Hes been nerfed like 10 patches in a row now, he cant mid, jungle, or support, and worst of all, hes completely uninteresting and dull to play. Nobody asked for this rework in the first place. Give us our old Malz back.
FiddlesOnTheRoof32 votesTHIS THIS THIS THIS. I've hated new Malz ever since release. Even when he was busted, I just wanted old malz back. I want the old w back so bad. The old scaling. I've never liked new Malz. I just want my old mid Malz back. I wish I could upvote this a thousand times.
Skyroar3 votesTHIS THIS THIS THIS. I've hated new Malz ever since release. Even when he was busted, I just wanted old malz back. I want the old w back so bad. The old scaling. I've never liked new Malz. I just want my old mid Malz back. I wish I could upvote this a thousand times.
The old W was a boring and bland ability, not to mention that it had little to no purpose early game.
I'm a Malz main for years, but let's not kid ourselves in thinking that old Malz was perfect. His old passive was only useful for the first few levels, his old W was mostly only useful for late game, and he had massive game health problems.
New Malz was a flawed improvement. It new Malz had more of its power transfered from voidlings to his spells, and if he had a different passive, he would have been a much better champion. Making his entire kit reliant on voidlings and giving him a free banshee is the source of all Malz's balance problems since the rework hit, and Riot has failed to recognize them properly.
Voluug135 votesWell, Riot apparently doesnt like one point wonders, nor all champions need to have a one point wonder, so his old W was ok from a design perspective, it was supposed to be a late game ability anyways.
I'm a Malz main for years, but let's not kid ourselves in thinking that old Malz was perfect.
It wasnt, but pretending that the rework did anything but crank up and/or create new toxic parts in Malzahar's kit is delutional.
Old malzahar had clear match-ups, clear weaknesses, and clear powerspikes and counterplay.
New malzahar was basically someone doing a rework with the intent of gutting a champion they dont understand or care for afterwards.
Skyroar2 votesWell, Riot apparently doesnt like one point wonders, nor all champions need to have a one point wonder, so his old W was ok from a design perspective, it was supposed to be a late game ability anyways.
It wasnt, but pretending that the rework did anything but crank up and/or create new toxic parts in Malzahar's kit is delutional.
Old malzahar had clear match-ups, clear weaknesses, and clear powerspikes and counterplay.
New malzahar was basically someone doing a rework with the intent of gutting a champion they dont understand or care for afterwards.
I definitely agree that the rework brought a whole lot of problems, but generally, the Q/E/R changes were smart, the QE reset mechanic is fun, and the concept of a voidling army is epic. If you removed his new passive from the rework, and if you made his damage ratios a bit more favored towards spells and a bit less toward voidlings, his rework would have been much better (and also somewhat closer to pre-rework Malz).
Unfortunately, instead of that, we've been getting movement speed nerfs, AA range nerfs, cooldowns inbetween charges, 2HP voidlings, the removal of skillshot blocking, and all kinds of unfun changes.
Riot doesn't need to revert Malz to his pre-rework version. They need to revert Malz to his post-rework version, and then overhaul the passive and switch the ap ratios.
Voluug133 votesQ's delay was reduced by 50% effectively reducing its skill floor. E damage nerfs only brough problems because ''muh point and click'' doesnt really work when the ability's range is like 500 units. W was perfectly fine as a late game danger zone that destroyed tanks that didnt build properly, and instead gave us Passive Minion Laning, the Spell.
The QE reset also destroyed Malzahar's damage because he is an squishy AP whose kit was supposed to be anti-dive burst and not sustain damage. Malzahar is simply not build, at his core, to sustain a prologued fight like Vlad/Swain can. Without his reliable damage, he is a niche-less abomination that had to be gutted to not be massively overpowered.
Malzahar's kit will NEVER work outside his niche, specifically because it was tailored to play as it is. Also, all this ''but Old malzahar was so Problematic™'' is a complete bandwagon because he was a niche champion with defined strengths and weaknesses pre-rework.
As long as on-demand minions, spellshield passive and QER are neutered AND their only purpose is to enable voidlings and/or to push lanes, Malzahar will always be broken at his core. Which, you know, is the entire rework.
FiddlesOnTheRoof1 votesI'm not saying he was perfect. I think Ori is the only prefectly designed mid laner. But I loved playing him. And I loved old w because it really helped with tanks.
Samakii12 votesMaking his voidlings on demand was just a bad idea. It was way more fun when you had to get them to spawn. I won't touch him now.
ModAcademy Kayn5 votesI'd personally like to see some actual proof that Malz can't do anything.
lightdragoon8813 votesPlay a game as malz in each role yourself. That is all the proof you need.
ModAcademy Kayn4 votesBrb, going to go play a game of Malz mid.
Edit: Got Autofilled to Jungle, will update later.
lightdragoon888 votesOh how I wish I could watch these games.
ModAcademy Kayn3 votesAight, I got a game. Here's the Match overview, and I'll list the game.
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2479803208/48778565?tab=overview
1st thing first, this is my first time playing Malz since the initial rework. I played him a lot before the rework, but my interests went else where (Taliyah <3). The initial laning was fine, though my CS suffered due to not being familiar enough with his damage to farm right. Zed didn't do much at all that lane, and Ivern was a nice and friendly jungler ganking about 3 times.
2nd thing, 14/7, that's still a lot of deaths. However, these were not deaths involved around simple "fights". Only 2 deaths were to single people (Zac killing me near second ally turret while low and Zed killing me when I was low near their inhib). Every other death was a result of multiple people closing in on me (Near Baron pit, at Bot ally and enemy turret, and near dragon).
3rd thing and final, never did I feel like I wasn't contributing. It felt pretty nice being able to use abilities to direct the swarm, especially when it killed the invisible Wukong, and I enjoyed using Q to silence enemies constantly throughout a fight. I was also once able to get two seperate versions of my aids out on two people, due to the refresh from Q. It was pretty chill.
If you're familiar with a way to share a Replay, I'd be happy to try and share my Replay, but Malz really isn't trash. (Also, wait, what do you mean each role? I'm only playing Mid, the role he was always originally played in, and the one I always played in Pre-rework).
Mataka Tek6 votes[{quoted}](name=Dr Mercy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=QwZHpucq,comment-id=00050000000000000000,timestamp=2017-04-20T07:29:41.082+0000)
Aight, I got a game. Here's the Match overview, and I'll list the game.
http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/NA1/2479803208/48778565?tab=overview
...
There is something very odd about this game you are linking us. I checked this website, and put my own name in there, and I get normal results. But when I look at your name, all the champs EXCEPT yours have the Name of the Champion, not the player. Since the game you posted has NO NAMES there is no way for me to verify the level of play. I must assume low elo.
NONE of your enemy opponents carried the QSS. If these were experienced players, at least 1 or 2 of them would have it. And you would "understand" why Malzahar is weak.
Malzahar actually does "ok" in low elo because the enemy he faces is not experienced with him.
Once you face more experienced players with Malzahar you begin to hit a wall.
When facing more experienced players, At around mid to late game you see the following:
AD champs kill him with simple autoattacks in 2 hits... that is maybe 1/2 second of play.
Syndra, Fizz and Annie nuke him instantly with 1 Ult. Same with Zed.
Yasuo just beats the crap out of him,
There is not a single TopLane champ that does not outscale, and out perform Malzahar. And once they have QSS... its Over.
It used to be that Malz could take on a toplaner when he had the shield (prior to the shield nerfs) because it would come up after a short time. Similar to how Poppy gains a shield passive. But they nerfed Malz... and he simply can't trade 1 v 1 with any good top laner.
So that leaves supports for Malz. ADC's usually buy QSS. Once the ADC has QSS, its over for Malz... his ult CC and damage is needed to stop them, but qss negates that, and Malz gets destroyed.
I do invite you to play against some experienced players (Gold level or higher) and see how well you do as a Malzahar. I am interested in seeing that.
ModAcademy Kayn3 votesWell yeah, it replaces names with Champions because I'm pretty sure it follows the idea of Name-shaming, but don't quote me on that. In terms of Rank, I'm Gold 5, though I've always stopped Ranked play after getting to G5.
Oh yeah, I certainly do plan to play more Games with Malz to try and prove people wrong. I might make a new thread for that.
Odriew1 votesI'm a diamond malzahar main, and I've mained him for four years now (diamond last year and this year). I think I've got a good background for talking about what malzahar can or can't do.
In mid lane, the other champs will basically walk away from you and the voidlings cannot chase, because they slow down out of auto range. With the futher nerfs, anyone with aoe (so, virtually every mid laner) kills your voidlings before they can even auto, unless you blow your entire combo: ie the other player either needs to make mistakes (not uncommon in lower elo, much less so in high level) or you need to all in the other player just to do damage, beyond the paltry 250 you get from e at level 9, BEFORE resists. In practice, it's more like 140-160.
"But q resets e!" you say. Yes, until you realize it takes a quarter of your mana pool at level 9 to do it, even after buying a mana item. That is to say, you get punished for harassing, and it does minimal damage when you do, making it functionally worthless unless you use both charges of w (see above for why that's not useful unless you all in). If you DON'T all in, that's a grand total of (assuming optimal timing on the q) 300-ish damage from e and 80 (50 after resists) from q. (I'd also like to challenge you to name one other mid laner whose harass does all of 400 damage at level 9, assuming everything lands. I'm not talking about one ori q or something; if it's a thunderlords champ, then eg ori gets off q+w+auto+thunderlords proc. That's 500-600 damage right there, and it's on a much lower cooldown and much lower mana cost.)
If you do use e+q for harass, then any mid laner with waveclear (so, once again, virtually every meta midlaner) will use one or two abilities and shove you under tower, then roam and get a kill from another lane, while you're stuck autoing minions for 60 damage a pop. If you don't use e+q for harass, and use it for waveclear, it still takes so long that even a mordekaiser can just walk up and clear the wave faster than you (not making this up, it happens from time to time when I play against morde in mid lane. You can't even punish him because your voidilngs die even faster inside the enemy minion wave when you have no minis and his shield just powers through your e and e+q).
Once the other mid laner gets qss, even as a first item, your kill potential drops like a rock, along with the fact that the mr directly reduces your damage anyway, since you can no longer all-in and (as previously established) not going all in just gives you the garbage damage from q and e.
He wasn't unplayable before this patch, but he's pretty much dumpster tier right now. It's a little easier once you start teamfighting, and have the items to make q actually useful, but his voidlings still die instantly and you still get either cced or qssed when you ult, basically turning him into a q bot.
And riot claims this is healthier than old malzahar, and keeps nerfing him instead of a) reverting w change b) giving him scaling at the expense of base damage, the easiest fix in the book for nerfing supports without hitting the other roles and one they do to literally every carry that builds tank items and is successful or c) reverting the rework entirely, which is what almost every pre-rework malzahar player wants anyway.
So that's my relatively well-qualified view on this matter, and I don't understand why riot is so against admitting that they made a mistake.
lightdragoon886 votesMan your entire team got fed....and no one on the enemy team got 
and....is that suppose to be a "support" Wukong?
I mean great Kill count...but this game feels like an outliner compare to an average.
If you want to try some more games with Mid Malzahar...please let us know how those games go to. If not then thanks for the 1 game and your thoughts.
ModAcademy Kayn6 votesYeah, I will be playing more games to see how it actually ends up. A single game is never a great example, I was just giving initial thoughts.
deadlychuck20 votesHe could be in the state he was immediately following the MYMU, and i'd still demand a rework. He was an abomination when he was strong, getting weaker doesn't make him any less an abomination.
His kit is no longer feels rewarding. You're dependent on your internal mechanics which are out of your control, e.g. voidlings not dying or reaching the target exc. You no longer have the mechanic of blocking skills with his passive (or his W now), instead you get an idiot proof spell shield.
Basically, they lowered his skill floor and forced players into a predictable play pattern. The difference between a high skill and low skill malz player is basically how good they are at the game, not how good they are at the champion. Both players are about equally at the mercy of the enemy player's ability to play around malzahar, as they only have access to a single effective play pattern and deviation from that effectively guts all your damage.
Mecha Incognito4 votesWhy are we pretending that pre-rework malz was at all difficult to play, or even fair to play against. All he did mid before was E waves until he was 6 and try to flash all in you.
I don't think what they did with him was at all good, however. I'd be in favour of another rework to try and figure out something with him, but having a high damage ranged suppression in his kit will always make it hard for him to be fair AND interesting.
Voluug131 votesAll he did mid before was E waves until he was 6 and try to flash all in you.
Malz cant flash-ult people, his entire combo needs to go BEFORE his ult or it doesnt work.
Also Malz cant push all day without going OoM and, well, pushing the lane to a point where his inmobile squishy ass was ludicrously easy to gank, not to mention his E never had the damage early to push waves alone, never mind last hit properly. The only moment when you ''pushed with E all day long'' was against a roamer assassin that wanted to roam and pushing kept them there. Which was, you know, malzahar's intended purpose as an anti-assassin mage.
but having a high damage ranged suppression in his kit will always make it hard for him to be fair AND interesting.
Most midlaners outrange(d) him specially his ult, and the ones that dont are supposed to be counterpicked by Malz. Old Malz was always fair in that he rewarded the enemy smart champion picking instead of zomg twich reflexes. His only ''long range'' ability was a high mana cost skillshot. There are melee heroes with more effective range that Malzahar, old or new.
deadlychuck1 votesNot to mention, a commonly overlooked aspect of the rework was the almost 50% reduction in delay of his Q.
It use to be slow enough that any dash or high move speed would avoid it, yet now it's almost impossible to dodge.
Shadow Hazard5 votesEasily the single biggest failure of the mage update. He even beats out kog for the greatest class update failure in my opinion.
General Esdeath 5 votesI miss when Malz was rarely seen and he was my power pick for when I had to mid
AmazoX4 votesDo you guys remember after the Mid-season Mage update went on the Live Servers, Malzahar was soloing all the drakes at level 2 without help or smite except infernal? Good (Over-powered) times...
What's bothering is that they are barely talking about what they think of Malzahar right now and what are their goals with Malzahar in the future, What plan's have they gotten for him? It's crystal clear that his not in a good state right now and only being balanced around Challenger-LC$ level play.
You know, If they do ever revert Malzahar, I want them to keep the updated character model.
deadlychuck2 votesDo you guys remember after the Mid-season Mage update went on the Live Servers, Malzahar was soloing all the drakes at level 2 without help or smite except infernal? Good (Over-powered) times...
Yeah, no.
Just because the champion was over tuned and OP doesn't make his kit any better designed, fair, or satisfying. Yes he could solo dragon at level 2, but that didn't mean time were any better for him. He was still an abomination.
LadyRenly3 votesDo you guys remember after the Mid-season Mage update went on the Live Servers, Malzahar was soloing all the drakes at level 2 without help or smite except infernal? Good (Over-powered) times...
What's bothering is that they are barely talking about what they think of Malzahar right now and what are their goals with Malzahar in the future, What plan's have they gotten for him? It's crystal clear that his not in a good state right now and only being balanced around Challenger-LC$ level play.
You know, If they do ever revert Malzahar, I want them to keep the updated character model.
Malzahar was always able to take drake at level 2...
MetalGearTeemu4 votesI miss old malz. I liked having a defined role as the anti-dive/tank buster mage.
Beats the current defined role of malz, which from a balancing time line is "Ryze Clone"
P0IS0N IVY4 votesMe over 80% of the reworks.
Keevalroy3 votesI as well. I do like some of them, but the vast majority either solved problems by creating new ones (only to have the original issues come back,) or were cases where champions were arbitrarily selected to receive an update, and were damaged sometimes to the point of being completely ruined for no reason other than change for the sake of change.
Spoofghoul3 votesjust hold on a second let me go make 10 new accounts and upvote this some more
ScarletSurgeon3 votesIf I sent cookies to Riot maybe they finally will do it. I miss Malzahar, he was really satisfying to play back then :/
Kaioko3 votesPersonally old Malz wasn't enjoyable either. You dropped a Q and cleared the whole wave and then you ultimated and got a guaranteed kill. If your Q couldn't kill the whole lane and your enemy has some form of CC removal you were screwed.
The ultimate needs to go and replaced with something similar to what they did with warwick. Shift the power away from that and allow the champion to actually be interesting.
Euthenaasia3 votesIf Malzahar's old W had some kind of like, "void shift" where he became an untargetable spectre and gained crazy movement speed upon cast for .5 seconds it could give him a cool and unique reposition. I truly think the W is the issue with Malz's kit as every change has now become revolved around it.
Aterpater2 votesYou can have hopes about it maybe in a few months. Quite obvious that the main reason to kill the top tier but otherwise not OP Malz supp pick was to make room for the new Rakan in meta and to make sure he won't have trouble with Malz counterpicks. So after the usual release OP-ness of the new champs will be nerfed back (as always), hopefully they will let Malz sneak back into the game.
Rengooo2 votesDo you want him reverted because he is weak right now or because you don't like his kit? Just asking, because I actually like his kit alot more now, but would agree endless nerfs are tiresome.
sirwaterfles7 votesHis kit. Passive is just anoying AF to play against and voidlings still feel wierd to me. I enjoyed playing the old malz and didnt really cared against laning against him(not saying he was perfect and i completely understand why he was up for a rework) , I dont like playing the new one and just hate playing against him.
Wheatloaf2 votesI don't dislike Malz's current kit, I really don't. But in terms of problems it fixed and problems it created, it's not at 5.0AS Kog'Maw levels where it's breaking an entire item class, but it's still caused a bit of a mess. It would be kinda nice to just get old Malz back.
ZyniX2 votesMalzahar was the only reason I even played ranked or SR at all. Riot will never get my money again until they fix him. The part of his kit that people hated still exist (his R) except now people also hate playing against the new voidlings. So now malz players and his enemies both hate him. At least your precious assassin mains are safe though eh?
Thresh Outta Fux2 votesChange him back >:|
morris12 votesMalzahar jungle went from being able to clear the entire jungle without any pots and soloing dragon at level 3 to his voidlings being oneshot by dragon and 2 shot by everything else (I don't know if he is still able to solo dragon, but I don't even want to find out at the rate his voidlings die).
EDIT: And I'm also talking about his state pre-rework, not on the PBE where he was broken.
SiscoWolf4 votesActually, all jungle monsters kill voidlings in one hit now - except little guys... He is almost not able to jungle at all now. RIP...
Crede7771 votesForce Malzahar back into the mid role by gutting the viability of mage supports.
Supports should fall into one of two categories: Healer / Shield supports like Soraka, Sona, Janna, Nami, Lulu, Bard, Karma, and Rakan or Tank / CC supports like Thresh, Blitzcrank, Braum, Alistar, Taric, and Leona
That way Riot can balance Malzahar, Veigar, Zyra, Brand, etc. around mid.
Aterpater2 votes[deleted]
Crede7771 votesI can't agree less. Imo LoL already has this problem of simplicity. I mean, I'm coming from DOTA and despite I do like LoL and I'm suprised how fun it can be, the thing what I really miss is the diversity. In DOTA 90% of heroes(champs) are picked at pro level play while in LoL it's only some 20% at best, the currently buffed "rotation". On top of this, champs getting more and more bland and similar with every single patch and rework, though they should have much stronger and weaker sides and much more unique kits. But right now kind of everybody can counter everybody in LoL with a few items and many champs has about the same skills with a bit different visuals. And the same goes for the roles too. Every champ has like 1 or maybe 2 viable build path and 1 or maybe 2 viable roles. And the teams are strictly set in a 1+1+2+jg setup, doesn't matter what. In DOTA you don't just have no clue about who will go to what lane in enemy champ select just by watching the picks, but can't even be sure that will they have 2 junglers or not even 1.
So I think, that in this case LoL needs the straight opposite what you suggest, it needs more diverse champs (not new ones with copy-paste skill sets), more diverse build paths and role options and team compositions. And to just stop being "more accessible" by making it a more and more bland and single-line, minesweeper-level casual click-fest.
Just my personal opinion ofc.
While I agree that diversity is good for the game, what is happening to Malz (and other similar champs like Zyra) actually detracts from diversity. Now, instead of having Malzahar being a viable mid and a less viable support, we have Malz being not viable mid or support.
The key to diversity is for Riot to recognize and embrace roles and champion identities. Identify the core characteristics of each champ, their strengths and weaknesses, and where Riot wants them to go (Top/Mid/Jg/Support/ADC). Then hone that champion towards that role to the exclusion of others.
This is coming from someone who remembers back when Riot refused to acknowledge the 1 top 1 mid 1 jungle 2 bottom lane meta. They didn't want to cut down on players' abilities to customize games and innovate. However, they eventually and wisely recognized that this is the best thing for the game and came around to embracing it.
Aterpater1 votesI don't get how could be the 'key to diversity' to make champs perfectly one-sided. What would make it 'diverse'? And as I wasn't here I didn't know that Riot was fighting against the 1+1+2+jg 'meta' but I'm sorry they gave this up. Though I'm glad that it's only a soloQ 'meta' as nothing forces you to do it and as I watch LCS matches recently, I see supports roaming almost as much mid as bot early game and I see ADCs fighting top lane while tops split-pushing bot at 10 minutes and the likes. Not to mention picks like Ezreal mid and MF support and so on. Because that's how a MOBA should look like and not the way that everybody farming their lanes with tunnel vision then at mid game join in a huge 'deathball' and try to snowball through mid lane. Isn't it a bit bland? So, forcing a fixed team and banning the dozen other options is like saying that in soccer you have to play all the time in a 3-4-3 formation throwing out the window most of the strategical dept what they filled whole books with. The same applies to MOBA games, the more you force a fixed 'meta' the more dept you take away. Even if it's more comfortable to solo players who are unable to work as a team (from the moment of champ select), as MOBAs are perfectly teamplay-based games, it won't bring any good at all.
But to not be too off-topic, Malzahar issue: You were right by embracing strengths and weaknesses of champs but that doesn't mean to force them to specified roles but to not make them too generalised and stop making everybody a counter to everybody (sadly latest balance patches and reworks are going to the opposite direction...). Champs should be very strong in some fields while very weak in others, and there should be option to different viable build paths for every champ. For Malzahar the best would be if you could build him damage oriented to make him a good midlaner or build him around his zoning and CC abilities to make him a good support or well, even to take him into the jungle with some builds. Best would be if you could build different viable mid and supp versions too, not just one for each role. The only think what you shouldn't be able to do to make both at the same time. All champs should be viable and versatile by terms of role picks and build paths, actually.
So, as I agree with you that Malz is in a pretty sad state right now - just like 2/3 of the whole champ pool tbh - the problem isn't in forced roles and 'metas' but that Riot always favour a few selected champs and leaving the rest in a subpar state. And continously rotating that favoured pool of course with new "balance" patches. I don't know is it because they are this much unable to balance a damn MOBA game but I think it's more like about trying to force the playerbase to always buy new and new champs and skins for them. Either is a bad option and won't lead to any good in the long run imo.
Cosmic Warper1 voteshttp://current.lolalytics.com/champion/Malzahar/ down to a 47% winrate in both lanes. Good job riot
SiscoWolf3 votesNot surprising.... RIP Malz
