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Malph main concerned for Malph after catching wind of Irelia rework.

Jerry Temporary·10/23/2017, 4:44:55 PM·7 votes·929 views

Whaddup my dudes, I'm Malphite Granite Shield Malphite , one of the few who can call themselves a Malphite otp. I'm a bit of a lurker here on the boards. I like to visit most days but I rarely do I post for myself.

In my short time hanging around I have noticed that a Malphite rework seems to be something the boarders around here think would be good. I will not argue against anyone who says Malph's kit shows its age. However, at the same time, nobody really seems to talk about Malph, which is often a sign that a champion is healthy in their current state. Now finally, after watching gbay99's video on the upcoming Irelia rework I'm honestly scared for my big boy, and I need to weigh in on his current state before its too late to stop the rework train.

As a character in a video game, Malphite is undeniably bland. His visuals, VO, and SFX are very dated. As much as I don't want a full VGU, I would not be opposed to a shiny new voice over and set of sfx. However, while his base visuals are old, I find them quite charming and I don't think they need much of an update, especially where new sounds would likely work in conjunction with his visuals to make something greater than the sum of its parts.

Now for the meat of my post, the gameplay discussion. Malphite is a rare tank that fills a unique niche. He is much more than the anti-ad meat (rock?) shield and ult bot that people see him as. Malphite, is rather lacking in hard cc for a tank, yet he is very self-sufficient for a tank with his ability to do a very large sum of damage with no more than a couple armor items. He is much like Sion in the fact that he does a lot of damage at certain points in the game (we like Sion around here right?). But my absolute favorite thing, the thing that makes Malphite a fantastically well designed champion to this day, is that he is fantastic at his job for his own unique reasons. Malph is not a big hard cc bot like Maokai, Galio, or Sejuani. He does his job as a tank with his ult, his attack speed slow, and the IBG you should get nearly every game among other items that can benefit your team. Malphite has no gap closer or hard cc barring his ult. So to succeed, he must remain patient and attentive. Which leads me to my main point: despite his initial simplicity, and the ease at which a new player can pick him up and learn to tank at a low level, Malphite has a very high skill cap, one of the highest among the tank roster, and therefore, he does not need a VGU or any large scale gameplay update. Malphite's highly polarized strengths and weaknesses mean that while some games are a guaranteed to be more straight forward (full ad/no BC user). To truely be good at the rock you must be able to understand exactly what you can tank, your dmg output, and the threat level the fed enemy ap midlane poses towards you. You need to understand how to maximize your strengths. You understand how to use your damage to zone for and protect your allies. You know where to stand to preserve your passive for the engage. You understand how to not get steamrolled by that Teemo top so you can take on the other 4 ad's you picked Malph for. There are no Faker Zed and inhuman reaction combos to master on Malph, but their is no way to succeed on him consistently into any comp, if you do not know exactly what he can and can not do.

I must admit however, on tank Malph, the cheese wheel (his q) is a very underwhelming spell. It is no 1 pt wonder. You either max it first for subpar poke that only works vs sustainless squishies. Or you ignore it (sometimes I will not even learn it until lvl 5 or 7) for the powerful tank stats and dmg that come with his other spells. If anything is to be changed, I would want the q, and only the q, to change as it enables no skill expression beyond the knowledge weather or not to max it.

My train commute is almost over so I need to wrap this up now. I could go on for hours here. I'll be happy to take any questions and fuel discussion. This post is poorly laid out and a little misdirected due to time but if anyone is interested I will be happy to fix it and make another that is easier to read and follow.

Stay Rock Solid

  • Malphite Granite Shield Malphite

13 Comments

Blade of Justic10/23/2017, 5:47:17 PM2 votes

Probably the only thing I can see them doing to the ult is having it so that you can charge it before flying forward and anything caught in the way of Malphite charging gets picked up and carried to the point of impact.

I'm not a Malphite main so I can't tell if that would be well received or not.

Ahris10/23/2017, 4:59:53 PM1 votes

What makes malph have a high skill cap compared to other champs? Also many champs were nerfed by the rework than buffed. I previously was excited for rework but now I am not since most champ ended up becoming worse.

Bard R Friday10/23/2017, 5:23:18 PM1 votes

Say his kit is fine if you want, but his ult is going to be eventually changed at the very least. It is just ridiculous, almost no counter play aoe knockup with a long range and large area. It needs some sort of delay added to it to be considered balanced.

Jezebelle10/23/2017, 5:33:18 PM1 votes

..You fail to recognize that tanks are there to soak damage and not to inflict it. If you want damage on Malphite, AP certainly is the way to go, and a viable way to go as well.

I think you make some good points, however. Malphite does need a full VGU because he is a "bland" character. He doesn't have the crazy tools the new/reworked champions typically have in League, or anything to deal with said tools. His abilities are very basic and don't necessarily synergize with each other to make his kit cohesive or unique (Rammus, in my opinion, has more of a unique approach to the AD-soaking tank, and Alistar pretty much has a Malphite ult at level 2).

TL;DR: I'm not opposed to a Malphite rework, or even a relaunch, because there is not much to work with currently (that someone else doesn't do better).