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Malphite changes coming to PBE

RiotRiot Lutzburg·5/3/2019, 5:48:29 PM·1 votes·211,785 views

UPDATE Check out the latest iteration of changes, based on your feedback! https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/WpJn3mE8-malphite-changes-coming-to-pbe?comment=0055

Hi everyone! My name is Lutzburg, and I recently joined Riot as a Champion Designer. We're doing a quality-of-life pass for one of League’s oldest champions, Malphite, for the near future. While we're largely considering these changes as quality-of-life updates, we're also making a few mechanical changes to modernize Malphite’s kit without taking away that rock-solid reliability he’s known for. We'd appreciate feedback on the changes! For more context, we had two high level goals:

  1. Improve the visceral satisfaction of Malphite’s abilities (i.e. make it more fun to push buttons!) W in particular was unsatisfying to use, as it lacked an immediate impact and its long duration made it hard to appreciate its power
  2. Retain Malphite’s broadly appealing accessibility and reliable team-fighting prowess

Full Changelist

Passive - Granite Shield Malphite now glows when his Shield regenerates. This should make it more clear when Malphite has access to his Shield as a combat resource Malphite’s size now scales with his Armor! Become a literal mountain like you always dreamed of

Q - Seismic Shard

  1. Range increased from 625 >>> 700
  2. Missile speed increased from 1200 >>> 1400 (and spawns closer to its target on cast)
  3. Cast time increased from 0.25 seconds >>> 0.4 seconds
  4. AP Scaling reduced from 0.6 >>> 0.4
  5. Malphite no longer “steals” his target’s movement speed. Instead Malphite now slows his target by 20/25/30/35/40% and increases his own movement speed by 20/25/30/35/40%
  6. Speed duration reduced from 4 seconds >>> 3 seconds
  7. Malphite no longer summons his earthen saw blade from behind himself, and instead casts it from his right arm. This also increases how fast the missile reaches its target
  8. Targets affected by Q are covered in a molten rock effect for the duration of the slow
  9. Other miscellaneous values adjusted. Too many to mention in detail here, but overall this Ability should have more weight to it and ‘feel’ like a rock monster hurling a chunk of Summoner’s Rift at his opponents

Q saw a ton of micro tweaks that should amount to a more satisfying and useful button press. Malphite should now have an easier time reaching (or fleeing) targets affected by his cheese wheel o’ death.

**W - Thunderclap (renamed from Brutal Strikes) **

  1. On cast, Malphite resets his auto attack and deals 40/55/70/85/100 bonus Physical damage, scaling with 0.2 armor and 0.4 AP
  2. In addition, Malphite’s auto attacks create ‘aftershocks’ for the next 6 seconds (including the initial AA reset). These are frontal cleaves (think Titanic Hydra) that deal 10/20/30/40/50 physical damage to all enemies in range of the cone, scaling with 0.1 armor and 0.2 AP
  3. REMOVED - Malphite no longer gains 3x his bonus armor while his shield holds
  4. Still grants +10/15/20/25/30% Armor permanently

Brutal Strikes wasn’t fun to use, and its power was hard to appreciate. The AA reset creates some room for optimization without requiring too much mind share, and the cleave gives Malphite something to do after unloading his wombo. Conveniently, it also helps Malphite farm under tower in bad lane matchups (which are most of them.)

To balance out all this new power, we had to remove Malphite’s 3x armor multiplier. While it was fun to see huge armor numbers, this passive component wasn’t practical enough to justify keeping. Since a lot of Malphite’s damage scales with armor, it was also inadvertently increasing his burst potential when building full tank. However, these changes are designed to be burst-NEUTRAL, as Thunderclap’s initial hit will make up for the highly situational damage that was lost.

R - Unstoppable Force

  1. Malphite’s Base Skin now features an impact crater. IT CAN’T BE STOPPED!

We’re currently exploring the possibility of upgrading Malphite’s abilities' VFX to coincide with this gameplay update. So as always, keep in mind that everything in the above list is tentative, including any new VFX you see on PBE. Let us know your thoughts!

-Lutz

Malphite

271 Comments

Galiö5/3/2019, 5:53:20 PM53 votes

Passive changes are ok..

The Q changes are ok... I liked the MS steal also however...

Not a big fan of the W changes... even with how 'boring' it was.

Edit: his lack of bonus armor is going to hurt his thornmail synergy and his damage with E.

And dramatically less tanky in a meta where tanks are slowly trying to be brought back up

This can shoehorn him more into AP Q max malphite... but the ratio was dropped

This sounds more painful than helpful

Endorcer5/3/2019, 6:13:09 PM28 votes

Hey! Big Malphite enthusiast here, love the ol' rock monster guy. And most of these changes are things that I approve of, but I feel like I have to voice my opinion on some details of this list.

  1. Malphite is the only champion in the game with a legitimate movement speed stealing effect. This allows the malphite player to use Q more creatively in skirmishes or fights, targeting the champion with more movespeed or mobility, allowing himself to use that level of quick thinking and planning to his advantage by getting the most out of the situation. This change completely removes that sort of interaction, and i'm also worried whether it's going to make malphite too easy to kite or run away from when he doesn't happen to have his ultimate up.

  2. The passive armor increase, while can be looked at as a simple stat bonus that you could slap your opponent with, made Malphite's passive more interactive for both Malphite, and his opponent. It makes a lane situation much more exciting and allows for more skill expression, depending on who wants to do what, whether Malphite wants to preserve his shield, or his opponent wants to destroy it, and what moves and sacrifices come with that sort of standoff. While i agree that it could be tuned down in order to avoid malphite being overly oppressive into certain ad laners, it's removal isn't warranted, considering the recent rampancy of true damage in the game, along with ap toplaners and well, very effective counters to malphite. If i run through the numbers between brutal strikes and thunderclap, this seems like an overall nerf to malphite in terms of both defense and damage, and he's already in a fairly odd or even weak spot both in terms of soloq and proplay. Honestly, it would be fine if the passive armor increase without the shield was removed, but removing it from the shield makes his passive and consequently his kit very, very dull and uninteractive.

Do tell me if i'm wrong, but the passive armor increase ins't removed, only that bonus being tripled when Malph's passive is up, right?

Edit: My overall point is, I love the updates to his visuals and his "SMOCK" factor as an idea, but at the same time I feel like this update takes away more from the depth and enjoyment of Malphite than it gives. I as a player would have less room to make creative, smart moves with this updated version of the monolith.

FireDrizzle5/3/2019, 6:03:58 PM24 votes

This looks like a nerf too me.

Q has 0.25 extra cast time, that desnt help chase. The cast time is very significant because the ability is cancelled when enemies enter fog of war.

The W changes are a nerf, the loss of armour with the shield, lower armour scaling and base damage on cleave. This is also a nerf too his waveclear. His W active has good ap scaling and will be better in short trades but still.

RiotRiot Lutzburg5/4/2019, 2:44:19 AM24 votes

Hey gang! Thanks again for all the kind words, support and insightful conversations based around these changes. As we always try to mention, the PBE is often used for experimental stuff that we want the community's feedback on. You all made a few things VERY clear today and I'm super appreciative and receptive to your concerns.

As a result, I'm happy to share a new iteration of Malphite, which should be hitting PBE around Monday midday (PST). Sadly it can't be sooner, as we don't push things to PBE over the weekend.

Revisions:

  • Q- AP scaling reverted to .6 from .4
  • Q- fixed a typo regarding the cast time (was written as .5, is actually .4)
  • Q- adjusted the animation considerably to look/feel less clunky
  • W- 3x Armor multiplier when Granite Shield is active has been REINSTATED
  • W- the bonus damage on the initial Thunderclap hit has had its ratios reduced to compensate (.3 AP from .4) and (.15 Armor from .2)
  • VFX updates on Passive shield regeneration, Q missile/trench, W up-time/impact, E and R (BASE SKIN ONLY FOR NOW)

Context:

Q- Believe it or not, these changes were specifically designed not to nerf AP burst mage builds. We felt like the combination of extra Q range and bonus AP scaling on W would be perceived as a win here. Since that wasn't the case, I'm reverting the AP scaling on Q but nerfing the new W's ratio to compensate.

And while I personally do think that Q spam is a little unhealthy, those who came before me were smart enough to gate it behind a high mana cost. I still think this is an elegant solution because the ability is most oppressive in the early game, and its gating mechanism slowly evaporates as Malphite levels up and purchases a mana item. Hopefully this will satiate all the cheese wheelers out there without frustrating your opponents too much. :)

W- We underestimated how attached players would be to the 3x Armor multiplier. As a designer, it felt a little tacked on, and granted power in fairly obscure ways. However, there's no denying that preserving Malphite's niche as THE anti-AD tank is important to all of you. It's clearly a resonate fantasy and one I'm happy to bring back.

Clear-Ups

A few common questions/concerns have come up, so let's address them here!

  • Malphite's abilities won't gain range based on his size- sorry! I wanted to do this, but it was OP OP

  • The initial AA reset from Thunderclap triggers an Aftershock. This means it deals three instances of damage simultaneously; the AA, Thunderclap bonus damage, and Aftershock AoE damage. The result is a pretty meaty burst of damage!

  • The new speed differential between Malphite and his target are significantly buffed. Assuming you Q a target with 400 MS on LIVE, the delta between you would be ~225. In this iteration, that delta explodes to 350+ once you get some boots. The combination of a longer range Q, easier target accessibility, and improved burst damage from W should allow Malphite to participate in skirmishes and team fights without always relying on his R.

  • Scope for this project was super limited, and for good reason. I'm still new, I'm learning the tools, and bandwidth from art/tech was already accounted for in our project pipeline. Maybe Malphite will get a full VGU in the future, and maybe I'll be the one to do it, but that's currently not in our slate. ...Get it? Slate? Cuz he's a-- nevermind.

Next Steps:

  • Next week I'd like to add a check to Q that uses your target's move speed if the amount you'd steal from them would make you faster than the base values. This preserves my goal of making Q consistently good, while retaining the playmaking potential of stealing from a particularly fast foe
  • We'll also be monitoring Malphite's overall damage output/power. I'm happy to reinstate the things you guys said were important to you, but that likely means that Malphite is now overtuned. Please keep in mind that we'll likely have to trim power from somewhere.

Keep the discussion going! I'll be active here and on Twitter over the weekend.

-Lutz

RiotRiot Lutzburg5/3/2019, 8:21:22 PM21 votes

Thanks so much for all the feedback so far, everyone! As this is my first public project at Riot, the sudden exposure has hit me like a Malphite ult, so I apologize for not being able to answer everyone individually. Lots of great comments being made here, so I wanted to add more context to some of the biggest talking points I've seen so far:

Power and Build Paths- these changes aren't meant to nerf Malphite. He actually has one of the healthiest and most balanced win rates and play rates in the game, if you look at it holistically. If the values are off, we will definitely adjust. As a goal of the project, AP and jungle builds are meant to be power neutral, too.

Triple Armor Buff- For clarity, Malphite's W would still permanently increase his Armor by 10/15/20/25/30%. It was only the 3x multiplier when he had his shield that was on the chopping block. Seeing "900 Armor" is a fun aspect of his fantasy, though, and it's clear that people really loved socking it to those AD-heavy teams. Finding a way to bring this back in some form is my #1 takeaway from the feedback so far, so stay tuned on this one.

VGU versus Small Scale Updates- For context, I was given a unique opportunity to work on a Champion I thought could use some love, partially as a way to ramp myself up with the tools and processes of the team. Since I'm so new to the company, it didn't make sense to upend everyone's existing pipelines and schedules to accommodate my experimental side project. While we obviously feel like there are plenty of Champions who could use larger scale reworks, this was a low risk, low scope way of helping Malphite out with the resources I had available to me.

VFX Updates- One of our amazing VFX Artists was nice enough to sneak some Malphite work into his existing work schedule. He hasn't gotten to all of them yet, but it's already looking awesome and should be on the PBE next week. Keep in mind that you'll only see these on the BASE SKIN for the time being.

Next Steps- I'm going to put together a revised proposal later today- stay tuned!

Kraken Knight5/3/2019, 6:05:10 PM19 votes

I'm really sadenned by the removal of the x3 armor, that was my greatest pleasure playing malph. Punishing the full ad comp by going full armor. During the last years league has lost some very niche stuff that added to the uniqueness of builds available to players. I'd rather give up some circonstantial balance to bring back stuff like sword of the occult / sword of divine. I understand that this isn't the best direction to everyone but malphite and this passive was to me one of the few remainning spot of absurde hidden power. When lategame zed's ult doesn't even break your shield, that's some satisfaction I fear i won't be able to have again... I guess I still have taric [slayer-jinx-catface]

Luxanna Magica5/3/2019, 6:36:02 PM11 votes

rip AP malphite :(

CleverCactus5/3/2019, 6:58:55 PM9 votes

Making an ability take more cast time does not make it feel more impactful or powerful, it makes it clunky and awkward to use. It effectively means a half second self CC which is killer.

The same mistake was made with the Zac rework where now his Q can take over .8 seconds to fully cast, it kills any fluidity the champ has.

GigasTenk5/3/2019, 6:13:44 PM8 votes

I do not appreciate this nerf to AP Malphite, which has been my main since season 3.

RiotRiot Lutzburg5/14/2019, 8:35:53 PM7 votes

Hi everyone! Appreciate the continued discussion around Malphite; clearly he holds a special place in a lot of people's hearts as one of the first Champions they ever played. I have a small update with where we're at:

  1. We're effectively mechanics-locked as of the latest iteration, and have entered the tuning/number tweaking phase

  2. To that end, yesterday I did some bug fixes and am currently testing a minor Base Stat clean-up. Those should be on the PBE today

  3. Riot Beardilocks did an amazing job on updating Malphite's VFX across all his skins- check them out if you haven't had the chance!

  4. Since this is an opportunistic change list, we still don't have a specific release patch in mind. Stay tuned!

While not exhaustive, here's a breakdown of some of the major revisions I've made since posting the original change list. Still seeing a lot of people talking about outdated values and mechanics, so I'd like to dispel some of that now.

Passive- Granite Shield

  • Size scaling has been refactored to account for the massive Armor values Malphite can get through his W. His growth spurt now caps out at ~700 Armor

Q- Seismic Shard

  • AP ratio reverted to LIVE value
  • Cast time reverted to LIVE value
  • Q now checks if "stealing" move speed would result in a faster Malphite, and uses that value in the rare cases when it does

W- Thunderclap

  • The much beloved 3x Armor multiplier has been retained
  • Mana cost increased to 30 from 25
  • W's sustained damage and dueling potential was listed as a major red flag during internal testing, so it's seen a number of nerfs over the last two weeks

E- Ground Slam

  • Mana cost decreased by 10 at all ranks

Base Stats

Here's the Base Stat clean-up I'm trying; definitely no promises that these will all make it through, as they're almost all buffs and we're worried this update is already pushing Malphite pretty far. Goal was to further solidify Malphite as the definitive anti-AD tank while indirectly nerfing his late-game AA damage potential, which was getting pretty nuts when building Triforce + Wit's End.

  • Attack Speed growth reduced to 3 from 3.4
  • Base Armor increased to 40 from 37
  • Armor growth increased to 4 from 3.75
  • HP rounded up to 575 from 574.2

Malphite -Lutz

RiotRiot Beardilocks5/8/2019, 8:27:06 PM7 votes

Here's a video showing the new Malphite VFX, along with all his skins:

https://youtu.be/HQIediote48

DefiantNipple5/3/2019, 6:47:16 PM6 votes

Looks like nerfs. I'm especially unhappy about the Q AP ratio going down and the cast time going up - the ability to build AP on Malphite is really fun and necessary in a lot of matchups, and the Q damage is very important for that because how else can he all-in ranged champs without poking them a bit first? These Q changes are not a good trade for a longer range and faster missile speed. I like the W giving an auto-attack reset, but I dislike the armor being removed while the ability is in use. It might be cool to have give him dramatically higher armor for a BRIEF moment, so that he can use W to block an AD ability the way Garen can. I also dislike the frontal-cleave.

AtomToast5/3/2019, 6:08:58 PM5 votes

Personally pretty exited for these changes. Though I also liked the uniqueness of the insane armor stacking and ms stealing. Esp the armor always had a really strong synergy that I would like to keep one way or another

Soraka Equinox5/3/2019, 6:30:38 PM4 votes

Every tanks in the game have porcentual damage (ornn, maokai etc) Malphite loses every 1v1 vs tanks because he has 0% damage to deal with. I think you should drop the flat ap damage of his q and give him some porcentual damage (4/5% maybe)

Done255/4/2019, 11:27:08 PM4 votes

I would highly recommend trying to find something new for his Q. It's never really been that interesting of an ability and has generally created problems due to the point and click fire and forget nature of the spell. He really needs some skill expression in his kit outside of landing his R. Some kind of skill shot that can be dodged. It's rather unfortunate that he has Gnar (Mega rock throw) and Ornn (pillar eruption) eating into his design space of "I am a living mountain".

"Shard Spear" - Malphite hurls a shard for X damage. The first Champion or Large Monster hit by the shard stops the projectile and is hit with a decaying slow of X% and rending their defenses by X% for three seconds.

Removing the auto aim makes it more fair to play around and leaves room to buff the spell in ways that would make the current version heavily oppressive. (Such as a lower cool down) Giving it a defense rend trait rewards AP Malphite for landing his Q before going in for the kill via RE spike.

Also, I never really understood why slamming someone with a huge rock would make Malphite faster in the first place.

Sire Hippington5/3/2019, 8:39:06 PM3 votes

Honestly, i'm not a fan of those changes.

You take some survivabillity and aoe burst for more reliable singletarget burst, remove the unique and fun MS-steal, make him more clunky with a unneeded casttime increase and lower the damage potential on his most reliable tool, while also lowering the uptime of his mobillity.

I don't think this will do much to help maph, and i'd really like to keep the ms steal mechanic that helps the li'l rock to keep up with speedy horses and the likes. Also, the loss on the bonus armor duering his passive takes some interesting interactions from malph and his opponents and makes him more blunt in higher elos. Given that all his base kit just checks wether you are close enough to the target or not, playing around his passive is the only really interesting thing in lane on both sides, and this changes would take alot away from that. Also, less dmaage on Q, more cast time and less armor on the passive make him A LOT more vulnerable into ranged laners...

Impidimp5/3/2019, 8:09:35 PM3 votes

Honestly, if you're nerfing his Tank and AP builds, what does he have left? I'm a huge malphite fan, but I specifically enjoy becoming an unkillable armour wall with insane amounts of bonus armour with my shield up. Theres too much damage in this game as it is, tanks are struggling enough as it is. Please do not remove the bonus armour, I honestly believe its integral to his identity and would be better at making him feel like an unmovable mountain than more damage would.

Moonscourge5/3/2019, 8:46:39 PM3 votes

I hate to say it but this seems like a massive nerf for no real reason other than "make it new".

He will still have horrendous mana costs, a weaker W, no ability that would help him slap the enemy if they don't want to take that fight, less armor overall because of W change and loading damage into multiple auto attacks is extremely weird too. You're never going to get more than one or two out and anybody with even the slightest hint of a CC will just peace out anyway.

Obviously I am open to change my mind once I've actually played with these changes, but the first impression seems awful just from a strength point of view.

Advacus5/3/2019, 9:34:49 PM3 votes

Any thoughts on making thematic champions more similar to each other? I know this would take a lot of work and it definitely out of the scope of this champion rebalance but it would be cool if Malphite works the earth similar to Taliyah but opposite. While Taliyah uses up the nearby ground requiring her to find new ground Malphite could make the space near him more impowered increasing his (insert one of his skills here), cus you know he is a tank and should be rewarded for holding his ground. Plus I like how all the Freljord champs have that 4 hit passive, would be cool if our earthen friends got something similar.

Just thoughts from a fan

Advacus.

Tazzmani5/3/2019, 9:57:35 PM3 votes

Not a fan of the ideas, especially the W. Only good thing would be the AA reset. Currently activating his w messes up the AA, especially on mecha malphite. To me He's perfect the way he is. He s very simple but hilarious to play.

Sorry for not much useful feedback, I just think that he's great the way he is.

rastarogue5/4/2019, 2:52:57 AM3 votes

Gonna post my thoughts as someone whose generic jungler has been malphite for many years.

**Q Thoughts: ** The Q cast time increase is going to hurt. It already feels bad to be charging in to gank someone and stop to cast your slow, to have the stop increased will make him feel more clunky, combined with people ducking into FOW as it gets cast and cancelling it, opening that window up is going to be annoying.

The Loss of the movement speed steal removes one of my personal favorite bits of mini strategy in the game. When ganking bot, do you use it on the ADC or the Sup, does one of them have boots? Does one of them have a movespeed buff up at that moment? Do I just want to leverage the slow? Making it a flat slow/speedup removes that interaction and strategy. Is it a teamfight and they have an ulting Yi? Make him pay and zoom around yourself!

Reducing the amount of time the speed buff lasts will also make it harder to stick to opponents, since his other abilities don't grant him target access or stickyness (no tenacity increases, no other speed buffs, no other slows, ONLY the ult) reducing the amount of time he goes fast will just make it harder for him to get to people.

W thoughts: Please don't change the name! I personally happen to love it

The loss of the armor boost (the 3x one) removed an interesting bit of strategy. Similar to how Garen can use an ability to increase his tankyness, being able to temporarily make yourself vastly more defensive was a huge plus in certain matchups. Also curious how this will effect the jungle clear as for the duration you took less damage from monsters and I'm a little afraid he'll eat a lot more from camps especially during his early clears.

I personally don't want him to be a burst champ, he's a tanky and I think as a Living Mountain as you have emphasized, he should be focused around being tanky, not doing high damage. Removing a tanky tool makes me frustrated, as it leads me to have one less actually interesting tank interaction in the game.

Other thoughts Malphite's a mountain, he doesn't need to throw a quick stone, I'd take a longer travel time and a larger slow personally. He's a mountain, I'll take a tankyness increase over a burst/damage leveling any time. HE'S a MOUNTAIN, when he builds armor it's like making it harder for people to climb over him, so they should take more damage from his abilities OVER TIME, not in a burst. HE'S a mountain, he wears people down, and then crushes them in an avalanche (unstoppable force), not just through a mountain at them.

I appreciate that you are looking at him, and I'm glad you are taking feedback before committing the changes.

Dokueki Kenshin5/14/2019, 7:56:51 PM3 votes

This is actually a really great idea, doing smaller/scale tweaking on champions that need some love but can’t get into the main project pipeline due to other obligations/plans already in the works. I see there are quite a few of these up in the Dev corner, and for those champs that perhaps aren’t a high priority for a VGU or a VgU, please keep doing these.

iNMagee6/10/2019, 5:46:50 PM3 votes

Suggestion: Malphites spikes become more "spiky" and he gets slimmer as he gains AP

Salvor Hardın5/3/2019, 5:56:24 PM2 votes

I thought Malphite was a candidate for a full VGU, I'm glad I didn't have to wait so long and have it updated now. The only thing I hope is that he will continue to have a healthy jungle clean as he has now.

I think you could make the R range scale with the skill level, that way you can slightly reduce the power of Malp Early-mid game and give it some more power in his " boring " rest of skills.

brachydios345575/30/2019, 5:39:07 PM1 votes

Is this change still coming out? I know this question may seem kind of stupid but this idea has been in the works for a bit and I'm very interested in seeing it go to live servers along with the other wukong update that I was expecting to come out this patch rather than just a bunch of random nerfs that came out of the blue and that dreaded Janna buff.

retromonk6/6/2019, 9:08:04 PM1 votes

I just saw that the changes have been reverted on PBE and I was wondering if it still was coming

Win Zhao7/18/2019, 5:38:01 AM1 votes

Praise Riot Lutzburg