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Is Malzahar "Fun"?

JetstreamXT·10/16/2018, 8:08:58 PM·3 votes·1,291 views

Is Malzahar fun for either the player who picks him or whoever has to go up against him? My answer would be probably not.

Let me start with the player who has to go up against him, since that's what I know best. Is he counterable? Definitely. QSS exists, and everyone can buy it. Is it fun buying a QSS and pressing it for one spell that you already know is coming? Again, probably not. QSS takes away from meaningful itemization in this context. Even if the enemy team has 4 other AD champions, if you plan on getting anywhere near Malzahar past level 6, you need QSS. Period. Yasuo, you can predict his movements and counter him with CC. Evelynn, you can hide pink wards and catch her while she's busy trying to get the drop on you. With Malzahar, you just press an extra button. That's it.

It's not just Malzahar's ultimate that is the problem, though. His Malefic Visions is also, in my opinion, problematic. The way Malefic Visions works is that he casts it, and it spreads if it kills any target. That's fine. What's not fine is that he also gains Mana from it, to create an endless feedback loop of Malefic Visions in lane. That pushes very hard and completely zones out the enemy indefinitely, removing any semblance of fun from playing against him.

As for the controlling player, the only sense of fun you'll get is from picking him as a counter in the first place. All of his abilities are fire-and-forget, especially his R and Malefic Visions. Id be interested to hear how a Malzahar main finds his gameplay fun. How do you have fun with him while the entire enemy team has QSS? How do you find pressing your Malefic visions a single time and having it decimate the entire minion wave and then zone out the enemy champion fun?

In conclusion, I believe that Malzahar needs a serious overhaul, even in regards to his previous one. I believe he is still not fun for anyone involved with him, save for those who derive pleasure from stomping their opponents practically effortlessly.

Feel free to leave your own opinions and feedback in the comments if you wish. Thank you for reading my post, and have a great day.

3 Comments

deadlychuck10/16/2018, 9:47:47 PM3 votes

He use to be.

That said, what you're pointing out as problematic is precisely why he's in his current state. In the MYMU they tried to push his power off of his ult, nerfed QSS to only apply to his CC (instead of all debuffs including his space aids), and they implemented this extremely inconsistent and high variance swarm variation of his boberts.

They tried to resolve the "issues" that you have with him, but you can't just cripple a mage by giving them zero mana recovery mechanic (because they also removed mana regen as a "mage stat" in the MYMU). His ult was good, but use to fall of much harder in team fights than it does now, because its effectiveness use to be tied completely to how long you could channel it. Which is why he was never played in professional, except for I think once in season 1, because it's so easy for a teammate to completely gimp his ult.

Basically NO, he's not fun to play as or against, because riot caved to people like you over two years ago in the MYMU (patch 6.9 if you're unfamiliar). The result was that both target demographics of the community, the strategically minded RTS players who played the game since release and the new Action focused players that they've been shifting their design towards over the past 5 years or so, were made to compromise on a champion that no longer has any nuanced strategic design, but also still manages to act as a solid counter to much of the mobility and burst damage of mostly assassins. Not that assassins are the only class bursting everyone down in < 1sec these days.

Jinzo Torrance10/17/2018, 6:56:30 PM1 votes

He's still extremely fun to play since he keeps making assassin players and new design garbage like Irelia or Camille cry in all chat even after he got massacred with a cleaver 2 seasons ago.

Also the champion is 3 spells now (Passive, Q Silence and R Suppression) so it's probably fun to have a free lane against him.