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Thoughts on Malzahar?

goodiesohhi·6/25/2019, 3:08:27 AM·8 votes·3,159 views

I like the old Malzahar. I remember when they first reworked him, it seemed that most malz players didn't like the rework, neither did the people who play against him. I remember in s7 or s8 or something, someone made a revert malz post and most people seemed to agree. I'm just wondering what the current consensus is on his kit. I think it's just boring to play and boring to play against. Probably one of the most uninteractive lanes. Not a lot of skill expression and very low solokilling potential so there's no real motivation to do anything other than shove wave. Throw the aids on a minion, auto it a bunch, summon voidling whenever you can and toss out q if you need poke or if they try to do something. Wait for jg cause you can't do anything by yourself, flash r free kill with jg. Lategame, you just become a cc bot and that's all you do. Enemy buys qss, you're useless. You don't have the damage on your old w and all your damage is not very reliable. What do you guys think about his kit. His new passive is either broken or useless depending on the matchup. IE (Anivia auto's u from a mile away and u have no passive, Yasuo can't ever catch you with a stray tornado for his ult and will always have to commit to a close range fight where he can get ulted immediately and then his q stack falls off while he is ulted). new voidlings is an ability with no decision around it and you just kind of press it whenever. It may as well be a passive.... Oh wait. It was. His old w gave him actual threat to tanks and let him have an identity as a consistent damage dealer in teamfights. Now he just kind of q's and hopes his other stuff do damage to the right target. Oh and press r. Just curious about the current opinion on one of the most hated mages. I honestly really liked his old kit. Had so many wacky builds like ad. Could jg alright with old w. A lot more interactive imo. What do you guys think?

8 Comments

Pandemic Punch7/16/2019, 10:57:03 PM4 votes

Everyone who played malzahar knew that he would get gutted when the rework released in that op state.

Should have just left him as is.

Dezvul Xenillith7/16/2019, 10:48:41 PM2 votes

I just found this thread and I totally support it! Mained Malzahar in season one and even when I havn't considered him my main he was still a go to pick for me. Since he got reworked I have dropped him entirely. The passive is good and all but it isn't worth how much power he lost. His old w gave more zoning potential against champs that just didn't wan't to fully engage as well as the more consistent damage. And if you had CDR you perpetually had 2 or 3 voidlings following you anyways.

I don't like how easy the voidlings are to kill being his main source of damage rn.

I understand that his winrate is in the positive right now but he has always had the good winrate.

I would very much like to see Malzahar reverted.

macspam6/25/2019, 6:10:24 AM1 votes

I didn't play League before Malzahar's rework, but I play a fair bit of him now (got mastery 7 over the last few months)

IMO you are correct, he is totally an unininteractive, AFK champ, very stat-checky and in general super annoying to play against. But, he's balanced by having a weak early game and weak late game (good luck with that self-root when you ult in a 5v5 teamfight!)

I do think he's balanced, it's good to have a counterpick to assassins / fighters really. And although he can bully / push in top laners after he gets lost chapter, he is low mobility and single-target focused which means he can't survive a gank.

I do think having more AoE later on, on a level more comparable to Heimer or Zyra, possibly at the expense of his single-target damage, would be a good way to improve him. For example being able to control the voidlings with mouse clicks

TTvRareChill6/25/2019, 2:48:25 PM1 votes

Buff his movespeed he's trash tier

The Ecdysiast6/25/2019, 3:15:59 AM1 votes

Malzahar got shafted just like Mordekaiser did. He's one of the champions that was changed a lot during one of the class updates (relative to the others in his clasS), and as a result wasn't changed enough to be a good coherent kit.

Like Kog'maw, LeBlanc, Rengar, etc., he needs a full or partial revert. If they didn't have to worry so much about how insanely strong his passive is, then they could give him back strength where he needs it.

Zemasu7/10/2019, 10:04:18 AM1 votes

As an old Malzahar and Swain main (yes, I liked DoT damage mages, when they existed), i left both after the reworks. I were in love with his old W, and passive stacking mechanic was iconic, like Annie prepare her stun with skills, you had to make the same to spawn a voidling. Now voidlings are 80% of your damage, but they can deleted with a level1 aoe skill, wich everyone has. Your E heals the enemies until you have Rylai + Liandry.

So, they merged his old W with ult, gutting ult damage, and W damage and utility as well. You were a threat to tanks, zoning them in front a % damage pool, while ulting the enemy fed one. Now you just afk EWR one, and wait for your allies to kill him.

Like they merged old W with R, they could merge the new W with E, as you will always use them in combo, like ONE skill. Voidling spawn is pretty sad, and i have a suggestion on how to improve it.

I don't like Heroes of The Storm, but there is the Priest that summons a lot of creatures, and it does in great style. For example he throws a pot in a small AoE, dealing damage and spawning spiders. Malzahar could do the same, to make some interactions and not spawning voidlings under his feet to only get annihilated 0.1 sec after it. I'm not returning on malzahar right now, and i will wait to some love given to him.

Hopefully the swain passive and ult changes will make him feel more like he were before the rework

Isayev7/10/2019, 9:44:06 AM1 votes

I've always been a malz main, although I haven't played lol for 6 years, so the rework is new to me. I can't compare both very well because I don't remember how it felt before it, but I like malz's current iteration. The only thing that I don't like much is that so much of his dmg is on the voidlings which are so easy to kill, so players who know, will just use a skill and kill them all. I could think of 2 improvements on Malz's kit right now: 1)Make the passive have different cd depending on what triggered it(full cd on a spell or cc, something like half cd for an auto-attack), and perhaps apply to the whole effect if it's an over time effect? 2)Make voidlings more durable against champion spells and aoe.

Although I don't feel like malz is in a bad spot for solo queue, I think he's considered S tier right now, and I really like his kit, it's just a little different than it was back then, doesn't feel better or worse, it feels alright to me. I'd love voidlings to scale off bonus AD again, though, and perhaps inherit on-hit effects, so that you could make more whacky builds again :P

Zane Zephyr6/25/2019, 5:55:16 AM1 votes

Being as I was a malz main before the rework, I was actually relatively okay with the rework, but the problems came when they overloaded his kit into his passive and then shafted the rest of it because of it so it left him in the state he's in now. They fucked his ult damage, tried to compensate him for it and it's still lackluster. His voidlings got gutted, and honestly, I was really hoping they would do away with them. They're relatively pointless and don't really serve a purpose except for tanking objectives. The shoving waves thing isn't really an issue because that's what most mages do, like velkoz, anivia, lissandra, etc. Someone like Malzahar is necessary, though, because he can reliably lockdown someone with high mobility or priority. They need to give him a new passive so the the rest of his kit doesn't have to suffer because of it.

I do like the E refreshing off of Q/R. I do kind of like that they kept the null zone, but it doesn't feel all that special. It's kind of just...there. I wish they could do something to make it more impactful and noticeable without breaking it. They also need to do something with his W as well. I think if they fixed those up a bit he would be in a better state.