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After a hand full of games on malzahar

deadlychuck··9 votes·1,519 views

I can safely say that the rework was a near total flop.

tl;dr... riot hit few of it's goals with this update, while removing much of malzahar's core identity. They homogenized the AD and AP build, resulting in AD feeling like a cheap knock off of AP. Even looking at what they wanted, they seemed confused with where they want to take the champion, they want less mechanical intensity, but more complex gameplay.

according to RiotRepertoir (http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/developer-corner/6c2r0VAc-mid-year-mage-updates-malzahar-direction)

Anything with a line is what failed to be accomplished.

  • Here's some stuff we're happy with about Malzahar and are unlikely to change:
  • Functions well as a reliable anti-mobility/anti-assassin via Nether Grasp (R).
  • Has really fun/unique farming patterns via Malefic Visions (E).
  • Here's some stuff we're less happy with and are actively trying to resolve:
  • 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.
  • Malzahar is inherently low agency, and is historically balanced in a way that means he forces similarly low agency situations upon opponents.
  • 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).
  • Here's what I hope (these designs are still in progress) will be true of Malzahar following his changes:
  • Malzahar's kit will feel familiar to Malzahar players; he has a lot of cool spells/visuals, and we don't want to change that.
  • 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.
  • AD Malzahar will still be a decent option.
  • Malzahar's kit will have clearer signals for how he could have played better and/or how opponents could have played better against it.
  • Playing Malzahar still won't be a mechanically intense/exhausting experience.

To elaborate on each of these points, first with what did work out.

Functions well as a reliable anti-mobility/anti-assassin via Nether Grasp (R). As far as lock down is concerned, R still does the job. It will still stop an assassin or mobile enemy in their tracks.

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. This has changed enough, likely due to his awkward damage distribution. So much of his damage is now dependent on the ramping damage of voidlings, that his window to catch an enemy out with his combo is blatant and extremely small.

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). Yeah, you did it guys. You integrated voidlings into a core role of malzahar's kit. It's nearly impossible to successfully kill a target of any kind without voidlings.

Malzahar will feel less like a burst caster to everyone. He no longer feels like a burst caster. It's hard to classify what he feels like now, but burst caster it is not.

Malzahar will continue to be low range and low mobility, but he will feel less vulnerable. Yes he is still low range and low mobility, but he doesn't feel any less vulnerable. His passive simply delays that vulnerability. This isn't so much a problem with malzahar as it is a problem with his relative mobility, in a game which constantly has it's average mobility creeping upwards.

As far as what didn't work out.

** Has really fun/unique farming patterns via Malefic Visions (E).** This isn't totally false, but now his farming pattern is completely dependent on the combination of his W and E.

** Malzahar is inherently low agency** He still has the feeling of low agency, arguably even lower. Now you're so dependent on the voidlings, and they are so quick to die and slow to ramp up, that you feel you have little influence on the actual fight, and any victory just feels passive.

Malzahar's kit will feel familiar to Malzahar players It feels completely alien. Partly due to lack of agency as described above, but also because of where it fell. In general, the changes make him feel like the awkward incest love child of the AP and AD gameplay.

AP Malzahar players will care about using their Voidlings correctly. No, they don't. Not that they don't care about their voidlings, it's just that there is no using them incorrectly anymore. If you press E, then you should also press W. There's no more thought that goes into it.

** AD Malzahar will still be a decent option.** Due to the homogenization of the the two builds, AD is literally just a worse way to play. It's DPS pattern is exactly the same, and it fails to have any real advantage over AP. AD previously had the advantage of massive siege damage potential which, aside from voidlings basically being nearly impossible to siege with anymore, is no longer true as AP also has the same potential now. Again now, AP or AD, both feel exactly the same to play.

Malzahar's kit will have clearer signals for how he could have played better and/or how opponents could have played better against it. There are clear signals on how to play better against malzahar, but the lack of voidling control and throughput results in you feeling that you weren't given the option to have played better. Either the champion worked or it didn't.

Playing Malzahar still won't be a mechanically intense/exhausting experience. You know this one is honestly true, it's not as mechanically exhausting, it feels distant and unresponsive. Though i've got to wonder, why this was a point to begin with, when a champions like Yasuo Riven are easily more mechanically intense or exhausting, and earlier it even said "A simple W>E>R is often enough".

tl;dr... riot hit few of it's goals with this update, while removing much of malzahar's core identity. They homogenized the AD and AP build, resulting in AD feeling like a cheap knock off of AP. Even looking at what they wanted, they seemed confused with where they want to take the champion, they want less mechanical intensity, but more complex gameplay.

good night sweet shadow prince, you still didn't get your voidling skin. [zombie-nunu-tears]

10 Comments

EcchiOtakuTM3 votes

I pretty much like the rework aside from a few things. It fits how I use to play malz as a utility mage without the issue of not having time to setup due to the new passive.

However,

Passive- I got no complaints allows malz to actually have time to setup unlike old malz where if you had enough surprise burst he couldn't set up anything before panic ulti.

I wish that Q would EXTEND the duration of E instead of reset it because I don't wait to use Q I usually use it IMMEDIATELY after E so it's just not working for me although their idea was good and the move overall is awesome especially with reduced CD. More of a QoL change to fit a malz's playstyle.

W- Just too squishy and lost of turret siege like you stated, not to mention fully countered by any minion controlling/killing moves (Like a nunu eat/lucian's ulti/syndra picking them up before they multiply/sion pushing them away) fully destroys any viability this move had. Which isn't bad ofc but winions just need to be a bit tankier vs either winion killing/controlling moves or vs turrets(I pref vs turrets). Basically just want them to at least be tankier vs turret if anything.

E- Excellent I do somewhat miss the damage however having its duration longer if you Q was a good idea and overall feels fun to use still.

R- I know I use to play malz as a utility mage and use ulti mostly for CC but holy crap I dislike the new % damage only I want them to make the tether do base damage but have the AoE field do % max HP cause atm if you QSS and walk off the field it does absolutely no damage at all unlike before. One way I think R would be fun is if it had a passive where killing a unit leaves behind a "mini"(like 1/4th size?) Null zone for half the duration of the ulti version, give the tether portion of the ulti base damage but to compensate ultimate's null zone's base damage is nerfed to 4/6/8% per second instead of 6/8/10%.

TL;DR: Mostly fix Q to fit the usual playstyle of malz to extend the duration on E, Fix W's tankiness vs turrets, and change R so it has base damage and an "on-kill" passive of dropping null zones.

Also to clear any confusion I want Q to Extend E duration R can stay as a resetter since that would fit it's interaction with E.

On a side note why is anyone downvoting you, you pointed out great things o.o

lnterloper2 votes

Agree with this so much.

Skyroar2 votes

I highly disagree with your views so far.

  1. New Malz still feels quite familiar to me.
  2. HIs unique farming pattern still exists (who cares if it requires an extra skill now? Farming a lane while roaming is still there, it's still functional, therefore it has been preserved as promised).
  3. He's still bursty enough. As long as you can ramp minions and reset your E once, your follow-up combo will burst your opponent hard. So in general, new Malz is exactly as described: it takes a few extra seconds to unload his burst.
  4. He's safer/ less vulnerable now. His passive is overpowered, it will be nerfed and, even when it does, he'll still feel safer than old Malz for as long as the new passive exists.
1011001110002 votes

Since they kept the design of the kit relatively similar, his kit shouldn't feel alien with regards to ability familiarity, but there is a distinct difference in how Malzahar engages his trade patterns, since now AP Malzahar DEFINITELY relies on good use of his Voidlings for damage, as opposed to being able to E-W Pool and walk away while the E kills an entire wave. And that's to mention the fact that AD Malzahar literally has no reason to exist now that AP Malzahar has the SAME play pattern, but with more damage.

I can't argue against his farming pattern, since it's literally the same to me.

Malzahar's damage feels more DPS than burst, it ramps up over time if allowed to, but outside of his Q, none of his damaging abilities are actually instantaneous, high damage, but Dot/DPS damage. Just because his DPS can be so high he kills people in a few seconds doesn't automatically mean it started being burst.

The new passive feels like a bandaid, and a bad one. In the early game v ranged champions, or champions with good ranged poke, his passive will likely be down more often than it's actually up with a cooldown of 24 seconds minus his level. It only begins to attain relatively good uptime in the mid-game, where it becomes apparent that the passive was poorly designed, since the only balancing factor is its downtime when taking poke damage.

I'm not a big fan of a good number of these mage changes, because their goals are either not in line with the champions theme and role playstyle (ayyy Viktor), poorly/awkwardly implemented (e.g. Vlad's new Q sustain), or otherwise make the champion extremely volatile (e.g. Velkoz being entirely passive + ult reliant).

Skyroar1 votes

{quoted}

Malzahar's damage feels more DPS than burst, it ramps up over time if allowed to, but outside of his Q, none of his damaging abilities are actually instantaneous, high damage, but Dot/DPS damage. Just because his DPS can be so high he kills people in a few seconds doesn't automatically mean it started being burst.

By that logic, wasn't he always "more DPS than burst"? His old burst was all about stacking DoTs with WER+passive. Not very different from now, it just requires some ramp up first.

Relying on resetting E and having some minions can certainly fit a more DPS role, but when you use your ulti on top of that, that's quite a lot of damage in a short amount of time.

1011001110001 votes

I never argued that he wasn't DPS or dot-based before, I was arguing against your idea that he was ever bursty.

Assassins primarily deal burst damage. It's instanteous, not dot-based.

Annie deals burst damage. All her damaging abilities deal instanteous damage and can be combo'd together to deal a massive amount of damage in less than 2 seconds.

Malzahar deals dot-based damage. He combos abilities together that deal a certain amount of damage in intervals, especially his ultimate. In fact, the only thing in Malzahar's kit that ever dealt non-dot damage is his Q silence. His E-W combo is his most effective trade tool and reflects DPS damage. His ult is a knock-down suppression with a %hp dot pool. None of that even remotely sounds like burst.

deadlychuck2 votes

  1. He feels familiar to me too, but just because it's familiar doesn't mean it's coherent. It feels like a homogenized version of AD and AP malzahar. The only difference being that you're completely dependent on your abilities to direct your voidlings, and even then, your voidlings can't be primed.

  2. actually the farming pattern feels completely different. It's very inconsistent. He's dependent on this ramp mechanic of his voidling dps.

  3. For #3 i'll explain why it feels like a mixed muddied version of AP and AD. AD use to be that you'd ramp up to a massive amount of DPS, you were capable of getting 3 voidlings out, which could easily deal 1500 dps towards late game alone. The current gameplay is basically, that you get this massive swarm of voidlings, that can deal massive burst damage. Not DPS, burst. As once they die your DPS is basically non-existent. Even if you get another cast of W, you still don't have the swarm ramped up, and the first couple of voidlings just don't deal any meaningful damage.

  4. While his passive does provide a small amount of protection in the case of ganks in the early game. In the mid-late game when team fighting, it really offers nothing, aside from maybe a little bit of engage resistance. Though it really doesn't offer anymore security in the fight. Really all his passive does is make up for players not warding or being attentive enough to the location of the enemy jungle.

iTaLenTZ1 votes

Thank you so much for this thread. As a main Malz player for 3 years and high diamond I really appreciate everything you said. The boards are simply not ready toacknowledgement that the rework has failed completely. Just wait until his jungle is garbage as well and he will have no identity at all and no place to go in the game. At that point his pick and winrate will drop drastically and the failure can no longer be ignored.

Paroe1 votes

{quoted}

Thank you so much for this thread. As a main Malz player for 3 years and high diamond I really appreciate everything you said. The boards are simply not ready toacknowledgement that the rework has failed completely. Just wait until his jungle is garbage as well and he will have no identity at all and no place to go in the game. At that point his pick and winrate will drop drastically and the failure can no longer be ignored.

http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/pEpTVBzc-reworked-malzahar-vs-pre-rework-malzahar

Shameless plug. Uses math and kit interaction to show how much malzahar lost and what he became.

deadlychuck1 votes

I mean really if you look at the last part, the goals of the rework, then only 1.5 of the things worked out. Even then i'd argue that's being generous. Critically i'd say 0.5 of the goals were met... 0.5/7 He's still immobile sure, but he's still extremely burst reliant, and his range actually went up!

Because so much of his damage output is based on his voidlings (which no longer have a range limit from what i can tell), it's very easy to press E on a target, then have them run off screen and still be getting beaten up by your voidlings.

He is still burst reliant because of the voidling swarm design. Because the voidlings share the same duration and account for the majority of your damage, you end up in a situation where all of your damage is back ended. You have this big burst of damage in the last couple of seconds of your voidlings, before having almost no damage, while your W is on CD or you're waiting for your voidlings to stack back up. Basically, he is still a burst champion, as a result of the voidlings sharing a timer, it's just on a 6-8 second delay.

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