Did the Malzahar rework actually accomplish anything?

SpecterVonBaren·Oct 5, 2016·8 votes·656 views

I feel like all it's done is remove complexity from his kit. Riot said they didn't like how his best use case was as a burst champion pressing W+E+R to nuke someone down but now that's exactly how he plays now except with the removed complexity of managing his voidling passive to push waves efficiently, now he just presses W and gets a shit ton of voidlings almost instantly. It feels like all that's changed in the grand scheme of things is reduced complexity and a Banshees Veil passive for no gold.

15 Comments

RebonackOct 5, 20169 votes

It succeeded in removing my desire to play Malz.

NilokOct 10, 20161 votes

Agreed, I used to play Malz and League all the time, now after the change I don't have the desire for either.

MunchCrunchLunchOct 5, 20166 votes

i wish i can refund him. at least old malzahar was fun to play with his old passive. especially ad malzahar jungle

Wind WhistlerOct 5, 20165 votes

It alienated his playerbase. Like what they did to Tahm Kench. They probably intended for that to happen.

iTaLenTZOct 6, 20164 votes

It accomplished me never want to play him again. I did try him out but I disliked every change. He feels clunky and random

Akali is SO HOTOct 5, 20163 votes

Yeah all it did was make his kit have less counterplay

PsyturkeyOct 5, 20162 votes

This is so ridiculously untrue it's not even funny. Old Malzahar had so much more burst damage that after 6 the only counter play was "don't get anywhere fucking near him".

At least new Malzahar needs help to kill you unless he's fed.

Akali is SO HOTOct 9, 20163 votes

They moved his W to his ult and gave him a free banshee's veil so you can't interrupt his ult anymore without having to pop his passive first. His W does insane damage and basically zones everyone away from farming while it's up especially melees. I'd much rather have old malzahar than new malzahar.

PsyturkeyOct 9, 20161 votes

They nerfed his base damage and scaling across the board. They literally took 100 base damage off of his E alone.

Old Malzahar still had voidlings to murder people with and in exchange for moving his W to his ult they killed the scaling and base damage of his old ult which at max rank used to have 550 base damage and 1.3 AP scaling. In exchange he got .25 of a second worth of protection from cc (just hold your cc for literally less than a second).

As a Malz main both before and after rework, let me tell you I'd prefer old Malz too, and if as my opponent you would also prefer old Malz it's because you never played against a good one pre-rework.

Handy Sandy Oct 5, 20162 votes

he is complex though. Wanna summon like 3 minions? Boom, all ur mana is gone.

ErockandrollOct 5, 20161 votes

Really, the whole voidling thing was to combined aspects from the old AD off build. (ever tried it in URF? it was bonkers)

But it's not exactly burst, it's Burst-DPS. you hit a button to increase your out going DPS for a window of time. (Like an ADC who uses an ability to increase their AS) And Riot seems to be pushing these Burst-DPS styles to prevent such DPS orientated mages from becoming stats checks. And instead, create windows of power. For Malz, it's strong when his W is ready, weak when on cooldown. Yet this is not noticed in low ELO cause no one keeps track of cooldowns.

ArkaleOct 5, 20161 votes

Biased as I may be.

it's also worse than that because he needs to build up voidlings over the 12 seconds they are alive to make them useful. So it's like pressing a button to charge a laser which does a lot of damage when it's done charging but then needs to cooldown and recharge.

PsyturkeyOct 5, 20161 votes

I was a Malz main before and the changes definitely hurt, but they were absolutely necessary.

Before Malz was downright oppressive in lane - if he was ever allowed to be strong he would have been immediately and swiftly nerfed down to old school Eve status.

They removed Malzahars early 1v1 - "I press R and you fucking die, thanks for the gold" and turned him into a mid-late game scaling champ. There was no way for a lane bully to have his ult and not present serious game health issues.

The rework had nothing to do with complexity and everything to do with fixing a champion who was actually, 100% for real busted.

As far as removing complexity I'm not sure I agree. It is now more important to manage your space aids and there is still complexity to managing voidlings (now it has more to do with harass / all in timings than push timings though).

If you don't think his damage was unsustainable before you are dreaming - they nerfed his base damage and scaling across the board and hard.

They took literally 100 base damage off of his E. Holy shit. Malzahar still deals scary mid game damage and his E used to deal 45% more base damage, never mind the scaling nerfs he ate on it AND the flat damage and scaling nerfs he ate on -every- single ability in his kit.

It sucks when a champion gets reworked and they become something they're not (from lane bully to late game dps), but Malzahar absolutely needed that rework.