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Please Make Changes to Mordekaiser to Appease Old Mordekaiser Players

Shapiro·12/29/2019, 4:23:11 AM·9 votes·5,352 views

The Mordekaiser rework has been very hated by the majority of former Mordekaiser players. In this post I will try my best to voice the common complaints I have heard, my own and others', though I cannot speak for everyone. I will also propose a few changes.

An upfront complaint : the blatant neglect Mordekaiser received pre and post rework. Mordekaiser never had a champion spotlight, upon initial release and the juggernaut rework. This could be seen as a massive contributing factor as to why he was not popular. No one had any idea what he did, and therefore didn't bother to learn the majority of the time. He was abhorrently buggy, a few bugs got fixed throughout the years but over 200+ remained untouched. Whether it was out of sheer laziness or actual inability I do not know.

I'm going to compare briefly to the mass unpopularity of the Aatrox rework. The Aatrox rework completely destroyed Aatrox's identity (bar visuals). However, Riot did well (for the most part) by constantly making MEANINGFUL adjustments to Aatrox's kit until a healthy portion of former Aatrox players were happy with how he played. He still may not be what he used to be, but many Aatrox players are significantly happier than they were at the beginning, and through Riot's effort in making changes to his kit far beyond numbers for MANY patches shows goodwill towards the Aatrox community as a whole.

However, despite the similar unpopularity of the Mordekaiser rework, his kit has not been touched at all other than slight numerical nerfs/buffs.

Now, moving on to further complaints.

SHALLOW COMPLAINTS First; his looks. Don't get me wrong, from a technical standpoint, Mordekaiser's model, his abilities, and his splash art look fantastic. However, he also looks generically Shadow Isles, which he is not. Mordekaiser's eyes were red to differentiate himself as someone who didn't originate from the Shadow Isles but was still affiliated with it. Small complaint - perhaps, but many players feel as though it's just blatant overlooking by Riot's part. If it's such a small complaint, why was it even changed in the first place?

Another similarly shallow complaint is his voice, most players wanted the rework to be voiced by Adam Harrington, the original voice of Mordekaiser. Whether this was possible or not, it's somewhat of a disappointment, but whatever the voice is now also sounds generically Shadow Isles. Very akin to Hecarim. For a reworked champion, compare the number of voice lines Aatrox has to Mordekaiser. Mordekaiser repeats SO many lines because he has so few, while being like Camille in the sense that if he is not speaking when you prompt an ability, he will say X line for X ability. Leading to many repeats.

His skins in the rework also received pretty low-effort treatment. There was only really one dev (I cannot remember who he is, but BLESS YOU) who cared enough to try to work on his skins until he was told he couldn't finish them.

His ability names didn't really need to be changed. His old ability names were iconic metal, and edgy for sure, but poetically edgy. His new ability names are just edgy edgy. Death in 2 ability names and Darkness in one. Really?

His low-skill stat check gameplay makes him an extremely hated champion. He's banned a lot more, and it's turned into a champion you're ridiculed for playing because he's a stat check. No one likes playing against him, he doesn't feel fair.

GAMEPLAY COMPLAINTS Mordekaiser's gameplay identity was, similar to Aatrox, pretty much completely torn apart. Mordekaiser shifted from a champion with EXCELLENT waveclear, great burst, no CC/mobility (part of what made him interesting), and unique mechanics (passive shield, XP, ghost), to a champion with 2 forms of CC, weak in short trades but massively powerful in long trades, and has an ult that is VERY hated by both Mordekaiser players and people playing against Mordekaiser. Seriously. Nobody likes it.

Mordekaiser is a warlord, and old Mordekaiser PLAYED like a warlord. Conquering lane, taking map pressure with dragon and ghosts. Warlords don't just fight, they command, the ghosts fit that perfectly. In the rework reveal, Riot noted that Mordekaiser felt weird in that he had a huge mace and didn't use it often (it was literally most of his damage...but ok) but he wasn't just a generic melee fighter. He was interesting and had massive macro play to think about and the massive skill ceiling on controlling two units at the same time.

So new Mordekaiser's waveclear is very weak. Old Mordekaiser's excellent waveclear allowed him to have lane priority, at the cost of being VERY easy to gank (no cc, no mobility) which required you to make decisions on whether or not to push, now after you hit 6 you have free reign to kind of do whatever, as his ult is almost quite literally a free kill button, something Riot EXPLICITLY said they didn't want it to be in the rework reveal.

New Mordekaiser is also VERY VERY easy to play. Pre-rework wasn't incredibly difficult, but the interesting mechanics were far more difficult to master than the new AP Garen. Riot said they took the opportunity to make an easier champion, but why strip Mordekaiser down to become easy, ESPECIALLY when the Pantheon rework was right after his and you make Pantheon harder? It's genuinely insulting. Mordekaiser is not fun to play because he takes no thinking at this point, and even when you're doing well it just feels like a given because you're a total stat check champion. You can miss every single ability and just auto people to death in ult because his passive has no cooldown. His passive having no cooldown gives him no window of weakness.

Builds/Runes are extremely stale as only one/two options are viable. Old Mordekaiser's hybrid scaling and dynamic kit allowed for many rune choices, (Conq, Aery, Phase Rush, Electrocute, Grasp, Fleet, Glacial, Dark Harvest, Guardian) were all viable into different cases. New Mordekaiser has two options. Conq or Lethal Tempo. Same goes for builds, on old Morde you could build full AD (kind of troll, but good into a team with a strong ADC), full tank, full AP, or a mixture of any of the three. New Morde is either full AP or AP/tank hybrid. It's boring building the same items every game because you're borderline forced to. It was one of the beautiful things about Mordekaiser.

Being forced into really only one lane is also very stale. New Mordekaiser can only really be played top lane. Mid he's good into select matchups, and he COULD jungle for a while ( until he got hotfixed ), but old Morde could do everything but support. Made being autofilled a lot less of a nightmare, was more interesting to learn EVERY POSSIBLE matchup rather than just what you're fighting top, and each Mordekaiser role could build differently.

New Morde is very CDR reliant unlike old Mordekaiser, which kind of sucks because there's no good AP bruiser items with CDR other than Zhonya's

It's also just very odd for him to go from a champion with no mobility / CC, and having 4 damaging abilities, to a champion with 2 forms of CC and only 2 damaging abilities. I feel like that alone kills his identity to an extent. As he went from a VERY damage-heavy champion but he was very easy to kite/avoid, to a medium-damage champion that is quite literally unkitable when he has ult (kind of ignores the main weakness of bruisers...)

PROPOSALS By far the most popular change I (and many others) have proposed is to simply revert his passive to Iron Man, and take his current passive and make it his W, with a popping heal like his old W. Doesn't have to attach to allies or provide bonus XP near allies. This change makes him more resilient to poke (ranged top laners and increased viability mid) while also increasing his waveclear at the cost of having a massive moment of weakness after using his W. Mordekaiser currently is very hard to fight 1v1 due to his CONSTANT passive damage from autos/AoE that doesn't have a cooldown. If you saw a Morde use his W to clear minions, he would be very weak and have counterplay.

Another semi-popular proposal is to just completely change his ult. It has far too much of his power budget, and isn't fun for Mordekaiser or the enemy. Simplest change would be to remove the stat steal on it, to remove the stat-checkiness to an extent, but you get a champion ghost if you kill the enemy in the shadow realm. Or just completely change the ultimate. People, myself included, really want the dragon ghost and champion ghosts back, but I'm not holding my breath for it.

CONCLUSION Really I just want Riot to show that they care about the original Mordekaiser players by at least attempting to make SOME changes like they did with Aatrox. I understand the champion is more popular now that new players picked him up, but Mordekaiser was never given the opportunity to be popular before with the lack of coverage on his release or first rework. He was a truly original champion that is now just boring and not skill expressive in the slightest. Surely there can be a compromise where new players will still be happy with his kit but also appeasing the older players who just want their favorite champion back. Thanks for reading. If there's any other Mordekaiser players, old or new, who want their voices to be heard, leave some of your opinions below.

There's always going to be niche champions, and Mordekaiser could've been left as one. Maybe a visual update if anything

9 Comments

Z3SIeeper12/29/2019, 8:02:16 AM5 votes

I was never a main but I played him quite a bit prerework.

The rework turned him into a completely one-dimensional champion. There's no room for skill expression in his kit.

He was fun to play for like 2 games, then it became monotonous really fast.

IMO,

  • Q needs to be slower so it's actually dodgeable but also do more damage. Right now it's impossible to miss and doesn't feel crazy rewarding for landing either. It feels like he's swinging one of those weightless inflatable hammers.

  • E needs a lower cooldown. As the most interesting and skill-requiring ability in his kit he should be using it much more frequently than once every 24 seconds.

  • R is fine, it's really just his passive that makes it ridiculous. Does too much innate damage while granting MS so everyone not named Akali/LB/Ekko/etc. has no chance of surviving it unless they flat out outstat him. Passive needs either a numerical damage nerf or possibly even just removal of the MS component to make him more reliant on landing E to stick.

consensuaI clown12/29/2019, 2:44:52 PM5 votes

Man, I would give everything just to play old Morde again..

Riot please create some mode where we can play first edition of champions

thefatlazycat12/29/2019, 6:55:23 AM4 votes

honestly I'm fine with the visuals as is, just please make him not feel terrible and alien to play so I can actually enjoy my old main. Seeing people complain about Aatrox's rework when Morde's destroyed his kit's identity far worse, just because Aatrox had a higher playrate pre rework makes me so angry

RyzeRework12/29/2019, 7:52:06 AM2 votes

I honestly love the new morde. I wish he still had his 3 hit q combo because the sound and damage just felt so good but the shadowrelam is a really neat concept and his new q is really cool. His w that is just gain a sheild is a little underwhelming.

Bruce Norris1/4/2020, 4:51:38 AM2 votes

I've played Morde since I started in S1 around when Lee Sin and Yorick were released, although I didn't partake in ranked until S2 maybe S3 give or take (level climb). I'm far from a pro and I'm a casual player quitting on and off.

                                                                                                  Original Morde

  What I remember the most was that I loved the scaling on the old Morde, Mace of Spades used to spread and hit 2 other enemies or deal double damage if the target was alone it proc'd on 1 hit and had a low CD. His W was a huge AOE with decent scaling I "believe" this also provided movement speed back then but I'm not 100% sure I know this was a thing for his first rework though. His E used to be a free moving cone and later replaced into a cone that was able to rotate but it was stuck on his champion model. I recall the scaling being insane on all of his abilities to make up for lacking CC, I miss doing the ~1.6k-3k combos with his Q, W and E then ulting for usually 64% or so of their HP. Where you could build full AP and utilize Gunblade, Deathfire Grasp (when it was around which was another 50% of their hp) and Lichbane to 1v5 by abusing these alongside his passive Iron Man which made him near unkillable in teamfights without hard CC spam. Morde was an incredible duelist and excelled at split-pushing and CS'ing (namely from his E which usually melted near full waves at full build. Those were my favorite times with League aside from playing Old Sion.
                    
                                                                                               1st Rework

                             After the first rework (Juggernaut) I enjoyed the diversity of it, with the new hybrid scaling you were able to build whatever yet the damage wasn't the same on his Q. In comparison the older variant only took 1 hit to proc where this one had 3 hits to maximize the damage yet the damage was still noticed even if you didn't manage to have all 3 hits. Besides that I enjoyed the new found healing, xp and movement on his W, Creeping Death but I do think they nerfed the AOE damage or scaling on it in exchange for it's new features. His ult was more or less the same but it can now provide dragon ghosts. I enjoyed his build diversity with the first rework and it felt really fluid and enjoyable to play and still mildly similar to his old play style yet it was still vastly different. Originally I didn't enjoy this rework as I still seen it as a nerf to his DPS with certain builds but I grew to enjoy new match-ups and lanes. Morde thrived in the same conditions this time battling champions with more advanced kits featuring mobility, invincibility, CC and other quirky skill/item mechanics which made everything feel more rewarding.


                                                                                                Current Rework  
                                                                      
                           With my experience on his new rework I haven't been able to see anywhere near the same damage anywhere on his kit. With the base damage and scaling being noticed as weaker than prior variants on almost everything except his passive technically. His new Q feels more like his old E. It does give 40% more damage if the target is alone which is a massive nerf in comparison to the ability before his reworks. Having to activate his W which used to be his old passive feels silly and not utilized as well where if you trigger it once during a fight, you can lose out on the healing provided they have enough dps. His shield isn't the greatest and didn't have a CD before it was what you could rely on to keep you alive while you smashed everything in your path without needing to REALLY focus it as much. His ult is situational where it can be utilized to prevent a kill, stop ults and get kills yet leaves the team vulnerable as well. In some ways I can compare it to Bard's ult with it's use and utility. It doesn't feel very rewarding in comparison to his old ult where it now only provides stats if you kill the enemy; instead of giving you a ghost of the champ which was a minion alongside that buff. Either of the prior would thrive in team fights and continue to out-duel or out-damage most of what he came up against alongside a ghost. With his new kit, his E and passive feel semi-okay in team fights although with E's CD you aren't able to utilize this as often which directly impacts his passive's AOE depending on the scenario/ on top of if you want to save E for when you ult. The ability overhaul hurt his ability to CS especially early game with Q and E changes but can feel a little bit better later on if you build a decent amount of AP. His kit provides him with new mechanics alongside having a pull which feels similar to Flay on Thresh. Morde is more locked into builds and runes and falls to the same pressure that the last 2 did yet with even less to show for it. Overall, I haven't been able to enjoy myself playing the new Morde. I want too though but I'd rather play other bruisers as they either out-tank, out-cc, out DPS and some even out-sustain. 

                                                                                           
                        I also loved the original essence of Mordekaiser being the Master of Metal with all these metal references on his abilities. I didn't see a real reason to change that, and it stripped away all the character that I fell in love with.

TL;DR I agree with the OP.

5050BS12/29/2019, 5:25:58 PM1 votes

Im an Old Mord player and I LOVE the new Mord.

Of my friends that also started in S2 they also like the new Mord over the old.

Now Urgot on the other hand. Its a mixed bag.

I miss the old Urgot and also Like the New one.