"13.24 Preview!
With the game changing pretty significantly next patch, we’re looking to make improvements to champions that will persist through the item changes. These include things like fixing champion role skews, QoL improvements, reshaping of power budgets and feel improvements.
Hwei is coming out!!! Congrats to Emizery and the whole Hwei pod. They did a fantastic job at executing on a fluid spellweaving caster and we hope players are going to love it.
Azir: On-Hit changes were directionally on target! Nashors is now a reasonable option, without being a must buy. However he took too much of a power hit. Looking to restore some of that without breaking the choice.
Braum: Braum has been weak for a while, outside of a few specialized Pro picks from some known Braum enthusiasts. We think he’s a great champ to be relatively popular as he increases fun for everyone and lowers damage on both teams. We’re looking at some of the changes we’ve made over the years that made him a bit less fun.
Galio: Our changes to Galio haven’t been super effective; we’re taking more of a swing to adjust some of his core pattern things to make him more fun and less one rotation-y.
Gragas: He’s weak after the nerfs he received a while ago, we’re walking some of those back in a way that hopefully makes him feel better to play.
K’Sante: Changes last patch were directionally solid! But they were a bit too much of a nerf. Now that we’ve learnt more about what each of the levers do, we’re trying to inject power back in a way that adds power for regular play without too much to Elite.
Leona: Leona has been weak for a long time; part of this is due to being superseded in purpose by champs like Alistar, Nautilus (and Rakan to an extent). Trying to carve out a better niche for her.
Lucian: After being bound less hard to Nami earlier in the year, we have an opportunity to buff him. Trying to find a clearer identity for him, especially with Galeforce getting removed. He used to be the early bully, but now a lot of champs fill that niche.
Mordekaiser: Some QoL changes and also some adjustments to incentivize him to build AP items more and tank items less.
Pantheon: He could use a little more power; he’s not particularly strong in any role right now
Qiyana: Some adjustments to Qiyana to make her more forgiving to play. She’s fine in the hands of her best players, but still struggles for regular players. We’re not going to be able to claw back all of this and there’s no intention to make her super easy to play, but we want to lessen the burden of playing her slightly.
Vel’Koz: Some QoL changes for Vel’Koz not intended to be a lot of power, but making him feel better to play.
Zeri: Has been weak for a while. While she sees spot Pro Play only after a lot of champs have been banned, she’s still weak for most players.
Briar: Nerfs targeted at adjusting the balance of her lethality and bruiser builds. We’re keeping the nerfs on pace with players continuing to learn her and climb the mastery curve. As mentioned before, she is one of the steepest learning curve champions in the game.
Ivern: He’s been strong for a while and become a bit stale. Just tapping him down a bit." - https://twitter.com/RiotPhroxzon/status/1729388582232883462
#>>> Champion Buffs <<<
##Azir
##Braum
##Galio
##Gragas
##K’Sante
##Leona
##Lucian
##Mordekaiser
##Pantheon
##Qiyana
##Vel’Koz
##Zeri
#>>> Champion Nerfs <<<
##Briar
##Ivern
#>>> Champion Adjustments <<<
##Hwei
- Released.
Mordekaiser is stuck in the same position as Yorick balance wise. If he is any playable at a mid-high level, he completely dumpsters everyone from Iron to Silver.
His problems are very apparent.
He is unreliable. He has no gapcloser, and his E is slow as shit without having any way of making it faster. This is his biggest fucking issue, which makes certain matchups completely unplayable, with an obvious example being Vayne. I understand these sort of champions are supposed to struggle getting to you, but it should never be this hard. This is sort of what forces Mordekaiser into playing as a Draintank, which brings as a second issue.
Riot hates Draintanks, because they kinda just beat you when they get stronger than you, and there’s nothing you can really do anymore to beat them in a head-to-head, as you often can with other classes, such as Skirmishers like Yone or Fiora and Assassins like Akali.
Building fulltank on Morde makes him still hilariously squishy, at least compared to a regular tank, and building damage in unreliable, so you are meant to build a bit of both. Get yourself a Riftmaker and a Rylais for sticking power, and go full tank afterwards. Problem with that is that Riftmaker cannot heal you worth a shit, like, seriously, you stand in the middle of 4 people with your passive up, both Riftmaker and Conqueror stacked and you barely see your health tick up, on top of that, you are still hilariously squishy for a tank afterwards, so you just get bursted down.
I’ve been building full tank on Mordekaiser and thanks to his W he actually becomes really tanky, comparable to actual tanks. The biggest issue is that you put the passive AP scaling to complete waste, so you are relying on the base damage from passive and Q, as well as Sunfire Cape and Thornmail, as your means of dealing damage. This also means you can’t kill anyone with your ult unless they have been weakened to that point already because you aren’t dealing as much damage as you would do with an AP build or an AP/Tank mix build. But you are really fucking tanky indeed. He is like a Nautilus that trades CC for damage and having the advantage of being manaless.
is it just me or when I play him in ARAM, he is absolutely useless unless the enemy has low enough DPS for you to not be kited to death after a couple of autos or, you’re fed enough to just stat check before you can die? the champion just feels a bit, not good.
Try plat or even emerald tbh.