Like, what's his strategic niche?
Is he a lockdown mage? Minionmancer? Tank killer mage? Anti-Assassin mage?
I honestly don't know. Did his rework solidify this at all? Did his old kit solidify this or was he still really mixed in those regards?
Anonagon11 votesI don't know what Malz even is anymore, but before his rework he was very defined. He was a powerful AoE mage with strong lockdown tools. His long duration AoE silence and his supression were the reasons to pick him, and he was a very significant damage threat on top of that.
Jinzo Torrance7 votesDon't forget the vision the old Q gave. "Bugfixed" my ass, was like that since his release.
BLACK REALM GOD7 votesmalzahar is purple.
he's a control mage. he controls portions of the battlefield and reacts to his opponents advancements with counter harassment. similar to morgana, but whereas morgana is built tankier with supporting in mind malzahar is built squishier with assassination in mind.
in other words he can do what both a mage and assassin does it just depends on how you build him. mages are better at certain things. assassins are better at others.
Ralanr1 votes[{quoted}](name=BLACK REALM GOD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JudXiVfN,comment-id=0001,timestamp=2017-02-08T16:27:00.729+0000)
malzahar is purple.
he's a control mage. he controls portions of the battlefield and reacts to his opponents advancements with counter harassment. similar to morgana, but whereas morgana is built tankier with supporting in mind malzahar is built squishier with assassination in mind.
in other words he can do what both a mage and assassin does it just depends on how you build him. mages are better at certain things. assassins are better at others.
That just makes me think that he should temporarily terraform the battlefield like Zegara from HoTS.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesi've never played HoTS. i've only played a handful of mobas so my technical terms may not be accepted by the fanbase. regardless of the terminology he is a control mage. auto attack the minions and send your voidlings to harass your opponent with an occasional spell on your opponent to conserve mana and direct the minions.
he plays reactively not proactively
edit
as a mage he plays reactively. if you want to be an assassin malz then you would be proactive while hunting in the jungle same as any assassin. just dont expect Q W E R to work every time. someone is going to get wise and buy QSS.
Papa Andrei1 votesOooh I would love to see that sorta mechanic in the game... but rito doesn't like small invisible buffs/debuffs.
50000000000000001 votesThat sounds pretty visible.
Papa Andrei2 votesNo because its not big or flashy, like lee sin, or new Taric.
Jinzo Torrance6 votesHe presses R on the monkey who engages on him without a team to follow so he can show others his "sick space-crab plays" consisting of pressing W 2 times and then R. What an outplayer that is Malzahar.
lightdragoon882 votesHe is trash right now....and I miss using him mid lane.
warpenguin5551 votesAp Yorick
Erockandroll1 votesLike, what's his strategic niche?
Is he a lockdown mage? Minionmancer? Tank killer mage? Anti-Assassin mage?
I honestly don't know. Did his rework solidify this at all? Did his old kit solidify this or was he still really mixed in those regards?
Minionmancer really wasn't a thing until after the rework. Rather it played off an old niche AD build on Malz, because his voidlings had an AD ratio.
Kinda before the rework, I had thought of him as a duelist mage. Mainly because his Ult made him dangerous to take on 1v1. Still his only CC, so I wouldn't call him a Lockdown mage. (or anti Assassin in that case) Tank killer? maybe, anyone who focuses DPS over Burst will have a better time melting tanks.
Currently though, I like the minion focus on Malz, but I'm not sure how they are suppose to serve him. Kinda feels like a Knifes edge balance wise. Either you can destroy his voidlings and Malz is useless, or you can't and he's oppressive.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesCurrently though, I like the minion focus on Malz, but I'**;m not sure how they are suppose to serve him**. Kinda feels like a Knifes edge balance wise. Either you can destroy his voidlings and Malz is useless, or you can't and he's oppressive.
they're the supplement to his kit that limits his power based on itemization. theyre the thorn in the side that grant him range at the cost of build power.
they also grant him a bit of unique flavor. malzahar is the true "minionmancer" and always has been. azir was their attempt at solidifying the playstyle and it kind of backfired. azir plays more like a chessboard champ. annie and mordekaiser had pets in the form of their ultimates and zyra and heimerdinger had their placeables. yorick had his ghosts. so to kind of make everyone feel different they changed a lot of those champs.
malzahar didnt get that much of a change to be honest. they just rebalanced his kit to give players reasons to want to play it a certain way while having the option to play it another.
Ez dePaz1 votesWouldn't a buff to prerework AD malz have given the same effect with less of a chance to screw the entire champion over?
TheWoollyMammoth1 votesAD malz was a top lane terror before the rework. The thing with it is that it actually required some practice and skill with malz to pull off. You were practically playing a different champ with ad malz instead of ap. Sacrificing alot to play either way. (i was tinkering with some hybrid builds but they always felt week and underwhelming)
Riot attempted to combine them both into one champ, not realizing that it would be impossible to balance a champion with the strengths of both AP and AD malz, with none of the weaknesses. So now they are "fixing" their mistake by gutting him, and completely ignoring us who actually care about the champ. Look at all the malz threads on the boards. Rioters are definitely reading them. They just don't want to respond.
Hell they could load old malz up onto the PBE and give him a run for his money, see if he was easier to balance then current malz. (He was) But they don't even want to do that.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesthey cant go back to old malzahar because new malzahar also has a sprite update and a movement speed pattern that makes him feel updated. there's more to balancing a champion than just the abilities.
Paroe1 votes[{quoted}](name=BLACK REALM GOD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JudXiVfN,comment-id=00020000000000000000,timestamp=2017-02-15T05:40:21.348+0000)
they cant go back to old malzahar because new malzahar also has a sprite update and a movement speed pattern that makes him feel updated. there's more to balancing a champion than just the abilities.
They can and should. the visual update can stay but the rest of his kit NEEDS to be changed back; he was far healthier back then and only needed changes on his W because it was a onepoint wonder.
BLACK REALM GOD1 voteswhat im saying though is for visual synchronization to his abilities they'd have to redo his sprite and model work in milliseconds or smaller for every ability cast and movement. that's why it's hard to go back.
other than that they already know certain things about old malzahar was unhealthy so they dont want to resurface that. it all goes hand in hand with keeping the game fresh and new. balance is almost trivial with so many champs and items at this point.
Paroe1 votes[{quoted}](name=BLACK REALM GOD,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=JudXiVfN,comment-id=0002000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2017-02-15T08:11:12.562+0000)
what im saying though is for visual synchronization to his abilities they'd have to redo his sprite and model work in milliseconds or smaller for every ability cast and movement. that's why it's hard to go back.
other than that they already know certain things about old malzahar was unhealthy so they dont want to resurface that. it all goes hand in hand with keeping the game fresh and new. balance is almost trivial with so many champs and items at this point.
What was unhealthy? Just the surface playstyle, like old sona. Post-rework malzahar is even worse than pre-rework; theres even less reason to trade and interact because you dont do meaningful damage and have very low lethality. What looks simple on the surface is usually meticulously complex just beneath the veneer.
Nasus is the same way. On the surface nasus is a push farmer. Beneath the surface nasus is a duelist who specializes in the late game.
Making new abilities is a relatively simple thing; they dont even have to remove the ability entirely. Just change it to something less oppressive like a single GOOD voidling that doesnt have that obnoxious swarm mechanic that makes malzahar either S+ or F-. Making a new passive is also a relatively simple thing (as much as making a new ability is simple anyway), and post rework malzahar has shown that his reworked kit is simply not working. Hes had more nerfs since the rework than he had his ENTIRE LIFETIME previously.
I dont know why you think animations matter with something like this; they dont. The visual update was cool and all, i like it (when my shield is popped so i can actually see the nice colors i purchased with shadow prince...) but the severe nerfing of ALL his abilities to make room for an unreliable damage source and a passive that doesnt belong on a mage is not good. Its not kosher.
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesi politely disagree. i like most of the new malzahar.
Looknook1 votesBefore the rework Malz played kinda like a lane push bully almost like Heimer. Once he got a few levels and if he had controlled his E spreading to keep his mana up he could keep opponents pushed in. That meant that anyone without good waveclear couldn't really leave lane, but also could go near the wave or risk catching his E from a dying minion. Once he hit 6 he could counter engage on assassin's. So basically he could punish assassins by shoving them in hard so they couldn't roam but also having the power to potentially beat them in a 1v1.
If I were to classify him I wouldn't call him a control Mage. Most of them have hard CC that more effective when running away, as it's easier to hit. I would call him a battle Mage, that used to rely on hitting him full combo to kill someone.
Frius1 votesflash R bot
SaltyKracka1 votesGone.
Melledoneus1 votesMalzahar is Jax who traded his lamp post and attack speed for the ability to float and summon alien dogs.
hhaavviikk1 votesforgotten
Ahristocats1 voteson release malz used to be an insane tank killer
no mages were able to kill bruisers that were op back then, Kassadin in season 1 before his first nerfs used to be extremely broken but if you picked him into bruisers and tanks you lost the game
malz's W (before being nerfed i think 5 times from 2011 to 2016) used to deal 10%(+1% every 100 AP) for a maximum of 40%(+4% every 100 AP)
BLACK REALM GOD1 votesyou have to translate that for people who dont understand those figures.
Yaskamasandwich1 votesI never played Malzahar before his rework but just judging by his kit and style of fighting he was a pure control mage. He controlled sieges wether it was pushing or stopping, controlled champions by ult, and his silence controlled his enemies spell casting times. His voidlings even helped this way by having short range of clearing a space or attacking enemy champions. His weakness was being two people jumping on him, catching him off guard, interrupting his control, or taking advantage of his short range.
Paroe1 votesI never played Malzahar before his rework but just judging by his kit and style of fighting he was a pure control mage. He controlled sieges wether it was pushing or stopping, controlled champions by ult, and his silence controlled his enemies spell casting times. His voidlings even helped this way by having short range of clearing a space or attacking enemy champions. His weakness was being two people jumping on him, catching him off guard, interrupting his control, or taking advantage of his short range.
Malzahar was an anti assassin. His entire playstyle was, below the surface, "shut down the engage and assassinate the assassin". Pre-rework malzahar had interaction problems because his kit WAS reactive; you were meant to hang back just like regular assassins until your poke poked them down.
On the surface malzahar was a farm mage who mindlessly shoved lane and oneshotted squishies with no counterplay. Post rework malzahar is even MORE like that and is MUCH LESS interactive. The changes riot has been making to him are knee-jerk and simply bad; they essentially relaunched an immobile assassin with a kit that has next to no killing ability and gave him one of the most powerful passives to date with one of the safest jungling tools to date in a meta where the jungle is all about objective control.
Release post-rework malzahar with a different passive would have been fine and balanced; he would have been cemented as an objective based jungler/split push mage and once the jungle was nerfed that would have been fine. He would return to be a niche pick instead of a very strong counter pick to weak-early game immobile champions.
Nilok1 votesMalzahar was and should be an assassin/anti-assassin mage. His job is to kill and push. Malzahar lacks the mobility that most assassins use as their bread and butter to be able to get in and escape, but instead has more power to punish champions that lack hard cc or silences that try and dive him.
The rework has failed at his intended role: sacrificing his foes to the Void.