Mage Update and Malzahar

So out of the big 6 mages they will be Updating, Malzahar is the only one i play(ed) regularly. So i will be focusing on him specifically, I will just sort of lay everything out there about his kit, playstyle, and identity (or at least my own personal opinion on it). There won't really be any order to this because im typing everything as i think of it, but i will try to make it look nice. I will try to incorporate what others have said, but ultimately this post will be mostly my opinions. Please feel free to disagree or agree, leave your ideas and your opinions in the comments below. I am really looking forward to having conversations on my first Main. Also don't forget to Upvote so we can get a Rioter to come talk with us about Malzahar specifically.

So I guess lets start with Malzahar's identity for now. To me, Malzahar is the ultimate 1v1 mage, possibly one of the best 1v1 champions overall. His kit screams "Kill that person", he has a silence to remove any possibility of them escaping, his W deals %hp damage, his E deals DoT and focuses the Voidlings on one person, his R holds one person in place and synergizes really well with his W. What Malzahar does is not all that unique, but how he does it is fairly original. My one problem with his identity is that there are several other champions capable of locking someone down without having to sacrifice their mobility. Brand, Annie, and Lux can all lock someone down, the burst someone, the only difference is they can still move and most of their abilities are great at both 1v1 and teamfights. As far as Teamfighting goes, Malz can really only Q and W. His ult requires good positioning, teamwork, timing, and targetting. If you ult the wrong person at the wrong time, you die. Its totally fine to have multiple champions fit a certain role, but in that role they should all have a reason to be chosen over the others. As it stands, there is no real reason to pick Malz over the other mages, except in specific Champion match-ups.

Now lets move on to the parts of his kit that i feel absolutely need to stay in some form. First is his passive, the Voidlings definitely need to stay, they are one of the most unique parts of his kit. This is the one area I hope they expand on the most, if there were more interactions with his Voidlings I think he would be a lot more unique in his role. Next would be his Malefic Visions, this ability has a really fun sort of mini-game and gives him several choice during laning phase. Do you put it on minions to regain mana, but push the wave? or do you put it on the enemy for guaranteed damage but lose out on the mana? It also offers him really good all in potential, right when its about to bounce from a minion to them, you lock them down for a really quick kill. Lastly, his Suppression is also core to his identity. I know a lot of people hate this and think its cancer, but honestly i think that is more due to how it is implemented. It is point and click, and while it is not instant, it is quick. Honestly i think it is more of a mind trick that makes it appear so OP, because its damage is similar to a lot of other champions burst, its just dragged out over time to make it look worse.

Parts of his Kit that are core to his identity but not necessarily in their current form. His silence is actually more core than people think, without his Silence he would have no way of keeping someone from flashing out of range of his ult. He wouldn't be able to stop ganks or from being CC'd, it is his only reliable form of CC as his suppression wouldn't stop a gank, just delay it and maybe not even that. The thing is, its ability to silence multiple people from far away while dealing a lot of damage doesn't really fit the "Kill that person" identity the rest of his kit has. His W's ability to shred tanks is also fairly important to Malzahar. It fits the theme of "Kill that person", and once Malzahar has his eyes set on you, your resistances shouldn't matter much.

His W is a really interesting and very underestimated ability, but honestly its not really all that important to his identity. You could completely change that one ability and you wouldn't be changing Malzahar all that much. I know I said his %Hp is core but that could be on any ability, it doesn't need to be his W. The W itself is just not thematically core to Malzahar.

His playstyle and what i like about it, what i dont like about it. Pre-6 is actually really fun when you are Malzahar. You put your E on the minions and try to get your crappy Auto-Attacks to kill them so Malefic Visions can spread. You are doing this to gain mana, and you obviously want it to bounce to them. You are also trying to poke them down with your Q, to deny them farm and possibly harass them out of lane. Meanwhile you are being very careful of ganks, you have no mobility and your E is naturally and aggressively pushing the lane. What I don't like about this is the mana costs compared to the damage output. You can deal the same amount of damage, even more, with similar mages for less mana. I know he has his Mana regain as compensation but you also need to remember he is paying for that Damage with high mana costs, high CD's, and endangering his life since he is pushing the wave. The mana regain is compensation for only one of those things and only if you can get it to kill an entire wave, he is still paying more than he should be.
Post-6 is where Malzhar's kit becomes a bit linear, kind of boring if you will. Basically you want to hit them with 1 or 2 Q's maybe an E, then all in them with full rotation plus ignite, boom easy kill. Your whole game plan is to do this to one person all game, finding out who to do it to is a bit of a challenge, but other than that its boring. Plus once you use your ult you are basically useless afterwards, you have very high CD's and mana costs, so your only option is to stand back and wait. You turn a 5v5 into a 4v4 because now you can't help push your advantage for a few seconds (which can be everything in League). Also, a lot of people complain about having to buy QSS, and on an AP Champ i agree it is annoying, but you are spending 1300 to make Malzahar worthless for the rest of the game. I feel that is a fair trade, specially since it makes it so you can still move but he can't. When everyone but the Support has QSS your options are super limited and you feel like 2/3rd's of your damage is useless. Still, when no one has QSS and they don't know how to cancel his ult by themselves (which is fairly easy if you have ranged hard CC) you are practically unstoppable. So a lot of his power budget seems jammed into his ult, which makes him something along the lines of Void God or A Free Kill.

How I would like him to be changed and why. So I touched on this a bit above but personally i would like to see less focus on his Suppression and more on the rest of his Kit, specially his Voidlings. It would be very cool if there was more to his Voidlings than what is there currently. I'm not necessarily talking about making a horde of Voidlings, although it would be cool, but more interactions with his abilities. Something like his abilities giving them buffs when they land on an enemy or the order in which you get the stacks to make a Voidling will create a different type of Voidling. There is so much potential in this Innate Passive, it is ridiculous it hasn't been touched yet. From what i have seen, expanding on his Voidlings is what most Malzahar mains are expecting. Both of those examples i have read in different posts, I thought they were both cool.

His Suppression and Silence are two things i feel are core to his playstyle but not so much in their current forms. I do think he needs them both, unless you wish to give him something else that can cover both of their strengths while giving him healthy weaknesses. He is immobile, so he needs someway to stop his opponent from running away or jumping on him, these two CC's cover that fairly well with defined weaknesses (less so with his Suppression although the weaknesses are there if you know what to look for). I saw some talk of people saying you could make the Suppression a stun and remove the Silence, but personally I think that is the wrong direction to take him. That would actually muddle his Identity even more and also create an even unhealthier play pattern. A stun means he can still move and use abilities which believe it or not, would be worse for his opponents than the Suppression is. I am not sure how one would change this, so I am looking forward to hearing other peoples ideas.

So just a quick summary of everything above for those low on time:

• His Voidlings are core to his identity and should be expanded on.
• His Malefic Visions is iconic Malzahar, it should stay.
• His Suppression and Silence are both core to his playstyle, but they method they are implemented should be changed.
• His Post-6 playstlye is boring with too much emphasis on his Ult.
• His mana costs are slightly too punishing for his pre-6 damage output.
• He feel useless when he can't ult, feels too powerful with his ult.
• He should remain Immobile.

i think thats all, so please comment below with your ideas and opinions and do not forget to upvote so we can get a Red response ;D