Why Malz is being left as a support and Brand/Zyra will never get higher scaling/lower bases

Derfel·Mar 7, 2017·22 votes·1,316 views

Meddlers a support Brand player and he use to play main Janna (hence the existence of the monstrosity that is redemption). He sees nothing wrong with mid lane mages being mutated into bastard supports where he can play them without actually having to worry about learning how to CS, hard match ups or generally anything at all but spamming spells with meditation and tripping the adc when they get gang banged by the entire enemy team.

Rest in pieces all immobile mages, because you know Meddler's pet gerbil David Capurro will be coming back for all of you again when they announce the mage rework round 2, not featuring heimerdinger, where Azir gets some %hp true damage and Anivia loses her boots.

20 Comments

PureSilvrrMar 8, 20174 votes

Rip Malzahar 2k17, I miss my midlaner and jungler

rekd1Mar 8, 20172 votes

{quoted}

Rip Malzahar 2k17, I miss my midlaner and jungler

Malzahar can still be played mid

PureSilvrrMar 8, 20173 votes

He can, but its really bad, since your voidling can be killed easily since they don't multiply off of minions. Any midlaner that isn't melee would usually auto and use a spell on it (syndra w, lux e etc.) to kill it and half your wave clear is gone, youll have to rely on autos and trying to refresh your e without taking so much poke the farm isn't worth it.... the only way you'll get kills is from ganks, unless your midlaner is an idiot and does something stupid.... And anyway, most junglers aren't smart enough to camp a malzahar to get fed...

ShaolinToiletMar 8, 20172 votes

His winrate says otherwise

PureSilvrrMar 8, 20172 votes

because only people who played malzahar before 6.23 still play malz mid

Jinzo TorranceMar 8, 20171 votes

Or the people who fell in love with his lore (thank goodness they didn't retconned it into some random epic garbage like they are doing with everybody during his rework).

rekd1Mar 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

He can, but its really bad, since your voidling can be killed easily since they don't multiply off of minions. Any midlaner that isn't melee would usually auto and use a spell on it (syndra w, lux e etc.) to kill it and half your wave clear is gone, youll have to rely on autos and trying to refresh your e without taking so much poke the farm isn't worth it.... the only way you'll get kills is from ganks, unless your midlaner is an idiot and does something stupid.... And anyway, most junglers aren't smart enough to camp a malzahar to get fed...

To be completely honest, I think you're just playing him incorrectly in the mid lane if you're not having success with him. You mention Lux, but Lux was always a soft counter to Malzahar even before his rework; same goes for Syndra.

I'm currently Diamond 3 at 75 LP with 109 Malzahar games playing him primarily mid. My smurf account is Diamond 4 at 62 LP with 94 Malzahar games playing him primarily mid as well. You can certainly still succeed with him in the mid lane.

PureSilvrrMar 9, 20172 votes

I know he can, I'm really just salty that riot wont fix his problems and just leaves him in this state where he is played almost 80% as a support and the rest as a midlaner.

And I'm practically in bronze anyway so il usually get fed no matter what,

I just wish riot would fix his kit.

Also 6.23 ruined his jungle so I'm mad about that...

KaiokoMar 8, 20173 votes

Malzahar is just an overall cancerous champion. Having a point and click hard CC that last 2.5 seconds and can't be reduced by tenacity is simply not a healthy kit. It's one of the main reasons Warwick was left in the gutter for so long and he's so much better off now that it's at least a skillshot for him. It needs to be removed from his kit but I think all the Malzahar fan boys will flame Riot to no end if they consider that route.

As far as Brand is concerned I think he's actually in a good spot where he's viable both in mid and support and I wouldn't change him other than maybe tweak some base damage and ratios.

Zyra needs to have the patch of "plants don't prioritize champions unless they are hit by a Zyra spell" actually work and those plants should not proc thunderlords then Riot should look at buffing the rest of her kit so that she can fall in better line with Brand with being viable both mid and support.

Personally I see nothing wrong with those champions being played as support if they aren't too oppressive. I do think it shouldn't come at the cost of their mid lane roles though. That and the changes are just my opinion though.

deadlychuckMar 8, 20174 votes

Malzahar's ult wasn't really as bad as people make it out to be. If you were laning against him, you could easily obtain a QSS before you ran the risk of getting comboed to death. Into the mid-late game, it was on the team to throw out some form of interrupt to stop his ult, which was rather easy.

It's not that counterplay doesn't exist for malz ult, it's that malzahar will punish you for not playing around him. Like pretty much every other champion in the game.

KaiokoMar 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Malzahar's ult wasn't really as bad as people make it out to be. If you were laning against him, you could easily obtain a QSS before you ran the risk of getting comboed to death. Into the mid-late game, it was on the team to throw out some form of interrupt to stop his ult, which was rather easy.

It's not that counterplay doesn't exist for malz ult, it's that malzahar will punish you for not playing around him. Like pretty much every other champion in the game.

the same thing can be said for Warwick's old ultimate too. You could buy QSS or you could have your team CC him. Fact of the matter though, that ult is the reason his other abilities weren't up to par and kept him from being an interesting champion. Now that it's been changed I think he's a lot more fun to play and his kit offers more flexibility.

deadlychuckMar 8, 20173 votes

Well unfortunately the botched rework wouldn't be made any better if they changed malz's ult at this point.

In fact, all his rework really did was move focus away from his Q and E, and onto his new W, his ult is still just as, if not more, important than it was before the rework. If they want to actually change his ult, they need to revert him and go from that starting point, because his abilities which were up to par, are no longer.

KaiokoMar 8, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Well unfortunately the botched rework wouldn't be made any better if they changed malz's ult at this point.

In fact, all his rework really did was move focus away from his Q and E, and onto his new W, his ult is still just as, if not more, important than it was before the rework. If they want to actually change his ult, they need to revert him and go from that starting point, because his abilities which were up to par, are no longer.

Completely agreed. I apologize if I didn't make it clear -- essentially I think he needs his ult changed then a rework on Warwick's level to make him interesting to play and healthy for the game.

The JigSAWMar 8, 20172 votes

I have never been a fan of anybody on the balance team being able to play favorites and "balance" champion kits and rework them according to those biases.

The balance team needs to be IMPARTIAL - If you hate or like a certain champion, you shouldn't be able to have influence over them. Period. You can tell at least two people on that "balance" team play Yi and Yasuo, just saying.

DerfelMar 8, 20175 votes

League's popularity is completely disconnected from it's micro balancing which naturally makes it hard for rioters who work on champion design and balancing to actually improve their craft (not to mention a corporate culture that seems to genuinely believe that insight can be boiled down to inappropriately using uncommon words delta delta). Criticisms are ignored because they can be, mistakes are repeated because there are no consequences, people buy skins people watch LCS we occasionally see a feel good "communication" (aren't you glad Riot is talking at us! - says the shill) where Riot talks about oh how they've totally learned x and y and how it's all going to be better and then we get edge of night, the assassin update, stealth rework, camille and the cycle continues inperpetuity till league starts to rot away like WoW.

The JigSAWMar 8, 20171 votes

I gotta tell you, the bottom line here is I really don't think anybody at Riot's balance team has a freakin' clue about what an assassin is supposed to do.

Assassins exist for one reason: Kill. They go in, kill, and leave. Rinse and repeat. They are not scored by assists and farm, the goal is to target carries and execute them 1vs1 via ambush. That's the whole point of what you do when you play an assassin is to kill the person quickly or get punished for screwing up. Yet, Riot bases most of its formula on assassin's on farm and assists, which is not the goal of the class at all, to get the much vaunted S rating. I understand it is a team game but assassins are supposed to be the ones taking kills over assists much like ADC's.

I don't think Riot learned a damn thing. Camille is a great example of a champion who was repeatedly nerfed because of perceived strength - every champion has either a higher or lower than usual winrate for the first month. Rather than wait two months to see how the original nerf went, they nerfed Camille -seven- times in the course of three patches. Suffice to say, I rarely see her anymore. So Camille's ult vanishes when she dies, but Heimerdinger's turrets keep firing for 4 seconds? Morde's R still exists until the duration is finished? These things make no sense for an ult that itself does no damage and punishes divers, lasting for four seconds. But, hey, as long as we can dash around the rift throwing tornadoes every 1.3 seconds and block anything coming our way with a giant indestructible wall who cares?

The LCS is the major issue - Riot wants people to be like the pros, quite obviously. The best way to do that is with Team Builder returning - guarantees you your role and champion of choice. They removed that so now blind picks is just fighting over roles. The pros have a specific person for a specific role - do you ask Faker to go support? How about asking Peanut to mid? Pros have their role -guaranteed- but Riot only gives a 50% chance of your declared primary role in draft picks. Team Builder fixed this crap for three years and then they took it out and its been hell playing the game ever since, but it still beats waiting 5-6 minutes to find a draft game, going through 5 minutes of picks and bans, and someone dodging to repeat it all over again.

So with this mentality we have assassins who work more to farm and get assists than actually kill, people who are told to be like the pros forced to do roles they aren't good at when the pros have a guaranteed role because of their skill at it, items that are broken on arrival getting nerfed and new champions either buffed or nerfed excessively in consecutive patches.

Pika310Mar 8, 20172 votes

...and herein lies the inherent problem with the existence of assassins. Yes, there job is to go in, single out the main threat and 100 to 0 them with very little to no counterplay, then get out scot-free.

In other words, their role's inherent purpose is to create an anti-fun, 1-sided scenario that is counter-intuitive to basic game design. Assassins create an unfair advantage that negatively impacts player experience. The top TWELVE most-banned champions for the past month are all characters that are assassins or have assassin-like characteristics. Players HATE playing against assassins and for years they weren't allowed to do more than blow up supports.

Not for the first time, I will once again say that League is at its worst point of balance in the game's history. The fact this must be repeated periodically shows that the direction of "balance" has been and is still on a downward path since season 2.

The JigSAWMar 9, 20172 votes

There's plenty of counterplay if they knew how to actually balance and create assassin kits.

The concept is the assassin is able to use stealth techniques to single out the main cause of concern for a team and wipe them out - they must go all-in or risk being killed, and in that concept, if they screw up they are instantly able to be beaten back and if they are lucky, escape barely alive.

I agree with you about the balance 100%. This entire game has become anti-fun, including the AR URF with the people who play it with 15 op champions in that mode on a premade so they can switch champs back and forth.

However, I've always been a fan of assassins. If it makes you feel any better, LB is rendered useless so there's one down.

Pika310Mar 10, 20171 votes

She's been "rendered useless" many times in the past. We'll see how long it lasts this time.

Pika310Mar 8, 20171 votes

Ah, Meddler used to main Janna? That partly explains his personal vendetta against Sona. Brand is allowed to perma-stun at level 2 and 100 to 0 at level 3, but Sona completely lacking pre-6 cc and doing less than a quarter the ADC's HP with HER FULL COMBO, is apparently a problem. Rito would be a better company without Meddler, but we all know that's not gonna happen.