Lets Talk Mordekaiser

So I have seen many of the threads here on the boards QQing and begging for reverts... I personally think they are ridiculous and a foolish waste of time. That is why I am here to make a real thread that ACTUALLY discusses Mordekaiser in his CURRENT state and barely even mention the way he once was.

So lets lay down the basics of what the goal of his rework was.

1. Reduce his lane bully farm master ways. This was not a healthy aspect of Morde and as this is something in particular that Riot has put a lot of focus on this year it is no surprise it was targeted and dealt with.
2. Bring him back to his intended Identity as a AP fighter/Juggernaut. Though the Juggernaut part is a more recent term it really does explain him well.
3. Make him less of a gimmick that relied on his ult to really do the work for him.
4. Make Morde feel less item reliant.

So how did they do this?

A. They changed his passive to scale off of his Health, improving his fighter identity and moving away from his glass canon gimmick playstyle. B. They reduced his overall bully capabilities by changing how Mace of Spades and Harvesters of Sorrow work. C. Made Morde more reliant on teammates to be successful. D. Gave Morde a way to regenerate his health within his Kit.

Now that it has been live for a while the good and the bad points have come to the foreground.

Good... if not a little to good

• His new damage potential on Mace of Spades is off the charts! Perhaps a little to far though, limiting different areas of his Kit.
• Harvesters of Sorrows now help regenerate some of the health you inevitably use for casting abilities.
• His shield no longer decays entirely
• Has opened Morde to different ways to be played, while a point of contention as also being bad it is in the long run a good direction.
• Can recieve full exp so long as he can kill the minions even with others in the lane.
• That dragon ghost!

The bad... yeah... > Morde is now slower than a sloth on a cold day making him feel just as item reliant as in the past... just a different item. > Relies way to much on having someone else with him all the time. > A new gimmick has been made making you feel like you have to play with a support. > Has greatly lost his solo lane identity making it feel almost impossible to be successful without ally intervention. > Cannot access the full potential of his kit without a teammate beside him. > Feels a bit like a one trick pony with how much power has been put into his Q.

The bad points should make something pretty clear. While this new direction is not necessarily bad, it was taken a little to far. In order to keep this new interaction in line, Morde had his movement speed gutted to that of the slowest champions in the game. The supposed consolation to this is the speed boost gained while moving toward the ally he has put Harvesters of Sorrows on. There is a problem with that though, you only get a boost moving toward them and it has a rather long cooldown which tends to make it unreliable and puts a duration on his potential fighting capabilities. Once it falls off or is reactivated he returns to his snail pace making him easy to target and harass. If you actually try to solo lane with him it becomes even worse since you can not even utilize that speed boost he so desperately needs in order to compete on his own.

Then a large portion of his potential damage was also put into his Harvesters of Sorrows, but only when there is someone he can cast it on next to him. The rest of his power was then put into his Mace of Spades. I really enjoy how it works... but it does a little to much which ultimately results in so many other aspects of morde needing to take a hit in order to compensate. The rest of his kit has pretty much remained the same outside of necessary nerfs and buffs to his ult to make it less of a easy team fight win condition if you can successfully ghost the opponents ADC.

That pretty much sums up the sentiment of many of the QQs and complaints. People generally feel that Morde has lost his identity... I personally do not feel that way. What I do feel is that to much was removed in order to spotlight a new gimmick. While I think giving more options to players to do different things is a good thing, I do not feel that this is the right way to go about it. Mordekaiser has always been a solo lane experience and now that side of him feel impossible to do in order to highlight this ally interaction and experience passive.

I personally feel that Mace of Spades needs to get its damage potential nerfed and only have it top out at 250% if not lower. That would make it possible to return his movement speed some alongside reducing the speed boost from harvesters of Sorrows. I feel Harvesters of Sorrows also needs to do some kind of aura damage even when Morde is alone and have it deal double damage only when close to the other that he cast it on which then expands the damage area to the ally that is shielded as well. Make the heal require damage be dealt in order to receive the heal and give the second activation a lockout for 2 seconds. These changes would return some of mordes solo lane while making his duo a little more reasonable as well. In the end though... I do feel he needs a lot of work done to him yet and that some of the power forced into his duo lane interaction be reduced.