Morigesh Build Guide

Last update is on Aug-31: cosmetic updates to the abilities descriptions made in 42.3 (Aug-29 2017)

Table of Contents

1. TL;DR
2. Overview
   1. Strengths
   2. Weaknesses
3. Abilities Analysis
4. Deck Considerations
5. Morigesh Deck #1
6. Gameplay
   1. Early Game
   2. Mid-Late Game
   3. Tips and Tricks
7. Counters to Morigesh
8. Heroes Synergy
9. Updates History

TL;DR on Morigesh

Morigesh is the personification of a drowned forest, traveling to Agora in pursuit of The Fey. A close-range Caster, Morigesh uses her abilities to to keep consistent damage on her enemies, and whittle them down in order to assassinate them.

Focus on buying cards that increase your damage and Mana.

Swarm will transform Morigesh's body into a swarm of insects. During this time, you'll gain a burst of move speed. And if you pass through enemies, you will deal damage and gain a stack of Health Regen. This is a powerful ability, That will allow you to engage, disengage, and reposition in team fights.

Hive will throw a bug hive to a target location. Enemies will suffer damage over time, and will be slowed with every tick of damage. The effect will last even longer if an enemy has been marked.

Mark will deal damage and steal the very essence of your enemy, creating a doll of your target that Morigesh will carry around. Marked targets stay marked until either they die, Morigesh dies, or a new target is chosen to suffer her wrath. Mark has a low cooldown, so use it in lane to harrass your enemy, and get them low enough to use your Ultimate, Curse.

Curse summons a deadly swarm of insects in Morigesh's image to stab whomever whas hit by Mark most recently Curse is a global Ultimate, so there is nowhere to hide. Morigesh is a close-range Caster, so positioning is very important. But if you try to get too close, it could result in your death. Mark and Curse are very versatile, and can be used before a fight to weaken an enemy Carry, giving your team an edge. Or, you can steal a key target's essence, and use it to assassinate them as they try to escape. Use the ancient magick of a drowned forest to bedevil your enemies as Morigesh.

Lore of Morigesh

• Awakens each dawn with her body frozen, and the cries of the dead on her tongue.

• Only kills that which can speak.

• Narbash once gave her a pet frog; she asked no questions.

• Connected to the Fey (go to Fey Build Guide)

• Connected to the Narbash (go to Narbash Build Guide)

• Read more Morigesh Lore.

Morigesh Overview

Morigesh's Strengths

1. Strong early game laner
2. Global damage dealing ultimate
3. Strong deceptive damage over time.

Morigesh's Weaknesses

1. Has to put herself in danger to deal damage.

Morigesh's Abilities Analysis

- Dagger (Basic Attack)

A ranged basic attack dealing Basic Damage.

Morigesh throws her Dagger... do you know where she takes the next one from? From her chest...

- Mark (Alternate Ability)

Morigesh selects a target hero within range, dealing Ability Damage to the hero. Her doll takes the shape of the hero, marking them as her target wherever they go in the map.

This ability prepares your opponent for Ultimate execution. It will also cause your other ability Hive to cause prolonged effect to a marked enemy.

With the low cooldown and good scaling with both Power and ability level Mark can be a good damage dealing tool.

It can peel for you as well when you equip Ash of the Witch Card.
 

- Hive (Primary Ability)

Morigesh throws a hive of insects that explodes in an AOE, deals Ability Damage on direct hit, and applies a stack of Ability Damage per tick over the ability duration to enemies in the AOE. Marked enemies are slowed briefly on each tick of damage and have their vision revealed.

Has prolonged effect on a marked target.

Note: This is not a poison so it will not apply blight to the target.

Does not scale well with Power but does so with ability level. Since it deals damage over time it may secure you a kill even if your enemy has escaped from the battle. It will also prevent them from recalling back to base since they will keep receiving damage while the clock (and DoT) is ticking.

Obviously can be used for wave clear as well.

Note: while DoT is in effect you and your team keeps vision of the target. Morigesh can use it simply to decide if Ultimate should be used to finish the enemy or to plan a gank. Similarly any other allied Heroes with global abilities could benefit from this prolonged vision. E.g.  Murdock or Kallari with their Long Arm of the Law or Death Sentence respectively.
 

- Swarm (Secondary Ability)

Morigesh transforms into a swarm of insects for a short period of time, granting her a Speed boost and the ability to pass through enemies. Passing through an enemy deals Ability Damage and grants her 1 stack of Health Regen for a short period of time. Stacks are limited and enemies can only be hit once.

Swarm is how Morigesh mitigate damage and get out from bad situations. In short this ability is a combo of Iggy & Scorch's Oil Slick (speed boost), Khaimera's Spirit Regeneration (Health Regen stack with each damage dealt) and Shinbi's Rushing Beat (passing through enemies). It will help you to ignore any body blocking though you should do your best to avoid even possibility of being driven into a corner.

Swarm works on Minions and therefore can be used as a great self-healing tool after a team-fight.

Having said that Swarm is an ability that will always make you to have a choice between using it to close a gap and saving it in case you need to heal yourself.
 

- Curse (Ultimate Ability)

If Morigesh has a valid Mark, she raises her dagger and stabs her doll, dealing Ability Damage to her target. While Morigesh is channeling, the Marked hero will be warned that she is about to strike.

One of the very few Paragon abilities with global presence. Only Murdock and Kallari has a similar tool but one of them has to aim precisely with his Long Arm of the Law while the other has to actually teleport with her Death Sentence to the target and therefore become vulnerable. One may also find it similar to Shinbi's All Kill!

Makes a good combo with Hive since the latter not only does damage but also provides vision and therefore you can easily decide whether you should use your Ultimate or not.

Prior to triggering the ultimate make sure you know who is your target. And what is more important does it have any tools to deny the damage. Especially it is applicable to GRIM.exe, Countess or Serath since they just ignore it like this:

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Morigesh's Deck Considerations

When building a deck for Morigesh keep in mind her kit and try mitigating risks when getting close to your enemies for applying a Mark.

Core Cards for Morigesh

Healer Token - a standard card for your starter deck. Combine it with a Potion of your choice and head to your lane.

Ash of the Witch - Exactly the Card to minimize danger of getting close to your enemies to steal their soul. It is still to be clarified how this card is working with the Hive ticks.

Clearheart - Is an option to consider if you want to boost your self-regen effect from Swarm.

Blink Charm - Yet another option to help Morigesh to get away after being close to the target.

Stab Link - Another blink but offensive one. For the lower cooldown you pay the price - HP and inability to use it after taking damage. Can be used defensively but only if you have a very good map control.

Stinger Boost - If you can sequence well your Basic Attack and abilities you may have a lot of use from this card. Mark → Basic Attack → Hive → Basic Attack.

Thickblood - Have an enemy ADC healing himself with a lot of lifesteal? Here is your way to go. Also counters Rampage and Narbash

Hunter's Guile - A card to help you mitigate incoming Slow effects.

Sage's Ward Sorcerer's Ward - Good ward for Morigesh. Only the stats required.

Shaman's Drink - A useful early game potion with better mana regen than the standard Mana Pot.

Adamant Edge - An early game throw-away card for 1+1+1 Power upgrades.

Morigesh Deck #1

Explore Deck

Gameplay with Morigesh

Pick Morigesh against melee ADCs like Serath or Yin going to the Safe Lane. Midlaners like Gideon or Howitzer are also good ones to counter with Morigesh.

Early Game

Morigesh can start at the Mid lane but can play as an Off-laner as well. At mid your job is to harass your lane opponent from the very first seconds. Prevent them from laning safely, doing last-hits and delay as much as possible their transition into mid game. Control the River Buff but be careful. Morigesh is very sensitive to CC and can be burst down easily if stunned or rooted.

Keep in mind that this task is very controversial since by pushing your opponent and your lane towards the enemy tier one tower you are becoming more vulnerable to ganks. So wards, wards and again wards.

As an offlaner play safe and prioritize your Mark over other abilities. It has a low cooldown and deal decent amount of damage to to keep your lane opponents in check. Stay closer to the waves clash pint to earn your level 5 as soon as you can. Pay attention to the Gold Buff and try to contest it if you notice enemies at the Gold pit.

Mid and Late Game

Your goal is to constantly position yourself at the edge of the brawl keeping your enemies in range of your Hive and Mark but not letting them to get close. Make sure you Mark an ADC or a squishy caster so that you can finish them when they take enough damage and try to back up.

Always watch out for opponents with CC. And yes, didn't I say wards? Mid and Late game wards are extremely important for Morigesh (not even talking about the rest of the team) to position herself correctly and to proper assassinations.

Morigesh can transition into a peel-type of Hero in late game and use her ability to slow down enemies chasing your ally thus protecting your carry while steel dealing damage and being a global threat.

If you are playing in a team with any other Hero having global Ultimate ability (Murdock, Kallari) try to combine with them. It is not an easy goal to achieve without voice communication it works really well and worth the effort.

Tips and Tricks with Morigesh

• Coming soon

Counters to Morigesh

1. Heroes with CC who can render Morigesh helpless:
   1. Rampage, Dekker, Narbash, Lt. Belica, Steel - They have ranged Stun
   2. Riktor - pull followed up by his ultimate can be devastating
   3. Aurora, Sevarog, Kwang - ranged root. They don't stun but that does not make it easier.
2. Heroes with instant damage mitigation by Abilities or Cards:
   1. Muriel - She has a lot of shielding potential.
   2. GRIM.exe, Serath, Countess - with their "ignore an ability" tools.
   3. Narbash - with his AOE heal is not an instant damage mitigator but can heal pretty quickly when maxed out.
   4. Honor the Pure, Barrier of Will - instantly apply a shield.
   5. Quenching Scales - instantly gives HP. That's why Morigesh needs to consider Thickblood.
   6. Divine Shield - hopefully it is not on cooldown.

Heroes Synergy

Morigesh can work well together with nearly any Hero and she may benefit the most from Heroes capable of peeling for her.

Morigesh and Dekker

They can work together pretty well in the Mid and Late game stages.

Dekker is an exceptional Hero to prevent chase, slow down and stun targets. She will not contribute much to dealing damage but will mitigate Morigeshe's weak point of being vulnerable when close to the opponent. The same goes to Muriel and Narbash.

Morigesh and Murdock

Two heroes with global damage dealing Ultimates

As already mentioned above Morigesh can provide vision for Murdock to aim with his Long Arm of the Law. But it is not the only trick these two guys can do. Execute both Ultimates at the same time focusing one hero can nearly always secure a kill. Or at least make opponents think twice before going below 50% of their Health Pool.

Morigesh and Kallari

Another combo of two global ultimates

Everything that was stated for Murdock above is applicable to Kallari as well. The only difference is that our Space Cop can miss his shot while Kallari can't. for this reason it is much easier to make a combo of those ultimates. Both have global sound cues and does not require aiming. Just make sure you both have "Ultimate Ready" communicated to your ally.

Morigesh Updates

v41.0 (Jun-27 2017)

Mark

• Mark mana cost increased (75/85/95/105 → 90/95/100/105)

Hive

• Hive damage per DoT tick decreased (20/32/44/56 → 18/28/38/48)
• Hive mana cost increased (80/90/100/110 → 100/115/130/145)

Swarm

• Swarm mana cost decreased (100/120/140/160 → 80 at all levels)

v40.0 (May-16 2017)

General

• Base Ability Armor reduced (21.4 → 20)
• Ability Armor per level reduced (0.81 → 0.75)

v39.1 (Apr-11 2017)

Hive

• Hive mana cost increased (72/81/90/99 → 80/90/100/110)
• Hive base damage per tick reduced (21.8/34.8/47.7/60.7 → 20/32/44/56)
• Hive scaling reduced (0.13 → 0.12)

Swarm

• Swarm mana cost increased (90/108/126/144 → 100/120/140/160)

Mark

• Mark mana cost increased (67.5/76.5/85.5/94.5 → 75/85/95/105)
• Mark base damage reduced (85.5/137/191.5/246 → 75/125/175/225)
• Mark scaling reduced (1.08 → 1)

Curse

• Curse mana cost increased (90 → 100)
• Curse ability cooldown increased (80/70/60 → 90/80/70)

General Stats

• Base mana reduced (305 → 280)
• Mana per level reduced (74.8 → 68)
• Base health reduced (540 → 520)
• Health per level reduced (74.1 → 69.4)

v39 (Apr-04 2017)

Morigesh released.