Is the Recent Malzahar Passive Nerf Because Jensen Got a Penta Thanks To Passive?

Yeah, but that has more to do with the inability to actually play malzahar poorly, he completely lacks mechanical difficulty after the rework. He's as easy to play as an annie, but as complex as gnar.

The only factor for how well you do on malzahar in a fight, is positioning, a skill required for literally every champion.

The problem is that the skill floor is too high, and the difference between that and the skill ceiling is determined by general mechanics, not champion specific ones. I don't think that this change will gut malzahar, but i do think that it basically nullifies the passive completely, and makes it a non-factor. It's like an ankle high cardboard box blocking a doorway. If you are paying even the slightest amount of attention to it, it's as good as not there, but if you're ignoring it, then you might trip, before catching yourself.

I'm surprised malzahar made it to live with this shitty rework. The whole kit is broken, not in terms of being too powerful, but in the since that it doesn't work. The only thing keeping him afloat is his insanely OP W, which has 0 skill factor, and is completely impossible to nerf to reasonable levels without destroying the champion. Yeah his passive is annoying, but that was never really the issue with him. Alone it's not that strong, it's the fact that it allowed for the functionality of his W, which is the root of his problems.

Which is ironic considering his W is literally the only thing going for his kit. A targeted suppress is great, but it still disables you too, and can be QSSed. His E is trash without his W supporting it, his Q is trash without refreshing his E... which is already relying on his W, and his R also relies on his W for damage support.

It's a terrible rework which got shoved down his throat. They said he was impossible to balance before, but they really didn't consider how much worse they could do, and did. Before malzahar was solid, and could be played well, but when played poorly still offered a decently reliable option. Now he is a strong, but impossible to play poorly, and offers inconsistent and very unreliable option, because his consistency is completely out of the hands of the person playing him. It's all dependent on the enemy and the voidlings.

Naw i got pissed with the devs and malzahar when they effectively removed AD malzahar from the game.