Want to know your thoughts on this iteration of Morde's passive I've come up with

Malicious Metal·Sep 15, 2016·22 votes·1,268 views

Mind you, It's just some fun brainstorming, it might be totally overpowered but I always thought it would be cool to see something grand accompany Morde filling up his shield.

Like a huge storm of metal shards and malicious energies?

Iron Man Whenever Mordekaiser damages an enemy champion or monster he gains a temporary shield based on a percentage of the damage dealt as well as a flat amount based on a percentage of his own maximum health. While the shield persists Mordekaiser surrounds himself with a shroud of shrapnel, which damages nearby enemies (damage based on Morde's level)

I know this sounds broken so I'd like to get some input while I toy with some other ideas^^

disclaimer; Don't take this TOO seriously

44 Comments

Big LincolnSep 15, 20165 votes

if you're gonna add damage to his passive why not just copy Zarya and have his whole kit scale up with how well he keeps his shield up

t b h I think this would make him way cooler regardless

ltmetalSep 16, 20164 votes

If I could only pick ONE ability in his kit to be untouched, it would be his passive. It's arguably the only thing the ChampUp team got right on the first attempt. That being said, I still upvoted and hope to see more brainstorms in the near future.

Malicious MetalSep 16, 20161 votes

Totally agree on that part. I just like theorycrafting^^

GULAG 4 USep 15, 20162 votes

Cool but obviously... that sounds broken as shit lol.

MadManApocalypseSep 15, 201610 votes

{quoted}

Cool but obviously... that sounds broken as shit lol.

In all honesty not entirely, the way this passive works is by being NEAR him, simply kite him or keep as few away from him (LIKE YOURE SUPPOSED TOO) It's balanced, yet brutally punishing if you are that stupid.

Malicious MetalSep 15, 20165 votes

In a way like Illaoi and Darius, just more Metal :^)

GULAG 4 USep 15, 20162 votes

Well do you really think the boards wouldn't be qqing their shit into the ground?

AstôlfoSep 16, 20161 votes

Boards do that all the time whether or not the champion is good.

GULAG 4 USep 16, 20161 votes

But it's the boards, QQ is meant to be here.....

TacoTheKittenSep 16, 20161 votes

[deleted]

GULAG 4 USep 16, 20161 votes

Oh but midlaners are mages and THEY must try to 1v1 a melee carry then qq on the boards right?

SpoofghoulSep 16, 20162 votes

you know i like it, but i think i have a better one

but what about this one added to his current shielding passive

morde gains bonus movespeed depending on how low is shield is up to 75 extra movespeed at 0 shield down to 0 bonus movepeed at full shield

would really help him out alot i think

Fondling GemsSep 15, 20161 votes

Issues with shields providing buffs is that they need to be large enough shields to last long enough to keep their secondary effect up, at the same time the best way I would see to balance this would be to weaken the shield. Of course you then run into the issue of isn't the shield going to do damage to minions thereby filling up the shield? It would be self sustaining until it was broken through so long as you were near enemies.

Malicious MetalSep 15, 20161 votes

This is why I specified monsters and Champions, making it great in extended trades without making it a self-sustaining nuclear reactor when fighting in minion waves.

Making Morde have to stick on enemy champions and thrive in the midst of battle is what a Juggernaut should be all about, like Darius. Thought I get it would be pretty bonkers if said Morde would get ahead

Ok sure but whySep 15, 20161 votes

urn man

but i see you're adding his w to his passive, so you'll have to find some other way to give morde some actual movement

Malicious MetalSep 15, 20164 votes

Well, I intended to incorporate his W into his passive so there could be an entirely new W spell that would work as either utility, cc or mobility.

Still working on some weird ideas for a few new basic spells

Backup4nowSep 15, 20161 votes

work as either utility, cc or mobility

Pls, I thought you knew better

Malicious MetalSep 15, 20161 votes

I know that holding on to a concept that will never work without being toxic is a fools errand.

Every Juggernaut needs something to remain relevant and have some situational cc to make their kiting issues a tad less pronounced. Look at Yorick with his baby cage, slow and haste

Or Darius with his pull, w slow and getting all the Cleaver MS with his passive.

Backup4nowSep 16, 20161 votes

In this aspect, Mordekaiser is the only Juggernaut with the true weakness of 'stay out of range'. Every other Juggernaut has some way of keeping you in range, and that's why Morde relies so much on Rylais. Having this one true weakness allows him to excel above and beyond in other aspects of his character, which is what makes him stand out. (These descriptions are, of course, straight from Riot; If they believe him to be a juggernaut, then these weaknesses should remain and stand out)

If anything, we should be REMOVING what little utility he has (movement speed on w, exp on w) and replacing it with more ways to deal damage, like making w a toggle with cost/second with no buddy requirement, and other melee-associated dps increases that further amplifies his strongpoints and weakpoints.

Edit: Replying to the original post itself, what you suggest would be healthier if you just said "while Morde's shield is up, deal damage to surrounding enemies" without the % health part. However, the passive is already just the right amount of interesting and 'full', so tacking anything else onto it would easily make people cry 'overloaded'.

ragdollomegaSep 16, 20161 votes

The whole reason Mordekaiser is so hard to balance is because he lacks any meaningful utility. It makes him a stat stick. Which you should know stat stick champs are notoriously difficult to balance. He needs MORE utilities like the other juggernauts have so that he can be balanced around more than just damage ratios. I honestly think that people need to just drop the idea of Morde having no utilities.

Backup4nowSep 16, 20161 votes

Except he has his shield mechanic and spoopy ghost as balancing levers. Leblanc has been historically harder to balance despite having plenty of utilities. The problem isn't that low utility is hard to balance, it's the character's playstyle that's hard to balance.

For example, before the rework Morde was hard to balance because so much emphasis was placed on his E, allowing him to chunk the enemy laner and build up massive amounts of shield every few seconds with a no-brainer first max. Now he's significantly easier to balance because most of his damage is on q, forcing him to get in melee to chunk or kill you, while maxing E gives practically no damage per rank. In fact, Riot had to REMOVE more utilities from the release rework to make it fair and balanced (full exp gain, w overlap)

On the other hand, someone with many more utilities like Leblanc will always be completely hated and a nightmare because the PLAYSTYLE is point-and-click nearly unavoidable burst with no trouble escaping or getting in range. Historically, it's always been the characters that have unfair play patterns that become problematic, not the ones with more or less utility than others; in fact, a lot of the most hated and problematic characters have the MOST utility (lee sin, ~~leblanc, fizz~~ most assassins, ezreal [not hated but he tends to break items all the time, thus problematic], etc). Also, Morde isn't hard to balance, he's actually very balanced and fair to play against right now, his thematic delivery is what people mostly complain about. He should be the 'renekton bar' of balance imo.

ragdollomegaSep 16, 20161 votes

I dunno, those features on morde's kit are more like side benefits to his damage output, not utilities in their own right. If morde deals enough damage he therefore is able to produce enough shield to stat check his opponent to try and kill them. If he gets a ghost he then gets bonus stats and an additional source of damage to produce more shield to then stat check his opponent.

And I wouldn't really talk about the balance state of the rework morde so highly. It took a LOT of changes to bring rework morde to his current state after the rework. Now he is in a weakened state that riot is comfortable with just like before because none of the critical issues with his kit were addressed in the rework.

Also, the w changes with the exp and w overlap were purely made to force mordekaiser into botlane. Especially the exp bonus that only made it more of a stat check fight since morde would level earlier and be ahead in growth stats as well as the benefit of almost always reaching lvl 6 before his lane opponents. Once riot realized that he would be even more toxic as a forced adc replacement or nerfed into the ground to keep that play style they started making changes to move him back to solo lanes including nerfing the exp feature and adding back his ability to cast w without another player.

And finally, I think it can be said that cases like fizz, lee sin, etc are an issue for the opposite reason as mordekaiser for having overloaded kits and/or obscene quantities of mobility and no real trade off to go with it.

As for Ezreal, the only thing that makes him a problem with certain items is the feature on his q. nothing else he has in his kit is an issue.

Backup4nowSep 17, 20161 votes

While the initial rework 'experimentation' was an obvious failure, I believe it was BECAUSE of the added utilities, hence why they needed to take those away.

Also, I wouldn't make everything sound like a stat check; there's a slippery slope there. I could just as easily say any sticky character with a low cd dash or spammable slow is a stat-check because 'all it does is force the opponent to straight-up fight them in a stat-check match, or let the user escape such a stat-check match'.

The point about fizz lee sin etc being the opposite reason is exactly my point. Once you start adding utility, the balance immediately becomes questionable because you need to value that utility and what the appropriate tradeoff is when it comes to balance, how much more utility you can add etc, and that's not something the balance team can handle when they constantly make changes to the game.

I also still think the balance of the Morde rework is much better now than it ever was before. I actually don't get why so many people view the rework as a COMPLETE failure; while he's now more feast/famine, some of the main issues (that I mentioned) that the rework DID solve is the oppressive e-spam, as well as shield scaling and adding weaknesses. While it did add other problems, you cannot deny that pre-rework, if he was good, he would have no counters and never die (which is why he was left in a weakened state). Now he has counters, and he wins certain matchups instead of all matchups, which is an appropriate balance state. He's even still competitively viable now, after all the nerfs and changes. Not quite a weakened state, considering how hard he can stomp when played well in all elos. You can't say that much about pre-rework, that's for sure.

ragdollomegaSep 17, 20161 votes

Not really, those changes were what made him work in a duo lane. In a solo lane he had literally no benefit from them because he needed another allied champion. So he did not have these utilities and was pretty much chicken feed in a solo lane. In fact he only got back to being playable in solo lanes after riot gave him back the 'utility' of using w on minions. Also, those utilities you speak of were not removed, they are still in his kit. Just reduced.

I am saying morde is a stat check champ because he is. And actually you CAN just as easily say that champs with spammable movement and/or slows in their kit tend to be stat check champs. Just look at champions like Nunu, xin zhou, olaf, shyvana, and Aatrox. They too were brought down to a similarly weakened state like morde. Notice that such champs tend to have fairly simple kits and a lot of what these kits do, outside of damage, is rearrange stats onto themselves and/or off of their opponent and add a bit of stickiness.

Are you sure you want to say that being MORE feast/famine is really a good thing? That tends to be a bad thing. Also, you speak as if there were no means to counter morde previously even though he is an immobile champion that automatically pushes his line by virtue of what his kit does. Just an early gank or two were and are the hardest counter against morde bar none. Not to mention anyone with a little mobility and hard cc and/or decent poke tended to be pretty bad matchups for morde.

Backup4nowSep 17, 20161 votes

Those things made him work in a duo lane not by the nature of his kit, but by showhorned utilities that are unfitting and blatantly overpowered in duo lanes that have since been nerfed.

There are so many champions that fit the way you describe stat-check, it may as well be a completely normal thing. For example, Trundle and Irelia; they're NOT reduced in power despite matching your description of a stat-check: don't get near without the stats to win, or die. The problem with that logic is that all stat-stick characters do something different that makes their optimal win scenario different; stay out of range of Morde. Dash out of Trungle's icedick and don't fight him while he's ulting you. Save your burst for the second half of Aatrox's health bar. Save your disengage for Darius' pull. Nerf Irelia. Just because they are sticks of stats by your definition, doesn't mean they don't have their own inherent weaknesses and ways to play around them besides just having more stats than them.

I didn't mention more feast/famine as a good thing, I said while it may be the case that he is more feast or famine, some of his core issues were fixed. Previous Morde HAD to be left too weak because if he was strong, he didn't have any counters. He would kill you instantly under all scenarios, and if you ganked it would be an easy double kill. The reason he had counterplay in the time before the rework was because he couldn't kill you in one rotation without being hilariously fed.

ragdollomegaSep 18, 20161 votes

Yes, I had already mentioned this in a previous post, so moving on.

Yes, actually, there are a fair number of stat sticks in league currently. The ones I had mentioned previously were some examples. Riot will slowly be reworking them as time passes. The point of mentioning them is that, like morde, they have fairly simple kits that are still toxic and are left in a weakened state BECAUSE they are too simple to properly balance. Especially since it can take only a small change in an item they build or a new one all together that can make them go out of control. And of course Irelia is in a weakened state, why do you think she is hardly ever seen? As for Trundle, he was like some kind of enigma where riot and most players saw him as useless and only recently in season 6 have they started nerfing him down.

As for the last paragraph, you saw what rework morde was like when strong. He was insane. I can guarantee that if he had been allowed to use his w in a solo lane that he would have been insanely good wherever he went. Again, it took a LOT of nerfs to bring rework morde to his current state.

TheorcheroSep 16, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kauwA2V2,comment-id=00010000,timestamp=2016-09-15T22:37:41.761+0000)

Well, I intended to incorporate his W into his passive so there could be an entirely new W spell that would work as either utility, cc or mobility.

Still working on some weird ideas for a few new basic spells

I want Diana E as new Morde W.

AckelopeSep 16, 20161 votes

I think Morde's relative lack of CC and mobility unless you build specific items to enhance it are an intended and somewhat necessary weakness, they allow him something of a juggernaut identity. He is low on mobility and CC, can be relatively tanky but isn't as tanky as a true tank, and dishes out a massive amount of damage if you find yourself on top of him.

EedatSep 15, 20161 votes

Random question, can Morde reset one of his Q autos with a Tiamat item?

Malicious MetalSep 15, 20161 votes

Nope, it doesn't work.

Though reactivating W in the right moment can animation cancel your Q and cheese them for both W damage and Q3 X)

kasfasSep 15, 20161 votes

Riot can't really balance damage shields, so they tend to get nerfed a lot. I think he should get shield based exclusively on a % of his max hp for each instance of damage, including (but reduced for) basic attacks.

So, we say his q gives him 7.5% max hp shield for each strike (in its current iteration) doubled on the third strike, w gives 50% over its duration, and his e (which I think should be reworked to be his utility spell which slows and grounds) something like 10%.

This should probably increase with level to prevent him from abusing it in lane phase. So something like

Autos: 0.5%-2% Q: total 15%-30% W: over duration 20%-50% E: 5%-10%

Note, these values shouldn't count if used on minions. He should gain shield 25% of the original value vs minions and 75% vs monsters.

THE RlVER KlNGSep 16, 20161 votes

This just makes it even harder to trade with him as a melee......the damage numbers would have to be super low for this to be balanced, and his shield would have to go down a lot. Adding a flat %max health shield on top of that is just overkill.

TheOvermindSep 16, 20161 votes

Sounds interesting , but reminds me of sions and nautilus w shield mechanic , where the only to beat them is by eating through the shield. Now you either have enough damage to do it and mord feels useless, or you don't and you feels totally powerless vs him .

MunchCrunchLunchSep 16, 20161 votes

well. they have to tone down his Q damage if they gonna do that. if your gonna be a sustained damage threat like other juggeranuts lose your 1 shotting ability thats on low cd. or at least reduce the dmg heavily

DrahcirSep 16, 20161 votes

Personally, i feel Morde passive is fine as it is, if i would replace anything, it would be the dragon ghost.

NineTailedMysticSep 16, 20161 votes

Does this stack with the Immolate passive?

SnowplosionSep 16, 20161 votes

That actually could work. He would probably need a new W, but that would make a nice passive.

XIII VanitasSep 16, 20161 votes

I don't like shields that scale with damage dealt, they get out of control too easily:

if you snowball in lane, you become immortal and there's nothing left for your opponent to do, other than beg for mercy
if you're losing lane, you basically have no passive

Also, were you thinking about damage dealt before or after mitigation? Because if it's after, the shield could be easily shut down by building magic resist, which would be pretty depressing for Morde, considering the fact that there is no AP equivalent of the Black Cleaver.

Personally, I'd rather have Morde gain an X shield amount, scaling with his AP and max HP, whenever he hits a neutral or enemy unit with his spells. For example: Q1 and Q2 would give X, Q3 would give 2X and E would give X + n Y, where Y is a fixed bonus amount and n is the number of enemy champions + big jungle monsters hit (which would solidify and enhance his identity of control jungler and generally objective-focused juggernaut).

WheatloafSep 16, 20161 votes

Tying the shield strength a little less to the actual damage he's pumping out is good, though I'm not sure I can really say whether essentially putting Creeping Death on here is a good idea without seeing the rest of the kit this is going on. At the moment, I don't think Morde can keep his shield high enough long enough to make it worthwhile (if I understand correctly, he doesn't pick up resistances until a few items into his current build path), though having the shield fill for a % of his max health on ALL abilities could help that.

On the flip side, a world where Morde could viably keep his shield topped off with any sort of consistency is a whole 'nother circle of hell to play against.

All in all, I don't think this would solve an of the problems his current passive has (actually, it makes them worse...), but it's cool that you're experimenting with ideas! I might comment again in here if I come up with anything interesting, but no promises.

Teridax68Sep 16, 20161 votes

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kauwA2V2,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-09-15T22:18:48.268+0000)

Whenever Mordekaiser damages an enemy champion or monster he gains a temporary shield based on a percentage of the damage dealt as well as a flat amount based on a percentage of his own maximum health.

I like that this at least partially decouples Morde's shield from his damage, though I think you could go all the way and make his shield completely scale with max health, and instead have his attacks and abilities grant a constant percentage of his shield per target hit (e.g. 1% against small minions and monsters / 5% against large units). That way, he'd be able to fulfill the fantasy of building a shield off of his enemies' pain, without depending on raw damage output at all. On the flipside, depending on the scaling, that might make him too good at drain tanking if he goes for pure health stacking.

[{quoted}](name=Malicious Metal,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=kauwA2V2,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-09-15T22:18:48.268+0000)

While the shield persists Mordekaiser surrounds himself with a shroud of shrapnel, which damages nearby enemies (damage based on Morde's level)

This sounds cool as an incentive for enemies to strip Morde of his shield, but is there another specific reason to move one of his abilities to his passive? I'd totally get behind a new W, though, particularly since the coolest thing about Morde's heavy metal shrapnel armor is him wearing it, and not really him projecting it onto someone else (you'd lose a bit of R synergy, though).

ÐelofashtSep 16, 20161 votes

Iron Man: When Morde uses a skill he gains a shield (small ones) that reduces the damage of the next damaging skill that hits him by 15/20/25/30%, he may have up to 2 charges, each Q hit will add a charge.

This would make him able to do sustained fights by playing the skills one after the other, and make him better against enemies that are highly reliant on their skills for damage while being a bit less strong against auto attackers.

What do you think of that Malicious?

Legacy HydralphaSep 17, 20161 votes

Sounds more noticeable than his current passive. Course, this may mean his W will change.