What was actually accomplished between old malzahar and the current version?

deadlychuck·Jun 2, 2017·6 votes·1,216 views

Obviously a lot has changed in the past year for the champion, but after this 7.11 patch, it seems like every single part of the rework was just unnecessary. For the sake of consistency, i'm going to be referring to each of the specific mechanics, rather than general abilities, and i will be more focused on general changes, rather than specific values (unless explaining a point).

#Changes made between the rework and now

Gained Spell Shield.
Base damage on CotV lowered & CD reduced
Base damage on MV increased (if refreshed after 0 / 0.869 / 1.333 / 1.622 / 1.818 seconds)
Nether Grasp base damage & scaling reduced.
Null Zone base damage & scaling reduced.
Voidling damage 100% magic, scale with AP, less durable, more numerous.
Voidlings deal bonus damage to minions with MV and less damage to monsters.

It seems that basically every single one of the changes could've been accomplished without reworking the champion. The only real mechanical changes were to the voidlings and the introduction of the spell shield.

He just really doesn't need the spell shield. He functions in the same manner which he did before the rework, and he worked fine without having a spell shield. Where does the necessity of a spell shield come from exactly?
His old voidlings would've had no issue preforming the same role as the new voidlings. Except rather than having glass cannon voidlings that die to slightest breeze ... they were more consistent. The new voidlings act as farming tools, and flat damage, something which his old voidlings also provided. If you wanted to move flat damage from his MV and Nether Grasp, then it seems like CotV would've worked fine.

Really, what was gained, in respect to his balance or the ability of riot to balance him, by adding a spell shield and making his voidlings less consistent? Both work to make the champion harder to balance, so i don't see how this could be considered any kind of improvement with the champion.

It seems like the net accomplishments of the rework were. 1, Remove AD malzahar. 2, Piss off most of the malzahar players and half of the non-malzahar players. 3, Make malzahar even harder to balance.

36 Comments

ChaddyFantomeJun 2, 20173 votes

Where does the necessity of a spell shield come from exactly?

It's almost like he has a spell that forces him to root himself and channel at mid to low range for 2.5 seconds or something. This is what it is primary for. protecting him to some degree while he uses his ult.

His old voidlings would've had no issue preforming the same role as the new voidlings.

As his passive/ no they wouldn't have. His Voidlings were mostly inconsequential in his old kit given how little control you had over them and how little they actually contributed to his performance.

moving it to a basic ability was incredibly vital to making them worth a shit outside of AD malzahar gimmicks.

Except rather than having glass cannon voidlings that die to slightest breeze ... they were more consistent

yes , they were consistent at not doing anything.

deadlychuckJun 2, 20173 votes

It's almost like he has a spell that forces him to root himself and channel at mid to low range for 2.5 seconds or something. This is what it is primary for. protecting him to some degree while he uses his ult.

This existed before the rework. Unless you're saying that pre-rework malzahar needed to have his ult, and combo, buffed.

yes , they were consistent at not doing anything.

Yes, because AP malzahar never utilized his voidlings for say farming, and having more consistent farming capabilities is such a terrible thing. Zed

moving it to a basic ability was incredibly vital to making them worth a shit outside of AD malzahar gimmicks.

It has never been addressed by riot, or people who support the rework, why it was vital to make his voidlings core to his AP build. I'm slightly insulted by you referring to his AD build as a gimmick. Just because you're bad at it doesn't make it a gimmick, it wasn't anymore one than AP varus or AD TF are "gimmicks".

also i find it hilarious when people make stupid statements like this.

His Voidlings were mostly inconsequential in his old kit** given how little control you had over them**

[slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

DoozkuJun 2, 20171 votes

I think Riot just found it inappropriate that something cool like summoning a pet monster to help attack was really not that useful other than like you said, for farming. From what I know from old Malz, his old kit was pretty generic. The main thing that he had going was his ultimate. One of the goals of these reworks is to move champions into unique niches that aren't as simple as, 'this guy is good at beating assassins." While being a counter to assassins is fine, they wanted him to have something more interesting going for him.

I personally never played old Malz, or against him, I got into the game when the mage rework came out. So be sure to call me out if what I said was bullshit.

deadlychuckJun 3, 20171 votes

I mean, i'm not gonna call you out on anything. Though, I'm glad to explain what he use to be like.

I understand what riot wanted to do, but he already filled the role of anti-assassin effectively. He was better at it than just about every champion in the game.

I wouldn't even classify him as just an anti-assassin, he was more like an assassin-assassin. He was alright at assassinating single targets, but he excelled at killing targets which were easy to put themselves out of position or over commit to an engage.

He was pretty good against the average 1v1, average being short-mid range champions, with no delayed CC. But rapidly lost strength the larger the team fight. So in a 5v5, there were much, much better mage options, even when it came to being anti-assassins.

If they wanted to make him into a niche minionmancer style champion, then they would've been better off nerfing his AP scaling across the board heavily, leaving him how he was, and making adjustments to his voidlings. AD malzahar is still the most engaging and skill expressive minionmancer they've ever had in the game, but they decided that his unique feel should be put into the AP version of the champion. Which is the issue that they were completely ignorant towards. AP malzahar **was **a generic mage in a sense, though he did fulfill a more niche design when compared to other mages. Though, trying to force the niche play style of the AD build into the AP build was a massive mistake on their part. Which they've half retracted with the most recent update.

Riot as a company seem to be incapable of backtracking, they can only move back from their current position. So instead of changing the champion back and working towards their goal from the initial position, instead, they'd rather adjust their position towards that goal from their current, less familiar position. They have to keep making "progress" to make the investors happy, even though that progress might be back in the direction they came from, even when backtracking is blatantly the faster route to their goal.

DoozkuJun 3, 20171 votes

Riot as a company seem to be incapable of backtracking, they can only move back from their current position. So instead of changing the champion back and working towards their goal from the initial position, instead, they'd rather adjust their position towards that goal from their current, less familiar position. They have to keep making "progress" to make the investors happy, even though that progress might be back in the direction they came from, even when backtracking is blatantly the faster route to their goal.

You ain't wrong. As a "Rengar Player", I'm still waiting for the day that they decide that his rework was bad and make some major changes. I don't know how long its going to be until this is achieved, but I'm still holding out.

ChaddyFantomeJun 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

This existed before the rework. Unless you're saying that pre-rework malzahar needed to have his ult, and combo, buffed.

how are you in any way extrapolating this from what i said?

Yes, because AP malzahar never utilized his voidlings for say farming,

no lol. his E cleared waves by itself lmao.

and having more consistent farming capabilities is such a terrible thing.

terrible argument. people complain about this on him all the time.

It has never been addressed by riot, or people who support the rework, why it was vital to make his voidlings core to his AP build.

Ofc it was. his voidlings were utterly inconsequential to his kit to the point where he might as well have no passive. Additionally, malzahar had far too little counterplay and lacked skill expression.

The response to fixing this was to make them was making his voildings take up a a more prominent part of his power budget as well as taking away free damage from his spells so he would have to be more combo reliant to get his maximum damage output.

Notso hard to grasp.

I'm slightly insulted by you referring to his AD build as a gimmick.

I liked it as much as the next guy but to claim it wasn't/isn't is quite frankly stupid. It was by definition a gimmick.

Just because you're bad at it doesn't make it a gimmick, it wasn't anymore one than AP varus or AD TF are "gimmicks".

_ oh look an internet tough guy , ladies and gentlemen. _

http://www.quickmeme.com/img/dd/dde01a7a92aa19b4972b4fb097b332686e4ba1f0771b47994b0f28c71f175383.jpg

Got a real argument this time?

also i find it hilarious when people make stupid statements like this.

if you seriously are going to pretend that having them spawn every 4ths spell cast is an adequate description of having a lot of control over them, i don't know what to tell you man. [zombie-brand-clap]

ArkaleJun 3, 20172 votes

Just saying, the voidlings back then didn't need your malefic visions for you to tell them who to attack.

deadlychuckJun 3, 20173 votes

Exactly. Yet simultaneously keeping track of those stacks wouldn't be considered skill expression i'm sure.

ChaddyFantomeJun 3, 20171 votes

And they don't now either. I don't see what your point is.

ArkaleJun 3, 20171 votes

Before you could aa, e, or ult an enemy to direct them. now you can use malefic visions or ult.

I don't see why you think directing with ult is notable enough.

ChaddyFantomeJun 3, 20171 votes

you can still AA to direct them. no clue that you are talkign about.

ArkaleJun 3, 20171 votes

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/patch/patch-69-notes

Patch 6.9 Notes:

REMOVED: THINK FOR YOURSELVES! Voidlings no longer prefer to attack champions that Malzahar has basic attacked

deadlychuckJun 3, 20171 votes

No, you can't. They attack the closest target(s). So if you're just auto attack moving, then maybe you'll acquire the same targets sometimes, but auto attacking was removed from the hierarchy of voidling control (as he linked).

Although given their pathetically short duration and durability now, there probably isn't really much of a need to direct them with auto attacks.

deadlychuckJun 3, 20173 votes

Got a real argument this time?

I'm not really going to try to make any until you at least show that you understand what classifies a statement as an argument. If i do, then so be it.

It's almost like he has a spell that forces him to root himself and channel at mid to low range for 2.5 seconds or something. ... how are you in any way extrapolating this from what i said?

This is how. The mechanic of rooting himself and channeling at mid-low range for 2.5 seconds was part of his gameplay before the rework. In light of this, adding a mechanic which is designed to protect the champion during this point of vulnerability would only act to buff that mechanic. Therefore, by your description, adding the passive was a buff to his ult. (there's your argument i suppose)

Which is assuming that the purpose of it was to even protect malzahar during his ult to begin with; after all, it was initially given a much longer duration, and given it's design relative to the rest of the initial rework, you can infer that it was likely designed to protect malzahar while he was stacking his W when an enemy initiated onto him, not protect him during his ult.

no lol. his E cleared waves by itself lmao.

Just to clarify, it didn't. At least not until you had a substantial amount of AP and some levels up into it (which after lowing the base damage would've had that AP threshold raised even more). Prior to this, the voidlings acted as early game farming tools, trading tools, and always acted as single target blocks. You'd start Q, to stack up a voidling in fountain, and then use it to assist in an early trade or in farming. Else, you needed to spent a substantial amount of time auto attacking to set the wave so that the E wouldn't time out on the first few minions.

Ofc it was. his voidlings were utterly inconsequential to his kit to the point where he might as well have no passive. Additionally, malzahar had far too little counterplay and lacked skill expression.

So what? Who cares if they're not used in the primary build. Why even give nasus his E? Why give ezreal his W? Udyr, full stop? I mean shit, voli's ult! Why are people, and riot, so obsessed with not wanting champions to have parts of their kit which don't work optimally in their primary "official" build?! Nothing about the game makes having a passive vital though! You're just uncomfortable if literally every part of your kit doesn't function in the primary build of the champion.

That's all before, you consider that malzahar has lost skill expression of his voidlings. The only aspect of the rework which added any degree of skill expression was the E refresh, which with relevant relative number changes would've been fine for a "rework", but it was offset by the completely fire and forget aids seeking boberts, which either live or die, relative more to than enemies' champion selection than any degree of actual counter playing.

Suddenly the skill expression of proper and effective voidling usage, which as you said were inconsequential making their effective usage all the more impressive, was basically gone. Except voidling blocking... but then the gutted that too.

ParoeJun 2, 20172 votes

At the macro level malzahar was simply nerfed. At the micro level malzahar is now incapable of dealing with mages who out range him and has moved from the mid lane to the top lane.

He is a fantastic top laner now.

deadlychuckJun 2, 20171 votes

Yeah, riot will never be able to get him back into mid lane, until they revert him... I mean at least old malz wasn't crazy broken when he went top, bot, jungle. Yet he's been insanely strong in one of those position in every iteration of the new kit, while never being viable in the mid lane.

Hexs FortuneJun 3, 20171 votes

{quoted}

At the macro level malzahar was simply nerfed. At the micro level malzahar is now incapable of dealing with mages who out range him and has moved from the mid lane to the top lane.

He is a fantastic top laner now.

I wouldn't call him a great top laner. He struggles to kill towers, lacks mobility to evade ganks and has no potential to front line for his teams squishier positions

Shuyin178Jun 2, 20171 votes

I'm not Malz main, but looking at the feedback from Malz players what they did this patch was great for him. It murdered his jungle (which I'm fine with) and his support is no longer a viable option (it was so stupid and not-fun). So now that he's back in mid again he can at last start to feel good about himself.

deadlychuckJun 2, 20171 votes

That's not what i'm saying. Yeah, he seems like he feels like he's back to normal after this patch to some degree.

Though, nothing about the rework seems like it was beneficial to the champion's design. If they wanted to nerf malzahar (which they really didn't do), they could've change his numbers, but he didn't need to reworked boberts or the new passive. They were just thrown into the kit.

It's like riot thinks that just shoving more into a champion's kit somehow improves the champion. Even if the things which are added do nothing to actually improve their ability to balance the champion, or change the way in which the champion is played.

SirLapseJun 3, 20171 votes

He just became a problem in jungle after the fresh rework, leading to changes that ended up nerfing him. Eventually Malz support was founded, and that became a problem as well.

These changes were made to bring him back more toward mid lane. They honestly could've gutted Malzahar jungle by just tuning the Voidling damage further, but they were being adventurous at the time.

The changes to him still make him much safer to play due to the shield and more consistent since he can spawn 4 Voidlings after 3 spellcasts. Definitely higher damage and waveclear without focusing on E wave management which was nuts to begin with.

ArkaleJun 3, 20171 votes

HIs complaint is that the original rework seems pointless to have happened at all, unless they just wanted to give him a spell shield (which wouldn't require that level of a rework)

deadlychuckJun 3, 20171 votes

I don't know what riot's goal is with where they want malzahar to be, assuming they even know. However, it's pretty damn clear that where ever it might be, is much closer to the pre-reworked malzahar, than it was to the post-reworked malzahar.

If you want to go to the store which is due east of your house, why would you first go due south (which you're unfamiliar with), before turning north east to try and get to the store? And having been unfamiliar with the area, why try to navigate the unfamiliar area in the south east region (relative to your starting point), instead going back directly north, then heading due east, which you know you will not get lost, or hit a dead end, in between?

I hope that analogy made sense.

SirLapseJun 4, 20171 votes

The results of how any rework goes down is honestly unknown, it's always "hope for the best" and "see what works out." As seen with the juggernauts, the idea behind what they were doing certainly sounded good to the players of those champs they targeted, but the execution was far from what people were willing to accept. Nobody was expecting anything either, which makes it an actual accomplishment of how hard it is to really succeed with these reworks.

Regardless, this isn't a complete change back in the direction of old Malz, since he has true control over when he spawns his Voidlings instead of needing to clock over and over through abilities. That in and of itself is a huge rework that the old Malz would've never been able to copy.

deadlychuckJun 5, 20171 votes

I agree that was the largest change to his mechanics.

Though, the design of the voidings and their automated nature, undermines the champion, by connected in the automated aspect of the champion more directly with the player's input. Compared to someone like yorick, who's E exists almost exclusively to deal damage and direct his ghouls, malzahar's E isn't designed to be simply a voidling taunting tool. This is why having auto attacking in the hierarchy of voidling targeting felt better. His E targeting, could actively work against you if used poorly, the "poor" use of which was actually it's primary use (farming).

As a result, the champion actually gained a lot of depth, because you were forced between picking a less appropriate optimal usage and a more appropriate inefficient usage.

Now, he could've afforded some tuning to make the optimal usage a little weaker (say keep the damage of E the same, but increase the duration), but instead riot threw shit at the wall to see what would stick. Something which would be acceptable, you weren't having to chop up an existing character into the shit to throw. Basically, if they want to experiment with these kinds of changes, it should be done on new characters.

SirLapseJun 5, 20171 votes

What you call "depth" is what I call "unnecessarily complex." CS'ing before the Voidling changes was such a huge issue early on. Now I have waveclear lv2 and do immense amounts of work once I build AP. The previous version of Malz before this revert was better at handling champions than the CS wave, but mid laners never found an issue with the Voidlings. The change was primarily trying to make him capable of making plays and not being purely a CC bot. He has real damage behind his Voidlings that was never there before, so much so that it had to be nerfed from bot lane abuse.

An idea for how a champion can improve is the same kind of way we see ourselves grow. You're not gonna say "I can't change the good things I find about myself" if you have a drive to improve yourself--that's contradictory. You'll notice that some things have had to be given up in order to better improve yourself, and we're not talking about just some personal interests or smaller things. You might not enjoy what you did and will think back on it in hindsight, and then make another shift as necessary. That whole process isn't immediate, so the changes with Malz understandably will not be immediate. Kneejerk rejecting something because it's outside of your comfort zone tends to have terrible consequences the more you do it, because it starts making you lose flexibility.

That being said, I ask that you not be offended with the Malz changes and instead take it as a learning process for Riot and ourselves who have the first person viewpoint. I personally think he's better off, and as with Cassiopeia, one failure doesn't mean it's impossible to make the champion have a healthier game state compared to before.

deadlychuckJun 5, 20171 votes

I just don't see the need, in the context of a game, that such "growth" couldn't be assessed without first removing the original. Things don't need to be given up, in the process of improving a champion, riot just pushed them out despite, in the case of the initial release, being blatantly worse. It's like they've stopped their internal play testing and often ignore feedback from the PBE. Or maybe filter out the majority of the negative feedback.

I question what this image of malzahar as "purely a CC bot" (assuming this is still referring to the pre-rework malzahar, the paragraph doesn't make it clear). He was an immobile assassin. His target's positioning capabilities were in question, not their mobility or his aim, which you mostly see with the modern "assassin" class and why he was so strong against assassins who regularly rely on their mobility to bail them out of miss-positioning themselves. His assassination, could be broken down into individual aspect however, with his Q acting as a good team disruption tool, and his W acting as a zoning/damage tool. The E was mostly for damage, and the voidlings would add that little bit of extra choas into the fight (which there is just an overabundance of currently).

Actually lvl 2 malzahar had no issues with farming before the rework, you just couldn't start E, Q stack in base, and the base voidling was easily capable of clearing a wave in combination with your E. The pre-rework required periods of weaker wave clear, but his voidlings acted as the farming tools in the early game, which are now required of them all game. I just don't see how that could be considered and improvement to the champion. In fact, a testament to the amount of depth the champion had was in the fact that, most really good malzahar players had made themselves proficient at both AD and AP malzahar, who utilized the same tools in very different methods. The reason, being that understanding the play style of the one you weren't playing, actually increased the breadth of plays you had at your disposal and made you approach the champion or situation you found yourself in differently. The players could develop their understanding of the champion by experimenting with them, and exploring them. The new version completely lacks this, it has a very pre-defined play style with no wiggle room for the players. By attaching the only real change of approach to an ability which will preform exactly the same between the two builds. AP or AD, his voidlings just hit harder as you build more. The Q starting method, wasn't something which I personally saw in a youtube video, or read in a guide, and it surely wasn't something that riot themselves stated. It was something which I personally recognized as, at least personally, superior, because my experience with AD malzahar had demonstrated the different strengths to starting in that manner. Granted i mostly played AD malzahar bot lane, I took that knowledge into AP malzahar mid when i would play him.

That said, i think people could universally agree, that removing the physical damage from his kit, (considering it's still AD scaling), was pretty much arbitrary. Nothing about the damage being orange instead of purple would've changed the champion, it just appears to be an attempt to signal to players that they're playing the champion "incorrectly".

SirLapseJun 6, 20171 votes

I didn't actually see huge amounts of hate over his rework like you are implying. Everyone took him jungle and noted his completely bs clear speed, and that's how he became abused. A lot of Malz mains welcomed the change but undoubtedly didn't expect any kind of change to Malzahar. The vast majority of mages targeted in the MYMU were unexpected.

And I'm pointing this out because I've played Kindred:

If you need to surpass a very basic knowledge wall in order to play the champion correctly, it is no different from creating a barrier of entry to anyone who wants to play it. In other words, it will only cater to the small set of players that either have become aware of this knowledge or put so much time in that they eventually realize it through their own gameplay. It's by no means practical and you'll receive the same issue for every new player.

The nature of his lane was binary and didn't have much play potential when he was by himself. You weren't good at helping for ganks and needed to wait till Lv6 where you'd have ult ready to respond to tower dives or assist with jungle ganks, but by teamfight phase everything was stacked onto if your R worked. Scenarios where he can be interrupted in his obvious channel still do exist. This kind of playstyle will start to be very bad in CC heavy metas which we have been seeing for the majority of this season AND last season. That explains the spell shield at the very least. Null Zone (or whatever his old W was) only zoned people off if you were capable of backing off, and in a teamfight where you need to participate, it needed you to fight in a choke where the enemy could funnel their CC further. The ability was the same as Anivia wall in terms of how often you got to get its full potential, and while some Malz mains valued it, I found it extremely ridiculous that I had to mash QWER in that order every single time. That's far from difficult to do and you do impractical amounts of damage if you don't do it.

When involving the actual control of waveclear, if there was any sudden situation where your Voidling died and the enemy is pushing in, you essentially have no answers. In difference, this Malz can handle himself through hitting E on CS and spamming his voidlings, which forces away even 1v2 situations on a somewhat healthy tower. Really good for top lane at the very least, and it's enough waveclear to be used properly for sustained pushes in mid lane. He used to chug mana really hard back then, and now all it takes is a Lost Chapter and you're not likely to go oom unless spamming Q really hard. That was also a significant shift that could singlehandedly justify all the changes done to him.

Mixed damage has always been a balance issue, and to what degree Riot considered it for Malz, I have no idea. AD Jungle Malz in particular after rework was obscene because of high Voidling spawn and overall damage, and it cannot be denied that they overbuffed him. Some players enjoyed that style of play as well, yet who has the higher voice in a community? I can't say any player is more deserving cause it's a biased argument.

What I am willing to accept for this Malz is that they saw where the reworked kit was taking them and understand that a competitive mid laner needs either really high sustained waveclear or a gigantic burst potential that is usable on a CS wave. It's the reason you don't see Zyra mid and it's the reason Taliyah isn't as good as other mid laners. That affects champion viability more than anything if we're speaking from a mid lane perspective. They focused too hard on minion survivability which was what mid lane Malz mains valued despite the ability to spam them consistently, and other values like this can hinder a champion if you try to keep everything. You have your right to your own opinion, but I ask that you understand at least how significant the shift was and not treat it as though they intended for him to be bad at mid lane. That was far from the goal. They are nerfing his Voidling lifespan to keep their original intention alive while not leaving Malz to do vastly better on an off-role.

deadlychuckJun 6, 20171 votes

If you need to surpass a very basic knowledge wall in order to play the champion correctly, it is no different from creating a barrier of entry to anyone who wants to play it. In other words, it will only cater to the small set of players that either have become aware of this knowledge or put so much time in that they eventually realize it through their own gameplay.

First, this isn't what i said, i said maximizing the character's potential was based on experience with the character. It doesn't "cater to a small set of players", it rewards players for their experience, creativity, and game knowledge. This pre-conception that the most optimal method of play should be something which is accessible to everyone, no matter their experience, as the "correct" way to play a character, is toxic to the core concept of a game. Generally in league it's spoken of as a "skill floor" and "skill ceiling". With this claim, you're effectively stating that this division should be dissolved (which to your credit riot is doing), and the basic capacity to play a character, someone who has reached the skill floor, should be sufficient for a player to play them at their skill ceiling. There are really only two possible methods of obtaining this, which are really the same one just viewed differently. 1) Reduce the champion to nothing more than what is on the surface. 2) Make it so that the disparity between maximum proficiency and minimum proficiency is within the scope of an online guide.

I don't have time to respond to every point you made, so i'll try to reply generally.

I never had, nor still hold, some belief that they intended for him to be bad a mid lane. The only belief i have is that they intended to change the champion, with a poorly thought out rework, which upon further contemplation only adds problems, and hardly addresses the problems he previously had. There was no intent, only incompetent and overly optimistic methods employed. This isn't to say the devs are incompetent at reworking champions or developing a game, only that they didn't understand the context or champion well enough, to make informed decisions during this process.

You yourself expressed the weaknesses and faults which existed with malzahar, though i do think you misinterpreted some of the alternative uses i claimed for his basic abilities. You claimed that his team fighting capacity was stacked into his R, despite it also being his biggest vulnerability in team fights. Though, ignoring the contradictory nature of that, it's just not true... His abilities are less individually strong than they were pre-rework. They are dependent on their interactions to provide the power which they now individually lack... though i hesitate to even say that, because really looking at the abilities, bar the E refresh, most actually gained individual average power since the rework. It's more along the lines of, they've been hamstrung into being used in particular manners which are, often over, compensated for with raw power.

SirLapseJun 6, 20171 votes

Malzahar already had to play a complex game on the CS level with timing AAs on very specific time sets, and that's just the farming game. Involve further gameplay management for things such as MP management, scalings that didn't hold much value unless the opponent stayed within a certain zone, and most importantly a binary lane phase due to the nature of how little you accomplished for all the effort, save for when you pick up blue buff and just ignore those limitations entirely.

As I said, "unnecessarily complex." Playing him was a chore that had low rewards outside of being a counter to certain playstyles. The inherent risk he carries in teamfights is avoidable through picking open fights, which holds true for pre-rework and post-rework Malz. That is linked to securing someone through R or using someone else's CC, which naturally is situational at best and will not be existent in every team composition. If you OTP'd old Malz, you'll remember very quickly that team comps with him being the only form of long duration hard CC were horrid games.

Anyway, when the shift of Malz turns into passive management for extra safety in addition to timing abilities to line up with maximum Voidling placement, his lane gets a lot more resilient and aggressive. And "aggressive lane" is not something that held true for old Malzahar. Like I said, it had low play potential outside of lv6. Mastering Malzahar with this new one is less about timing when to spawn a Voidling and is more about deciding all-ins (similar to Irelia), waiting out CDs for better push power, and using the push power to roam (which other mid laners are also good at doing). This new Malz is so good at handling minion waves that you can handle a Singed's proxy without any issue whatsoever. His old version could only dream of accomplishing the same thing.

The rework wasn't poorly thought out, the balancing aspect was just more difficult than expected. And in that way of thinking, unlike the hindsight you're using right now, nobody could predict how such an interesting concept could become so abusable. You could say Kog'Maw rework in comparison ended up poorly thought out because of on-hit items, but then that's not poorly thought out--that's a balancing concern made from player optimization in solo queue. You shouldn't take unintended consequences as a direct fault of a vision for a character, as that just contradicts the idea that you thought they were not intending to screw him up. The natural result of poorly thought ideas is automatic failure. Jungle Malz was broken, not a failure. Support Malz was overpowered, not a failure. If anything, mid lane Malz was what failed because the prior two playstyles were so strong. It ended as a difficult balance concern rather than a poorly thought idea.

A champion getting more out of a full kit than they would from individual skills matters more for overall skill rotations. Yes, it is less opportunistic. But the reward when given power is not overcompensating, it is actually allowing you to do real damage when you build damage. Stuff like Rylai's has been hit pretty hard and if he didn't get compensated for it through extra power, I don't see how he'd do well. They couldn't do that without further buffing Support Malzahar, and thus the reason for the revert and subsequent nerf to Voidlings.

In conclusion, I again ask that you think of it as a "learning process" instead of a cut-and-dry affair, a view that would likely be due to how high it impacted you. You as the player will win and lose games easier/harder due to changes on your champion, therefore you will not immediately see it in a design standpoint necessarily of where it can go, or how the idea itself could improve, and so forth. The same thing happened with Cassio and she's in a much better place right now than before.

deadlychuckJun 7, 20171 votes

unlike the hindsight you're using right now, nobody could predict how such an interesting concept could become so abusable.

Bullshit, I've said this before i saw or played the rework, through pure contemplation alone, and only held my tongue until i had played it under the assumption that I might not be right. And unfortunately i was dead on the fucking money. Nor would i even describe the concept as "interesting", I might use "dumbed-down" or "amalgamation" or "poorly thought out", but surely not interesting.

I don't see how he'd do well.

If they had never reworked him, the would've been fine after the rylai's changes. Which was kinda the OP... Nothing about this rework has accomplished anything, other than fleshing out his kit thereby forcing players into a specific play pattern, in order to achieve, at least, equal power to the pre-rework.

think of it as a "learning process"

Fine, they learned that literally every aspect that they changed about the champion (bar the E refresh) failed. So now would be the time for them to learn from their experiences, revert the champion (because it's a much better starting position than the rework, and proceed from there.

Mastering Malzahar with this new one is less about timing when to spawn a Voidling and is more about deciding all-ins (similar to Irelia), waiting out CDs for better push power, and using the push power to roam (which other mid laners are also good at doing).

So, what you're saying is... that they made malzahar less unique. More of a standard mage with a similar play style which exists on many other champions already. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of their stated goal of the rework.

Although, i want you think, from a game design prospective.

Where is the value in killing off the "high complexity & low reward" champions? Players who don't enjoy that kind of gameplay are under no obligation to play the champions.

Why is it fair to the players who enjoyed the old design, of having to really work for the rewards, to create **another ** low complexity and high reward champion? As if the champion pool isn't already disproportionately designed in such a way.

Why is a playstyle (which was causing no real problems) being sacrificed at the whim of people who like the theme of the champion, but being turned off by the gameplay?

SirLapseJun 7, 20171 votes

{quoted}

Bullshit, I've said this before i saw or played the rework, through pure contemplation alone, and only held my tongue until i had played it under the assumption that I might not be right. And unfortunately i was dead on the fucking money.

Like I said, no players had any expectations. If you had a negative mindset then that is purely you. Jungle Malz was the main playstyle after release and it was BROKEN, not "weak" or "underplayed." It was successful simply due to player innovation on the kit's known strengths, capitalized to an abuse case. You refuse to note this and automatically act as though the rework was a bad thing via hindsight, when it was largely not seen as such a complex issue. Go read the boards' previous posts on Malzahar right after MYMU, you will not notice people viewing it in such a complex pattern, much less a bad thing.

If they had never reworked him, the would've been fine after the rylai's changes. Which was kinda the OP... Nothing about this rework has accomplished anything, other than fleshing out his kit thereby forcing players into a specific play pattern, in order to achieve, at least, equal power to the pre-rework.

You have no number proof. This rework at its latest existence makes him have godly waveclear capable of being done at lv2 and sustained after Lost Chapter. Previous Malz did not have this, which means it was a gigantic shift. I ask yet again that you not view it as a cut-and-dry set of changes. You will subjectively ignore what he gained because you feel Riot did him wrong in the process to getting to this point.

Fine, they learned that literally every aspect that they changed about the champion (bar the E refresh) failed. So now would be the time for them to learn from their experiences, revert the champion (because it's a much better starting position than the rework, and proceed from there.

No, they learned that if his W is already spammable to the degree of bot lane abuse, then there is no issue if the enemy is allowed to clear them easily. So much priority was given to making these Voidlings survive due to old Malz' Voidling style that it hindered any further progression to this Malzahar. They would not have thought about this revert had they not seen the bot lane abuse, which was fortunate for Malzahar to see any play with due to meta shifts that left him largely vulnerable.

So, what you're saying is... that they made malzahar less unique. More of a standard mage with a similar play style which exists on many other champions already. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of their stated goal of the rework.

No, that's your bias. They made him have better waveclear which is NECESSARY (whether you want to accept the fact or not) to be VIABLE in mid lane. "Standard mage" means playable and can actually CONTEST what other mid laners do. Their goal was to give him more control over Voidlings and give him a unique playstyle fantasy, not make him as though he exists from another game entirely.

Although, i want you think, from a game design prospective.

Where is the value in killing off the "high complexity & low reward" champions?

Prospect or perspective, not this made up term you made.

You make them more playable for the people that can enjoy his playstyle fantasy and more specifically actually create reasonable reward for the effort. You put yourself through old Malz and were handling it despite all its unnecessary complexity, but not everyone can and not everyone should if the reward isn't even worth it most cases. This is why I say you're viewing it as though you've been personally attacked--you're the person most affected by Malz's viability, not the design team and certainly not newer Malz players. It makes you lose the ability to view any changes objectively unless you've researched HEAVILY, which these boards rarely present for champions that fall out of favor and through your own sense of familiarity with the champion, will steeply avoid due to not needing to view him in an objective sense.

Why is it fair to the players who enjoyed the old design, of having to really work for the rewards, to create **another ** low complexity and high reward champion? As if the champion pool isn't already disproportionately designed in such a way.

Jungle Malz was a thing, but the W rework killed it. Who is more deserving, mid lane Malz players or Jungle Malz players? There are people who enjoyed Support Malz. Are they justified? If you side with anyone, it's biased. Whatever your opinion is, you can't deny that you don't care about other people at the end of the day. And acknowledging that will allow you to at least understand why I'm saying Malz mid needed to be playable which was the goal. They also wanted to intentionally delete support Malz because bottom laners found it unfun, even if Malzahar players didn't mind it.

Go play this current Malz and see how it's different. It's dominating solo queue at the moment which proves that waveclear was central to his issues, but could never be buffed due to support Malz. Flat damage on ulti ensures that you do enough by mid game, and will most likely be nerfed. There were plenty of Malz threads asking for more scaling potential. Riot listened to those and found something that worked through their testing.

The champion to me was only ever unnecessarily complex on the farming/CS aspect and could not interact with the enemy laner that much, nor wanted to. You might've liked that, but fighting it was unfun and uninteractive. It also leads to a farming game similar to Heimerdinger and not really like League. Makes the champion quite literally boring. Imagine speaking to your friends about Malzahar. All you'll practically be able to mention is your ultimate-based plays because other than that, the champion didn't hold as much value. The opinion at large is always that he's been a CC-bot via ulti, even if you never thought of him that way.

Changing it so that he actually has a goal in mind for his team when playing mid will always look like a healthier change to me than his previous version, and has WAY more levers to be balanced around via passive, E mana sustain, Voidling health (as seen already), ultimate damage, and so forth. That makes balancing it more complex for certain and it's the reason we've had to make so many changes, but the champion has more ideas than "buff Q damage" involved.

Beacon AcademyJun 2, 20171 votes

It was great... relatively

Both spells and Voidlings are still individually weak and reliant compared to his pre-rework self.

Riots been pretty big on the whole:

"We'll give you this... But only if-"

"You can do this... But only when-"

I miss the individually strong spells you could use whenever the fuck you wanted and in any order of your choosing

But again this is ok... relatively

doodlebob666Jun 2, 20171 votes

only good thing I can think of from it would be adding the refresh to malefic visions after hitting call of the void, makes him more interactive

deadlychuckJun 2, 20171 votes

Which is completely isolated from the passive and voidling changes.

If that had all that had been changed, Q had it's base damage and CD adjusted, E had it's base damage adjusted and could now be refreshed, then cool.

Though, they took it 10 steps too far, and instead of backtracking, they want to stick to their guns, and keep the other changes which have only harmed the design of the kit.