A few ideas to fix Mordekaiser bot lane part 1: The Damage Triangle

So I think we're all aware of how adamant Riot is about making Mordekaiser a bot lane carry. Fine, instead of complaining we probably should instead roll with the punches and try considering what could actually make the idea work without making Mordekaiser an unbalanceable mess. Let's try solving this one question that there's never a really direct answer for:

What is his niche?

Let's first start thinking of this from the broadest level possible: The Damage Triangle. The most simple of concepts, we can generally categorize champions in three groups: DPS, Burst, and Tankiness. This helps give a general perspective on how to deal with different types of champions thanks to the rock paper scissors interactions between the three categories, as is follows:

• Tankiness beats Burst. If we consider Burst as a single whole rotation of skills meant to eliminate a target, Tanks tend to outscale that sort of threat hard. Compare the damage of any champion's single rotation vs the Effective Health of any tried and true Tank, and you're going to have a hard time trying to find a scenario where you can insta-kill a Tank with, say, an Assassin.
• Burst beats DPS. Due to the upfront nature that most Burst champions are able to unload their damage, and DPS' literal definition of needing to scale on time, it shouldn't be surprising that a class that gives their opponents no time to operate would be able to kill a class that scales almost universally on time. This sort of interaction can be shown between any well matched Assassin vs a lone ADC.
• DPS beats Tankiness. Unlike the hard limits that Burst have to deal with, time can give a DPS Champ more than enough firepower to chip away or even melt Tanky champions. This is where most AD Champions fall into, most notably the ADCs. It's also why, generally speaking, these sort of champions are known for and sometimes infamous for killing tanks. It's often their job to do so.

So that's the damage triangle, what does that have to do with Mordekaiser? Well, where does he stand? If we consider Mordekaiser's primary (numerical) strength to be in his Tankiness, then we're putting him at a severe number disadvantage by putting him in bot lane, home of almost exclusively DPS champs and DPS sub-variants. In order to allow him to compete in such an environment, we would need to reverse a pretty fundamental mechanical interaction in the game just to make that interaction work. This is bad game design, as when you make a Tank that naturally counters Burst and is specifically designed to counter DPS, nothing can directly compete with it in this way.

So that means it's probably not in our best interest to make Mordekaiser a super-tank designed to fight Marksmen, so what of his damage? Well, let's break down his current kit and apply it to the principles of a DPS champ. His Q has large multiplier effects from a relatively low cooldown to it doubling in power by the third strike, all while all of this power is divided across three auto attacks. Multiplication over time and all that jazz, the bread and butter to making the numbers behind a DPS champion work. As a melee champion, he would also need tools to maximize the time he has in the opponent's face and wailing away. While admittedly clunkier than it really needs to be, he does have these tools in the movement speed from his W and the upfront shielding from range he can get from his E. Besides that, he's a juggernaut, perhaps this clunkiness is actually on point and fits the kit goals...but it also makes him rely on that Tank based design principle. Even if we don't design and balance Mordekaiser on his Tankiness, due to his relative lack of mobility to true Melee Carries like Yasuo or Yi means he's going to need to rely on a lot more innate defense than they put on, aka, raw defensive stats. This more or less sounds okay for most other hybrid DPS/Tank champs as they are usually primarily balanced around their defensive capabilities first, offensive second (for example, Garen's % true damage scales exclusively on time, rather than offensive stats. You can maximize this with yet more defense). The problem with our theoretical DPS Mordekaiser though is that we are balancing him by his offensive capabilities over time. Ergo, we expect him to have weakness to burst, something that he won't have if he starts packing on extra defense due to the current design of his kit and the theme he's supposed to fit (it'd be quite odd if a large man(?) in heavy metal suit operated similarly to the likes of Light Fighters).

This really leaves one last part of the triangle left, Burst. What if Mordekaiser was instead balanced around his Burst potential and other Burst based qualities, like lacking the ability to tank bust in trade for crushing squishies with his mace? It dodges the problem that occurs if you balance him around his Tankiness, as instead of being at a mechanical disadvantage, he's at a mechanical advantage. No more need to over-inflate his stats just to fight Marksmen, he already will have the tools built into his kit to fight them and making any balance change to him not nearly as drastic in its effect on his presence in bot lane (potentially make him no longer feast or famine?). This also dodges the problem noted by DPS Mordekaiser being a Juggernaut; a Burst Mordekaiser's inability to fight tanks does not directly conflict with his need to have at least some defensive stats to make his mostly melee kit work. On a mechanical level, from the perspective of the damage triangle, this is how we can make the numbers behind Mordekaiser's kit work. A few examples of what this theoretical Mordekaiser could look like is, instead of a straight up multiplier effect on his Q, he instead caused Flat MR Reduction onto his enemies. This means we can modify the base power of his Q to not be as ridiculous, while at the same time still giving him the firepower to threaten enemy carries. His W can be balanced largely around its Heal and Magnet effects to give Mordekaiser the (clunky) utility he needs to get by in lanes or in fights. His E would be largely the same in this sort of kit. The only radical change I would say is instead making his Ultimate based on Flat stats, like the AD Change made a while ago and converting the % Damage to Flat Damage.

This could be one big step towards rebuilding Mordekaiser into something that actually works. Balancing off of his Burst, he could have the tools he needs to stand up to and fight his opposition in lane while still maintaining the same macro weaknesses that should be expected for a champion of his class. Of course however, he needs more than just number adjustments to really make him a well rounded and fleshed out well designed champion. Next, we'll be covering the general win conditions that Mordekaiser wants to play by.

Part 2: (Hasn't been written yet)