Tried playing Mordekaiser yesterday

Big mistake.

I tried playing around with different builds, but nothing quite seems to make this champion work. He has several limitations, and the health regen nerfs didn't seem to help.

For one thing, his main farming and harass ability in lane, E, did not get its health cost lowered for some inexplicable reason. Coupled with his health regen nerfs, this makes his early laning nigh impossible-- either you lose every trade by harassing the opponent with your E, or you have to play passive and farm with autos and Q. Both of these situations suck, and its unfair that other mid laners ( ) hardly have to make this trade off.

The previous problem forces you into buying spell vamp early to keep yourself healthy in lane. Even so, I find that an early revolver is still insufficient to counteracting this effect. Other champions that rely on health as a resource ( ) have good sustain or HP regen to keep them afloat. Why does not get the same advantage? Is it because of his passive shield? Because any Morde player can tell you that it's hardly sufficient to keeping you alive in case you get ganked or engaged upon.

If you somehow manage to avoid getting camped by the enemy jungler, completely zoned by your lane opponent, or having your lane frozen because Morde can't help but push the wave, then you have probably made it to mid game with a fair amount of CS (which is literally the only thing he's good at). At this point you reach an impasse: what the hell do you buy on this champion?

You used to be able to DFG and ult, perhaps taking an enemy carry out, but now you cant even do that because his ult gives him garbage stats and he has no combo now that DFG is gone. Morde has very few ranged attacks, so he has to go in close. To survive up close combat, you need to build tanky. If you go the tanky route, he does moderate damage while getting kited endlessly. He also can't stick to his opponents and lock them down for his team, like a good tank should be able to do. If you build full AP, you're a one trick pony that exists to ult the enemy ADC. The rest of the time you cross your fingers, praying that your team will manage to finish off said carry before your ult wears off. Oh, and did I mention that if you make one wrong step, you'll get caught and die instantly? Meanwhile Leblanc and Zed have 1403290285 ways to escape a sticky situation. It's ridiculous.

My question for Riot is where they intend to take . Is he a mage, a bruiser, or a tank? What does Riot want out of this champion, so that he can actually have a fixed role and good build paths? Because right now, it seems that he doesn't fulfill any function other than to feed the enemy.