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A Serious Mordekaiser Discussion From A Former Master Tier Bot Lane Morde Main

Morde Next Door·11/29/2016, 8:14:38 PM·62 votes·9,370 views
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Hello Everyone,

My name is Morde Next Door formally I Mordekaiser I. I reached master tier 240 LP mid season 6 and maintained master for about 4 months only playing bot lane Mordekaiser. Since a RiotMEMEMEMEME said he was looking to fix Mordekaiser bugs after the assassins update SOURCE: https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/59p6tk/one_month_later_mordekaisers_bugs_went_from_30_to/d9abogs/ and Rylais is getting a Nerf next patch, I feel like the balance team should have their eyes on Mordekaiser soon. I would like to offer my opinions and game knowledge on Mordekaiser to the balance team and give my feedback on his current state and opinions on what his future changes could be. I would greatly appreciate a responses and opinions. Thank you for your time.

Andrew "MordeNextDoor" Wait https://www.twitch.tv/tastypotatox

Playrate and Lanes:

Overall playrate: 1% Below are the lanes he is picked and how often he is played there.

  1. Top: 66.1%
  2. Middle: 17.8%
  3. Jungle: 8.47%
  4. ADC: .07%

Overall Winrate: 50.19 %

  1. Top: 50.63%
  2. Middle: 50.24%
  3. Jungle: 47.52%
  4. ADC: 49.51%

Average playerbase games: 84

Thoughts: Seems pretty normal for an unpopular champion. The average playerbase games is really high meaning most people who play him main Mordekaiser. He is mostly played top and he also has the highest winrate there. The majority of people play him without a duo laner.

Playstyle: (i'm literally taking a lot of this from the juggernaut update page) http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/page/gameplay-update-juggernauts

Riot's Take on Juggernauts

When you think brute force, these champions should come to mind: powerful, durable, immobile and melee. They’re League’s hulking titans who, come late game, turn into super tanky carries who’ll pretty much destroy anyone foolish enough to get in their way.

TLDR: I'M REALLY IMMOBILE AND IF YOU STAND NEAR ME YOU DIE.

Here is a list of juggernauts in a nicely done visual way.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1krfwyxNVhiQyzRVXePc8rmKb9IuEJOLnlPsumZQpirU/edit#gid=0

picture for those of you with FEK https://gyazo.com/c3ecaae0fcead7e5b2da7ca343c0971c

Thoughts and Observations: Mordekaiser is the least mobile out of all juggernauts. He also has the lowest movespeed of all juggernauts. Therefore, he must buy Rylais for the slow and its getting nerfed. 325 movespeed on the least mobile champion just doesn't feel fun. Also even as a juggernaut he can't duel a lot of melee champions since he has a 3 hit Q, damage over time ult, and damage over time W what requires another unit around you. This is unlike illaoi who just seems to burst and smash anyone around her like a juggernaut should. BUT SHE HAS MORE UTILITY AND MOBILITY.

High points (things that are fun):

  1. Getting the dragon ghost
  2. Tower diving with the drago nghost
  3. Solo baron with the dragon ghost
  4. getting extra stats from the dragon ghost
  5. THE DRAGON GHOST IS REALLY FUN

All the different ghosts and interactions such as vayne silver bolts, or udyr stun.

Feeling rewarded by managing the dragon ghost well in fights.

The large heal from W on jungle monsters when you need a heal in lane or outplaying a 2v1 when you get ganked with the heal

The 3rd hit proc feels nice as well.

Versatile build paths

Can be played every role except support

beating the standard support / ranged adc in lane FeelsGoodMan

Low Points and Frustrations:

  1. BUGS EVERYWHERE https://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/59p6tk/one_month_later_mordekaisers_bugs_went_from_30_to/

  2. No mobility or utility and still having the lowest movespeed of all juggernauts

  3. Bad dragon AI (hitting minions instead of a tower or champion even after giving repeated orders)

  4. Low base stats. https://gyazo.com/bacb71a50084f05bf62146a40b9427d4 HIS LEVEL 18 HEALTH REGEN IS LESS THAN SION AT LEVEL 1

  5. E is not fun to use. You just press it whenever it is up.

  6. W gives bonus exp in a duo lane but he is mostly played solo. I main him in a duo lane and it is still useless. You never notice a different besides hitting level 3 by 1 minion sooner than everyone else and level 1 a few minions before everyone else. NOT WORTH SCRAP IT AND BUFF SOMETHING ELSE

  7. Even as a juggernaut I can't duel most splitpushers. (Irelia, Tryndamere, Jax, Fiora, Yi ect.(just afk vs yi))

  8. Vs most ranged matchups in lane I can't do anything except afk in base and wait for jungler help. (Jayce, Kennen, Anivia, Aurelion sol, Vayne, Quinn)

  9. Vs Janna AS WITH MOST MELEE CHAMPIONS I can't do anything because shes too balanced kappa123

  10. ALMOST FORGOT THIS ONE Sometimes you press your R key on someone, you hear see the animation, hear the ult cast, and IT DOESN'T CAST because they flashed, or went INVIS, or some other thing happened its really annoying.

  11. When you level up Q the AD scaling goes up as well. WHY!!!! NO ONE BUILDS AD ON MORDEKAISER. AD damage accounts for 12% of mordekaiser's overall damage output

  12. If you get hard CCed you can't generate shield. Without shield you blow up. Juggernauts are not suposed to blow up.

Final thought and suggestions

Mordekaiser is a really fun champion although a bit confusing at first. He is mostly played as a solo laner when though his W promotes duo lane play. But, even in duo lane, the exp advantage is negligible. Remove the EXP gimmick from his W and buff something else. With the least utility, mobility, and movespeed of all juggernauts, and with the rylais nerf coming he needs something to help him reach targets. He cant proc stormraiders if he cant ever reach anyone. Just being a juggernaut is not a good excuse for zero mobility as every other juggernaut has utility and mobility. The dragon AI and bugs cause so much frustration its unreal. Missing cannon minions because Q deals no damage, not getting kills because the dragon attacks a minion instead of a champion, the W not healing you or dealing damage, the list goes on and on its unreal.

No where in this post have I asked for damage buffs. Or Tank buffs. I have suggested utility and mobility buffs. I am not an expert at balance. I have no idea what riot's direction for Mordekaiser will be. I just wanted to offer my insight and thoughts. Take them as you wish. Remember I also prefer him in a duo lane where most prefer him in a solo lane.

Thank you for reading. Comments are appreciated.

64 Comments

Malicious Metal11/29/2016, 8:48:39 PM32 votes

As a Mordekaiser main myself I agree on every single point you stated. I've been trying to get Riot to show the Iron Juggernaut some love but he doesn't seem to be on their radar, sadly >_>

(Though I actually like the total AD ratios, helps him scale with levels and items like Gunblade/Steraks)

BeaverBeliever11/29/2016, 11:48:35 PM7 votes

Forget about it man, no matter how many great and intelligent points you present, your post is still going to get ignored by any member of the riot balance team. There was a similiar post about Teemo that reached almost 200 upvotes on the boards and it got completely ignored despite being top. Best of luck tho would love to see Morde be more than a panzersnail

Kilanost11/29/2016, 9:00:10 PM6 votes

for a juggernaut, Mord is pretty damn squishy as far as I'm concerned. His ability to keep his shield up feels too weak early on especially given the length of his early cooldowns. If you're using harvester on a minon, sometimes those little bastards will run away from you and break it causing your shield restoration to drop. Also, If he's supposed to be the alternative to traditional adcs, he needs some initial shield when he walks into a wave or else he's going to get harrassed down to half health before he even gets a chance to damage something to get his shield up.

The only time you get that 3rd bonk is with someone heavily CC'ed or not paying attention because you can't keep up with anyone, not even factoring in auto attack animations. Give that third bonk increased attack range. Could also give his E some sort of sticking mechanism to help out like trundle has on his chomp.

a fun passive would be that enemy movement away from mord within a reasonable radius is slowed by some small amount but enemy movement toward mord within a reasonable radius is increased by some small amount. A passive like that would be so interesting and i feel like it would go strongly with the juggernaut vibe...especially considering that, as and adc bot lane alternative, many of his enemy laners will be getting zeal items with %move speed on them which mord doesnt build. You could even weave it into the whole undead necromancy thing by saying that its the effect of his magic pulling the souls of his enemies toward him. Ooh and what if the slow increased with the size of his shield. I'm liking this idea.

If you need to make a special item for Mord, they should make it. Its the most obvious thing about him: His mace. Allow it to be upgraded similar to Victor's item. This approach makes a lot of sense considering how different he is from every other champion especially when you look at him as an adc alternative. Giving him a unique item allows for the stats he needs from itemization without introducing a new item to league that would throw other champions out of balance. You could also add upgrades that make it so that mord can either specialize for the top lane or bot lane. Imagine the versatility that offers without giving him too much at the same time.

I'll add more if I think of them but those are a few ideas off the top of my head

Oh one last possibility to help him keep his shield up.... a passive sunfire-type ability that does damage to minions and monsters which increases the closer the minions and monsters are to him. This ties in with my idea for the movement speed passive in terms of weaving it into the champion design/lore.

Mordehuezer11/29/2016, 10:16:03 PM5 votes

This is amazingly well written. You hit the nail on the head on every single point and managed to address every issue with Morde in a surprisingly short post. And my god point 12, Morde needs some way to deal with CC man. He's supposed to be durable, well only if he can cast his fucking spells and sometimes you just cant do that for a good 4-5 seconds because there's 3-5 people CC'ing you over and over and over again. You can't just give a champ the worst base stats in the game and make them rely on spell casting to stay alive and leave such a massive weakness like that, It's bullshit.

Norrata11/29/2016, 9:23:09 PM4 votes

AFAIK they had a hybrid bruiser in mind when they reworked him, who built things like triforce, gunblade, steraks, and rylais on him. The ms nerf was probably due to that. On an off note, why did tri and steraks fall out of popularity on him? He has the highest base ad in the game, making this pretty efficient on him, seemingly at least.

Saianna11/30/2016, 5:52:34 AM4 votes

Fun thing: Usually discussion means when 2 or more sides start to talk.

We, players, are here...

But Riot? Nope, they are too busy ignoring us. Hard task I'd say.

So if we discuss something just between us, then uh.. It's kinda pointless :/

GigglesO11/29/2016, 8:41:05 PM3 votes

I think his real issues are:

Riot knows he scales well with HP, because of his shield, however, there is too much tank destroy in the game for him to build hp tank. This means he has to build a happy medium between damage and tank, where tank makes him last 2-3 seconds in a fight, Damage makes him last 2-3 seconds in a fight, and that middle ground gives him 5-10 seconds.

Restated issue 1 is that they put too much reliance on the %max hp shield passive which leaves him needing to build hp to stay alive and dual, but making him useless in fights because he is unable to deal any damage to generate a shield with anything other than e.

His damage on W being gated to only having an ally nearby also feels poorly designed. I feel like it should still deal damage when he is alone, but if he is near an ally he should be able to get bonus damage.

E is lack luster, it doesn't really deal any damage, and since it is in a cone it makes it extremely hard to hit at close range where morde should be strongest.

I've also seen his Q be outwalked even with rylis proc and swifties, which also feels bad.

While we are mentioning complaints, I'd also like to complain that his shield only converts MAGIC DAMAGE into his shield. It should honestly convert ALL damage into a shield.

Nyegromancer11/29/2016, 10:27:36 PM3 votes

Yeah I agree completely, he could use some helpin', that MS is a joke cmon.

Ya know, personally I love playing the one ond only #1 Mordekaiser as a Triforce/Gunblade slap daddy-

It's so much fun,it actually feels like playing this big lumbering piece of metal aka the juggernaut, with all the shields and healing you feel like a total boss (of this gym kappa) and the dragon mechanics are an A+ meme, would reccomend, again: loadsa fun.

Tho from what i've seen people like the AP itemisation for morde more, I mean sure I get it its more meta or w/e, but this kinda reminds me of the AP/AD Yi situation back in a day, when you basically had to choose between two different playstyles (with each one having a fanbase of sorts), and it was a nightmare to balance. AP Yi was busted as shit yo, pentas erry day.

So when they reworked him they merged the playstyles, what with the autoattacking giving you cooldown reduction on your main dmg spell, I think it both fits him well, adds some form of depth to the brainless old Yi Q+ Lichbane slap, and gives him a form of onhit, seeing as more autoattacks = more dmg. I think the rework was great.

I could very well see similar thing happening to the Kaiser, with the rito balance gods somehow managing to fuse both how fun it is to heal for tons of hp with your spells, the Dragon memeage, and how fun it is to slap fools in the face with your giant fuckin' mace.

_sorry for poor englando me no americano Nunu _

**TL;DR- **just wanted to put my two cents on the situation, people tend to think that Triforce Morde was a failure, which I disagree with, and i'd be a sad thing if they "fix"him without considering this part of his playstyle.

btw Tasty, love your fucking stream man, keep it up. dont get banned on twitch for AFK'ing again :^)

agbudar11/29/2016, 10:34:10 PM3 votes

with the rylai nerfs i think its a good time to give him 340-350 movement speed and simply scrap his xp bonus. just doing that would keep most morde mains playing the game

GigglesO11/29/2016, 11:18:22 PM3 votes

The only rebalance he needs:

Get rid of W exp bonus, make W MS 75-->40 ---------> +15 base MS Remove 50% of the stats he gets from a ghost ---------> + base hp, armor, mr Reduce % shield generation from e -----------> now all damage produces a shield W -------> aoe damage is fully self castable when not in range of an ally, but at 50% damage Q Third strike damage reduced ------> second strike increased Base shield size increased -----------> hp shield scaling reduced

Done, see where that leaves him, come back in a month for reassessment.

Backup4now11/30/2016, 3:42:52 AM3 votes

Even as a juggernaut I can't duel most splitpushers. (Irelia, Tryndamere, Jax, Fiora, Yi ect.(just afk vs yi))

This... Is my biggest issue. No matter what you do, if you can't kill someone in one rotation and they're a character with any sort of dps, you died. You literally turn into a bar of gold waiting to be picked up if your abilities do not kill, since you become unable to run OR fight, especially with earlygame hideous cooldowns.

It just aint right. Assassin jumps on you? Bitch, you better hope your q kills him else he's just gunna slowly kill you over the next 5 seconds uninterrupted.

Tobias Brackner11/30/2016, 6:22:14 AM3 votes

First of all, thank god for something that isn't a massive QQ rant.

Also I find Morde to be a really weird champ. It think he excels at teamfights given his AoE tools and his Q is a nice thing to help focus down targets during the teamfight.

While I don't main him I do play him with mixed dmg (steracks into gunblade then tank) and have been happy with the damage output that you get from those items. The main problem I have in a fight is when we have no CC or coordination so I couldn't get into range to start blowing up stuff.

Personally I feel they should revert the dmg on his Q to be what it was before and go in hard on the idea of him being more of a carry. I'm not sure what was going on at the higher tiers, but in my silver games the only time I was able to do the INSANE dmg from the Q is when the enemy would literally stand there and let me wail on them which to me feels kinda like what a Marksman wants to happen.

Ahristocats11/30/2016, 7:39:38 PM2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Morde Next Door,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=sme0EVBu,comment-id=,timestamp=2016-11-29T20:14:38.706+0000)

. Remove the EXP gimmick from his W and buff something else.

Revert W to its release and remove thte xp passive

i said that since months and nothing happened

as a former master tier player that mains mordekaiser now i can only say that we should hope

KnightOfEloHell11/30/2016, 3:16:27 PM2 votes

Oh-ho, how exiting it is to see a friendly board post filled with Morde mains with names with such things as Morde and Kaiser!!

Personally, I like Morde's kit. I enjoy fat heals, ghosts, sheilds, and spamming Mordekaiser es numero uno in the all chat for the hues.

What isn't fun is when you have full boots, use ghost, have rylias and are STILL outran. That isn't fun.

Realistically, Morde has such low base regen because of the fat heals off of w, PLUS the fact that when ulting, your base regen+ult hp regen makes for much faster than average regen.

Personally, I find MS is Morde's only issue, but it looks like we won't even be getting a tiny compensation buff when Rylias is nerfed. It's a shame because even with current Rylias, ghost, and boots, I still can't catch the enemies--there is SO much mobility in the game now.

And the AI in ghosts needs to be fixed. Level 1 ult: Ghost is SUPER aggro to towers or enemies, dives uncontrollably, lol. Level 2 and 3: Dragon ghost aggros scuttler, minions, or anything closest to them even after giving a command to take a tower or specific champion.

No compensation buff for leagues most immobile Hue Lord Basic boots out runs a Morde full boots Can barely stick with rylias, than Rylias is nerfed Rouge Hue Ghosts

Rito plz

Raid Boss Morde11/29/2016, 9:35:12 PM2 votes

You actually used the google docs chart, cool! Did Riot ever get back to you when you showed one of them? I'd be interested to see what they think.

Anyways, from what I saw from Meddler's comment just recently, he said that Mordekaiser is "out of line" with experienced players, so it seems like they're hesitant on buffing him. Quite sad, because he could really use some actual base stats (movement speed, armor, health).

Can we get rid of the EXP passive though? Even in bot lane, it feels useless. You might get to level 5 a few minions before your support, but this is just a pointless passive at the moment.

F1eshandB1ood12/7/2016, 1:29:35 AM2 votes

I don't know how many people will disagree or agree with me, but personally I hate the dragon ghost. In terms of lore it makes absolutely no sense, and as a gameplay mechanic it was almost blatantly obvious that it was something gimmicky that was slapped on in order to force Morde even further into botlane (I don't mind Morde being botlane, but do it right, dammit). Aside from perhaps moving Morde to a more objective focused playstyle, it serves absolutely no other purpose. If Morde is going to be focusing objectives, he should be demolishing towers, not dragons.

This leads me into my next point in that I feel like too much of Morde's power budget is loaded into his ult. The problem with this is that it makes Morde extremely feast or famine. In other words, the way it currently functions, it can only be used as "win more" ability. If you are already at an advantage, you get the enemy's ghost, get more kills, more towers, and more objectives. Moreover, if one of those objectives is dragon, you get an even more powerful ghost, more pushing power, more kill pressure, and makes soloing or at least taking Baron almost guaranteed. If you're behind? Chances are you will rarely get a ghost to begin with, much less be able to do anything with it. This may not be true for every game, but it's simply the way this ability functions, and it's also where most of his power is allocated. As what, I'm sure, is an exremely unpopular opinion, I would not be opposed to having Morde's current ultimate be scrapped for something entirely different if it meant that Morde would be a better (both in gameplay and balance) champion, but that's merely my opinion.

Instead, Morde's power budget, and the center of balance/focus for his gameplay should be his passive shield. What if Morde had a MASSIVE shield, but a relatively small health pool? What if Morde's shield acted as sort of a period of undeath, where it makes him almost impossible to kill as he trudges slowly (menacingly?) into the battle after his health has been depleted? What if More's shield could be used as fuel for his other abilities? There are so many options to explore, and as it stands, Morde's shield is only good enough to show that it still exists in some form, when it's arguably the defining characteristic of his character.

I actually personally like the way Morde's Q was changed in the juggernaut update, but I feel that it needs to be modified. The main reason being that champions generally have several different kinds of abilities, damage dealing, utility, and defensive. Morde is an interesting case in the fact that one or all of his abilities count as being used for all three. What that means is Morde might as well be two or three times weaker than another champion would be when his primary damaging ability (Q) is on cooldown, because it not only accounts for damage, but also survivability. Pre-update, Morde's damage and survivability were gated entirely by his cooldowns, but with the way his new Q functions, now it's also gated by his attack speed which is generally something I never would have imagined that I would need to build on Morde. I like the idea, but his Q is simply a mess. It would be neat if it were something akin to Riven's Q, just without the dash or knockup. 2 big swings and then a HUGE swing. but I digress.

Mordekaiser also suffers from 6-slot syndrome, meaning he can make use of too many stats, making it difficult to identify exactly what is best on him. Morde can not only reliably, but effectively utilize basically every stat in the game minus mana, mana regen, armor penetration, and crit. Morde almost needs to have: movespeed, health, resistances, ability power, utility, and arguably cooldown reduction and sustain. He doesn't necessarily need, but most certainly can use effectively: magic penetration, attack speed, and attack damage. How the heck could someone optimize for all of this? Morde scales with too many things to ever be good at one particular thing. What he needs is Health and ability power scalings, increased base movespeed, and to no longer rely on attack speed, and that would put him a step in the right direction (it goes without saying that his AD ratios would get cut as well).

In terms of gameplay, I see Morde as something akin to Nasus. Before you downvote me, I don't mean in the infinite-scaling way. I mean in the lategame hypercarry --I dare you to let me get anywhere near your towers or carries-- kind of way. Obviously, that would necessitate that Morde's early game be considerably weaker, but I feel that's an appropriate way to balance him.

This is my 2 cents as a once avid Morde player. I've been trying to play him in the jungle recently with a moderate amount of success, but He could really use a few changes to push him in the right direction until Riot decides to give him a full VGU.

Off Meta Evan11/30/2016, 9:09:33 PM1 votes

Honestly... i think morde just needs to be trash until they find a way to make him not super inorganic/toxic to play against. like his fellow junggernaut Darius he has the issue of, if i counter you theres nothing you can really do, if i don't, i'm super fucked. i was around for old morde and how annoying and frustrating he was to play against. i think they need to pull a ryze and rework the rework. his concept alone sounds almost impossible to balance. a tanky, High damage, mage/fighter hybrid that has a shield mechanic for the damage he does. that alone pretty much makes it so he's either gonna be really fucking strong or not gud at all, his buddies DrMundo and Kassadin know the feel.

Garlic Butter11/30/2016, 5:16:58 PM1 votes

This is very frustrating to read. You've A) never played mord and B) don't even keep up with patch notes.

Mord W granting bonus duo lane xp was removed entirely recently.

Dragon is only good now on jungle mord for various complicated reasons.

Mord has the highest move speed of all juggernaughts with max rank W slightly outspeeding full speed Garen. With ghost he scales even more (ghost flash or ghost + fav spell/smite) as flash is only useful on him in exactly two highly circumstantial situations.

WotA is gone, and while gunblade is MUCH better now for him it is no WotA and he suffers greatly from the health cost of spamming his spells (you need 3.62k hp to compensate for the cost when factoring his passive at level 18 and hitting at least 3 champions, closer to 3k if you are a heavy damage only build...). His Ult was nerfed into the ground, if you do not get the target killed within 3-4 seconds his juggernaught capabilities are miniscule except in Jungle (referring to dragon here as a reliable source for ghost stat boosts but it's only good with certain dragons).

The bugs.

To clarify the movespeed thing his low base speed make him one of the best boots of mobility users, as mord does not suffer DRs until ghosted speeds, unlike most all other champions. This means you gain more value from % move speed effects and can actually out speed most champions (more impressive with Nami/Kled on your team) except during enemy Kled ults, and of course uncapped champions like Hecarim.

The Relai's nerf will hit him hard but arguable make Frozen Mallet Titanic Hydra mord MUCH more viable (because now the enemy lacks an easy 40% slow to stop YOU!).

He needs another rework after they gutted his current rework a bit ago.

He is still ridiculously strong 1v3 or 2v4 but weaker in all other fight types. (This is specifically due to his E and ult/W mechanics, but again see the mention about the Ult target MUST die in under 4 seconds as he NEEDS to have a ghost.)

ardentbeing12/8/2016, 11:26:22 PM1 votes

I really hope riot considers these weaknesses of his and rework him to keep that sweet sweet dragon. :O

worldwar1 gunner11/30/2016, 3:02:43 PM1 votes

Lul Riot does not give a fuck about your main. I have been playing this game sense it first came out way back in beta. I would play a lot of kog maw and corki. over the years though with them removing items and reworking them I realized that riot simply does not care. I remember when they changed Sion to the piece of shit he is now. before I would get 20:1 win ration with ad crit sion+ Atmas impaler http://leagueoflegends.wikia.com/wiki/Atma's_Impaler . This item not only gave him crazy infinite ad scaling It gave him armor and crit. If this does not tell you how riot does not give a shit Idk what will.

Krabby11/29/2016, 9:27:35 PM1 votes

What you are trying to say is i might be able to become "The best mordekaiser support" and in a month or 2 make a reddit post about it? :>