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@Riot - Malzahar is down to 48% win rate.

Jovius··8 votes·1,228 views

After the long series of nerfs to Malzahar and the current change in itemization, Malzahar is now down to 48.8% win rate as per champion.gg

This is bad. Malzahar is not the same case as Ryze, where his win rate is negatively influenced by the sheer amount of people who can't pilot him properly. Malzahar is reliable champion with straightforward kit. Having his win rate plummet so hard is a testament the recent nerfs were just unfair to him.

Malzahar was dominating pick in pro play through 8.1 and 8.2 patches, however note, that he was as strong OR STRONGER before that (he was slightly nerfed in his R ratio past his last rework some time in 7.21 i believe) and wasn't picked in pro play at all, just because pros are usually very slow to adapt and continued to play champs like Syndra or Cass even if the champions were objectively much weaker.

The nerfs were an overreaction to his sudden pro play presence and he was hit incredibly hard, both to his cooldowns and to his scaling. Meanwhile, Zoe was allowed to run rampart across the rift for all her existence, Ryze is arguably the best mid laner now and the only thing he is getting is a sligh nerf to his E, which is really not the thing that makes him strong, Taliyah remains untouched, Azir is getting nerfed after being THE mid laner for four patches but none of these nerfs are as severe as the nerfs to Malz.

Everybody will complain about Malz, because people are just bad at playing around his ultimate, but he has clear weaknesses in his laning phase and can be shut down and played around by people with brain. People who claim he has OP are the same who will say Darius is OP.

What do you guys at Riot going to do about this? You clearly can't balance the champion properly, due to his design and his reliability. Are you going to rework him? Are you going to at least partly compensate his recent nerfs?

For the people, who are going to comment on this saying that it's good he sucks, because he ulted your Zed once, when you didn't buy MR or QSS the whole game, and you couldn't do what LL Stylish does in his YT videos... keep it to yourself. The champion clearly has counterplay, otherwise he wouldn't lose 52% of his games on average.

12 Comments

Beacon Academy4 votes

As much as I would like Old Malzahar back, the community has been stuck with this current version for too long.

As soon as he is reverted, there will be mass bitching about his ratios and base damage (Never mind the longer cooldowns) and he'll just get nerfed to oblivion again.

Will he get played in pro play without his shield to keep him safe? Probably not. (Which would be a good thing)

But people will still bitch about things they hate.

Cause if you start hating something for life, you're gonna hate it for life. The rework was the start of the hate.

Jovius3 votes

I don't want old Malzahar back, this one is fine. I would welcome new W, instead of his voidlings, which I think is problematic part of his kit.

But if he keeps getting nerfed because of his reliability I say pull back on the reliability so he can be more powerful.

Glory972 votes

{quoted} but he has clear weaknesses in his laning phase and can be shut down and played around by people with brain. People who claim he has OP are the same who will say Darius is OP.

Any further explanation on what particular weakness malz might have in his laning phase? From my perspective he is just a permapush bot, that repeatedly uses e and w onto minions, completly shutting down the enemy midlaner. There is no midlaner that is even close to match his waveclear and if you try you'll run out of mana within 1 minute. I don't think that darius is op, and I can somewhat play arround malz ulti but I have no idea what I should do against his oppresive waveclear.

And this is also why malz being op is very problematic for midlane. Anyone can just perma-push midlane and completly shut-down the enemy midlaner. It doesn't need skill at all. I don't mind syndra or cassio being strong, but malz being string is a very serious issue. And aside from all that, 48,8% is far, VERY FAR away from unplayable.

Jovius2 votes

Your comment suggest you either have no idea how to play against Malzahar or your mid laners don't.

All you have to do, is kill his voidlings, which are dead to either one auto or any aoe spell. This is why every Malzahar playing in a higher elo in proplay is always 10-20 cs behind and pushed under his tower, because those guys know how bad his early game is.

Generalization like yours "oppresive waveclear" or "permapush bot" is exactly why his win rate was so inflated. People dont use their brain when playing vs him and then complain on forums about how opressive he is.

Kill his voidlings, and he has no damage and no push. When somebody picks him against me, I just play Orianna into him, wait for his voidlings and instantly kill them with a Q. He cant farm without them and if he is dumb enough to ult me without his R up, well.. he just wasted his R and I can shove him under tower and do something on the rest of the map.

Any champion with range and poke can deal with Malz easily. Your job as a Malzahar is to survive laning phase. If you can't deal with his push, that's a YOU problem, not Malzahar being imbalanced.

Mataka Tek1 votes

All you have to do, is kill his voidlings, which are dead to either one auto or any aoe spell. This is why every Malzahar playing in a higher elo in proplay is always 10-20 cs behind and pushed under his tower, because those guys know how bad his early game is.

Yes, very very good point. His voidlings die so incredibly easily. Malz can't actually farm with e well enough early game. Trying to play Malz in any other lane is agony too.

We used to be able to play him in Jg, but the minions do not tank anymore. So, Malz jg puts him too far behind to be viable there. Malz sup is terrible with No inherent CC, no Heal, no Slow... and the voidling die in 1 AA or any kind of AOE. Malz top is insanely poor. Even if you manage to deal with insane damage of Riven, Darius, Gnar, Sion... in the early phase, once you get to late game, they are just overbearing. Can dive under tower, pop your shield, TAKE YOUR ULT, eat it for breakfast, and while under tower, totally kill you.

Malz has no scaling and with his Ult 20% nerfed, he can't kill any more. Late game he is getting crushed because you try glass cannon to compensate for the loss of Ult strength, and you get instapopped. So, your try tanky builds, but you still die, and you can't kill anything.

There is no build option that allows Malz to be successful against any competent team... Malz is 9/10 the weakest link in the games. Using his ult late game is essentially a death penalty for Malzahar, because he is rooted.

People who complain about Malz, have not actually tried to level up with him as a main. I dare anyone to try playing just Malz and get from bronze to silver and gold.

Its nearly impossible. Everyone I know always has to use another champ because he can't do it anymore.

Beacon Academy3 votes

I often wonder if everyone who bitches about Malzahar has actually tried playing him for any amount of time...

Y'know... to see if he actually is as OPOPOP as they claim he is.

Dude just kill the 300%-bonus-damage-to-minions Voidling swarm.

Malzahar will be forced to cast two additional spells after that if he wants 3 Voidlings for his next W cast.

AOE will just wipe out the Voidlings again and they'll usually be in the minion wave, so you can CS at the same time.

Mataka Tek1 votes

Malzahar's scaling is so bad now, I am losing almost every game I play. Seriously... But instead of looking at me, look at the other top 20 Malzahar players who played him more than anyone else in the world, and look at how many wins and losses they have "just for Malzahar" and you will see... they stopped playing Malz more often then not. They have switched to Swain or something else because Malzahar is no longer even close to Diamond/Plat/challenger material.

He needs better late game scaling. Period. His voidlings are useless late game. They give him no protection what so ever. The item changes and "runes" and enemy mechanics and mobility allow champs to avoid the voidlings almost all the time unless they are not familiar with them.

My suggestion would be to give the voidlings a scaling HP, and an inherent bit of slow to their bite.

warpenguin5551 votes

He just needs a VGU. New Passive and W, Keep Q and E, keep R but make it require set up to get some extra damage. Just what I would like to see happen to my favorite champion

DW Diana1 votes

As a malz main I both agree and disagree with this post. Have riot nerfed Malz to the ground? Yes. Is he now hard to win with? Yes. Can you still scale with him? Yes! He is by no means useless, he just requires being played a different way. The changes to AP items on any competent malz player will be seen as a massive buff, with his standard build of liandy's and rylais giving his e some serious % hp damage. Yes his early game suffers, and yes having your voidlings killed REALLY screws up your laning phase and needs a fix, but I disagree that you can't level with him, you just need a reliable jg to gank, and more importantly learn to roam with ghost, get other lanes ahead, and scale into mid/late game where he can still be viable

Jovius1 votes

I really don't think I need any Malz tips as seen here :-):

http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=jovius

I just think the treatment he got was unfair comapred to other dominant picks (see Ryze, Azir, Taliyah) and that he should be changed in the manner as Sejuani was changed, giving more power to his kit and less to his ult and voidlings.

DW Diana1 votes

{quoted}

I really don't think I need any Malz tips as seen here :-):

http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=jovius

I just think the treatment he got was unfair comapred to other dominant picks (see Ryze, Azir, Taliyah) and that he should be changed in the manner as Sejuani was changed, giving more power to his kit and less to his ult and voidlings.

Glad to see.

I do agree though, his W is awful, and without his ult he has ZERO kill pressure. Hopefully someone at Riot will listen. Who knows, they might even deem us worthy of a response! =O

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