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With Malzahar once again being on the radar for nerfs maybe it's time to....

Malicious Metal··105 votes·5,219 views

Acknowledge that giving him a passive Spellshield wasn't exactly the best thing to do.

He's extremely opressive and nigh-untouchable in lane and when he's strong it feels like it's his lane to lose and not yours to win. And even then he's extremely uninteractive with his constant shove and passive making you unable to actually engage him.

And that's coming from a Morde main who rejoices at his W healing me to max hp.

He doesn't need nerfs, he needs either a fully-fledged VGU or a different passive.

EDIT: I'm not saying there is no counterplay to Malzahar but his mini rework promised making him more interactive in lane whereas it had the exact opposite effect. It's just the combination of Permapushing play style, safety through his passive and the point and click suppression that basically guarantees a kill that's an issue.

He needs some work done to him, preferably a VGU because let's be honest... He's pretty bloody outdated visually too

139 Comments

Rainfall15 votes

this is sadly more of midlane problem than a malzahar problem,when the games are too short and mages barely get to stack 200 ap every game a champion with high base damages and resets will always rise. Malzahar is simply better than a lot of mages because his core items are item 3116 and item 3151 and not item 3285 item 3089 in a fast paced game with ap items not accesible malzahar will be at the top.

TiltThenWin13 votes

Although his passive blocks spells it can be brought down with a simple aa

xelaker6 votes

this. and nobody does it. I played a fair amount of mal support last season and nobody ever just pokes the shield away before trying stuff. On top of the that mal has to be untouched by champs until his passive cd is up to get it back

KlydeFrog3 votes

Zyra countered malz like something fierce

Evil Bisex Plant15 votes

True.

And counterpick is not counterplay is also true.

Thefrostyviking4 votes

Anivia is also pretty good, if you time it right then you can Q him, let his shield break then reactivate Q to stun him anyway.

That and he can never go near you later on x)

Infernape75 votes

Probably because for a vast majority of champions, getting in AA range of Malzahar opens you up to eat his entire kit.

Jinzo Torrance1 votes

You go in to AA him when he uses his E on a minion or when your jungler is ganking him soon

HeimerLmao28 votes

But what if you are melee? You instantly get q w or ulted. Also somebody said "jungler help shouldn't be the counterplay to a champion" and I completely agree with that.

Jinzo Torrance2 votes

W will target minion with his E, Q is a skillshot and every other mage has it, if he ults you without his E the damage is negligible during lane phase.

HeimerLmao1 votes

The point is, his w will target you if you get ulted, resulting in still good dmg. His Q has a silence unlike other mages. I can agree on Cho and Garen silence, as they are low range, and keep you from just flashing away instantly after Garen finally reached you, allowing him to do something. Meanwhile Malza silence grants him even more of this safety, which he already has, while he does so much dmg.

Beacon Academy1 votes

The Q is delayed after casting

and...

If you didn't deal with the Voidlings prior to fighting Malzahar as they are usually more forward than he is and only get stacks upon using other spells, that seems like a personal problem.

Beacon Academy1 votes

What do you do for other strong 1v1 "duelist" champions? ._.

Gorantharon1 votes

Riot seems fine with that concept for top lane.

Doozku1 votes

Zed Fizz Talon Kassadin

Jinzo Torrance1 votes

You... wait his E and then go in.

All those champion have ranged abilities and/or gap closers to engage/poke Malz when his E is on CD

Charm With parm6 votes

I've played against malz mains many times and they usually just farm with autos and save their full combo for me if i try to get their passive down. You're just trying to make laning against a malzahar seem easier than it actually is for whatever reason.

Jinzo Torrance2 votes

What full combo? E + Q? Since his W will just get oneshot by one of your spells? That does no damage unless Malzahar waits for his E to deal damage first and at that point it's a normal mage combo that you can dodge by dodging his Q. You just use one spell that outranges his E or AA since his is pretty low (500) most mage have (525-550) and take down his shield and now you can trade with him just fine. Malzahar is not picked because he wins lane.

Charm With parm2 votes

What are you talking about? A malzahar that's level 3? Once he has his ult and a full item, last time i checked, his E+Q combo definitely does do damage (and 3 space crabs from his w getting at least 1 auto each off still does a chunk of damage.) And thats just without his ult. What are you a malz main or something?

wildfox991 votes

{quoted}

Although his passive blocks spells it can be brought down with a simple aa

not like he can countertrade you if you do this (E Q and eventually W) and what if you are an assassin/low range mage? just a bad malza would let you take his shield with an AA without punishing you

TiltThenWin1 votes

Go in and trade after don't just get puked for an aa and wait for him to use spells before hand it's not hard

wildfox993 votes

{quoted}

Go in and trade after don't just get puked for an aa and wait for him to use spells before hand it's not hard

if he's in you AA range,you are in his E Q range when his E isn't up,a good malza will back off waiting for his CDs while his void creatures and E pushes the wave i'm not saying it's impossible to play aganist him,but a good malzahar wont let you symply AA without punishing you,especially if you are a low range champion

General Esdeath 2 votes

Too bad everyone except Annie Caitlyn Zyra Varus Jinx would be in range for his combo...

TiltThenWin1 votes

It's not that hard I do it every game agains malz

General Esdeath 2 votes

Lux can easily remove it with E. In fact, I think it wears off just from the slow in the aoe itself.

TiltThenWin2 votes

That is correct

yoshi27902 votes

Annie her range has been nerfed by 50 a long time ago and is definetly in his range now. Unless you use tibbers but to proc the shield an ultimate is a bit too much.

Troll for Trump12 votes

The problem is his point and click suppression, which also happens to be his gameplay identity. They need to WW it.

wildfox9911 votes

just proc his passive like yasuo shiel...oh wait he just E-Q you and got 3/4 of your hp

i mean,they knew this kind of ability was already oppressive and hated on a melee champ (though you can bait it easily),so...what did they do? giving to an already-oppriessive ranged champion a stronger one

if they really want to keep it (it doesn't matter if even all player base didn't want this change,they wont admit their mistakes,we can see it with many champions) just make it an active ability with long-medium CD (for example swap his W and passive),for the next X seconds he gets this shield (that goes down after the first damage or CC hits,exatly like now) and some movement speed and give his ult a counterplay that's not "buy item 3140 as AP",once a guy proposed to making his ult suppress delayed making it slow before suppressing him (he press R,you are slowed and the zone that deals damage appear under you,after X sec he suppress you),the target can break the channeling stunning malza or going out of his ult range,something like that...just nerfing or buffing him will end up making him either useless or too strong,what he lacks is a counterplay

Doozku2 votes

oppriment

???

PaffWasTaken11 votes

He needs to be reverted to his initial pre-mage update state, no more VGUs, no more "new passives", End of the conversation

Arakadia8 votes

But he was cancerous before his rework as well.

Unfortunately for you, you don't control whether or not the discussion continues.

Thefrostyviking7 votes

He was less cancerous overall then though, only difference is that he was stronger early but weaker later.

Current malz is impossible to engage on or assassinate in the mid/lategame and i think his damage is better than before thanks to lower Q CD and the E refresh.

Old malz would screw melee over in lane but he could be killed.

Trollmanship2 votes

{quoted}

But he was cancerous before his rework as well.

Unfortunately for you, you don't control whether or not the discussion continues.

Most people didn't want or care about his rework.

Most people also immediately recognized new malzahar as obvious cancer the moment it came out.

Unfortunately Riot is never wrong so a revert is out of the question!

Arakadia1 votes

That doesn't change that old Malzahar was cancer as well.

And no its not Riot's arrogance or ego. Reverts aren't always the answer. If you look at Rengar, Malzahar, Skarner, Mordekaiser, etc. who were reworked and the community asked for a revert, you'll notice that they were reworked for a reason. Also that they all didn't get enough/the right change.

Beacon Academy1 votes

With one nerf over 5-6 years, I'm pretty sure they only picked Malzahar because

  1. They probably thought he would be a safe pick since not a lot of people played him (And didn't see the outrage coming when they overdid it lol)

  2. They needed immobile mages for a multi-champion update... Which everyone now knows is a colossal waste of time

I think we all know that Malzahar would never had been touched if the MYMU never existed.

The boards didn't bitch about old Malzahar His player base was generally happy with him He wasn't overplayed He wasn't OPOP in high elos due to simple solutions against him And again, he pretty much never got nerfed (Until Deathfire Touch)

The one key difference between the two Malzahars:

Old Malzahar was generally liked by the community as a simple, beginner-friendly, niche pick and had no shield (Easily CC'd as a counter)

New Malzahar is generally hated by the community as a super safe pick with a shield (Hard to engage on) used just for climbing the ladder while braindead

Who woulda fucking thought intentionally giving a safety net to something as cancerous as a point and click suppression would be so... Well... Cancerous?

Old Malzahar players (The good ones at least) at least had to know who could CC them and whether or not they had used them yet before Ulting

Arakadia1 votes

> First of all, I see multiple nerfs and many changes before his inital rework.

They probably thought he would be a safe pick since not a lot of people played him (And didn't see the outrage coming when they overdid it lol) They needed immobile mages for a multi-champion update... Which everyone now knows is a colossal waste of time

Why would they rework him just to rework him? Riot doesn't enjoy wasting resources. Riot doesn't get anything out of doing class updates.

I think we all know that Malzahar would never had been touched if the MYMU never existed.

Speak for yourself. If not for the MYMU, Malzahar would have gotten a VGU eventually. He'd be low priority but he'd absolutely get one.

The boards didn't bitch about old Malzahar

Yeah they did.

His player base was generally happy with him

Old Leblanc, old Rengar, AP Yi, and Twitch players are/were happy with their champs too.

He wasn't overplayed He wasn't OPOP in high elos due to simple solutions against him

The game isn't entirely balanced around high elo. And this doesn't make a champion healthy even if they're balanced.

Old Malzahar was generally liked by the community as a simple, beginner-friendly, niche pick and had no shield (Easily CC'd as a counter)

Are you just saying this based off your personal experience? Because thats not a big enough sample pool.

New Malzahar is generally hated by the community as a super safe pick with a shield (Hard to engage on) used just for climbing the ladder while braindead

This is pretty much true but old Malzahar was disliked as well.

Who woulda fucking thought intentionally giving a safety net to something as cancerous as a point and click suppression would be so... Well... Cancerous?

You know instant targeted ranged point and click suppressions on a solo laner who's primary purpose is to deal damage isn't a good idea in the first place.

No putting yourself at a 1,300 gold disadvantage isn't counterplay if anything its counterbuilding.

Old Malzahar players (The good ones at least) at least had to know who could CC them and whether or not they had used them yet before Ulting

I agree.

Spank the Fox6 votes

How does reverting him help?

he’d still have a braindead wave clear, brain dead auto win R and much stronger basic abilities. He won’t magically go back to being underplayed now that everyone know his potential.

Void Baboon RF20 votes

It's this kinda of garbage low effort low elo analysis that makes talking about malz pointless on any forum.

Jinzo Torrance7 votes

Ah, so Malzahar flashing R your ADC has been an unknown thing since season one?

Beacon Academy3 votes

Old Malzahar had:

High mana spells with higher CDs No Voidlings until the fourth cast and you had to manage its 21 second life No minion damage bonus No minion execute

Old Malzahar was more likely to miss CS by leaving it to his E unless he had 2-3 items (Depending on AP amount & E Rank) so he had to be there to aa

Old Malzahar had to use E and his occasionally spawning Voidling to maintain his mana in lane because harassing was expensive in mana

Braindead waveclear my ass.

Spank the Fox1 votes

Old Malz also had strong as fuck bases - his Q did 300 + 0.8AP damage and Malefic Visions weren’t that far behind. His pool melted everything and it wasn’t tied to his ultimate.

Malefic Visions had a stronger mana return to offset the costs and Morello alone is enough to auto push the wave.

Old Malz voidlings lasted a lot longer, were tankier and two of them out (with proper manipulation) and his ult+passive alone can out damage his whole new kit put together.

Your ommissions and manipulative wording is bad and you should feel bad. He was cancer before too, but nobody played him. He easily sat at 55% WR for SEASONS.

Beacon Academy1 votes

I like how a lot of this thread has been about laning against Malzahar and when I give you a list of why Old Malzahar can't braindead a wave early game, which is when the laning phase is, you decide to come back with:

A Q that not only won't reach rank 5 until level 12 at the earliest (Assuming no points placed into W) but can easily be dodged due to the delay it had after casting.

and

An unlikely situation of having two Voidlings out which requires time to set up, lots of mana, and the assumption that your laning enemy won't kill them during its initial squishy state prior to the armor boost.

and

You a bad person!

I guess I was a nobody then...

Also his WR was actually fluctuating between 52-54% with a 4ish% Play Rate and E had 320 base with 80% AP, although it could be argued that it did less due to dot and mr interaction.

His pool was also 4-6% + 1% per 100 AP per second and usually maxed last. If you had a hard time with a pool in a fixed position, I don't know what to tell you. Even if you got ulted in it, thats only 2.5 seconds of it... you still wouldn't be in it for the whole duration unless you decided to stay in it.

Although the pool synergized with his ult, it was a better tool for zoning enemies away from allies or away from their towers

Spank the Fox1 votes

Lmao so you’re implying the two spells required to charge up his current W, the mana costs of both W and E combined, the reduced mana refund, and Malefic Visions only having any pushing ability by his instagibbed minions is MORE BRAINDEAD than his previous E that, by rank 4 and any other AP item beyond DRing, will autoclear a wave alone.

You were the one who wanted to bring up shitty points that I had to address outside of laning.

Shoo.

Beacon Academy1 votes

New Malzahar:

The W will always spawn one Voidling.

One E will give one stack.

EW will spawn two Voidlings.

Each Voidling has 300% damage against E'd minions

Requirement: Level 2, 100 Mana, Doran's Ring

Old Malzahar:

Rank 4 E

Requirement: Level 7, 105 Mana, Doran's Ring + AP Item(s)

I'm not sure what else to say here.

Fisher No Chains11 votes

Malzahar’s rework was a complete failure by many points of view. I’m not a Malz player but I’d play against the old one 100 times rather than a single game against the new one.

Here’s a list of issues with his new kit:

  1. it killed many alternative playstyles like jungle/AD malz;
  2. he became even more obnoxious in lane. Against the old one, you could just wait for him to waste his spells and gank him/all in him while he had everything on cooldown. Now he’s a push bot until 6.
  3. he’s super hard to punish. Here you have some options against him: -you pop his shield off but end up losing 40% of your Hp = trading was not worth; -you try to farm under turret = he becomes relevant through farm and puts you behind by pressing EW; -you try to shove harder than him but he’s fairly decent at farming under turret = he becomes relevant anyway because post 6 his ult is a guaranteed kill. -you try to freeze and wait for a gank = he’ll at best waste flash, but a good Malz is as hard to gank as a Morgana just because he’ll EW every time his waveclear is off cooldown and go back to XP range.

His new Passive makes him miserable to play against. A champion that already had a passive-shove playstyle is now even more safe and pushes harder than before with little to no risk involved. Add the fact that he forces you to build QSS or you’re dead every time his ult is up, and you have why his rework accomplished nothing but making him a balance nightmare with that mess of a kit.

Fuck new Malzahar. He became a low risk super high reward champion, especially with unsealed spellbook and his shitty designed passive.

Karakot10 votes

Ive always argued that I loved new malzahar.. but recently ive come to realize that it FUCKING SUCKS. I hate playing him so much anymore. Such a fun champion put to waste to feel like garbage to play all the time. I want at least some new part of his kit, whether it be a passive or an eventual VGU to make him feel like a good choice to pick in game again, because right now I really don't see it.

RainXBlade7 votes

I'd honestly want Riot to just revert him. He's basically an ult bot at this point of the game. Old Malzy had higher base damage than the current one we have and that his power budget isn't necessarily on his ult.

NineTailedMystic1 votes

His ult had the same issues before too.

RainXBlade1 votes

Actually no. Back then, his Space AIDS chunked squishies and could eliminate an entire minion wave w/o you having to autoattack or casting another skill.

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