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Why was Malzahar rekitted?

Jamochawoke·10/6/2016, 7:56:20 AM·7 votes·595 views

I do honestly want to know.

I remember the initial nerfs to his W and E stating they did too much damage because of rylai's liandry's combo. I understand but the real source of the extra damage was really thunderlord's and deathfire grasp keystones. Rylai's/Liandry's was in the game for a LONG time. Everyone knew Malz did damage. However, the champ was nerfed anyways due to people starting to complain about his late-game melting power that season.

The main reasoning behind his power was because he really needed to combo to straight up melt someone and his combo was completely countered by one single item and without his ult he was just another squishy immobile mage. However, even with this item Malz offered really hard zoning utility in teamfights and siege potential.

My favorite thing about old Malz was being able to, in one teamfight: when the tank would focus you down you could drop pool at your feet and E/Q them to chunk them hard enough to consider or save Q for the majority of the team if they were bunched up. Then you still had enough to E/R the carry with some voidlings and kill them with all the splash from team helping... and if someone died with E on next to their teammates you had a very good chance of getting a double or triple kill that fight (never really got quads or pentas on him, but triple was enough).

With new Malz all the old nerfs remain and his R's direct damage was removed entirely in favor of combining the cc with the W pool (which is dumb, I hate having them combined since it lowers his utility even futher). He was compensated for this by his new W, which does do a surprisingly HUGE amount of damage on a long ass cooldown and his new passive which gives him a get out of jail card for bad positioning.

Malz used to be the positioning/zoning master champ. Kind of like how Syndra is now. When played right he controlled where the enemy team moved.

His biggest problem now is in his "buffs". His W, while exceedingly powerful, is bad vs a host of champs with easy AOE's like Vlad/Fizz/Heimer (whose turrets just shred them while you're trying to combo him now). It is also easily juked into bushes and he is absolutely useless now in a jungle teamfight.

I don't understand the ultimate decision to take all that power from the player and put it into a few AI's that easily get confused/killed/or kited, even with the E and R mechanics.

I used to main Malz for years, and now he just feels unplayable to me.

5 Comments

Xilixer10/6/2016, 8:47:27 AM5 votes

all of us old malzahar mains feel your pain. you have no choice but to focus your attention on voidlings whether you like it or not. you can thank the players who mained him in jungle for this because they kept whining about their voidling jungle builds and now we have a champ that HAS to focus on them otherwise we are doomed to deal less damage than a lulu.

Stevev4510/6/2016, 6:03:56 PM5 votes

They said his burst had game health issues so they took it away. Only champions blessed with assassin tag get to keep their burst.

The real crime with his rework is that it removed all lane interaction from his kit by taking away all his early game damage and replacing it with his supper safe passive. Now you just ignore your lane opponent and farm to 3 items, and look to team fight. When Rylia's is nerfed next season he won't even be able to split push any more.

My advice is to just more on to a different champ.

MLDzXnRRR10/6/2016, 9:22:11 AM1 votes

cuz he was never picked in competitive. also his press R to kill was unfun. and he became harder to play after the changes, but the passive shield was OP, so he had to be nerfed.