Why is Malz allowed to be uninteractive

z63XnLCMwX·Nov 5, 2017·66 votes·3,239 views

Malz has one of the most toxic kits in the game, he is essentially 0 risk all reward. He has waveclear, zone, safeguard, point click cc. Any match up that is against him, he just point click space aids, back off and collect the gold until he becomes strong enough to threaten squishies. Any match-up that he is strong against, he makes life a living hell. Kassadin was gutted to oblivion for having a 55% win rate back in season 3, meanwhile Malz almost been over 52% win rate with an average of 54%. This is balanced how?

88 Comments

SweedishGunnerNov 5, 201743 votes

His E ain't clearing anything that fast without Voidlings to help. Kill the Voidlings and you force him to use more spells and mana to clear the wave.

His 'uninteractive' laning phase is brought about by being rather crap pre-6/Lost Chapter and his low mobility. Obviously he's not going to want to trade when he's going to loose the trade and fuck over his own mana pool in the process.

Malz is evil, but he's a necessary evil. A big middle finger to mobility creep.

The DeckownerNov 5, 201727 votes

The problem with a mobility creep counter is that he fuck over immobile champions even harder.

RainfallNov 5, 20171 votes

to use his R malzahar first has to E so you have a 0.5 second window to flash.

LiteUpSketchersNov 5, 20172 votes

Nah i personally have melted adcs from full with just my ulti late game.

SasogwaNov 5, 201717 votes

[{quoted}](name=The Deckowner,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Ka05YvnI,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2017-11-05T16:31:48.587+0000)

The problem with a mobility creep counter is that he fuck over immobile champions even harder.

THAT IS NOT TRUE.

A point & click instant ranged CC fucks ranged/mobile champs more than melee champs because it's unbiased towards melee or ranged/mobile. A skillshot projectile CC for instance is biased against melees because it's stupidly easy to land on melees and relatively hard to land on ranged/mobile champs. Most of the problem we have with ranged/mobile champs, notably adc's, is the fact a lot of the CC has been reworked from long-ish CD, uninteractive but unbiased CC to "interactive, counterplayable" CC which is actually spammable CC that shits on melee and is unlandable on ranged champs unless they fuck up.

A melee champion doesn't give a shit about being shortly stunned without counterplay by annie Q for instance, HOWEVER they hate getting permacc'ed in melee by something like a braum or a nautilus, or slowed to death by like, a brand with rylais. A ranged champion, or a mobile champion, just by positioning well, is never in danger of those spammable short range CCs. But he hates point&click ranged CC, because it's like the only CC that's effective against him.

TLDR : point&click CC might feel unhealthy, but it's one of the only safeguards we have(had?) against mobility creep and the domination of ranged carries.

PS : by melee i'm thinking about kiteable champions with little to no gapclosers (or long cd gapclosers). Melee champions that have tons of outplay and mobility tools like Zed, Fizz, Akali, Ekko, etc. are ofc less concerned and more in the "mobile" category. Uh.. maybe bad examples as Zed & Fizz both have spells that can bypass point&click travelling CC cause untargetability... but you get the point. Point&click counters mobility and range creep and is not necessarily that unhealthy towards melee.

Champion SkinNov 5, 20172 votes

To be fair point and click CC can also be biased in favor of ranged champions

A good example of this is Nautilus R or Taric stun before the rework (which of course removed the point and click CC....) in that they have a rather low missile speed giving ranged champions quite a large warning before getting hit by it and also allowing them to potentially use mobility to get out of harms way before getting locked down by the CC

However ground targeted abilities are in theory equally as strong against both melee and ranged champions in that they have X delay before hitting that area and it doesn't matter how close or far away it is (like Brand W or Cho'gath Q) though in practice it is probably stronger against melee champions because of them having less room to move in while still being in range to hit the enemy and there is also the fact that the enemy would likely have to move closer to hit a ranged champion potentially giving them more warning that the ability is coming

Voluug13Nov 5, 20173 votes

He doesnt, because inmobile midlaners either out-range him massively (like Lux) or out-tank his mediocre burst (like Swain or Vlad).

He doesnt have the mobility to engage on someone, and he cant pull a flash-tibbers like combo because he has to cast everything else before R to kill someone above 15%hp, which leaves time to flash too.

Thats where he has always been balanced.

MelledoneusNov 5, 20172 votes

Actually, no.

Because immobile champions usually have a way to make up for their immobility while mobile champs lose that power, meaning what's left when their mobility no longer works is sub-par by comparison.

For example: Fizz vs Taliyah

Fizz relies on his mobility for his damage, and without his E and Q he's super kitable if he doesn't have his ult. If Malzahar gets an ult combo on a Fizz he's most likely going to kill him. Without his mobility to help him escape, Fizz is going to have a hard time, which is why he usually opts to ult from afar before going in.

Taliyah on the other hand builds items like item 3151 item 3116 to make up for her immobility by being a bit more tanky. Additionally, she has immense control power and can keep Malzahar from having a safe ult by poking him and setting up her rock zones, and can buffer through Malz's ult with that jutting rock move she has that pushes people.

NineTailedMysticNov 5, 20175 votes

Mobile champions have the tools to not be in range of Malzahar in the first place. What's a Veigar or Brand going to do if Malz decides to ghost up to him? Meanwhile Ahri or Zed can just dash/blink away and Malz just sits there.

MelledoneusNov 5, 20173 votes

Veigar and Brand aren't good examples because they have abilities to keep Malzahar away from threat alone.

But I won't nitpick here. Instead, I'll address your first argument here.

Most mobile champions need to get in range of Malzahar's R to be a threat to him. Their mobility can keep them out of range, sure, but then that negates the scenario altogether. Additionally, Malzahar can't just R and get a kill like before. He needs to go through at least 1.5 seconds of casting spells before ulting to deal meaningful damage. Most immobile champions can destroy him in that time, such as Brand with his stun-nuke combo and Veigar with his E-W-Q-R.

Malzahar is generally a slowpoke, so he is played like a splitpusher rather than an aggressive burst mage. You make enemies come to you and you are a threat because you give them no choice but to concede or risk dying. Being somebody whose best mid lane pick is Malz in ranked, this is spoken from experience. Ghosting up to someone and just ulting achieves nothing but a pick, and if the person in question can't escape or retaliate against a Malz doing that, they deserve to die because they were out of position with no way to escape.

Jerry SeinfeIdNov 5, 20172 votes

Don't both of them outrange malz ult with their stuns? I might be wrong as i don't play mid much.

Succubús GFNov 6, 20173 votes

Actually malz counters the living fuck out of ahri, Along with most mobile aps. As a fellow ahri player I thought youd know this x.x Lb gets shit on too, she jumps onto him, r death. Generally youll notice most ap mages counter him and most assassins are countered by him

deadlychuckNov 5, 20174 votes

Still would've been better if they had never touched him in the MYMU.

They just spend a year stumbling around in the dark, only to leave him a bigger mess than when they started. smh

devdev463Nov 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}

His E ain't clearing anything that fast without Voidlings to help. Kill the Voidlings and you force him to use more spells and mana to clear the wave.

His 'uninteractive' laning phase is brought about by being rather crap pre-6/Lost Chapter and his low mobility. Obviously he's not going to want to trade when he's going to loose the trade and fuck over his own mana pool in the process.

Malz is evil, but he's a necessary evil. A big middle finger to mobility creep.

If malz is the answer to mobility creep then I would rather just have more mobility creep...

ChasmOfTrossmNov 6, 20171 votes

{quoted}

His E ain't clearing anything that fast without Voidlings to help. Kill the Voidlings and you force him to use more spells and mana to clear the wave.

Wrong.

Far(m)zahar uses e+q(at the very end of the duration) to refresh the malefic visions. This works infinitely better since your Q is an Aoe that can damage the entire wave, making it easier for the refreshed malefic visions to infect another minion.

XavanicNov 5, 201713 votes

Most adcs are uninteractive rn, they get ahead thanks to their babysitter and right click, alt, delete players, malz has no viable keystone in the rune update so hes getting nerfed hard

z63XnLCMwXNov 5, 201711 votes

{quoted}

Most adcs are uninteractive rn, they get ahead thanks to their babysitter and right click, alt, delete players, malz has no viable keystone in the rune update so hes getting nerfed hard

Adc still have to risk each other's poke while laning. Malz can just drop an E, eat a spell, play safe until his shield comes back up. If he was at 50% win rate, I wouldn't say anything, but he's consistent at a 54% ish win rate with a large percentage of players playing him.

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20177 votes

Poke mages, ori, azir and Syndra can all ruin him pretty dang hard.

Malz mainly works against slow/very short range targets that he can comfortably stay around long enough to land his combo against, so long range, burst/poke, DPS and those who trade quicker than him can all make him cry his heart out.

Among the ones that he really counters hard we have Fizz, annie,kassadin,veig and to some degree Vlad i guess.

Among those who really make him bleed we have Ori,Syndra, Azir, LB and also Lux.

Malzahar's effectiveness in a game is pretty much decided in champ select.

Im Taylor SwiftNov 5, 20171 votes

then why malza has over 53 winrate versus ori syndra and azir?

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20174 votes

Because he is hella easy, there is no denying that.

He can basically let his jungler auto snowball by flash ulting ontop of someone.

And if he´s half decent he can just avoid skillshots, push lane and avoid interraction as much as possible while not dying.

And punish mistakes from any more difficult mage fairly easily.

However when it comes to truly skillfull players they can easily punish him and his passive that basically stay down permanently as long as you harass him.

So when a meta sheep that happens to go midlane and picks ori or Syndra because "Omg mage OP" happens to encounter a malzahar while essentially having 0/very little practice on their champ......then the malz, even if he is similarly a metasheep with 0 practice will usually win by default.

Because easier champ that lets jungle snowball.

I played malz since before his rework, i played it after until now.

And ori is definitely the champ i struggle the most with when its a good one x) I can run over fizz like he doesn't exist and i can stall against Xerath or Azir.

But ori wrecks me in lane and that's hard to deal with, playing against a good one and you´ll barely have farm and your passive will be down near permanently unless you choose to run away to let it regen.

While missing all the CS in the meanwhile.

Not to mention, the expert ones have proven a tendency to time their ults to disrupt mine unless i flash ontop of them to avoid it.

No malz main will ever tell you that you can disrespect an Ori in lane and get away with it.

Im Taylor SwiftNov 5, 20172 votes

Well,you certainly have a point, there are lots of meta sheep ori and syndra players. I agree with you,im even a lux player and i don't usually problems with malza as you mentioned.

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20172 votes

Yah pretty much, originally malz was intended as a counter towards mobile assassins and divers, and while stuff changed after the rework he´s still at his best vs them.

Altho i do like how he can refresh his E with Q and R.

With damage reduced on a single E in return, it makes him feel like there is some point in timing and chaining skills x)

SociopathFriendNov 5, 20176 votes

Adc still have to risk each other's poke while laning

So does Malz, one of the lower-ranged mages. Even with his shield up he's still "risking" poke.

Malz can just drop an E

Context is a bit lacking but I imagine you mean he'll clear the entire wave with an E alone- which is straight-up wrong. He'll have to help it along with AAs, W voidlings, or using his Q.

eat a spell, play safe until his shield comes back up

Or an auto-attack. And Malz is far from the only champion that doesn't want to go near enemy champions when an ability is on cooldown.

but he's consistent at a 54% ish win rate

Win rate does not make a champion OP or requiring nerfs. It can also mean the meta is favoring them. It can also mean the itemization the character uses is strong. It can also mean the masteries the champion uses are strong. Or, it can mean the flip-side of this. The itemization used to counter them is weak. The masteries that are for other champions in the same role are weak. The meta might not be favorable to the natural counter.

SociopathFriendNov 5, 201710 votes

Kassadin was nerfed because you could not outplay him. His innate was a flat "I take less magic damage" stat. His Q silenced you on a ranged point-and-click. His W is an AA-modifier. His E is a point-blank AoE that's almost impossible to miss and it comes up sooner if you use spells (which you would). His R was (at the time) the most spammable mobility the game had to offer, did damage, and had reduced mana costs when he hit you.

Let's look at Malz then, shall we? Innate is a damage reduction/cc immunity shield that can be removed by a spell or AA. Q has a delay and is a skillshot. W summons voidlings can be basically oneshot by any ability. E is still point-and-click and still jumps- and does very little damage without Q or W interacting with it to add on damage or refresh. R is still point-and-click and still locks you down- now with an AoE around you- but locks Malzahar in place as well.

And since the shield seems to be the biggest problem, let's remember that it comes back after 30/24/18/12 seconds of not taking damage or cc. It's not a flat 30 seconds until you get it back- it's 30 seconds of you basically not touching Malzahar at all.

BisaknospNov 5, 20176 votes

xdddd everyone wanted old malz back

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20174 votes

Nah we sure as heck did not, but we also didn't want the abomination the new one was at the time x)

It's like getting a choice between dying of THE plague or tuberculosis.

Neither is pleasant.

deadlychuckNov 5, 20172 votes

They just spend a year stumbling around in the dark, only to leave him a bigger mess than when they started. smh

Personally, i would've preferred if they'd just removed all his AP scaling and made AD malz the only malz, with the old voidling design. It was a far more interactive design and waaaaaaay more fun to play as.

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20171 votes

Except his minions were a large reason old malz had to go, even new one had the nerfed ones he got to keep gutted all the way down until what they are now.

Paper thin bugs that die in a single hit from anything, not terribly fast and they also do not last long.

Old malz was a bundle of things that had to be nerfed, i guess they settled for trying to make him a somewhat standard mage with minions to help pushing and a lockdown ulti, who relies on his E and E reset from Q to really deal any damage.

deadlychuckNov 5, 20175 votes

Except his minions were a large reason old malz had to go

I find this very ironic considering that most people actually had absolutely no idea how to use the old voidlings and considered them useless for AP malzahar.

No, the swarm mechanic is the root of basically all the problems with the new design (well ignoring the reduction to voidling control). It's why he was a good support, it's why he was OP as fuck in the jungle, it's why he could take level 2 dragons, it's why he feels so fucking uninteractive while both playing as or against him. You don't do anything with them, it minds well be a aura around malzahar that increases the damage of his E and R

ThefrostyvikingNov 5, 20173 votes

Any old malz player at gold level knew how to chain abilties to have 2 voidlings out and on the opponent just before ulting, it was basics on him at the time.

Or just push quickly after opponent blew abilities.

It was easily controllable.

But you are not wrong either, swarm mechanic is indeed a large reason he turned out so stupidly powerful, aside from the passive.

And naturally both got nerfed to bordeline of oblivion.

Nowadays he basically just uses them to push when no one is there or when opponent is busy with something else. In teamfights he just spams Q wherever it hits the most people and E-R on whatever he wants to kill.

deadlychuckNov 6, 20171 votes

I agree, but the key here is "malz player". Anyone who took the time to learn how to play the champion could, and eventually managing your voidlings effectively, but rarely could you make perfect management of voidlings a passive thought. If nothing else, the single target skill shot blocking required an active decision between how you were going to utilize your spells.

The rework attempted to make him accessible to all players without the need of learning how to manage, and maximize, some relatively unique mechanic. Not unique in that it was a 4 cast activation, but unique in the sense that playing around it required a very specific pacing which you will not find on anyone else. I was speaking more in that they removed how much precision control malz has over his voidlings by removing the attack taunt mechanic and making them completely dependent on his E and R for commanding.

And that there was actually a lot of depth in mastering that management. Ad malzahar potential as an ADC was on par with many marksmen if played correctly, making a few trade offs in how they played, but generally breaking even overall. Mixed damage and higher flat DPS made up for lack of crit, CDR acted as atk spd, you got your ult and silence instead of mobility, and you had a build up to max voidlings for maximum DPS. The only think that really made it weaker was that teams with a lot of secondary AoE could sometimes cut your damage substantially without much effort.

Ironically, i'd say that AD malzahar was an ideal design for if they ever wanted to release some kind of minionmancer ADC.

ThefrostyvikingNov 6, 20171 votes

O_O

That was a interesting read, but wouldn't old malz be terrible now due to how easily accessible AOE is these days? I mean, his voidlings would die the moment they got near anything in a teamfight.

Runaan, static, luden, hydra's and sunfire passive.

Wouldn't all that make AD malz tremendously difficult without buffing his minions to the sky?

deadlychuckNov 6, 20171 votes

Hard to say, i haven't been able to play him in well over a year at this point.

Though, I played him pretty much up until the rework and it was manageable by timing the voidlings, or not aggroing them to a target until the enemy had used their more powerful AoE. But you also didn't want to send voidlings in through the front line. You'd generally try to get them to flank a target, which would also help avoid enemy AoE, because most aoe exists in the form of line skillshots or ranged circles. So even an angle as slight as 30 degrees would get them out of most of the AoE.

Otherwise, they had plenty of health to survive hydra, luden, and sunfire AoE. Satic's critting was arguably the only of those that was of any real concern, because hurricane just more likely to hit champions, but static bounces enough that it would often hit them.

That said, his voidlings use to have 200HP + (50 x level) and 30 armor with a bonus 15 after 7 seconds. So they weren't a pushover with respect to eating damage. They could handle probably 2 autos from a marksmen still. But that's also 2 autos not being done to an allied champion. After 3 voidlings and 6 autos, they just spend ~6+ second out of the fight, while you on malz could still be silencing and auto attacking.

ThefrostyvikingNov 7, 20171 votes

hm fair enough i think.

But people would probably bash it endlessly calling it stupidly OP and bashing any AD items you´d use x)

While petitioning for voidlings nerfs if it worked.

The general dislike for AD is quite severe.

deadlychuckNov 7, 20171 votes

I mean, i personally hate what they've done to AD because they've let it's purpose as a stat expand to include that of what AP was intended. AD now supports both burst and sustained damage designed, but AP only supports burst. Yes, you've got some "consistent damage" mages, but even they end up being mostly burst focused.

AP has basically been turned into a power decision by riot. Would this champion be too strong if they were AD? Yes? Make them AP.

ThefrostyvikingNov 7, 20171 votes

Their choices for some champs like Rengar and Diana seem a bit odd at times as well.

They get nerfed for being to strong and able to instagibb targets.

But then they add in blue kayn that can literally kill someone in 0,5 seconds much the same as old rengar or fed Diana as long as he goes even.

AP itemization could use some help, especially some items made for AP assassins and divers.

Tear needs to be changed to be on par with morello or grail needs to be reverted as well x)

Bronze 6 YasuoNov 5, 20175 votes

Because you can't interact with people that have aids.

RainfallNov 5, 20175 votes

i played a lot of games with malzahar after his rework. Malzahar has changed a lot but a lot of people still think its the same "flash R" champion. To make the most out of malzahar you need to first E wait Q wait W-R.His kit is much slower than it used to be,not landing your Q with malzahar not only means that you lose the damage and the silence from your Q but you also lose the E reset that means that you deal 1/3rd of the damage you would deal if you landed that Q.You keep calling the champion toxic and uninteractive but yet if you dodged his q you could avoid 2/3rds of his damage so theres your counterplay. Those are the differences between the old malzahar and the new malzahar,other than that malzahar simply fits in the meta item 3165 item 3151 item 3116 is simply better than any burst mage build or assasin build,not only does it give 30 magic pene with boots but it also gives the safety of extra hp Luden's is god awfull and you cant rush deathcap second item. If you have questions regarding the champion let me know.

MetleonNov 5, 20173 votes

I agree for the simple fact that Riot has pretty consistently reworked uninteractive champs. Xerath was given his new passive to encourage you to play closer to the enemy, Soraka needs to hit her q so she doesn't run out of health in lane, Nidalee is designed to jump in after hitting a spear, and Janna is (supposed to be) no longer a shield bot.

The only uninteractive champ I can think of that they let slide is Heimerdinger, who has always sucked.

InstaPoppyNov 6, 20171 votes

Heimer also has more incentive to play aggresive because his turrets charge when hits spells.

ThilmerNov 6, 20173 votes

The worst part is that he was uninteractive, so Riot reworked him to make him as uninteractive as before. Total fail...

Yara0Nov 5, 20172 votes

the year people realize that Malz "just pressing R" Is basically suppressing him for 3 full seconds as an immobile midlaner and with the vast amount of cc in the game to stop his ult plus QSS being a thing malz really isint that hard to deal with till nearing end game where he has item 3165 item 3151 item 3020 item 3116 people just need to learn when to avoid fighting him aka dont 1v1 him with his fucking ult up.

Proxy345Nov 5, 20172 votes

Because Heimerdinger exists to fuck him up lol

TwitchInMyPantsNov 5, 20172 votes

Malz is all DoT and he's easily interrupted when not in a 1v1 scenario

He's definitely obnoxious and forces you to buy QSS when you normally don't need/want it, though his damage is preventable and even without QSS if you're in a teamfight a single spell then a single cc is what you need to break his R. 2 spells. That's a lot to ask for 1v1 but in a teamfight that's nothing.

Though I think if there's anything that might shoot up his winrate its probably that shield. They nerfed it before but Malzahar was never a balance issue until he had that thing.