Question concerning the math on an off-meta Malzahar build

FiddlesOnTheRoof·7/18/2017, 3:57:41 PM·3 votes·799 views

To start this off, I know that neither of these builds are ideal. So, I have a friend that mains Malzahar. He likes playing him top, and has been going Nashor's tooth 2nd item. He likes it to help him take towers faster. I postulated that towers will go down faster with raw AP, or, at least, a lich bane. Again, I know none of these builds are an ideal build, but I can't talk him out of NOT taking a build that he believes helps him take towers. So, what build helps Malzahar take towers FASTEST?

EDIT- not sure why this is being downvoted, but gotta love the toxic community, right? Anyways, I appreciate the answer. I'm looking for hard math though, if possible. How quickly does he take it with Nashor's vs Lich Bane vs a standard AP build?

11 Comments

Nixtarma7/18/2017, 6:36:29 PM3 votes

An off-meta build post? With math involved? I'm home.

What we are trying to calculate is on-hit DPS. Your AD is going to be the same for all the builds at 72.3. His attack speed bonus at level eight is +8.66%, for a total of .679 attacks per second, without build any additional AS.

When your AP is greater than twice your bonus AD, you deal 50% of your AP as on-hit damage to turrets. According to champion.gg, the highest win percent Malzahar set up will give you 20.16 AP from Runes, and 6.64 from the Natural Talent Mastery (at level eight). Morellonomicon gives you 100 more AP, bringing our total to 126.8.

Let's examine our options!

item 3115 Nashor's Tooth is a strong candidate because it brings a respectable 80 AP, and is the only option here to give AS. Its AP bonus is the same as Liandry's Torment and Void Staff, and greater than Rylai's Crystal Sceptre, so I will not analyze those items, as they could not possibly beat Nashor's where turret pressure is concerned. The attack speed bonus brings a level eight Malzahar's attack speed up to .991; the AP total is 206.8.

item 3089 Rabbadon's Deathcap is the only AP item commonly built on Malzahar with more than the 80 AP that Nashor's Provides. In fact, with its passibe, Deathcap will bring Malzahar's total AP up to 333.18.

Lich Bane also gives a solid 80 AP, but that is not why it is being considered. After casting a spell, Malzahar's next basic attack on the turret will do 100% of his AP instead of just 50% (total is 206.8 again). This has a 1.5s CD, but can Malzahar make optimum use of this? With Morellonomicon and Lich Bane, he has 30% CDR, but still has rather long cooldowns. Q has a CD of 4.2s, W has a CD of 5.6s, and E has a CD of 9.1 (again, based off champion.gg's highest win percent skill order; even if you max E for extra CDR, you can only get it down to 6.3s). Doing this might actually be a good idea, as when you do, you can come pretty close to getting the spellblade effect as often as you can. Going forward, I will assume you can.

Alright! To actually compare them all, I will just do raw DPS calculations (AS * [AD + On-Hit])

Summation item 3115 AS: .991 AD: 72.3 On-Hit: 103.4 = 206.8 / 2 Raw DPS: 174.1187

item 3089 AS: .679 AD: 72.3 On-Hit: 166.59 = 333.18 / 2 Raw DPS: 162.20631

Special: Actually weaving Spellblade autos into an attack pattern makes things tricky. Malzahar's attack speed is really slow, so to get maximum damage, you might have to skip auto-attacks. If you wait for Lich Bane's CD, your AS is effectively .666, which is almost imperceptible less than normal, so I will assume you are just doing that. This also means that only 75% of your AD is applied to the attack, because that is how Spellblade modifies basic attacks. AS: .666 AD: 54.225 On-Hit: 206.8 Raw DPS: 173.84265

TL;DR This is really close, but Nashor's wins over Lich Bane.

Cheers! -Nixtarma

Note: Raw DPS does not account for the turrets' considerable resistances, nor does it include Malzahar's penetration stats.

Dirty Bastard7/18/2017, 4:31:17 PM2 votes

AD Mal is a strong off meta. His voiding scale on his AD. Try Black Cleaver, Mortal Reminder, Blood Thirster, Standard magician boots, I would however still go with a Rylais for the utility and slows and probably grab a Morellos if I want more dmg over time and more cdr. Or on AD side grab reaver.

your auto attacks will critand you get good life steal, spam spells to spawn voidlings and as always in fights E then W on the weakest enemy then lock the the strongest enemy down with ult if facing a 2v1 or in a team fight.

Your voidlings will shred the enemy team. I have been a lvl 7 Mal for more than 12 months and have played AD Mal allot in jungle.

Have played Mal for past 4 years, AD is not bad for an off meta pick.

nm10107/18/2017, 4:39:09 PM1 votes

The answer is morello since you get both the cdr and mana to spam summon voidlings to tank tower shots.

DirtyMadeUFlash7/18/2017, 7:59:36 PM1 votes

So, for reference, I'm the guy that he's talking about. Nashors, with AS boots and AS masteries, gives me 1.4 AS. That AS mixed with the on-hit from nashors + the 40% AP tower damage and the voidlings (40% CDR) makes for an extremely fast split build. I also still have over 600 AP so its not like I'm really sacrificing any AP that would make a notable difference. The times where the build is not ideal is when a team cant hold. If they can hold and let me draw pressure, then I sell nashors and grab something different. It probabaly wouldn't work in high elo at all but in silver? All day long it works.