Thoughts and Discussion: Mordekaiser
What have we learned about Mordekaiser? Yes, that is right, do not implement the ideas of your kid's crazy ideas from bring your child to work day! Ghost dragons aside, Mordekaiser HAD a super cool and unique identity that needed one ability rework (Q) and some smaller tweaks to his others abilities. The immobile, metal magic wielding mage, that is ginormous and wears a suit of metallic armour are all super bad ass and very unique to a mage which is usually seen as a someone in a robe and with a staff/wand.
What I think Mordekaiser should be:
~ Revert to his old self. Make the appropriate small changes that he needed from that point on. Brand new Q ability.
~ Making ghosts is super cool. Ghost dragon gimmick (and yes this one actually is a gimmick for once) needs to be removed completely, too hard to balance and too feast or famine with it in the kit.
~ Mordekaiser had that cool constantly pushing identity, with the cost of health cost abilities, we can expand on this - only reason this is unique is because Mordekaiser is a melee champion. No ghost dragons, but may ghost minions? The difference here is that enemy minions are always available so they can be balanced within a reasonable realm of useful, but no where near overpowering, alongside his ghost champion ultimate - allows him to push as a melee champion without that feast or famine that the ghost dragon brought.
~ Mordekaiser will be that one very immobile, backline, MELEE hyper mage - also add a little more to this than just being melee for the uniqueness. Again, no ghost dragons.
~ Shield passive will scale with % base health for the maximum value at a time, so scales with levels and not what health that he builds. Tune his balance around very high ability power ratios and low base values so he isn't obnoxious to deal with 1v1 in the early game, but still scales really well, this should allow Mordekaiser some utilities in his kit to be less vulnerable against ganks with a less oppressive laning phase than what he used to have as old Morde. The thing about old Mordekaiser was that he had a super dominant laning phase unless the enemy jungler camped his lane, which made him feed a lot because there was nothing he could do to stop it, so better tuning of this so he is less dominant 1v1 and less vulnerable from ganks as well would help solve this issue of old.
Iron Man (Passive): Mordekaiser gains a shield equal to 25% of damage that he deals, halved against non-champions, up to a maximum of 40% of his base health.
After 1.5 seconds, this shield decays at 2.5% of its total value every second.
Whenever Mordekaiser damages an enemy minion and they die within 1.5 seconds then they are resurrected as ghost-minions to act like allied minions for the next 1/2/4/6 seconds [scales with ultimate], ghost-minion health drains over their life span. Ghost-minions ignore enemy champions.
Mace of Spades (Q): Cooldown: 3 seconds [after release]; Cost: 30/35/40/45/50 health; Range: 750 units Hold Down Skill Key: Mordekaiser charges his mace for up to 3 seconds. Max damage and automatic release at 3 seconds.
2nd Cast: Upon skill release, Mordekaiser swings his mace to the target location to deal between 20/30/40/50/60(+60%AP) to 60/90/120/150/180(+180%AP) magic damage based on how long he charged for.
Direct executes from Mace of Spades heals Mordekaiser for 14/23/32/41/50 health per execute.
Creeping Death (W): Cooldown: 10/9/8/7/6 seconds; Cost: 10/14/18/22/26 health per second; Range: 150 / 1000/400 units Passive: Mordekaiser swirls metal around him dealing 16/27/38/49/60(+40%AP) magic damage per second.
Active + Toggle: Mordekaiser expands this swirling metal either around himself or grants it around the target allied unit. The target ally gains 20/25/30/35/40% damage reduction and allies gain 30/40/50/60/70 bonus movement speed when moving towards them.
Creeping Death deals half damage against minions when not attached to Mordekaiser.
Siphoning Life (E): Cooldown: 10/8.5/7/5.5/4 seconds; Cost: 40 health; Range: 900 units / 60 degrees Mordekaiser saps the life out of struck enemies for 1.5 seconds which grounds them and marks them.
Mordekaiser's next basic attack or instance of magic damage will detonate the mark and deal 60/80/100/120/140(+60%AP) bonus magic damage and healing himself for the bonus magic damage dealt, 20% healing against minions and monsters.
Children of the Grave (R): Cooldown: 120/105/90 seconds; Range: 750 units Passive: Ghost minion life increased by 1/3/5 seconds.
Active: Mordekaiser curses the target enemy champion for the next 10 seconds dealing 10/12/14%(+4% per 100AP) of the target's maximum health as magic damage, half initially and half over the duration, while healing himself for 100% of the damage dealt.
If the cursed champion dies before the curse ends then it becomes a controllable ghost based off of the champion that was cursed for the next 45/60/75 seconds.
Creeping Death only affects one unit (champion or minion) at a time, so Mordekaiser can choose to throw it on an ally to shield them and makes him move faster towards them like a magnet OR cast it on himself to shield himself with the DR and have his allies come towards him like the king that he is! The passive makes him want to run into melee range.
Damage reduction and a ground are the things to help him against ganks, the ground specifically is just to update him to equal out his power against mobile and immobile and not have such a massive power difference of insanely strong against immobility so that he can end up mediocre against mobility; smoothed out power helps with balancing for the long term.
Final aspect is changing his E; I gave the cone more range and a ground and it doesn't deal damage directly to keep it that instant skill shot that it is. So the counter play is delaying the damage to three elements, landing his new Q, getting close/melee range with his W, or using teamwork with his W, or just using his ultimate (long cooldown). His current E does lack the proper counter play and fairness to it, so delaying the damage to a follow-up action within a short time window should fix that and make the ability feel fair.
Actual final point. Heals are in this kit to semi-offset his health costs, but not to the full extent - the health costs will be very meaningful still - it just is a nice reward for performing a specific action (last hitting with Q or detonating your E) and allows for his health costs to be meaningful as well. In-kit heals (for the most part, there are the odd exceptions) are also the easiest things to tune for the long term in case they are too weak or too strong.
