Can Malzahar still be played now?

Malzahar was once known as the „Anti Assassin“. Regarding the recent changes of the Assassin Champions, which gave them a new edge and freshness; one might think that Malzahar might still be a valuable and useful pick against them.

When somebody jumped Malz, he had everything to engage in a 1 on 1, making himself a dangerous opponent in the lane and a key for teamfights as carry and carry-killer. Now however after the mage updates, he has lost this kind of lane potential, which is the reason I am writing this, to make you aware of some inbalancement – or at least a lack of something that made Malzahar Malzahar.

After the update he lost a significant amount of damage. I will spare you all the maths but will leave a link here, with a similar thread, which did all of it. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/de/c/gameplay-balance/pEpTVBzc-reworked-malzahar-vs-pre-rework-malzahar )

Before the update 1 on 1 never was a problem. Dealing high dmg in a few seconds with a frenzied voidling, his skills and – especially - the R, rendering the opponent unable to do anything while being forced to see how their lifebars are getting drained. Malzahar was all about getting to the enemies carry, suppressing him in an open and killing him while doing so. Right now he is unable to perform this one on one. His R lacks the damage.

Still, it DOES damage, a percent of the enemies maximal health in 5 seconds. Through the field under them. The nether grasp itself isn’t doing anything anymore besides holding the target in place for 2,5 seconds. Which means the target will only get half the damage, regarding the fact that everybody will just walk out of the field and leave it be. The other thing is the kind of damage: a percent of the enemies maximum health. Meaning (logically) the more health = the more damage dealt. Nobody would ult for the tank in a teamfight when a (now probably fed) assassin and an adc are running around killing everybody. Also meaning an enemy tank would fulfill its role = keeping the team busy. Malzahar would be busy, unable to move and an easy kill .

And as far as I can recall you_ released Malzahar as a midlaner_. With making the voidlings no longer a passive but an independent skill you put him in the jungle as a mediocre farm jungler without much gank potential besides his ult – which also has no kill potential itself. Since a change surrounding the voidlings already is on the PBE I won’t say more to them besides: let’s see where this developes.

What I am asking you to do is to look at this problem yourself. A good alternative would be to give Never Grasp itself dmg, not just the field underneath it. Or even better: change Malzahar back to the old one, before the updates. He would have the field as his W, a tool to scare tanks and to poke them down, which is also very valuable. But the latter requires it to be a normal skill, often replaced with a decent cooldown and a decent not too high dmg – meaning not staying as the ult.

Right now however Malzahar is lacking what made Malzahar a valuable team member and also what made him fun – seeing from the perspective of somebody who played this champ as a main since his release in June 2010.

Thank you very much for your time and maybe even your support.