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Revision: Mordekaiser

Varnoc·1/5/2016, 4:55:49 PM·6 votes·1,131 views

The Iron Revenant. League's Master of Metal has been in a tough spot for awhile now, and with his recent update he's still managed to retain his old problems. Thank you to everyone that gave me feedback on the subject when I asked.

EDIT: updated the abilities on 1/27/2016

I feel the need to preface this by saying that I am NOT a Rioter, and everything you read here has absolutely no guarantee of becoming part of the game at any point in time. This is something that I do to get a better understanding of the champion design and balance process. This being said, part of the process includes being called out when something is wildly stupid imbalanced, so feel free to call me out on anything that strikes you as OP (in theory), but understand that, because I don't have access to a testing environment, I can only do so much. I will try to explain my thought process to the best of my ability as well, so nobody is left in the dark.

For those unfamiliar, you can find Mordekaiser's current abilities and their statistics here, if you care to compare.

Please keep in mind that there is no single way to "fix" any one champion. What I'll be offering here are primarily base ideas that can be taken several different ways while retaining interesting game play options for both the player and opponent.

This will be lacking in details such as cost, cooldown, damage, and range, as many numeric variables can be taken care of by the Balance team. Any numbers offered here will be extreme generalizations meant to convey the general idea behind the ability. Please do not dismiss the ideas given here due to a lack of this information, as I physically do not possess the means to test these things to provide reasonable numbers.

P - Iron Man Mordekaiser converts 25% of the damage he deals into a constantly decaying shield.

Iron Man's been changed to 25% of damage to shield from all targets. it doesn't need to be complicated as they've made it, and being strong versus minions is a window of opportunity in itself. The user is incentivized to engage only when minions are present, while the opponent is incentivized to attack when minions aren't present, this makes him stronger in lane where he hopes to get ahead in levels and items before the late game, where he can get caught out of position and blown up. This was a very functional strategy which made him viable, and it should be appreciated.

The change to make his shield scale at 25% of his health was nice, and it could stay, but doesn't have to. Having a controlled cap put him in a unique position where buying health was ineffective beforehand, and made his reliance on stacking defense against his shield gen vulnerable to true damage. This being said, with the prevalence of % Health and True Damage effects, and the intention of Juggernauts to effectively scale with Health, not resistances, there doesn't appear to be a good reason to remove it.

Q - Mace of Spades ACTIVE : Mordekaiser swings his mace with titanic force, dealing magic damage to all enemies in a short cone. Champions (and large/epic monsters) struck by the effect are dealt the same damage a second time over the next 3 seconds, and lesser beings are also flung aside.

Mace of Spades is really up in the air, the triple attack bit is kinda ridiculous, a character with no CC, gap closers or legitimate mobility doesn't really have the luxury of lugging out 3 melee attacks, and relying on allies even more to secure opponents long enough to get a hit in, or relying on flash and stupid opponents to drop the last hit on a champion is poor design.

There are a dozen ways they could make this better, conditional CC might be nice, however that takes away from features that could be budgeted elsewhere, so simply having a single hit heavy handed slam is probably best. Above is the version I prefer, however other things could easily be done.

The damage of the ability, ideally, would be split evenly between the initial strike, and the dot afterwards (I find it hard to believe that anyone hit by Morde's mace wouldn't have huge holes in them afterwards). With the damage being split this way, we push Mordekaiser more completely towards a heavy damage over time threat, much like other Juggernauts are currently. This aside, I like the mental image of Mordekaiser flinging minions aside as he slowly but surely marches towards you.

Alternatively, it could be made into an auto attack modifier once again, dealing damage to the target, and those around the primary target taking the same damage. This version has it's own merits, allowing Mordekaiser to use it as an Auto Attack reset, however it also takes away the ability of more mobile opponents to avoid the attack, which is one of the primary reasons I prefer the former.

Regardless of which version, and their variants, is selected, the ability needs to be on a fairly short cooldown, should an enemy be in melee range, Mordekaiser needs ample ability to punish his opponents, and this ability is the primary method of achieving this.

W - Creeping Death PASSIVE - Mordekaiser receives less damage from all sources (true damage, obviously, is not reduced). ACTIVE - Mordekaiser surrounds himself in a storm of shrapnel, dealing magic damage to nearby enemies each second. While this effect persists, Mordekaiser is immune to crowd control effects.

While I don't have a problem with Harvester of Sorrows as an ability, it simply does not fit Mordekaiser as a character. Relying on lifesteal both counteracts one of Mordekaisers built in difficulties, health cost upkeep, but it also makes him less effective vs champions which can stay out of reach, ironically the marksmen that he was forced to contend with in bottom lane. Preventing damage is superior to recovering from it, and it prevents issues caused by erasing damage with healing when Morde is ahead. As such, Morde should go back to defense.

Creeping Death is where most of the power taken away from other abilities should go, instead of the old armor and resist increase on activation, it should probably have passive direct damage reduction of 5% per skill point. 5% to 25%. It's probably OP, especially in light of the other feature it has, but the amount can be whatever fits, 1%, or 3%, whatever works. It also doesn't have to be passive, it could be only during activation. The big feature it should provide isCC immunity. CC immunity has become overpowered primarily because CC has become so prevalent, but not every character operates around CC, and many marksmen, carries and assassins have little or no CC, this gives him a strategic advantage against CC reliant team comps, and it also gives a champion who is extremely vulnerable to being caught out an opportunity to slowly lug away, or face his foe and slug it out without being tied down.

The CC immunity wouldn't be permanent, it would last during the effect, also coupled with damage and the defensive boost already present passively. On cooldown, the skill would lose the defensive boost granted until it refreshes, similar to Master Yi's "Wuju Style", meaning you'd benefit from the passive effect indefinitely until you use the active portion and the effect ends. It's possible to have the defensive passive end immediately upon activation as well, to create a trade between having defense or CC immunity. As always, there's a million ways to mix effects around to create power and vulnerability. The effect would also only work on Mordekaiser, this means no selecting targets, it's him alone.

E - Siphon of Destruction ACTIVE - Mordekaiser channels for up to 2 seconds, dealing magic damage to all enemies caught in the cone initially, and every 0.5 seconds afterwards.

Where power was designated to Mace of Spades before, it is now placed on Siphon, where it is a lot more appropriate. It is naturally your primary skill choice since it gives you the best reach and good coverage compared to his other major skills, and it's also the only skill you can effectively juke. An opponent can run away from Mace or Creeping Death, but with a lot of erratic movement, they could cause Siphon to miss altogether, this happens a lot with champions like Fizz and Renekton, or Yasao, who have an abundance of gap closers to reposition during battle, the idea is to create an ability which has a lot of power and threat, but make it even easier to avoid at least partially.

The difficulty with avoiding it now is that it's basically an instant cast ability, you have to predict when it's going to be used to dodge it. It also represents his burstiest and highest range action, outside of his current ultimate.

By changing Siphon to a channeled ability which does damage over time, opponents can significantly reduce the damage by moving outside of it's field of effect, this means high mobility opponents have a built in counter to a large portion of Mordekaisers damage, whether they run out of the effected area, or force move, and it creates a juggernaut role the way it's supposed to be done, extremely potent in both offense and defense, but usurped by high mobility gameplay.

The effect is broadly different from his current Siphon, and would require a lot of considerations in light of it's function change. Starting with a rectangular hit box the width of his own body and opening into a wide, but short, cone. It could slowly expand over the duration of the channel, however the expansion would be mostly wider and only slightly further.

Because it's a channeled attack, the amount of damage and shield generation would have to be great. With the CC immunity granted by Creeping Death, Mordekaiser can set up an offense which can't be interrupted by anything but death, not for every Siphon, but for important ones. The Siphon would deal solid damage over an area and generate bonus shield for each target hit, much like it does now. This promotes catching opponents, especially minions, in crowds, which will be easy with the increased effect size, but prepared opponents can avoid crowding and use gap closers or high movement speed to exit the area of effect.

Other possible features are:

  • A slow turn, similar to Vel'Koz's Ray, so Morde can attempt to stay on target .
  • He could be either rooted as a shortcoming of the ability, or have decreased movement similar and the ability to slide around slowly similar to Lucian during his Ult, with speeds similar to Xeraths Q.
  • He could also have greater or lesser effect size on use, or completion.
  • Siphon could also feature a dragging component which slowly sucks foes toward him, this wouldn't interrupt actions, but it would reduce movement directly away from him during the effect, and increase movement toward him, creating an opportunity for opponents to race directly past him to get out of the effect and hit him from the side or back, but this is effectively a form of CC.

The point, however, is that he has a high damage, high recovery, jeopardy skill, that makes him even slower and powerful than before, fitting in with having a CC immunity feature, he has to jeopardize his movement with a different skill, creating a strategic weakness and counterplay.

R - Children of the Grave ACTIVE - Mordekaiser curses the targeted enemy champion, stealing a percentage of their total health over 10 seconds. If they perish while this effect persists, Mordekaiser enslaves their soul for a short time afterwards.

Children of the Grave is probably the thing that needs the least change. It should just be changed back to damage over time only, without any up front burst. The reduction in bursting power, spread to several of his other abilities skills, reduces the sudden killing power and puts him more in line with other Juggernauts, dealing stupendous amounts of damage over time, slowly but surely ripping you apart. Because of the reduction in sudden power, the total damage dealt by many of his skills can be increased, as well as the shield generation and defense in his kit, allowing him to be the beefy powerhouse he once was.

I do understand that some like Dragonforce, however it eats up quite a bit of Morde's power budget, and it's only available on Summoner's Rift game mode, effectively screwing over ARAM and Dominion players without compensation. It's cool, yes, however, like Harvester of Sorrows, the effect really doesn't belong on Mordekaiser.

That's all I have to say on the subject. Huge shoutout to BahumutKaiser for providing much of the above reasoning and thought. I highly encourage reading his comments, as he provides very in-depth insight on the subject.

Given the above, what are your thoughts concerning Mordekaiser?

23 Comments

Pandemic Punch1/5/2016, 5:04:35 PM2 votes

I did not read much of this post but I want this to gain attention because Morde needs attention. I would be happy with a revert even :)

bahamutkaiser1/26/2016, 9:33:43 PM2 votes

Now that I could actually get through the idea, I can offer a little input. I'll try not to hijack your suggestion with one of my own. but I think there are some fundamental conflicts with this idea as far as Mordekaisers identity and viability. If later, you want my alternatives, I'll share them as well.

The first thing I would like to submit, is that the original Mordekaiser, way back in the beginning, was the best Mordekaiser, and the healthiest. 25% recovery on Iron Man from all sources, bonus flat shield generation on Siphon of destruction, and his ultimate used to deal only damage over time, no up front damage.

These are things that made Mordekaiser the original Juggernaut, the way it was supposed to be He also had bonus armor and magic resist on his W, with no niche movement speed or health recovery outside his ultimate, and this created a scenario where you had mostly gradual damage, with only mediocre spikes that were mostly averaged out rather than bursty, primarily because his Ultimate only did DoT, originally.

The amount of absurd shield generation Mordekaiser gained was practical in light of his defensive nature and inability to do anything utility wise be it mobility or disables, except his ability to put his shield on an ally to increase their defense and create damage around them instead of himself.

Now, classically, Mordekaiser never had a balance problem, even with some of the unnecessary buffs he got, which made him more oppressive, he was never a competitive balance problem, Mordekaiser was originally a newb bully, which inexperience players couldn't combat because in a straight head bashing trade, he would defeat almost anything, and their friend. Power wise, this was balanced against his utter lack of utility, his inability to secure a kill unless a foe delivered it to him with their stubbornness, and the consistent lane pressure he maintained.

His original weaknesses were, CC and MR, because both prevented or reduced the damage he dealt, which also prevent shield generation, greatly reducing his effectiveness 2 fold. Also Reach, with poor reach and mobility and no disables, he could only reach what was delivered to him, being a bully to melees, but almost useless against many projectile users. and ganks, because his dominating power was offset by the fact that he had to beat you or be beaten, there was no in between, Mordekaiser couldn't even retreat under tower fast enough to survive a gank.

And these features would only be more determental in modern LoL where mobility and hard CC creep has overwhelmed the line up, giving him a severe challenge. This was back before Champions like Fizz arrived, with grievous wound, dashes and untargetable states which can juke certain attacks, and CC which can't be cleansed. The original Mordekaiser also thrived on the minion wave, gaining absurd amounts of shield when surrounded by target rich environments, and gaining significantly less shield in a duel or gank.

Things only got worse for the juggernaut as key items got nerfed repeatedly next to his direct nerfs, he probably would have came down in power with just these unrelated item changes, but, to make the initial LoL experience more accessible to new players, and Riot directly stated this as the justification, they nerfed Mordekaiser into a niche state.

Because the meta became so carry reliant, and Mordekaiser could be used to usurp carries and turn them against opponents, marginal use remained, and Riot decided to retire alterations to the original juggernaut for years. Then they started adding odd gimmicks, like shielding an ally and yourself, than adding conditional mobility. Until finally, we got this unholy abomination, which is ironically somewhat viable due to overloading certain features to force him into awkward roles, but he's lost the original gameplay, and he's not welcome anywhere in the game due to being individually forced into a meta rejecting role.

The old Morde was fine, and would probably be significantly hindered just because of the evolution of the game around him without any adjustments anyway. towers used to be safe places, defensive items used to be potent, and there weren't a fraction of the dive champions available now which players can use to burst and retreat like they do now. Even subtle disables like Silence could wreck a classic Mordekaiser, for the reason listed above, his damage was also his survival. Instead of breeding more healthy interactions between champions like silence VS Mordekaiser, we have silence being the target of elimination and double hard CC plus gap closers being allowed on champions, Mordekaiser was not the problem.

The only shortcoming Mordekaiser ever had, was that he was easy to play, a strategic pick that required little from the user, and a lot from the opponent. If you didn't counter pick Mordekaiser properly, you could find yourself nearly helpless in lane. And while I don't support the Riot agenda to make everything harder to play, alienating the original playerbase of LoL who enjoyed strategic champion effectiveness and accessible gameplay, Mordekaiser was definitely easy. It might not mean it was easy to win, because there were very effective counters, players just didn't like adopting them, and their even more accessible now with the number of items available with offense combined with MR. But even if you were losing, Mordekaiser was easy to operate, there's not a lot you can do, you just do what you do, and use some guile to avoid getting caught out, because if the foe brings the necessary amount of force to defeat you, you just lose, no sudden skill shot dodges and clutch interrupts, you just get rolled, or roll your opponent. That's part of why Mordekaiser was so absurdly tanky to begin with, he had 1 strategy, overpower the foe and crush them, there was no plan B...

Maple Crusader1/5/2016, 7:05:41 PM1 votes

Looks good. If Morde's E shoots out maces like it used to, I'm sold on your idea.

DeathBurst1/5/2016, 7:27:54 PM1 votes

Hmmm, so what does your rework achieve (or try to)?

I don't think it solves any of the problems Morde currently has.

  • Shield: you said yourself it created a feast or famine situation, but I don't see how your change solve that. Seems more like a net buff to me.
  • Q: you probably need a stack that decays after some time between the first and second strike (quite obvious, but you didn't mention it explicitly). It's a bit too similar to Yasuo's Q, I think, but why not... Except why change for the sake of change? Again, what do you want to achieve? Also, does "an opponent" means also a minion, or do you have to hit a champion three times in a row?
  • W: I think I prefer the version currently on PBE, it offers both more flexibility for Morde (you can use it on minions for the MS buff) and more counterplay for the opponent (you can focus the minion to avoid the DoT/remove the MS).
  • E: old E was the reliable spell to poke, so I don't think this change is good. The interaction between Q knock-away and E is a fun idea, but I'm not convinced it will be actually interesting to play in-game. If it just means you always use Q during your E channel, it's not an interesting tactical decision, it's just a (rather obvious) trick to know.

Hope it'll help. ;)

bahamutkaiser1/26/2016, 4:27:09 AM1 votes

E for effort, trying to format all the ratios is a ridiculous clutter that hides the function of your changes, and it adds nothing to the viability of the idea, those things are balanced in testing.