The problems with Mordekaiser

L O N G P O S T B O I S xD So i know this post may get 0 attention since no one really cares about Morde and even those who do, most just don't play him cause they know he sucks. But i do play him, in fact I've been playing him for years knowing he sucks and hoping the whole time that riot would one day look upon Morde and bestow him an identity with all the relevance and viability that comes with it. but sadly that day has not come, the recent changes left me feeling empty and a little betrayed so before i go back to climbing solo q with the big guy I'm gonna try to draw some attention to his problems without making this a rito pls post.

Patch 5.2: First off lets talk about the recent changes, which if you need a reminder or never saw them they can be found here http://eune.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-54-notes . The notes start off with a few paragraphs, first explaining how Morde was played with DFG and then some weird stuff about his identity that honestly makes no sense but w.e who cares lets just see the buffs!

So first thing is a base health regen nerf with no explanation as to why but ok that's fine, Morde is a bit of an early game bully and this will tone that down so I understand it. Then we get a q range buff which is amazing. If you've had any experience with Morde q before this buff you would know it was a pain in the ass and would just not finish the animation like 75% of the time, Now that still happens of course because they didn't give it a faster animation and mordes base auto animation(Just about every melee champ with an auto reset ability has a different more fluid animation that is nearly impossible to cancel Morde doesn't have this and it makes his q really frustrating to use even after the range buff) is fuckin painful but ok ok w.e its a huge buff so ill take it. And then they made q cost less hp which sorta makes up for the hp regen nerf? this sorta makes sense because it shifts power away from e as you'll be more punished for spamming it before getting spellvamp (E has a monster hp cost of 72 at rank 5 and using this every 6 seconds hurts like hell if you don't have regen).

W gets a mild damage nerf but in return gets some decent utility, they even made it have "no cast time"(Though it does appear to cast instantly Morde still stops to cast this ability and doesn't continue moving afterwards so uh.. pls) in the next patch. The problem i have with this change is that its not a buff and its not a nerf its just an exchange, ok you can have your move speed but only in a way that will never matter and in return you're loosing some damage. there are a lot of interesting things they could have done with this ability and this wasn't one of them. I hope when they eventually get around to a full rework this mechanic doesn't stay.

And finally they gimped the fuck out of the ghost. Removing all scaling from Morde to the ghost means that building full burst one-shot-yo-adc Morde is no longer viable. Without DFG and ad scaling on the ghost gunblade is no longer worth an item slot on Morde (the only champ who was still buying it) and without a way to carry fights late game through the burst build path he lost the only identity he ever really had. Giving you hp from the ghost based on their bonus hp(meaning if they hadn't built any hp you get nothing) and an extra 10% of their AP in exchange for loosing 20% of their ad and all scaling from Morde to the ghost is a pretty painful nerf. The thing is this change is good, the old play style was dumb and it needed to be nerfed but the problem i have with this is the compensation is terrible. Adding up all the buffs and nerfs the only thing we get in exchange for the ghost gimp is a range boost on q, no help with late game scaling an item path completely ruined and E is still an oppressive lane bully tool with ridiculous hp costs, bad scaling, and no utility/synergy.

What i would have done: Now I'm no genius but i have a shit ton of experience on Morde and i know i have some good ideas so if anyone cares here's what i think.

Passive: Before i say anything else I've seen it suggested a few times that the Shield should just be part of the hp bar and not on Mordes resource bar because it would be more clear and also his Resource bar shouldn't be a shield? I don't understand this at all, the Shield bar makes perfect sense and i don't get how anyone could be confused by it if they've read the ability, its like the most basic thing. Anyway this one is so hard, such a broken ability and there's no way to fix it without changing the way it works entirely. So i sat here for about an hour thinking about this and came up with one idea, i tried so hard to make 2 but i just couldn't come up with another that was on the same level of balance and creativity as the first so... oh well.

Iron Man: Mordekaiser absorbs damage from all attacks and stores it to supplement his hp costs or give him a temporary shield when it becomes full. the shield bar is X+Z per level (+Y% Bonus hp/AP?) Any hp cost from using an ability is first taken from the shield and then from Mordes hp and if the bar becomes full it locks reducing hp costs by X% but not absorbing their costs, the next Instance of damage from a champion(Or monster? jungle Morde confirmed) will give him a shield = to or X%(Idfk) of the total shield bar.

It looks complicated but i think it could be really interesting and balanced.

Q: New animation at the very least. Q is honestly a great ability and i love using it to harass using the bounce mechanic but if i were to change it while keeping the original idea I'd do something like this.

Mace of Spades: Mordekaiser enhances his next attack, increasing the range of this attack by 75 Stunning/Rooting/Slowing the Target for X seconds( I'm thinking something really small like 0.35 second stun/root and Cutthroat style slow, nothing serious just a little baby cc) Dealing damage in a X unit AOE around the target and sending out a shock wave X units behind the target Dealing damage to all units on the way but stopping if it hits a champion.

Nice AOE Wave clear and a skill shot! woooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. I guess its kinda like if Sion E and double up had a baby, maybe not tho idk I'm leaving it in.

W: I think this ability needs to be Mordes way of doing damage between his cds. Currently Morde has a big problem where he does nothing in the gaps between casting and as a melee champion this is not good. Maybe make it Toggle able like Mundo's W or just give it a passive that makes your auto attacks do something.

E: So first off i'd like to mention that this ability costs 300% more at rank 5 than rank 1 and also if you subtract the hp cost from the base damage its only a net gain of 178 damage(At Rank 5 with 0 AP) on your opponent in a straight up champ vs champ duel, its a static 6 second cd at all ranks and the 60%AP Ratio is just meh. Just by the numbers this ability is complete garbage, Its only when you're hitting more than one target that it becomes good and as we all know this is what makes him such a lane bully and pretty much the only reason anyone plays him.

I sat here for about half an hour thinking about how to change this ability without completely reworking it and i couldn't think of anything but it needs cd scaling like starting at 8 and coming down to 5-4 like q and a way to get more damage out of it flat 250+60% AP is so bad late game when its your only consistent damage source(Keep in mind q is only 40%AP Ratio if it doesn't hit single target and even then its only 66% and on a side note Q's ad Ratio makes me want to cry)

And for R i like it where it is right now. I miss the old scaling but its better for everyone this way. and i see no reason to rework it, its a very unique ability and getting rid of it would be so sad.

I'm getting tired and regretting spending so much time on this so if anyone reads this, thank you for your time it means a lot to me. I hope one day Morde gets a full rework and i can stop crying about it.