@ RiotRepertoire: I posted everything I know about Malzahar to help in his rework

Hello, I am a diamond malz main with almost 400K mastery points on him. I am really happy but scared at the same time to see my favorite champ is on the rework list. I think it is a great opportunity to fix his incoherent kit but at the same time i feel his identity is in danger. I have mained Malzahar since season 3 but I have dropped him once I reached Diamond 4. The higher you get, the more unplayable the champ becomes and I will explain the inherent weaknesses of his kit that make him useless the higher you get and will talk about all the indirect nerfs. I wrote down everything I know of him and hope this post can help in the decisionmaking of his update.

You can't talk about Malzahar without talking about suppress Suppression is meant to be a unique game mechanic that gives those champs an edge. Currently there are only 4 champs with suppress: Malzahar, Warwick, Skarner and Urgot. What makes suppress better than a regular stun? The only thing is enemies being suppressed can't use summoner spells. The huge downside is that you stun yourself as well and the suppress gets cancelled by almost any cc like a silence, stun or any displacement like a knock up, knock back, grab/hook and sometimes even when a teammate blocks you. Suppress is point and click but the downside is that it is very vulnerable and easy to counter ability by any teammate. I just feel suppress is just not that unique or rewarding anymore compared to a regular stun. The downsides outweight the upsides by a lot. Especially in teamfights the suppress is a lot worse that a regular stun or root. The other problem of suppress being point and click hard cc means it is hard to balance because by definition it lacks counterplay other than 'don't get in range'. I feel the line between broken and underwelming is very thin thus suppress needs either a rework or removed from the game completely.

Now lets start talking about Malzahar

• 1.Distinct - offer a unique reason to be picked Malzahar has a lot going on. He is one of the few champs left with a silence, he is one of the best splitpushing mages, best mage vs tanks. He is a nichepick not because he can pick targets like Meddler once said but because he can deal with tanks. That is what truely makes him unique as an APC and a distinctive and clear reason to pick him over other champs in the same role.

• 2.Cohesive - deliver on their core thematic and gameplay fantasy I like how he brings the Void to the Rift. All his abilities somehow interact with the Void. Voidlings, Void pool, Void portals shooting projectil and his ult releasing the power of the Void nuking and enemy. He is a badass prophet who uses the power of the void.

• 3.Healthy - balance-able and fun to play as and against at all skill levels Definitely not. He is a strong pick in low eelo but extremely weak in higher eelo. You can't play him once you pass diamond 4. I hope he gets some changes to his kit to make him more balanced in low eelo and more playable in higher eelo.

1.What aspect is most core or sacred to their identity? For me the core to Malzahar is

• His strategic niche to deal with divers, juggernauts and tanks.
• His E to farm and harras with voidlings.
• Kill potential at lv 6
• His AoE silence
• His ult counters mobility

2.What issue bothers you the most when playing them? His unreliable kit in higher eelo. His voidlings pathblock him, stun him against walls. That is extremely annoying. The fact he has no meaningfull ways to get to his targets. Also against popular believes, he doesn't just press R to kill you. He needs at least to hit his silence most of the times or the enemy will get away. So compared to most champs he needs to hit a predictable and relatively easy to dodge and midrange skillshot to kill his target while almost all others FIRST hard cc their target and then deal their damage like Lux, Morgana, TF, Ahri etc etc. He can't kill anyone without his ult. This is extremely frustrating. If the enemy has 2-3 priority targets it means he is useless in teamfights because he can only kill 1 and will not be able to do anything vs the others. Also if he didn't kill you after using his ult he will have no means to kill you that fight. Another thing is QSS. It really 100% counters him. I find frustrating is that all his abilities have such different range. It makes his kit and ability to assasin uncoherent. Last thing, sometimes you ult while the other uses a cc on you at the same time canceling your ult. That is why you need to hit your silence first.

The following things make Malzahar useless

• Tahm Kench. He eats his ally and brings him to safety out of the tether range
• Bard ult
• Kindred ult. They can save any teammate.
• Sterak's Cage. Also his bane. Malz is a onetrick pony and if his burst gets negated he is useless
• Kallista can AA while suppressed. Getting outDPS'ed and outhealed by Kallista.
• Overall APC nerfs due to increase in item prices and higher MR items + 25% damage reduction on his W in patch 5.24 really hurted his ability to melt tanks.
• Early-midgame manaproblems
• Every new champ has mobility so they can easily dodge his Q and W. He has no ways to get to his enemies
• MS items like Luden's Echo and recently Lichbane gave APC's more access to speed making Q and W easier to dodge
• Buff to QSS made it an even more accessible and core item for many AD champs. Literally his bane. This item also makes him useless as a splitpusher. If the enemy buys it he has 0% chance to win a 1 vs 1 situation because he revolves completely around his ult. (He uses his ult to keep enemies on his W to melt them really fast). Unless the rest of the team brings in cc to compensate for Malzahar he is useless. He can only do 1 job and if he can't do it he is useless.
• Overall mobility/dash creep. He has no meaningfull ways to get to his enemies.

Why are these recommended items?

• There are other champs who make better use of RoA than Malz. This is something some people will disagree on but I almost never buy RoA on Malz. For me it is not his core item but with the recent buff and overall nerfs to other AP items I feel like I am being pushed to buy something on him that doesn't fit his kit
• Luden's Echo is also bad on him. He is NOT a poke champ. He needs to stay in backline and melt the divers and juggernauts.
• His core items are Rylai/Liandry/Voidstaff.

Malzahar's abilities- Passive I think it is great in some occasions but still unreliable source of damage. Voidlings are best during lanephase as they help you farm and harass your opponent. They are also great at taking turrets and tanking camps, objectives or eating skillshots for you. It just happens to many times they just 'derp around' or pathblock you and you die. Lategame they die easily and are somewhat irrelevant. However I would not like to shift power from his kit to his passive since voidlins are unreliable and I don't want Malz to become a pet trainer. However his voidlings need improvement because right now they are not doing what they should be doing aka 'derping around' and Malz should be able to walk through them so he doens't die anymore when a voidlings spawns next to him stunning him against a wall.

Call to the Void (Q) I love the fact he is one of the oldest champs and I think his silence adds a lot of tactical decisionmaking. i don't like how silences are being taking out of the game slowly because they are a pacechanger and counterbalance to all the dash/dive/engage/spam creep. It is also soft cc, enemies can still retaliate with AA's or retreat and wait for the next opportunity. The problem is the low range and how predictable it is. You need to aim off a champ and hope he kinda walks into it. His Q becomes impossible to hit further in the game and is therefore a useless poke ability. The missile speed and cast time is pretty low. It is very predictable and every champ with some sort of speed or dash can easily dodge it. The lack of range is also a problem. If he moves in to try and land a Q most champs nowadays can engage on him and he has no escapes.

Null Void (W) His W is the last ability you max. From 20-25m until 45m in the game his winrate declines drastically while his W does more damage the longer the game takes. At first sight this is a paradox. Why does a champs winrate declines while his kit is meant to melt almost anyone and deal more damage later in the game? Its because of all the inherent weaknesses of his kit I talked about earlier. They become obvious during teamfights, stalls in midlane, while splitpushing etc, when poking becomes important etc etc. This ability is great and I consider it CORE of his identity that he is able to melt tanks. That is something unique he offers as a mage. His W is his highest source of damage output, but aside from his ult he has no cc to keep champs on his pool. It also has an effect time not like Morgana's pool that does instant damage. So you can walk out of his W without taking damage if again you have any sort of speed or dash. You must be pretty dumb to walk over it or stand in it.

Malefic Visions (E) What should make him a good pusher but nowadays he gets easily outpushed in midlane by Azir, Ahri, Zed, Yasuo, Cho Gath, Morgana, , Ziggs, Ekko and many others. It is more a farm ability considered its low range and casting time. You don't walk up to an enemy during a teamfight to cast it on someone. Maybe since the mana downgrades it should refund more mana now since all his spells costs a ton of mana and have high cooldowns. Also add a new effect to it. Maybe after the last tick the vision becomes real and the enemy is feared or stunned for 1 second. That should also give him enough time to get away before getting stunned. Malzahar just needs some kind of cc in his kit.

Nether Grasp (R) I feel the suppress needs to go to open up space to give strenghts to other aspects of his kit. The suppress really holds him back in teamfights because it is such a bad mechanic nowadays, while it is also the reason he can't get buffs elsewhere in his kit without making him unbearable. i don't really know what to do with his ult. If you make it a skillshot it becomes like Vel Koz laser and that is not who Malz is. Also changing it to a point and click nuke like Syndra or Veigar could be an option. But being able to lockdown and kill someone is part of his identity. He revolves to much around his ultimate and that is a bad thing. Sometime he is nothing more than a point and click 3s stun while other times he can't ult without getting disrupted by the entire team rendering him useless. I would love to hear ideas on his ult. If it keeps its main charistics 'point and click hard cc' then maybe it needs a timer or other objective he has to fullfill before he can ult. Because I do believe point and click cc is needed in a game full off mobility creep while being a inmobile mage.

How to play Malzahar

**Here's some stuff we're happy with about Malzahar and are unlikely to change:

• A simple W>E>R is often enough to eliminate or remove enemies, leaving them little opportunity to act outside of not getting into his range.
• Voidlings are a cool and unique element of the kit that often don't play a large role in his success throughout the game (AD Malz aside).
• Malzahar is inherently low agency, and is historically balanced in a way that means he forces similarly low agency situations upon opponents.**

Simple W-E-R is not true. Just play 100 Malzahar games in high diamond and 'simply' W-E-R someone. The MOST important spell to hit before you can do anything is Q. W and E have low range. The moment you use W people just walk out of it, dash away. Apart from his ult he has no cc. Also if you don't silence first you might get stunned at the same time you use your ult. You always need to time this carefully. You don't want to know how many times it has already happened to me that I ult without silencing my oppononet first and they either dashed, flashed, or walked out of my W and therefor would not die or I got cc'ed the same time i used my ult on them.

Malzahar is in a weird spot. He doesn't have a stun or root like he can land first to follow up with a spell rotation/burst. Therefor he has NO MEANINGFUL WAYS to get to his targets. He needs to surprise them in a bush, or use flash or kill the guys in front of him during a teamfight, usually the initiator aka the Diver/Juggernaut/Tank hence Malzahar's kit relies on melting tanks.

About the Voidlings. One of the differences between a good Malzahar and a great Malzahar is how he uses his Voidlings to push and take towers fast, safely farm, harass/bully/zone oponent in lane and secure kills at 6 and in midgame. The damage of the Voidlings, especially the berserker should not be underestimated. Truth is later in the game they become less important since you don't need them anymore to burst and teamfights don't take that long anymore. I am completely fine with this. They are a great asset early game and fall of later but this trade off is completely acceptable. I don't want to shift power from his kit to make random Voidlings later in the game stronger. I really believe it won't be worth it since they become another 'thing' besides hitting your spells you need to deal your damage and they are random. Please don't make Malzahar depend on his derping Voidlings to deal damage.

**

• Malzahar will feel less like a burst caster to everyone.
• Malzahar will continue to be low range and low mobility, but he will feel less vulnerable.
• AP Malzahar players will care about using their Voidlings correctly.
• Malzahar's kit will have clearer signals for how he could have played better and/or how opponents could have played better against it.
• Possibly, but we'd like it if Malzahar functioned more as a sustained damage threat than an assassin in the long term. He'll need some tweaks to make that a reality or worthy trade-off, however
• Hopefully it will mean more that you can expect Voidlings to act a certain way and respond to certain actions in order for them to do their thing, and that them doing their thing will have a meaningful impact on Malzahar's damage (or success, more generally)."**

Less burst? It depends on how you build him. You can build him as pure assasin/burst mage or more HP damage+MR penetration oriented thus less burst. I almost always build Rylai/Liandry/Voidstaff first. Reason is because I use him as a tankmelter. The role that suits to best to his kit and had the most success with reaching Diamond 2. Malzahar's job is not to kill the carries in contrary to popular believe. Because of his low range, no cc, inmobility, vulnerability and easy to disrupt ult when exposed he has to stay in the backline. He can only focus 1 target and needs protection from his teammates and they can help him lock down the enemies. So from my point of view he is by definition a 'safe' mage because his kit doesn't offer anything to stand in frontline so you shouldn't be there. He still has clear weaknesses because he can't kill, kite or dual 1 vs 2. He is also vulnerable to hard engage with cc and he is a bad pick vs high mobility teams, poke teams and teams with 2-3 priority targets since he can only shut down 1. The highest damage output comes from his W. This got nerfed by 25% already. I believe you want to remove his W and replace it by some sustained damage ability. What makes Malzahar a unique mage is that he can melt tanks. I am not strictly opposes to it, but I see many problems. First I don't want him to lose his ability to melt tanks since for me this is a core aspects of his kit and identity. I also don't see how he can succesfully deal sustained damage when not having meaningfull ways to stick to his opponents, no cc, being low range, no mobility, squishy and high cooldowns. This is the opposite of a kit with sustained damage like . She has a ms boost, slow, spammable damage and ult to cc and spam you to death. Or someone like who stands in frontline spamming abilities, healing and dodging skillshots and being tanky. Also this would mean he would lose his kill potential. Right now Malzahar's winrate is high during early game but drops significantly during midgame. If you remove his killpotential he will be weak during early and scale into garbagetier. He applies pressure in lane and jungle and if you remove that you will remove a lot of his fun and reason to play him.

What to do with Malzahar?

Meddler said:

"Malz - More game health issues than anything else. Counterplay's not great in particular, with Malz needing to just click on you and kill you given his squishiness, immobility, lack of reach, vulnerability to item system counters. Has a lot of distinctive stuff going on though."

I mostly agree with his view. If he is not able to succesfully delete someone with his ult (aka the cc to keep someone on his W which actually does the most damage) he is useless. There is currently no middle ground. Also he has no counterplay to his counterplay. Malzahar press R, you activate QSS or Sterak's Cage passive goes off and you win. There is nothing more going on for him. If he didn't kill you during 1 spell rotation he is helpless. That definitely needs to change. Malzahar needs to be updated. We must decide what kind or role he takes and when you would like to have a Malzahar in your team. This should be easy and his keyrole is that of a disengage APC mage vs divers, juggernuats and tanks. Is he an early game champ or lategame menace? His W suggest he is lategame but after 22minutes his overall winrate drops drastically all because he revolves around his ult, and his ult gets more useless once teamfights start. I would like him to depend a lot less on his ult and become a more supportive mage for teamfights but who can still succesfully splitpush and outdual most champs. He is not an assasin but he can occasionally assasinate someone when he gets the opportunity. I definitely don't want him to become more Karthus than Annie because Karthus has zero kill potential and being able to win a 1 vs 1 and getting kills is definitely a core aspect of Malzahar. His earlygame revolves around getting kills, invading the enemy jungler and securing early drakes with his passive and being a huge threath to the enemy is small skirmishes. Once teamfights start those advantages become his weakness.