Boards›Gameplay

Please riot, my lane phase cant handle the Malzahar

I Main Swain··1 votes·950 views

hear me out, because every time ive made a thread calling attention to malzahars power, ive been essentially told "lol lern 2 play noob". this isnt just a qq thread after losing a game vs him (i did just get out of a game vs him, but i won), this is a problem ive had with him since the first time i saw him.

edit: problems listed in order of which i think is the most problematic

my first problem: his early game damages, in combination with his ease of restoring his mana, is insane. I would be fine him having EITHER the strong early E damage OR the good mana regain, but him having both makes it extremely easy for him to stomp you in lane. in my last game, i had a hexdrinker and their malzahar had 2 dorans rings, totaling at 66 ap. he e'd me once and aa'd me twice, and by the time his e was done i was down to 2/5 my max hp from full.

second problem: his ult is too powerful in a few ways. one, it does enough damage that if used with his e and w (which is very easy to do) you can take out all of someone's hp at almost any point in the game, all the while with them having no real ability to do anything about it since theyre suppressed. you have to rely entirely on your team to save you. however, thats not my biggest problem. my biggest problem is that, as i noticed in my last game, despite me flashing away from malzahar at the same time he cast his ult, his ult still suppressed and damaged me from over 1000 units away. i see no reason for this to happen and find it to make an already difficult to deal with ability near impossible to deal with as an individual.

third problem: his void minions dont synergize with his kit and are frankly overwhelmingly powerful to mid laners. 100% of his ad and 200% of his atk speed with a FLAT ms of 450 (correct me if im wrong on any of those but i believe those are the correct numbers). not to mention their inherent tankiness, making them both difficult to kill and survive relatively unscathed.

4th problem (fairly minor complaint, closer to a question really): his q is now the only cc ability in the game, morgana aside, that still lasts 3 seconds. why is that? genuinely interested, if anyone has the answer pls tell me.

please remember, i want this to be a discussion, so if all you can do is come in and call me or someone else an idiot, refrain and talk about why the person is wrong instead.

27 Comments

LadyRenly4 votes

His mana sustain isn't really anything to write about the first few levels. He doesn't have the damage to get E to go through entire waves.

His silence being 3 seconds isnt't that big of a deal. It's a soft form of CC. Against people who can auto attack, it's not really that great outside of perfectly timing it so kindred can't ult or something.

His ult isn't really too powerful. It suppresses himself as much as it does his victim. And it can be QSS'd.

How are his minion stats a problem? AD Malzahar will knock on your inhibitor's door way faster than AP Malzahar, but then he has no spell damage. It has AD scalings because you aren't really meant to build AD I guess.

I Main Swain1 votes

his e damage ALONE isnt enough, but with the minion agro and his aa's its easily enough for all but the siege minion (unless the siege minion is being focused by the whole wave).

silence is a pretty hard form of cc against mid laners. like i said in the post, thats not as much a complaint as it is an inquiry as to why it lasts as long as it does, but talking about its effectiveness against aa reliant champs is naturally not going to cause much of a problem because they are specifically designed to use abilities less.

his ult is actually way more powerful than people give it credit for. yes it suppresses him and yes it can be qss'd, but qss requires any ap champ to lose a much needed item slot, and he can use his allies to help keep people off of him during his ult to solve the suppressed problem. it only takes a couple seconds after all.

have you never played against a malzahar (honest question, not trying to be rude)? because his minions are ridiculously powerful, even if hes just building straight ap. theyre fairly tanky so they take work to kill. they have high atk speed and damage scalings, so their damage to you is really heavy. they have 450 ms at all points of the game, which is over 100 more than the avg starting ms. to top it all off, it only takes 4 ability casts to bring one out and it lasts for a pretty good amount of time. and strength aside, it just doesnt make sense with the rest of his kit. entirely unrelated.

kJs1 votes

The reasoning why it lasts that long is that because it is delayed and it's a really soft form of CC. If you can't dodge them then you really have to work on your dodging. If you play mobility champions then you can easily save that one ability to dodge the silence. Note that the skillshot is width wise, so walking side to side is a stupid idea if it ever comes up. You have to either walk straight to Malz or straight away from Malz to dodge it.

Malzahar loves it if you play passively/defensivly against him because it lets him be safe and he gets free E harass. Also note that his E actively shoves the lane towards your tower so getting your jungler to gank is easier. Everything else he has besides his ultimate is AoE, you can use that to your advantage if you plan with your team mates to shut him down early.

Like Annie you have to watch for his passive stacks. It's best to jump on Malz during lane when his passive in on 1 or 2 stacks and his abilities are on CD. His ultimate's damage alone isn't actually enough to 100-0 you unless he's considerably fed.

Malzahar can't ult while multiple champions are near him lest he gets interrupted or killed whilst supressing himself.

Which means always pair up in twos or threes whilst roaming so he can't get a safe ultimate off of anyone.

Zhonya's is a pretty strong counter to Malzahar because it means his E gets cleansed, which means voidlings stop automatically aggroing you and he can't ult you. If you pair up with a team he will be more likely to run away rather than stay just to get an ult or a Q off of you.

kJs2 votes

Malzahar has no mobility abilities, neither does he have any escape tools besides Flash. He doesn't even have movement displacement abilities or movement CC like slows, until he gets a Rylai's. You can exploit his immobility by picking high damage champions and just deleting him. He's also got really high mana costs on his W and Q so he can't spam those. His E gives him mana back and it does a lot of damage but it's DoT it isn't a burst damage ability.

item 3140 item 3157

I Main Swain1 votes

there are a whole lot of champs without mobility though, but i did forget to mention the lack of cc. the thing about the high damage champs though is they have to either survive his damage or do all their damage out of his range, neither of which is an easy task for most champs (at least as far as mid laners goes). essentially, my issue with him - for the most part at least - can be summarized as me as an individual lane opponent can do very little against him with most champs during the early game.

zhonyas would only help minimally and qss is an item for ad champs. you can get it on ap champs, but you have to sacrifice another much needed item.

edit: also, why does cleanse not work on his ult? that annoys me a lot

kJs1 votes

If you're looking for counter picks then there are plenty. Diana Fizz Syndra Galio Kassadin Orianna Ekko Ahri Morgana Riven

Other AD Assassins in the game need QSS.

Swain does fine against Malzahar as well. They're kind of the same but Swain is tankier with more CC. You can set up ganks easy with your snare and slow whilst Malzahar needs an ult to do that.

I Main Swain1 votes

you ever played swain vs malz? its very much not fine, and swain doesnt have more cc. malzahars silence and suppress are way more meaningful in mid lane than swains slow and root. yes, swain can set up ganks better, but malzahar wouldnt even need the ganks. as of yet i have only won 1 game as swain against a malzahar, and ive never not lost lane.

7ha7guy7771 votes

I think part of this has to do with Swain, Ryze, and Brand being the most commonly played bots if you take Malz mid in coop vs ai. As a result, most malzahars have at least some experience facing swain. Combine that with swain's lower range and pushing power and it becomes a skill matchup at best.

Stephenizgod1 votes

Wowowow if anything, if there was going to be work done on Malz, not saying there should be or would be, but if there was! It should be a buff not a nerf... Again not saying he is in need of a buff (although some QoL changes to his Malefic Visions and Voidlings would be nice) just a hypothetical...

If you are good you can negate pretty much everything about him. You can stop his mana regain early game by intercepting his E, he needs to kill 6 minions to regain the full cost of his E so if you stop him at 2 or 3 he'll lose more mana then you will health comparatively. There are no mana pots which means he can't really afford to use too many spells early game unless you are doing nothing to stop his E from giving him mana back. His E does not do all that much damage early game and if he uses it to poke he doesn't have it to regain mana, if the last minion in the wave has the E on them and is about to die you should just move away from them and i wont bounce to you. Plus its a DoT, not burst, so you can shield or heal and cancel the damage.

His voidlings can be kited fairly easily or outright killed before they Frenzy. They are kind of stupid anyways, half the time they just stand there like idiots while im being triple dove under my turret...

His silence can be dodge by moving out of the way... simple as that. His silence is as long as it is because it is not super easy to hit and is super easy to dodge, sooo yea if you hit it you deserve to do some damage. Also since his ult is so easy to escape or cancel its really his only way of hitting it on someone who knows the timing of his ult.

His ultimate can be cancelled by any CC cast before or slightly after he casts his ult. I have been knocked out of my ult by a Jayce from 900 units away after he was already suppressed (by that i mean the symbol above his head)... So its not like the timing is super hard... Also despite popular belief his ult really doesn't do much damage by itself, i know it says it does but just try playing him and ult someone at 100% hp its sad really, hell throw down your W and your E, you probably wont 100-0 them unless 4 kills up and 2 levels higher. Besides he is standing still as well making him easy pickins for the enemy team, so positioning is key. As for your flashing away when he ults, you do realize that means you got to flash while you were suppressed right? If anything this is a sign of weakness for his ult, means you can cast other abilities too... I agree though, you should not have been ulted after you flashed, you should not have been able to flash in the first place, i mean im still suppressed, why should you get to cast abilities?

His W is... well who can complain about it? If you stand in it long enough to notice damage that is your fault, its only use is when he ults. So if he throws down his W, run away Malz will most likely ult you... Its also a good indicator of Malz's range, run out of it and you are out of Malz's range.

Yea Malz don't need no nerfs he is fine the way he is except for a few buggy bugs about him like how his E will not return your mana unless you get the kill, it says as long as they die while the E is on them so idk why it wont give mana. His Voidlings will freak out or just stand still, which is annoying. His E will bounce incredible distances sometimes, other times it wont bounce from front line to back line. His ult is the one thing i think needs some buffing and then compensation nerfs. It should not be able to be stopped by CC casted after he suppresses them nor should ANYONE be able to cast any abilities while in his ult, like Gangplank or Tryndamere (obviously QSS should still work). I think the damage should be lowered though as compensation.

warpenguin5551 votes

Malz vs Swain. Now that's something I wanna see.

I Main Swain1 votes

i dont, it freaking sucks :(

BadmoonBC1 votes

I used to main swain. If your going against malz as swain then yea, it's gonna be a problem. His wave clear is 100x better, and you basically are going to die to his dot/ult long before he would die to yours. The best advice I can give you is play it safe, learn how to farm under turret with swain. Otherwise pick a champ that can counter push malz. Lastly, you can always just gangplank Into him and everything will be k. Seriously, last year I finally bit the bullet and when enemy team picked malz I picked GP and finished 17/6 or something silly with crit plank.

I Main Swain1 votes

yeah swain vs malz i have never even not fed with. but the game i was referring to i was playing zed. it wasnt as bad on him as it is on others as i could farm fairly well from a distance, but the damage he was dealing to me with just his e early game was so much i couldnt risk walking up to the minion wave if he was there. ill have to try out gangplank though, i always forget about him.

BadmoonBC1 votes

If your zed vs malz you need to buy a hexdrinker and/or a QSS. I'd honestly rush a QSS on zed vs malz because it literally makes malz useless since he can't ult you. Or riot could just fix the damn thing and make it a stun so cleanse the summoner spell would work on it. But since it's a suppression it won't cleanse it

I Main Swain1 votes

...I said in there that i rushed a hexdrinker. despite that, he (with only 66 ap) was able to take out 3/5 of my hp with 2 aa's and his e. consistently, on everyone ive played but galio, regardless of what i build, malzahar still does a ton of damage to me.

kJs1 votes

And you just let him deal that damage? That damage that is a DoT? You should have damaged him as well. Most mid laners are burst types and it scares the crap out of Malz players.

I Main Swain1 votes

lol what was i supposed to do? magically cancel his e? i did damage him, but i could do very little considering that he had ult and his e alone did that much damage to me.

kJs1 votes

Zed has an easy time harassing Malzahar, all of his abilities deal full damage even when hitting multiple opponents. Zed has strong waveclear as well. Don't play passively to Malzahar as a melee or else you'll just lose every trade.

I Main Swain1 votes

trust me, i wasnt playing passively. in fact, i was playing as aggressive as safely possible. the problem is that while zed has strong waveclear, its not as strong as malzahars unless you go up and melee the minions, which was very difficult to safely do.

kJs1 votes

You know you could just get QSS right? Zed's already got decent harass damage without any major AD item. QSS literally means Malz can't ult you. You make it sound like it's superhard rofl I'm done here.

I Main Swain1 votes

you make it sound like qss just solves all your problems, like he'll suddenly stop damaging you. first of all, all qss does is remove the cc, not the damage. in fact, it even has a longer cooldown than his late game ult cd, but thats not the point. saying qss makes malz ez to beat is like saying amumu might as well afk if you get a banshees.

also, zeds harass damage is only decent in the early game when he doesnt have any ad items, and i mean EARLY game. and any good player can force a zoned zed to pick between damaging you and farming.

kJs1 votes

But that is literally all it takes if you are even decent at this game. QSS is all it takes for Malz to lose his kill potential on you. If you are a Zed you save your QSS and ult. When Malzahar combos you you QSS and then you ult him. QSS removes the supression and your ultimate removes the damage from his ultimate and then proceed to half health him whilst his abilities are on cooldown.

You are also pretending like you will never get ganks from your jungler. Or your top laner won't roam.

I Main Swain1 votes

that's not all it takes because malzahar isnt the only champ on the enemy team. a good portion of the time youll be against a team where for whatever reason you cant always save your qss for him.

im not pretending like you dont get jungle ganks or top lane roam (although tbh thats the sad story of my life :/). im just talking like that because you shouldnt need to rely on ganks to beat a champion unless youre doing something wrong or they have balance issues (usually the former)

BadmoonBC1 votes

The QSS will save you from taking any damage from his ulti so maybe rush that with a vamp scepter/cutlass for some sustain. Other than that you just have to make sure your farming with Q on zed and not near any minions that he has his dot on. Hang back wait for the jungler then shadow in and ulti him. There's absolutely no problem with farming a lane and playing defensively. You don't always have to win trades etc. at the same time, with zed, pre6 especially, you should be able to trash malz with W>Qs or even W>E>Qs Feel free to add me and I could show ya some tricks

I Main Swain1 votes

qss doesnt stop the damage, just the suppress.

trust me, thats how i was farming 90% of the time, but when i was under tower or i would be just close enough to him he would still get e's off me every once in a while. i was doing pretty well against him early game with my w q's but after a while i just stopped doing that much to him with just that and meanwhile if i got hit with anything id get chunked.

BadmoonBC1 votes

[{quoted}](name=I Main Swain,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=8qalPwLx,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2015-11-18T21:53:30.983+0000)

qss doesnt stop the damage, just the suppress.

trust me, thats how i was farming 90% of the time, but when i was under tower or i would be just close enough to him he would still get e's off me every once in a while. i was doing pretty well against him early game with my w q's but after a while i just stopped doing that much to him with just that and meanwhile if i got hit with anything id get chunked.

Once the suppress is stopped you can either ulti or W away because the damage has a range to it Also, you just gotta practice with dodging in those cases. Lastly, you said you stopped doing much damage to him but don't forget you have no mama with low cool downs, he doesn't. So don't be afraid to spam the shurikens. Only spam w if your closer to your own tower tho because that's your get away

I Main Swain1 votes

well, once the suppress is over youre dead or almost dead (also, the suppress lasts the whole duration of the ult). also, as i said in the post, at one point i flashed away at the same time he ultied and he was still suppressing/damaging me from over 1000 units away. THAT is my biggest issue with him.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by I Main Swain

Petition to reduce Lee Sin's ult AD scaling
Gameplay238 comments
194
votes
Fizz e really needs an actual cooldown
Gameplay175 comments
173
votes
I think this may solve peoples problem with Smart Pings
Gameplay73 comments
138
votes
executioners calling now costs 800 gold and applies GW on each hit for 3 sec
Gameplay61 comments
102
votes
most hilariously op gameplay interaction ive ever seen
Gameplay63 comments
100
votes
when youre veigar with rabadons and 3 infernal drakes
Memes & Games23 comments
60
votes