Re: Meddler & Mordekaiser - About Themes

Hello, Kouga here. This is in response to Meddler's comment on another Morde thread. He said:

One of the options we're looking at at the moment is whether we should play up Morde's tankier side a bit more.

I think this is the best direction to take Mordekaiser. It fits with his visuals, kit, and my interpretation of his ideal "End Game Fantasy", which is a thing that Riot seems to be like to talk about now and then. I'll go into detail into the reasons behind my thoughts and I welcome feedback and ideas. I am making this into a separate thread because I have been thinking about this for a while and have a length response.

Mordekaiser's Theme & Fantasy - "The Relentless Pursuit" Let's first talk about what his theme and fantasy (as I see it) should be and where it is at its strongest. I used to really enjoy playing Mordekaiser throughout my time in LoL, but changes to items, kits, and the meta has made him less viable in many instances and overall he seems to be having an identity crisis. When I think about Mordekaiser, and my favorite moments with him and what he really brings to the table, it comes down to one thing.

Inevitability.

Moredekaiser does not run at you - he walks. His Creeping Death does not crush you, it creeps, bringing you down with the sting of a thousand cuts. Gradually but relentlessly he approaches, spells splashing across his armor, the dents and damage of a hundred blows visible on his armor. But as you look upon the face of your doom, you see only the hollow emptiness of an animated suit of armor. And as he curses your very soul, in your last moments you know that your enthralled ghost will be serving him for eternity. "Affliction, forever!"

/ahem/ In less theatrical terms, Morde's identity was that of a magey tank who waded into teamfights, dealing out swathes of moderate but consistent damage, and then picked a target with his Ult, dooming them to die. He didn't even need to kill the target with the ability - it drained them slowly, but he could just as easily drop the curse and then continue to make a ruckus, knowing that his team would worry about the Target. Worst case scenario, the target has to back out of the fight for a while to stay safe, but ideally they fell and then it was suddenly 6v4. Morde was always at his best when he focused on his tankier side than his pure mage damage.

But Kouga, Damage! So why not focus on Mordekaiser's mage aspects? A few reasons. For one, the world of LoL does not need another pure damage mage. Morde has 0 CC, 0 mobility, and is manaless - so his balance, as a mage, largely comes down to basically "can I kill you before you kill me." The only other lever that Morde has to balance that power out is his durability granted from his passive, which when it works makes him frustratingly difficult to kill, and when it doesn't, robs a large portion of his "power budget." Plus some of the tools that other mages use to tweak their kits are more difficult to apply. You can managate a typical mage, but for Morde that means healthgating which is a different parameter entirely.

But Is Morde A Tank? A proper Tank may have a few of several different properties or characteristics in their stats and kit. Note that a Tank does not need to have all of these but generally has some:

• Typically high defense (via health or resistances)
• Relatively low to moderate damage, generally resulting from decent or even high base damage but low ratios so their damage is more consistent but not out of control
• Front line, which means they either start the fight, or protect their backline. Some tanks excel at initiating (Malphite) while others also do great at countering initiations (Braum)
• Protect their allies either through buffs or shields (i.e., Galio's shield), healing/recovery, or by diverting the enemy carries, primarily through CC or anything that makes them a "bigger priority"

Mordekaiser has 0 CC, and only one ally "buff". He has no way to initiate a fight, or to stop one, and so the only thing that Morde really does right now that is Tank-esque is he can soak some damage through his passive. And even that is flawed; the only way to get his passive "charged" is to cast spells, which costs him health, which is counter productive when going into a fight. And then his Passive is changed so its less effective vs Minions, so you want to be hitting Champions - which means that by the time you have his passive ready to start a fight, you're already in a fight.

So What Do We Do? I believe the best way to bring Morde in line with this theme is to give him tools to better leverage his passive durability during team fights, and give him ways to stay in the fight. He should be dealing consistent, grinding damage. I don't want to actually add any CC to Morde - although in the League of Mobility Creep its not hard to. Instead, I think it'd be more in line with his gameplay to give him tools to soak & resist the CC from the other team. Give that feeling of persistent, inevitable pursuit. He doesn't need to hold you down, he's going to keep coming at you.

Just Spitballin' I'm not a Riot Balance Team member, I'm not even a Morde Main, so I don't necessarily think I can give a full kit rework proposal. Instead, I have some separate ideas and thoughts on his abilities or kit that I think, in some combination, could lead to a good direction.

• Passive does not decay in combat. This brings his strength up during a team fight without letting him keep it up all the time. It would function like Rage; it only decays after X seconds out of combat.
• Passive can be 'charged' by damage to enemy champions even if dealt by his allies; less, perhaps, than from himself but it would give him a way to stay sustained throughout a fight and makes his shield less dependent on his cooldowns and damage output.
• Passive grants Mordekaiser Tenacity, depending on the health of the shield. (i.e., 5% tenacity for every 100 hp of shield he has active. This would let it scale into late game without overpowering his laning phase)
• Q being melee is odd with his kit; nothing else he has is, and given his lack of mobility and CC it can be difficult to get that close. Either giving his Q range or at least giving it a wider splash/reach for the additional targets could help it. But I feel it 'needs something' in his current state.
• W gives its target Tenacity
• W is extended by X seconds (up to a cap of Y seconds) when the host takes damage. This appeals to the idea that tanks can stack up damage if they're ignored and gives them more ramping damage over the course of a fight
• Ultimate deals steady DoT but also amplifies damage to the target. Perhaps it could amplify allied damage to the target, encouraging him to "paint the target" and then focus on protecting or disrupting as necessary. With DFG gone there is no longer the risk of 'doubling up' on damage amps.
• If Morde dies, let the Ghost from his Ultimate live (until it is killed or clocks out), and allow Mordekaiser to control it while dead.

Ideas? Thoughts? Comment below.

And if you would like to see more of Kouga's Overly Detailed Ideas please read my idea for Positive Player Feedback. It is detailed here!