Mordekaiser's inherent Kit problems; VGU talk and more

So, with Mordekaiser having been hit with the Rylais changes and me really questioning why I should even keep maining him I thought to myself why exactly Mordekaiser's even in this current balance limbo. He's on Riot's naughty list and they're extremely hesitant to buff him, even when he's really becoming frustrating to play as (he's always been frustrating to play against anyways). He's almost reached the spot where both parties are NOT going to be enjoying themselves so that got my thinking; What are the things that NEED to go when Morde gets his VGU?

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/4.10.7/img/passive/Mordekaiser_IronMan.png Iron Man http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/4.10.7/img/passive/Mordekaiser_IronMan.png This comes to mind when I think about what makes Mordekaiser such a pain to balance. It's a completely broken design by default and on any other champ it'd be extremely opressive. Iron Man is THE feast of famine passive. It scales on DAMAGE output and gives you DURABILITY based on the damage you deal. If you get fed on Mordekaiser there's nothing the enemy can do to stop you as you're going to completely destroy them without them being able to retaliate. It also makes trading against Mordekaiser very binary in lane. Either you have the DPS required to breach his shield or he'll just shrug it off like a bad case of fleas. It's broken by design and keeps him in this awful spot where he's not allowed to be buffed. The sad thing about it is that it's heavily linked to his THEME and IDENTITY. The meme "Mordekaiser es numero uno; always shield, never die" comes to mind and it certainly shows that a lot of people seem attached to this, which makes this even more tragic. It's theme of battle-bound durability really fits with the whole Juggernaut shtick but its current form is broken. There are other ways to fix this but I'll come to that in a minute.

Siphon of destruction http://cdn.garenanow.com/webupdate/live/lolphweb/news/2015%20June/23/VFX%20in%20League%20of%20Legends/Mordekaiser.jpg This skill was what earned Morde the spot in the trash in the first place. It's un-intuitive poke and a spell that has little to no decision making involved. Is it off CD? Spam it. It's INSTANT AoE RANGED harass that was nerfed into the pitiful state it is now. It could be so much more but it has become this part of his kit that's so unnoticable and boring that it could be replaced by anything. That's the problem of most of his skills anyways, they're binary, and binary is not a bad thing for a Juggernaut, but they have little to no decision making involved except his Harvester of Sorrow, which ironically was what made him pick or ban in a duo lane. Mordekaiser needs more intuitive gameplay patterns especially in his base line kit in order to offer him and the enemy ways to outplay and truly raise the skill ceiling on both ends of that matchup

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.4.1/img/spell/MordekaiserChildrenOfTheGrave.png Children of the Grave http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/5.4.1/img/spell/MordekaiserChildrenOfTheGrave.png

Mordekaiser's ULTIMATE ability and arguably the coolest thing about his kit. It's a curse that allows you to rip the soul out of a dead champion's body and make them follow your every whim, or rather it should if the AI wasn't mentally retarded.

It provides Mordekaiser's high point when he gets HUGE damage and durability scalings due to the Ghost not only BUFFING Morde but also Morde giving a percentage of his stats to the ghost. That 12/0 vayne on the enemy team? NP, it's a 12/1 Vayne on YOUR team now. His Ultimate scales with how hard you're losing similar to old Veigar's R It's efficiency is non-linear unlike other summons and completely relies on how well the enemy is doing.

Not only this but it does a lot of things at once. It gives: -Burst -Heal -Shield -Potentially a huge DPS increase -Potentially a huge tank steroid -A sixth man on your team

What the problem with it is that it's POTENTIAL power and unlike a healthy champion's kit it's not binary, meaning unless you get the maximum out of it it'll either suck or be OPPRESSIVE as hell. Just like Iron Man it's one of his core thematic elements, which makes Mordekaiser in general a real pain to balance and work on as a Riot designer.

So, how could we fix this?

Honestly?

It's actually rather simple: -Give Mordekaiser more ways to outplay, make him less binary -Make him less feast or famine -Make his scaling binary and depending on HIS stats and not other variables -Reduce the sheer lack of meaningful counterplay

Concrete things?

Ultimate

Children of the grave's damage, HP and other stats should be dictated by MORDE himself. It should be similar to Daisy, meaning that Ability Ranks and Mordekaiser's own stats add to the clone's efficiency, making it a binary scaling that does not rely on the enemy being fed. The way he gets the clone can be changed for all I care but seeing that he has to retain this in some way I feel this is the way to go to balance the Thrall he summons

Battle-bound durability Probably THE Juggernaut thing. Illaoi got her tentacles, darius his Q, every Juggernaut has a way to keep kickin' in the midst of battle and fulfill the role of being a damage threat, scaling well in the midst of battle and surviving a lot of punishment.

But how could we do this?

Well, I had ONE concrete ability change in mind that would build on one of my PERSONAL favorite things about Mordekaiser: The Shrapnel shield, iron Man and his sheer in-fight sustain

Iron Man; Reworked W

Active; Mordekaiser shields himself with necromantic energies and unleashes a torrent of malice and metal around himself, the Shroud damaging surrounding enemies. (Shield strength based on %HP)

(Reactivation; Implodes the metal storm to drain the surrounding area of life, healing Mordekaiser for a percentage(?) of his max HP for every unit struck, half as efficient against minions??)

I wanted to move Iron man to an active, giving Mordekaiser more control over how he should use his survival tool, giving him a way to reflect incoming damage conscuiously and giving him a way to survive even outside combat.

The cooldown would be somewhere around 20-15 seconds but here comes the kicker: Every time Mordekaiser is damaged by an enemy champion or monster the Cooldown of Iron Man is reduced by (1-1.25-1.5-1.75-2) seconds, half as effective against monsters

This would give Mordekaiser a tool to keep fighting in the midst of battle, his survivability still bound to actual brawling and not to simply dealing damage. But then again, I'm not a Rioter so this may be too freaky to even implement.

The fact remains; Mordekaiser has inherent design flaws that keep him from ever being allowed to be STRONG.

His Kit is a balancing nightmare and he lacks all the aspects of a healthy Kit, lacking Windows of Power, binary scaling and ways to outplay opponents or be outplayed.

I just hope Riot finally comes around to give Mordekaiser the VGU he so DESPERATELY needs, seeing that his core THEMES and IDENTITY are some of the coolest things about him as a character and once expanded upon; Oh baby; he'd be one of the most awesome Champions in the LoL roster.

Who wouldn't want to play an updated Murder Emperor? A Metal tyrant who rips the souls out of his enemies and goes to town with necromantic powers, ensorcelled mace, his sheer presence of malice and the will to DOMINATE and CONQUER! He's got the potential to be bloody awesome! http://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32272229/mordewallpaper.jpg