If you think you are going to survive against a Katarina getting resets as she blows your team to pieces long enough to proc your Landires to for 5 - 6 seconds and widdle the enemies down your sadly mistaken. You absolutely need as much burst as you can muster so u can kill her in a 1/2 second. She can ace your team top to bottom in the first second of the fight. Sure you might get away if they lack CC but you haven't provided your team any support.

There are dozens of champions with mechanics similar to Kata (Akali, Leblanc, Kassadin, etc.) These were the only types of champions morde really had any success against since they have to get in you face to do damage. This is where Mordekaiser Excelled. When an enemy picked Akali and said, "I'm going to blow your ADC up in 1/4 a second while she is surrounded by 3 tanks trying to protect her." You could Say, "Mordekaiser can help stop that!" mordekaiser could actually outburst her if she simply tried to ignore him and destroy the ADC. Why? Because her game play mechanic is jump in your face destroy you in 1/4 of a second.

The great thing about mordekaiser was standing face to face with an enemy knowing that you only have 1/4 of a second to do all your damage because one of you is going to instantly die is the only point in the game where mordekaiser is strong.

Could Akali win the matchup? Absolutely, Mordekaiser is as mobile as a brick $#!t house. Akali is so mobile she can avoid you kite you out, or burst your adc down before you reach a a position where you can guard her. Even in laning a few ganks on mordekasier means death because Akali's mobility gives her the ability to instantly engage morde whenever he get cced or low in health.

The Update won't change the basic truth of the game. these mobile bursty type champs can instantly kill the most valued members of your team with no warning. Morde only niche in the game was he used to be good at dealing with this kind of champion. After the rework in 5.4 he will not be. That means he will not have a place.

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