[Champion Rework] Mordekaiser, the Iron Revenant
Author's Note: As a champion who has been repeatedly cited as a bad champion because of his many weaknesses in the current meta, this Mordekaiser rework concept is my take on fixing these weaknesses in order to make the Iron Revenant a viable champion pick. From discussions with my friends, these are the primary cited weaknesses of the champion Mordekaiser at the moment:
- Lack of any form of crowd control
- Cannot gap close/force enemies to fight him (something that all other juggernauts have, like Nasus' slow, Darius' hook, Garen's speed boost, and to some degree, Illaoi's E)
- Lackluster harass compared to other meta picks (only his E, and you have to get close)
- Super-reliant on his ultimate, which has a high cooldown and the ghost duration feels rather short.
The 'minor' changes in this rework is a new range buff but also damage scaling nerf to his [Q] Mace of Spades. Mordekaiser's Passive and [E] Siphon of Destruction will remain unchanged. The major changes will be to his Ultimate [R] Children of the Grave and also his [W] Harvester of Sorrow as the ability's current state is not necessary given the changes to his Ultimate. Mordekaiser's W will essentially be a new ability.
Abilities
[Passive] Iron Man No Change.
[Q] Mace of Spades ABILITY TYPE: Auto-attack modifier COST: 20 / 23 / 26 / 29 / 32 HEALTH COOLDOWN: 10 / 8.5 / 7 / 5.5 / 4
ACTIVE: Mordekaiser's next three basic attacks recieve bonus range and deal bonus magic damage. The third hit's is the damage of the previous two combined and at a longer range.
RANGE BONUS: 25 / 50 (First 2 Hits / Third Hit) FIRST/SECOND BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE: 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+40% AP) THIRD BONUS MAGIC DAMAGE: 20 / 40 / 60 / 80 / 100 (+80% AP)
NOTES:
- Changes to Mordekaiser's kit in this rework allows him to stick to his targets much better given the new slow on his [W] Harvester of Sorrow and the speed boost provided by his whenever Mordekaiser's Ultimate [R] Children of the Grave is active, which has much higher availability. As a response to this, the damage from this ability must be nerfed as changes will allow Mordekaiser to land them much more often.
- The ability now has increased range and scales with Mordekaiser's ability power, thus encouraging the AP items that are currently core options for Mordekaiser.
[W] Harvester of Sorrow ABILITY TYPE: Ground-targeted AoE COST: No Cost COOLDOWN: 20 / 18 / 16 / 14 / 12 CAST RANGE: 700 EFFECT RADIUS: 300
ACTIVE: Mordekaiser unleashes a ring of energy at a target location that lingers for 6 seconds, harvesting the life essence of units inside the area. Units that enter the ring have their movement speed reduced by 15% for 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 seconds, while units that leave the ring have their movement speed reduced by 30% for 1 / 1.5 / 2 / 2.5 / 3 seconds. Units that remain inside the effect radius also have their magic resist reduced. Once the ring collapses, an orb of life essence will remain at its center for 10 seconds. If Mordekaiser or an ally picks up the orb by walking over it, they are healed by 100% of the life essence harvested plus additional healing scaling with a percentage of Mordekaiser's ability power, and are given a short speed boost. However, an enemy champion can nullify the orb by walking over it.
MAGIC DAMAGE PER SECOND: 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+30% AP) MAGIC RESIST REDUCTION: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40 Magic Resist HEALING: 100% of damage dealt by the ability (+40% AP) SPEED BOOST: +20% movement speed SPEED BOOST DURATION: 2.5 seconds
NOTES:
- Items aside, [W] Harvester of Sorrow will be essentially Mordekaiser's sole source of crowd control, zoning, healing, and magic resist reduction all in one package.
- What is cool about the healing/speed boost from the "orb of life essence" that comes after the initial effect is that your allies can also be healed/speed-boosted by this object, kind of like Bard's [W] Caretaker's Shrine (though it does not build up the heal over time like that ability).
- The circular Area-of-Effect is smaller than the juggernaut poster child Nasus' [E] Spirit Fire and has a slightly longer cast range.
[E] Siphon of Destruction No Change.
[R] Children of the Grave Ability Type: Unit-targeted COST: 20% BASE HEALTH Per Cast COOLDOWN: 90 / 70 / 50 CAST RANGE: 1200
PASSIVE: Mordekaiser can enslave the souls of minions and basic monsters he has killed. If Mordekaiser kills or assists in killing an enemy champion, Dragon, or Epic Dragon, it will leave a special soul that Mordekaiser can collect by walking over it. Mordekaiser can only have one of these special souls at a time, and cannot replace a special soul with a new one until he has used it. Special souls last at their spawn location until the enemy champion, Dragon, or Epic Dragon has respawned.
These souls show up as marks at the bottom of the screen (the little square icons that show buffs, debuffs, item actives, stacks, ability durations, etc) so Mordekaiser players can check what souls they have available at their disposal.
With 1 / 2 / 3 marks in his ultimate, Mordekaiser can have:
- 6 / 9 / 12 Melee Minion Souls
- 6 / 9 / 12 Ranged Minion Souls
- 2 / 4 / 6 Cannon Minion Souls
- 1 / 2 / 3 Super Minion Souls
- 1 / 2 / 2 Gromp Souls
- 4 / 8 / 8 Crimson Raptor Souls (1 / 2 / 2 Big, 3 / 6 / 6 Small)
- 2 / 4 / 4 Krug Souls (1 / 2 / 2 Big, 1 / 2 / 2 Small)
- 3 / 6 / 6 Sentinel Souls (1 / 2 / 2 Big, 2 / 4 / 4 Small)
- 3 Brambleback Souls (1 Big, 2 Small)
- 1 Special Ghost: Enemy Champion Soul / Elemental Dragon / Epic Dragon
If Mordekaiser dies, he will lose all of the souls he has collected but not used.
ACTIVE: Mordekaiser Curses an enemy champion/enemy turret/enemy inhibitor/enemy nexus/Elemental Dragon/Epic Dragon for 20 seconds, gaining vision of the target and dealing true damage over that time, while simultaneously summoning his enslaved souls upon the cursed target as Ghosts that immediately target the Cursed target. These Ghosts share the same movement speed as Mordekaiser as he gains +75 movement speed when moving toward the Cursed target as well as the ability to move through units. If the target is killed or destroyed while cursed, the ability cooldown is reduced to 3 / 2 / 1 seconds and Mordekaiser's summoned souls will be recycled. However the ability will be increased to its original cooldown if not casted for 15 seconds after it becomes available again, and by then Mordekaiser will lose his souls. Each soul can only be summoned as Ghosts once and will disappear forever after the ultimate ends. After 20 seconds and the cursed target is not killed/destroyed, the ultimate ends and goes on full cooldown as summoned souls disappear forever. If Mordekaiser dies while the ability is active, the ability ends and souls disappear forever.
Basic Ghosts have the same health, armor, magic resist, and attack speed as their original mortal selves upon death. Their attack damage is the sum of their original attack damage upon death plus 10% of Mordekaiser's ability power.
Special Ghosts (Elemental Dragon/Epic Dragon/enemy champion) also have the same health, armor, magic resist, and attack speed as their original mortal selves. Also, their attack damage is their original attack damage upon death, unaffected by any of Mordekaiser's stats. Ghosts of enemy champion have their initial items upon-death as well (for instance, an enemy champion ghost that had a Guardian Angel will be passively revived by it if the cooldown is off).
Damage from Ghosts do not give Mordekaiser a shield via [Passive] Iron Man, as they do not apply to his Passive.
TRUE DAMAGE PER SECOND: 5 / 7.5 / 10
Reworked Mordekaiser's Status: Mordekaiser now has crowd control from his W, and better initiation/turret push potential from his new ultimate, which turns him into a Reworked Yorick of sorts, as he can now command an army of Ghosts that he accumulates over time. This also provides an incentive to fight Mordekaiser... you can nullify his entire Ghost army by killing the kingpin. Or of course you can avoid fighting him and his surrounding teammates for 20 seconds, the duration of his ultimate's effects.
This new Mordekaiser has greater jungling potential now. In a gank, cast your ultimate on victim of the gank and unleash your Ghost army upon them. Drop your W on the target and proceed to unleash the might of your Q followed by an E for the bonus shield so you can last longer under turret.
In a teamfight, if your cursed targets die, the temporary cooldown is reduced by A TON as a follow-up. Each cast takes away 20% of Mordekaiser's Base Health as a cost, meaning If Mordekaiser can negate most of the incoming damage to him with his shield passive and kill each consecutive cursed target, he can recast his ultimate about three times following the first. This gives him very high kill potential against multiple assailants if they can't shut him down before he gets his first kill/assist from his ultimate.
After this rework Mordekaiser is still an AP Bruiser. The shield from his passive gives him much defense from any sort of damage including true damage whenever he is using abilities, so a focus on tank items is unnecessary. All of his abilities deal magic damage mainly scaling with ability power, so building ability power and magic penetration is a must if you want to dish out tons of damage upon your enemies. However, you may want to build tank items if you find that you are being bursted down before you can even cast your abilities to gain shield.
When playing against Mordekaiser (the AP build that is encouraged), like against any other juggernaut you want to bring multiple people to shut him down. Mordekaiser needs to be able to use his two close-range abilities (Q and E) in order to gain the shield he needs to survive before he can unleash the full potential of his wrath, that is his ultimate. Without that shield, AP Mordekaiser is pretty squishy. Mordekaiser will be quite useless against champions that can burst him down from range (ADCs, Lux, Xerath, Vel'Koz, Veigar) before he can hit them back. However, this also means pulling back your front line because if Mordekaiser is getting his shield by consistently hitting your Alistar or Lee Sin with his E, your not gonna be able to burst him down.
