Talk:Mordekaiser/@comment-25532677-20180428033842/@comment-25075290-20180504090043

Depends. I've only ever played him bot lane since rework (always getting good results, scoring not better nor worse than your average ADC) so I can only speak for that although the general rules can probably apply to top lane as well. Note that I'm not claiming this to be the best way to build in any way, it's just what I found most successful.

These are the core items I get when playing him. After them you have many choices depending on what you need: the aforementioned Rylai / Trinity / Sterak if you didn't build them before,, , , , even if you're stomping.
 * First item: generally . You max W first and your Q's AP scaling doesn't increase with ranks, so getting AP as your first damage source is mandatory. Early health helps a lot and all of your abilities apply the slow, meaning you can use E / R to get to your opponent and W / Q to stick to them. If for some weird reason you don't need its slow and the opponents aren't trying to / can't burst you, is a great alternative.
 * Boots are very situational., , , are all viable choices depending on the situation. But you can never go wrong with Swifties so get those if you're not sure.
 * At this point you should be putting points on Q so you could build some AD. is a personal favourite - with Rylai and Swifties it gives me all the MS and stickiness I need (usually) and Mordekaiser is the 5th champion with the highest base AD in the game. Mana is obviously wasted but all of the other stats are too good. Q does in fact use a lower attack speed than your normal autoattacks but it's still faster if you buy AS so that's not wasted either - you probably wouldn't need more than that however. Again, if you don't need sticking power but you feel you need more survivability, you can get  instead.