Oh SHUT UP about Malzahar already

chipndip1·Apr 28, 2017·47 votes·2,080 views

You guys are worse than the "bring back the OLD Sona" mains, I swear. No, just because you don't like current Malzahar doesn't mean old Malzahar's game play was even half decent. Putting DoTs on minions and spamming dance emotes (even if he has one of the best ones in the game) is not "the pinnacle of healthy champ design".

Don't blame Riot for reworking Malzahar. Blame Riot for not putting enough effort into reworking Malzahar. They did too little and they got no mileage. That's the issue.

118 Comments

Meep ManApr 28, 201729 votes

Isn't that what people are saying though? Either give em' the full package or revert the rework since Malzahar wasn't an ISSUE before (he had his own dedicated playerbase and was never a big balance issue).

chipndip1Apr 28, 20175 votes

He wasn't an issue as far as being op was more than he was an issue for the same reason Riot reworked Sona: His game play was really brain dead with powerful hard cc on R.

It's basically the same case for both champs.

Dextix LTApr 28, 201715 votes

And what changed exactly? His gameplay is the same, just a lot weaker......

chipndip1Apr 28, 20176 votes

Exactly the point of this thread. Instead of asking for a revert back to the thing that was supposed to be changed, be mad that Riot did a poor rework.

Even if we want to sustain Malz's DoT presence, his old kit gave too much room for auto-piloting. Just because Riot aimed too low with the rework doesn't mean he didn't need one.

ZmuecatApr 28, 20178 votes

So because he needed one, a poor, shitty rework that does the same thing as old Malz but worse is better than the old, not OP version.

You should do as your thread title states.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

Why do you assume either is better? The point is that whining about old Malz 24/7 isn't changing anything. It'd be better to be honest about his design's faults and ask for a real rework, rather than just blindly flailing your arms.

ZmuecatApr 28, 20177 votes

The consensus I see, even from you, is that this is a failed rework that took a balanced, or at least not OP if I understood your previous post in this specific thread, and made it shit. Why would we not want to return to a better state of a champion, that does pretty much the same thing, while we await the new rework? Or is the new Malz rework around the corner?

Everyone is being 100% honest with the designs faults when they are saying "We don't want this new version, the older was better at doing the same thing. (Please) revert it." They've said his new passive is shit, they've said the power budget in his voidlings is dumb. The only one here who is blindly flailing their arms is you, because you are blinded his "DoT and dance" play style that wasn't even something he was able to do until at least until level 5 or later. Until he reached that point, he had to supplement plenty of autos in to accomplish his bouncing DoT.

Even then, by the time he has access to the powerful DoT that kills a wave, a good handful of other mages were able to do that, but quick. I believe Xerath could just Q a wave and remove at least half of it, all if fed. Anivia can just plant her ult and dance. I'm sure there's more, but I'm not confident enough in mid lane mages to correctly point at which ones were able to do this.

Because of his current passive and the power his voidlings can have, he is even more of a balance nightmare than he was before. At least before no one really complained, he had a following, he was fun (subjective, I know), and he had more to his kit than "Hope my pets hit the target, otherwise I'm an ult bot".

So who's flailing their arms blindly? The people who have a clear goal in mind, or you?

It's you.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

Honestly I don't know why I bother with these boards. I sincerely don't.

"We whine for a revert back to a time where we did nothing but point-n-click shit because a rework designed to make us do a bit more than just mash out buttons and watch someone die didn't work."

"You do realize that Riot won't do a revert unless the previous iteration was by all means better than the current one, right? Even if you reverted him, you'd reopen his issues of auto-piloting his laning phase and having too much outright burst as a DoT champion. Why not talk about possible rework ideas and ways to work his kit into a better one like the Morde mains did."

"Fuck you. Downvoted. You're wrong. We have a clear goal in mind that we never come together to discuss. You just don't get it."

Like Idk, man. You're free to keep crying, as annoying as it is to see it. I just thought it'd be fun to be constructive instead. I know, I know...FUCK ME, right? Avoiding all contact until you can insta-delete your opponent with no counter-play is TOTALLY cool and interactive game play and it's MY FAULT for not realizing this. Riot gave Malz reset mechanics for his E not because it'd be nice to work a bit for your pay, but because Malz players don't deserve happiness in Meddler's eyes, and I'm just allowing him to be champ-ist because I'm a bigot.

It's worse than arguing with that "one particular Sona fan"...holy shit...

ZmuecatApr 28, 20179 votes

Keep telling yourself you're trying to be constructive when your thread title contains 'shut up', when you declare people who disagree with you are crying and blindly flailing, when you didn't even suggest a different way to change the situation than to tell riot they did bad, when people already have.

I'm done with this thread. Hope you post better stuff in the future that's actually constructive. Enjoy the remainder of your day.

chipndip1Apr 29, 20171 votes

It's not about disagreeing. It's about not having a good reason to disagree or disagreeing while not understanding half of what I'm actually saying. Not everyone agrees with me. That's blatantly obvious. I have no reason to respect a half-baked post though.
I'm not gonna know the best way to make Malzahar more interactive with the lane while retaining his DoT play style. I've suggested possible changes to my champ, but I get shut down at every turn. That's why I likened you guys to Sona mains. You Malz mains are quite similar. Upset enough to complain but not about it enough to have an idea about where to go from here, so you want to go backwards. This thread is a commentary on that.

It's as simple as that.

lightdragoon88Apr 29, 20174 votes

You have to learn to take criticism. Instead of getting mad that they don't like your 'perfect' idea, ask

"what don't you like about it?"

"What problems can arise from these ideas?" "

"What would you like to see changed?"

The main reason why we want to go back and not forward is that the current kit, and any ideas we can do to 'fix' the kit usually will not work.

With Sona: the main issue we didn't like was the long cooldown on the spells and that it didn't feel impactful. With the passive on the ult to give bonus CDR on top of buying CDR, we can have the old feeling of spamming spells...and I personally like that late-game feel. The only problem I have now with Sona is that Q..outside of the damage she can do..does not feel so impactful to allies where the heal/shield of W and the speed of E do.

With Malzahr sadly...there is not much we can do. The kit as a whole focuses on 2 things: His passive and his voildings. If they are strong..he is to strong. If they are weak (like now) then all he becomes is a "Press R support"

There is no balance with the kit..it is either 1 extreme or another and it cannot work.

What we Malzahar mains wanted, and stated many times when the rework was announced and taking suggestions was DoT and controlling zones. What we didn't want...was Voidings focus.

However...many people who don't play Malzahar outside of URF (Cause of AD Malz) flooded the board with "Make AD Malz work" and "Make Voildings better" which sadly ended up with what we have now.

lightdragoon88Apr 29, 20175 votes

{quoted}

Honestly I don't know why I bother with these boards. I sincerely don't.

Because we give honest opinions where you only care about what you think.

AMYS GRAVEApr 29, 20174 votes

Honestly I don't know why I bother with these boards. I sincerely don't.

Because you want to be condescending and rude ...

Oh SHUT UP

You guys are worse than ...

... while also strawmaning another champions playstyle to invoke a reaction ...

Putting DoTs on minions and spamming dance emotes

... like that's all malz players do?

deadlychuckApr 29, 20174 votes

This is the big difference that is glaringly obvious to everyone else that you seem to not quite be figuring out.

There are three options. 1. Leave him as is and try to fix him without changing him. Which even ignoring the fact that most of the complaints aren't balance ones rather experience and mechanical ones, this seems like a poor choice considering how adverse the effects have been when making relatively small adjustments to his current design. 2.

be honest about his design's faults and ask for a real rework.

Which is a decently valid option and i wouldn't be opposed to it. However, that's a shot in the dark, we don't know if doing such would end in an improvement or even further degrading of the champion. 3. ** Revert him**. In which case we already have experience with him and we know it will be an improvement from his current state.

This is what it really comes down to and why a revert is being demanded not another rework. Should we have riot take **another **risk? Should we have riot go back to what we know will be better?

Hell, they don't even need to be two different things. #WE WANT ANOTHER REWORK, WE JUST WANT HIM TO BE REWORKED BACK INTO THE OLD CHAMPION.

chipndip1Apr 29, 20171 votes

So you're framing a revert as a rework, then saying "rework" Malz into old Malz. The one that just afk farms lanes and dumps a bunch of shit on you and bursts you as a DoT mage.

My issue is that you guys are saying things, but you're ignoring reasoning and context because you're indignant that Malz has gone through what he has. Old Malz's damage output was uncalled for. Old Malz's laning experience for enemies was lousy. Old Malz had plausible reasons to be reworked. Going from one bad to another bad simply because you like that bad isn't good. It's the same as Sona players that want the OG Sona back. "She was totally balanced and EVERYONE LOVED HER. Revert her!" Yeah, and we forget that she could influence fights from 1k units away by just throwing gold value at her team unless she died.

This is why I bring up those reset mechanics you guys complain about so much. The point was to focus Malz's reward on making his DoT stick longer through game play, not just front-loading a ton of damage on the initial cast. The point of all of this is to make Malz a better champion for the game as a whole. This will not be accomplished with a revert, so it's not going to happen. What's the point in asking? Move forward. Just look at what the Morde mains accomplished with their champ. Sure Morde's rework is still ass and he's still a clumsy looking dude, but he's actually not that bad. If it weren't for his fan base coming in, he'd have been in a much lousier shape. On this front, we got dudes that are too upset to like Malz's rework, but not about it enough to think about what could be done about the rework to make it better. Then you get mad at the guy saying "Don't get mad at the intent of a rework. Get mad at the quality of it." Idk...maybe ask for better quality care of your champion? What the hell do you guys think I'm saying in this thread? What else COULD I be arguing for in this thread!?

deadlychuckApr 29, 20172 votes

Old Malz's damage output was uncalled for

Holy shit man, he had no mobility, no defensive spells (e.g. healing, shielding, damage reduction...) , naturally pushed up, and mostly had single target damage, and his passive scales with a stat different to all his other abilities.

How little do you value those things in a champion's power budget, that you feel validated in claiming his damage was "uncalled for"?

those reset mechanics you guys complain about so much. The point was to focus Malz's reward on making his DoT stick longer through game

Yet all that it managed to do was pigeonhole players into a single play pattern, not only lowering the skill cap of the player (being able to change up your cast pattern for optimal performance), but it also lowered the skill floor by basically outright defining how the champion is played via mechanical reinforcement. If you're using malzahar's mechanics you're pretty much playing at the champion's maximum potential.

And to make things clear, i'm not even saying he needs a 100% revert. I'm saying that if you take the direction that riot pushed the champion during the rework, we want the champion changed in a way which is directly inverse to the direction of that vector.

deadlychuckApr 29, 20173 votes

Actually his game isn't the same, it's even more brain dead.

Zero voidling management, Spell shield to block spells, less micro over voidlings, a single viable cast pattern.

Weaker or stronger, they just made him require even less thought than he did before, considering he pretty much plays himself.

AhristocatsApr 28, 201718 votes

but old sona was viable at all elos instead of being only viable in low elo?

yes her kit had problems but she was better and she was picked in competition

it's the same with malz, his old kit wasn't perfect and had issues but it was better as he was one of the only mage that countered bruisers with ton of AOE %hp damage

chipndip1Apr 28, 20175 votes

[{quoted}](name=Janna X RubicK,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PtPvUygf,comment-id=0002,timestamp=2017-04-28T16:11:54.248+0000)

but old sona was viable at all elos instead of being only viable in low elo?

yes her kit had problems but she was better and she was picked in competition

The point: Sona had issues with being a noticeable part of the game...or generally interactive with her multiple 1k range auras. She could be moderately far back from proceedings if she wanted and still effect the game. Riot reworked her, but all it did was objectively solve the issue of "Sona move closer" without addressing any other issues that may result from that initial fix. The rework was too shallow, but that doesn't mean Sona didn't need a rework at all. I'm a fan of Riot's larger rework projects since most of them make a pretty polished project when finished. They may come out with numbers issues or whatever, but they ultimately lend themselves to better play experiences. It's the smaller reworks that constantly miss and make everyone mad. That's why the tank rework is offering moderately larger reworks on less champs...because Riot knows this as much as I do and I'm still wondering why no one else does to the point that my OP actually got downvoted...like EVEN RIOT KNOWS I'M RIGHT, GUYS, HOLY SHIT.

it's the same with malz, his old kit wasn't perfect and had issues but it was better as he was one of the only mage that countered bruisers with ton of %hp damage

Malz still has that...

AhristocatsApr 28, 20177 votes

sona had issues BUT SHE WAS STILL STRONGER IN HIGH ELO, and had a similar win rate in low elo in my book this means the champ was better, yes sona needs a full scale rework, ton of work on giving her a niche/interaction blablabla

but fearless still sucked hard there is no way it's wrong, as the champ is similar in low elo, but weaker in high elo

and malz has no %hp damage atm, it's one time on a long cd and deals less damage than before while not being able to control where the zone will drop

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

[{quoted}](name=Janna X RubicK,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=PtPvUygf,comment-id=000200000000,timestamp=2017-04-28T16:37:05.374+0000)

in my book this means the champ was better, yes sona needs a full scale rework, ton of work on giving her a niche/interaction blablabla

but fearless still sucked hard there is no way it's wrong

These are two different subjects. Of course we agree that Sona needed a bigger rework and of course we agree that this Fearless guy that did her rework did a shitty job. I'm not saying that it was better or worse to do the rework they actually did versus not doing one at all. I'm saying she needed one and the issue to complain about is that they did a bad job when they tackled it. Crying for a revert on it isn't a viable solution because the initial starting point wasn't ideal either.

and malz has no %hp damage atm, it's one time on a long cd and deals less damage than before while not being able to control where the zone will drop

Zone drops exactly where you'd want it to be, and the point of it doing less damage is that it resets his E on top of his Q resetting his E. They wanted to make him less auto-pilot by giving him something to play into for more damage reward rather than just pushing damage into his initial casts. Smart logic, but not enough effort in the execution.

AhristocatsApr 28, 20176 votes

here is your issue and i hope you will understand this time

I DONT WANT A REVERT ON SONA, i want a full scale rework for too many reasons and it isn't the place to talk about this

however until a full scale rework reverting sona is better as we would be able to play her in high elo

AnhartaminApr 28, 20176 votes

[deleted]

chipndip1Apr 28, 20175 votes

Low play rate signifies that primarily mains play her and no one else. That type of thing inflates win rates.

137434Apr 28, 20178 votes

~4% play rate really isn't low, and is much higher than 'only mains playing the champ' play rates. To give you some perspective Malz support currently has a ~2.3% play rate in platinum+ ranked.

AhristocatsApr 28, 20172 votes

if you ever find me a win rate in master tier and above i will take it

oh wait, you can't because there ain't a single sona main above master Even colazor started playing Nami recently to get to master, because it's impossible with Sona

LyingOnLineApr 28, 20173 votes

As I've explained before, nobody uses winrates in Master and Challenger because the population is so retardedly tiny. You can't actually get meaningful data out of it.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

You can't get meaningful data out of the best players of this game.

Let that sink in...just how dumb that sounds...

LyingOnLineApr 28, 20172 votes

Statistics rely on large samples. The best players in the game are anything but.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

You don't balance your game around people that can't play the game at its highest potential. If people keep shrugging off data collected by the game's good players because "There's not a lot of Master/Challenger players in comparison to Silvers, who we KNOW are garbage", then we'll never have a point where we admit that some champs, like Teemo and Garen, simply aren't going to work.

We don't need 1 million Challenger players to draw meaningful data from them. We need a decent amount of games played per champ. If high elo avoids a champ almost all together so we legit CAN'T draw data from that champ, what does that say about that champ after so long of being this way? It means there's a point where, assuming you want to continue growing as a player, if you main this champ, you should drop this champ for another one.

LyingOnLineApr 28, 20172 votes

{quoted}

You don't balance your game around people that can't play the game at its highest potential.

Riot does that. It's called "balancing around pro play" and is one of the most bemoaned things on the board. SoloQ data, on the other hand, is valuable because it is an aggregate, because it tells you overall which champions are played and how well they are doing. Master/Challenger data isn't valuable because the population is so ridiculously tiny that it's incredibly vulnerable to player preference introducing noise. Oh, one of them decided that Irelia is trash and should never be played? Whoops, her playrate just dropped precipitously. Having a bad day? Bad week? Bad month? Bam, instantly contaminates the data. Bjergsen and Turtle are drunk as fuck and streaming together? Wow, just look at that data spin in its grave!

Seriously, this isn't hard to grasp.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20172 votes

I guess? Issue is that:

For this to work now she'd have to be objectively broken like before. Not happening.
Otherwise you'd have to revert her to yesteryear's iteration way back when. Not happening.

It's a non-issue. Only thing we can do from here is look forward. What types of key aspects of the champ are worth keeping and which ones should be shaved off if we had a more modern take on the champ's kit? What should be added to make Sona a better support in today's time? So on and so forth. And not stupid shit like "I love playing URF Sona. I don't play Sona that much but I always want her when URF comes around. Riot, make Sona play like URF! THAT'D BE SO COOL!" That's the stupid shit that got us where we are now.

zarxus1234Apr 28, 201713 votes

oh fuck you, you god damn riot defender. They completely screwed this champion up. They nerf him for support while NERFING MID too.

All they have to do is undo the rework.

So sick of all the riot defenders on these boards. You guys literally do anything to justify their poor choices.

La Belle SauvageApr 28, 20176 votes

God forbid anyone have different opinions right?

deadlychuckApr 29, 20171 votes

Well this is what they're looking into for patch 7.10

Malz - W changes to make his solo laning more rewarding, reduce unhealthy impact of his support play (lack of good counterplay especially)

Though, i'm pretty sure this is an oxymoron.

chipndip1Apr 29, 20171 votes

My question is how can they do that? The thing is AI piloted...

deadlychuckApr 29, 20171 votes

lol exactly.

The skill plays itself, the player's skill is a completely independent factor from the damage portion of the ability (technically the spell blocking of the ability is still a skill check) so the idea that you could ever make it rewarding in mid lane without making insanely unfair on support is just impossible.

So long as the voidlings scale with AP, they will always be better in a support position.

CØulrophobiaApr 28, 20179 votes

Old Malzahar was both funner to play with and against.

chipndip1Apr 28, 20174 votes

So fun knowing he's going to be dancing at turret while a DoT auto-farms for him.

SO FUN getting clicked on with no counter-play for the entirety of your health bar.

You're TOTALLY speaking for everyone.

LooknookApr 28, 20176 votes

You could never just farm with Old Malzahar's DOT until mid game, with by that point every Midlane Mage is doing that kind of thing. You had to last hit minions with Malzahar's crappy auto to get almost anything.

Big LincolnApr 28, 20178 votes

I liked old malzahar better because voidlings were his passive; they replaced his fire-and-forget DoT circle with fire-and-forget minion spawns.

he's somehow managed to become even more boring to play

Fed by Snu SnuApr 28, 20177 votes

Oh of course, now complaining is unjustified.

But when people complained about Lee Sin's rework and it didn't even make it live, it was all justified.

Two standards much?

MordepoolApr 28, 20176 votes

Hi S1 Morde main it's been 2 years since they Reworked my favorite Champion and left him in a Salt mine to Rust.
Since that time I have become a very active member of the Boards making my Displeasure Known to Riot as well as trying to show a better way to Rework Morde.
Riot is very aware he needs another Rework hence his place in the tier 1 list. So as annoying as the Malz mains are they are a necessary evil to Remind Riot. "You messed up and you have to fix it"

boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/OOernG0E-the-reforging-of-mordekaiserriot

RalanrApr 28, 20175 votes

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hXlfixJs-RU

Not really made for balance purposes but sums up how I feel about old Malz and why I don't want him back.

I like playing league.

PennsApr 28, 20174 votes

How is that different now tho? xd

deadlychuckApr 29, 20172 votes

Talk about a misrepresentation.

You do know these videos are massively over exaggerated for comedic effect and as result don't reflect the reality of the champion right?

RalanrApr 29, 20171 votes

Oh I know, I just really do not feel that different when fighting the old Malz.

inplaneApr 28, 20175 votes

Malzahar 's main concerns right now are power distribution and his kit in general. He's not meant to be a minion mage. He's a void mage. Making his entire kit play around a faulty AI gimmick isn't healthy at all. All of his power is weighed into how many voidlings he has and that's terrible design. It makes him unreliable an punishing to play as. I think the best plan of action is to revert and rework from his original kit.

chipndip1Apr 29, 20171 votes

Unfortunately that's a crap ton of work to revert a champ, let him sink into the community, and then rework him again. If they DID do a revert, which would be beyond lucky if it did, they wouldn't do another rework for a long time.

NilokApr 29, 20173 votes

He sank in, and we reject the rework now. It failed because of a passive that broke the kit and removed some of the smartest parts of the design, most notably about his passive. So guess what, Malzahar had been a stable Champion since Pre-Season 1 and didn't break anything until they reworked him, we would love to see that back.

It also doesn't take a "crap ton of work" to revert a champion. They still have all the code unless they were stupid about it or they rebuilt the game behind our backs. Learn some programming before making a statement like that.