Malzahar is now rated as the 2nd worst mid laner.

warpenguin555·Apr 24, 2017·11 votes·620 views

Champion.gg - Malzahar Middle Stats, Builds, Runes, Masteries and Counters

Only ahead of Ryze. Swallow your pride and revert him already Riot.

14 Comments

TheHappyReaperzApr 24, 20172 votes

Reverting Malz won't fix anything. It'll just make Riot deal with a new set of problems, along with the same problem old Malz. Also, Ryze also has a pretty high win-rate once mastered.

deadlychuckApr 24, 20175 votes

Riot seemed to have no issues with the "problems" of balancing the old malzahar. He was a slightly above average win rate for a slightly below average play rate...

Basically the people who like the champion played him a lot and got good at him.

Beacon AcademyApr 25, 20171 votes

Not completely sure how a kit they only nerfed once or so in five to six years would bring in a new set of problems...

People have forgotten that until Deathfire Touch came out, Malzahar had only been receiving quality of life/straight buffs.

Mataka TekApr 25, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=Beacon Academy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=KAAGvGTB,comment-id=00010001,timestamp=2017-04-25T14:21:56.628+0000)

Not completely sure how a kit they only nerfed once or so in five to six years would bring in a new set of problems...

People have forgotten that until Deathfire Touch came out, Malzahar had only been receiving quality of life/straight buffs.

Not sure what you are talking about. But if you are saying Malz never really needed a rework, I will say for the most part, I agree. He really just needed some CC blocking or CC added to his kit.

On the other hand after the Re-work, they added that CC shield and changed his voidlings, but they removed his W (Pool) and he lost about 1/3 of his damage. The Shield had a low cooldown and the CC blocking effect of the shield after it popped was good.

So even tho Malz had lost DPS, his shield was too much and people banned and banned. After that they nerfed the HELL out of the shield.

It seems they did not understand that they already nerfed his DPS. And no one was listening to the actual Malzahar mains who were complaining that they no longer could kill effectively.

After that, great Malzahar players in Diamond / Plat / Challenger levels of play stopped playing him over time, and had to switch to champs like Swain.

Somehow someone figured out that pressing W dropped a voidling... and that was good in the support lane, so they nerfed his voidling frenzy, and then they nerfed the voidlings.

So, its now like the 4th or 5th Nerf in a row, and the Malzahar players are Freaking SICK of it. He needed a lot of buffs after the re-work so he could play in MID and just needed the shield toned down.
But because he can be played in support, he is getting even more nerfs.

I have outlined how to fix him:

Passive: Leave as is except increase the CC protection to .5 secs Q: Leave as is. W: 1st Cast, Drop 1 Voidling with hitpoints and frenzy, but voidling multiply shall be limited to Jg Monsters, Drag, Baron, and Champ Deaths 2nd cast: drop the old W Void Pool (this is needed as Malz is to weak now. He needs something to compensate for the lost voidling damage.) E: Leave as is. R: Suppresses (and prevents auto-attacks), IF interrupted by cc or QSS then suppress converts to Slow, tethered damage is maintained unless enemy can get far enough away to break the tether.

Maddened King Apr 25, 20171 votes

He would never see the day of light against the current tier of junglers and he was countered hard by item 3140 since his Ultimate provided damage, the one we have now doesn't actually do damage. It drops his old w (scuffed version) and provides a suppress. He also doesn't have any knockback, stun, slow, nothing to stop a gank or peel for himself. His passive now actually makes him viable and stacking that with Banshee's makes him extremely hard to kill. His current problem is just his support abilities. Riot need to rework Malz's W and probably change his Ultimate so he cannot be used as a stun bot support.

PureSilvrrApr 24, 20172 votes

Just revert to Pre 6.23 and work from there

warpenguin555Apr 24, 20174 votes

probably the second best thing they could do for him

Maddened King Apr 25, 20171 votes

Honestly. I think they just need to rework W and change his ultimate. His passive is good, his Q is good, and his E is good.

Viktor Von LazerApr 24, 20171 votes

i'm ok with that. I hate suppression.

deadlychuckApr 24, 20171 votes

wtf is with that champion matrix though O.o

I'm shocked, simply shocked! Well, not that shocked. I saw this coming a mile away. I said since probably 2-3 days after the rework hit live that they fucked him. The kit is just fundamentally impossible to balance.

His power distribution in his kit is fucked, but necessary. If his W didn't have a disproportionate amount of power, people would skip the ability. Though despite being forced to have most of the power in the kit, it's all potential power. It's unreliable and inconsistent. Riot basically backed themselves into a corner with the rework. There are only a few ways to balance the champion now, and all of them cause "problems"...

**1) High reliability, low potential power. ** _ E.g. High health minions with low damage._ Jungle becomes too strong, allowing for 0 damage clears and solo dragon cheese.

2) Low reliability, low potential power. _ E.g. Low health minions with low damage. (not yet explored by riot)_ Players ignore the ability and just get the extra CDR and base damage on E or Q...

3) High reliability, high potential power. _ E.g. Release version..._ Well we all know how that went, but basically it's a zero skill monster than plays himself

4) low reliability, high potential power. _ E.g. The current version, low health with high damage_ Gets played as a support where his voidlings are more reliable.

Miror BApr 24, 20171 votes

And much like Ryze, he was given an incredibly exploitable and pseudo-broken kit (or in malz's case, passive) that forced a plethoria of nerfs everywhere else.

Maddened King Apr 25, 20171 votes

Ryze is still strong tho. Those stats are skewed. Champions like Leblanc Ryze have a low win rate because people at lower Elo Platinum and less do not know how to play them. However, yes. Malzahar is garbage now as a mid laner. He is still a viable support tho.

Mataka TekApr 25, 20171 votes

I like his ultimate. If QSS converted the Suppress into a slow instead of nerfing the whole Ult and all the damage into nothing, then it would be usable.

As it stands now, QSS and any CC completely break it, and that means Challenger level game play is out the window.

(Actually with the current nerfs as they stand, Plat thru Challenger is simply a waste.)

I am embarrassed to even try to play Ranked games with all these nerfs because the performance of Malz is now abysmal.

And you are 100% right ... he is not viable at all in the Jg anymore. Simply cannot clear. Cannot 1v1, can't even escape the enemy Jg either, since they have gap closers or stuns... its pathetic.