@Riot - The Book of the Void - A Collection of Malzahar Rework Suggestions (Long but worth it! xD)

Hi all,

Over the last few months I have read/written several threads regarding Malzahar. I've seen/written suggested reworks, calls for reverts, polls and no small amount of pure rage posts. This has led to me writing this post which is, for all intents and purposes, a collection of options gathered from community posts with regards to what his abilities should be.

So what am I looking for in these? Well each one has to fit into Riots alleged criteria for a champion (I'll let you guys decide whether this is something they have stuck to or not) as well as fit the lore of Malzahar and keep the core FEEL of the champion intact.

What this bottles down to is the champion must be satisfying to play, play against, fit his lore, and have the right FEEL.

Malzahar has to have 3 things imo: 1)DoT's – It's core to his character AND playstyle. 2)Voildings – As above 3)CC – He's a control mage

He must NOT have: 1)Suppression! - It's what’s led to him being dumpstered 2)Mobility – Enough hyper mobile champions, don't need more.

Quick boring thing (Though I doubt this is a problem, but just in case). Note to Riot: All contents of this thread are freely given by myself and those responding and are therefore free of intellectual ownership should you choose to use the ideas based within without consent from those that provided them.

Note to Community: Please be aware that all contents of this thread are to be options available to riot to source as they see fit in regards to champion development and therefore by responding to this post you are agreeing to hold no intellectual ownership of those ideas should Riot choose to implement them or similar features.

Yey, boring stuff over with xD

So lets start with:

Passives

>Option 1) Voidlings >Revert to 2016 voidlings. Every 4th ability used spawns a voidling.

Not a massive fan of this one. It's not very interactive, and while I like the old voidlings, I feel having this as a passive is less rewarding then having it as an ability.

>Option 2) Vision >Passive - Seers Vision >Malzahar's area of vision is slightly increased (based on level) and can see over walls/into bushes. Control wards block this but are also revealed by this, as are far sight and zombie wards. Normal trinket wards are unaffected.

So much like I stated when I made this one up (yes this is one of mine), my idea behind this is that Malzahar relies massively on his current passive to survive, but he's a SEER. He should stay alive by being able to SEE things others can't, not by being immune to damage for one hit

>Option 3) CC >Every 4th ability cast also stuns those effected for 1.5 seconds

Yeah it's Annie, but wasn't a bad idea. Also could be worked as a Kennen style, could fear instead of stun. Regardless it's a CC passive

>Option 4) Debuff >Malzahars spells reduce MR/Armour when doing damage

This was an interesting one. I'm of two minds, but it's certainly a viable option.

>Option 5) DoT >Essentially this suggestion was for Malefic Visions to be a passive burn effect cause by any of his spells with a reduced damage that stacked a few times.

I like this one as Malefic Visions is so important to Malzahar's kit and identity, but with the nessessary reduction in damage I'm unsure of how much identity as a dot mage would be left. Seems to me it'll make him more of a Brand wannabe. Still, it's viable so included :)

Q

Q seems to be less important to change but people still had some interesting idea's so here they are:

>Option 1) No change >So yeah, Call to the Void

Personally I don't see any problems with this spell beyond some minor tweeks

>Option 2) Spread >Point and click that deals any remaining damage on 1 malefic visions target, spreads malefic visions from to others nearby, and refreshed the duration on the original target

Not a bad one. Several idea's for Malz centre around the spread or ping of Malefic Visions. I'm just not sure this is the one.

>Option 3) Charm >Malzahar calls the target into his cult, slowing them by 90% charming them for 1/1.15/1.25/1.35/1.5 seconds, causing them to approach him slowly. Magic damage taken while charmed is increased by 15%. If the target was affected by Malefic Visions, it stops taking damage from malefic visions and instead takes 10%/12%/13%/14%/15% additional damage for the duration of Call to the Void

Yes this is another of mine (there will be a few xD), and is a skill shot CC much like Ahri's charm. Malzahar is meant to have a cult of brainwashed individuals. This ability reflects that.

>Option 4) Call of the Void Line >Basically the same this as the current Q but as a line attack with a stun.

I like this idea. It has counterplay and CC but is also a skill shot.

W

Ok this one is, as you'd expect, an topic of much contention and will NOT include the current voidlings. This is because they are for most Malzahar mains, a huge area of current concern/anger/disgust/other bad feelings...

>Option 1) Voidlings 2016 >pre 2016 Voidlings on a “charge” system.

I like this as it is more interactive. Could be a charge for spells cast like it used to be as a passive, but instead of it just showing up, you can use it when you like. The earlier to spawn it before you attack the more it'll do as it gets stronger the longer it's out.

>Option 2) Voidlings On Hit >Same as current voidlings except apply on hit effects and slightly more tanky

A strong contender imo. Adding on hit would allow for better damage from them which is currently lacking, and they could still scale of AD and AP allowing for several build paths. The person that sugegsted this pointed out Muramana proc might also proc BC and DD allowing for a quasi-AD build.

>Option 3) Voidlings the inbetween >Passive - Voidspawns do +100% increased damage to minions, deal +50% damage and gain movement speed towards enemies champions with impaired movement or actions, and -50% damage to epic monsters. >Malzahar summons up to 2 voidspawns which attack the nearest enemy or priority target (priority set by most recent aa or enemy affected by Malzahar's other spells (closest enemy if more than one unless stated otherwise)) >Voidspawns last for 8 seconds, their attacks deal physical damage scaling off AD and AP), have tankiness similar to the pre 2016 rework voildings got and when they kill a minion or champion they also last longer and get slightly stronger.

So this is another of mine. The basic idea is you can spawn the voidlings, and they'll do damage, but you get more reward for building them up with minion kills first. This would of course take balancing but I still believe it has potential.

>Option 4) Different Voildings >Basically he spawns a different voidling depending on his last ability used, damage done by the ability, number of enemies hit etc.

Again I like this one. There wasn't much meat on the guys post beyond a caption from the lore :"Though it has bred many of them, no two horrors of the Void are exactly the same." but I feel it has enough potential to be included.

>Option 5) Null Zone >Pre 2016 rework Null Zone

A LOT of people want this back, not necessarily as a W, but it is still a viable ability and therefore has been included.

E

Ok so as stated earlier, Malefic visions is CORE to Malzahar. For this reason I've included several variations of this much like with W.

>Option 1) No Change >Same as current version

For those that believe if it ain't broken, don't fix it. Personally I feel it needs better base damage, but as an ability is it's ok.

>Option 2) Spread >At the point it would “ping” to another target, it pings to all targets in the area instead

At this point it doesn't really need any buffs, but might need a slight nerf (yes this one is mine).

>Option 3) Spread and Stacking >Same as Option 2 but stacks several times and has a reduced damage to compensate with higher damage once stacked 3-5 times and refreshing each time.

Had a good chat with the guy about this one. One option for it was the full stacks pass onto those nearby so if in a wave of 6 it the first one dies, the rest get “infected”, then when the next one dies all the others have 2 stacks, then when the next one dies they all get 4 stacks etc etc so any champion who stayed would take increasing damage. It's a good idea, but balancing would be difficult.

>Option 4) Spread + CC >So same as current Malefic Visions but with a 0.5 second fear tagged on and a spread effect.

I feel this has potential enough to be included but would depend heavily on his other abilities not having as much CC.

Option 5) Yorick Style Same as Malefic Visions but each enemy that dies with it on them drop a "Void Mote". Reactivate to summon voidlings

Added this one as edit because a friend reminded me of a post a couple of months ago suggesting this. Was a good idea xD

R

Ok so this has very few options being posted for this one beyond "Get rid of the Suppression!". No one wants it to stay the same, but most people, myself included, have already decided what they want, so here's a 3 I've found xD

>Option 1) Grounding Null Zone >Like old Null Zone, grounds the target, and hold Malzhar hostage

Ok so yeah, this is pretty much the most popular one. The are some variations with slows, larger area's then originally or with it growing in size over the 5 seconds duration but for the most part its just Null zone with a grounding effect.

>Option 2) Nether Grasp >Malzahar channels all his inner energy breaking his voidshift (destroying his own safety passive if its up) to infect his victim with nether grasp. Nether grasp will damage the target in two stages, 70% of the total damage will be dealt as immediate burst. The remaining 30% will only be dealt at the end of the channel.

I'm including this on the condition that it is a tether ability with some form of CC at the end that doesn't effect Malzahar. I don't like it, but it fits the requirements so it's here xD

> Option 3) Null Zone MK 2 > After channelling for 1 second Malzahar opens a portal that damages and slows enemies caught in it for 5 seconds, and two seconds after leaving it/the spell ending. Enemies affected by the Null Zone spawn a Voidspawn which will attack them for 8 seconds.

This was a suggestion I made as an alternative feature to Malzahar. He would still have voidlings elsewhere in his kit, but would also have them as part of Null Zone. Still not sure about it, but as there are so few options for his ult, I'm putting this in.

So there are the Suggestions I've found. If there are any more, please feel free to post them and I'll add those that fit the criteria. If you'd like to “build you own Malzahar” by selecting options from each please feel free to and post it in the comments below to show what's popular to Riot (sadly the Poll would be too long to include every variation xD)

Please keep the comments respectful and relevant, and of course upvote.

If you're a Rioter reading this, please ask those who are struggling with what to do with Malz to come on here and speak to us: The Community has a LOT of ideas for him that they may find useful.

--Loki--

Note - The Box Quotes don't seem to be showing up for me outside of preview so sorry if they don't work for you too.