Mordekaiser changes analysis

TL;DR So what do I think overall? Well it's a nerf. You generate a little more shield early and much less late. At the same time you have slightly less damage ratio wise (and probably fairly much less considering a new item build). The W just got slightly more usefull while the Ult probably got worse (thanks to it's stealth nerf).

So the pbe update is there and as Morde main I feel obligated to talk about it. Now, I don't think it hit him as hard as I expected it to but it still hit him pretty badly imo.

4% shield conversion of health on E per target and 8 or 12% on Q. 1% on W (per tick I assume?). 2% on ult each sescond (for 10 seconds).

Basically comparing a 500 ap to a 3000 health Morde: the 500 ap Morde gets around 90 per E on a target with 100 mr. More if the target has less obviously and less if it has more. The new Morde at 3000 health gains 120. (All assuming you havve no mpen aka. sorc boots and void staff, which would reduce 100mr to around 50mr bringing the shield gain to 122.)

Now how does the shield conversion actually play out for most skills? At level 18 base health you need the health conversion to ad up to about 33% to get a full shield on level 18. That is about 2 E's with 2 targets each, 1 Q with 3 targets and a w with 5 ticks on one enemy (if it doesn't work per tick then you need to hit the entirety of the enemy team), or 2 E's with 3 people, 1 E with 2 people and a W tick. (33%)

At 2500 health you need about 25% worth of health conversion which is roughly 2 E's with 2 targets, a Q with one or two targets and one tick with your w on someone. (25%)

At 3000 health you need about 21% worth of health conversion, which means you need to hit a little more than an E that hits the entire team or 2 E's one of which hits 3 the other one 2 people or an E with 3 people and a Q with 2 people (20%)

The next important thing is that every bit of health cost was reduced to varying degrees. The most important thing though is the early game and your E (since that how you farm and harrass) and there lies the problem. Health cost lowered to 20/24/28/32/36 from 24/36/48/60/72. That is not significant until it's on level 3 and by that point you generally get a hextech revolver to compensate for it. Still very nice to have BUT "Base HP Regen per second reduced to 0.6748 from 1.6748" that means over the course of 5 minutes he will have 300 health less than he would have had before which is ENORMOUS in the early levels (think a half or a third of your health bar) and the reduce in health costs are pretty much made up by that (from around champ level 3-5 onwards. Not made up on champlevel 1 but made up on champlevel 3 assuming you use it once every 12 seconds or champlevel 5 assuming you use it every 20 seconds).

Now for a shield generating comparison. Counting magic resistance (around 30), on level 1 with 30 ap you would have generated 21 shield by hitting an enemy laner. Discounting it you would generate 31. Discounting magic resistance on minions you would generate 15 though you generate or 18 which was tested with 35 ap(and 48 for 3 and so on).

On the new Morde with the 555 base health you would generate 23 shield per E. However the patchnotes aren't clear on that. Is it still halved against minions. Assuming it is not then it's actually a buff. If it is then it's a nerf (because you would only generate 11 or 12 when hitting a minion)

Considering what I said before how much you need lategame it is clear that it's at most a buff early. It will be harder to generate shield later assuming with the current Morde you go heavy ap.

His ult did not get changed too much but the gist is that it's better to ult tanks than ad carries than it was before (it's still better to ult ad carries if they die soon) and the passive change actually gave it a stealth nerf (now the ghost wont generate shield anymore). Morde benefits more from tank stats and the pets stats aren't AS good anymore. I would ult an adc if I know I could kill him but if not consider an apc or a tank as well.

Damage nerfs: E got nerfed by 0.1. W got nerfed by 0.05. Q is nerfed until you get hextech gunblade (last item). Nothing too extreme at least but for every skill the damage was reduced BUT

W utility buff: This might be the only saving grace of this change (although it most probably still is a nerf). 60 movement speed might honestly not be much (think boots of swiftness) considering the circumstances but it might just be enough to actually hit a Q. I will need to see how this turns out. I don't think it's a big deal but I might be wrong.

Q also got a 1 second reduction for cooldown for each level. The problem with that is that you won't be able to use your Q that often unless someone fast chases you down (which -considering that you now build health- is not likely).

The passive also wont decay the shield unless you are 5 seconds out of combat. This could ideally mean around 300 shield more in a 10 seconds teamfight. But in actuality your shield is often overcharged or nonexistant so I expect at most 100 extra shield out of it. It's probably more valuable in the laning phase when you cs and your opponent doesn't harrass you at that time but only marginally so.

So what do I think overall? Well it's a nerf. You generate a little more shield early and much less late. At the same time you have slightly less damage ratio wise (and probably fairly much less considering a new item build). The W just got slightly more usefull while the Ult probably got worse (thanks to it's stealth nerf).

What would I change? Well -aside from the fact that this rework is horsecrap so I wouldn't go through with it- I would give more movement speed on the W (and not towards each other but simply for both for the duration) or give the Q a major slow and isolation root. Or a a myriad of negative effects on W and make it so you can apply it on enemies. There are many possible changes but these were not the ones I hoped for tbh. It's also quite unhealthy gamedesign for a champ to build health to gain even more health for a duration. The glasscannon approach -while not perfect- was at least a sort of high risk-high reward scenario.

Is Morde better than before? No. Is he worse? Probably a little bit but generally he hasn't changed much. The building path becomes slightly safer to build (because tankyness) while yielding lesser results (less damage in comparison to your health with shield than before).