I'd like to see a Malphite rework

I like Malphite and I think he's generally pretty strong at the moment. That said he feels very one dimensional and doesn't offer a lot of flexibility at the moment and that's what I'd like to see adjusted.

I think there is an opportunity to improve his feel by adding some interplay between his passive and his abilities. For example:

Change Malphite's w to an auto-attack reset. When his shield is up his next auto-attack within x seconds will deal a small amount of additional magic damage in an aoe around him and create a slow field - much like iceborn guantlet. When his passive shield is down, however, it should instead act more like a lichbane proc, dealing significant single target damage and perhaps also shredding magic resist and armour. W was always meant to add to Malphite's ability to trade and this will help in my opinion. Particularly, if Malphite is getting ganked, he can quickly choose to either throw down a slow field to help him escape or go ham and dish out the extra damage when his shield gets popped.

The same principle could be applied to his q where it slows more when shield is up but does more damage when down. Although it might be worth looking at changing this to a skillshot where it deals damage and slows/stuns/snares/disables in some way for 0.5 of a second when his shield is up or deals additional dmg and adds a dot or something like that when his shield is down. I'm not really sold on this idea myself but I think it needs a change to how it feels.

I wouldn't change E to play with his passive alone though; I would also have it interact with his w. Instead of consuming the charge of w with an auto-attack you could choose to consume it with your e. If passive shield is up, then e will be augmented to slow the movement speed of all targets hit and grant a shield to his allies (or something like that) but if the passive shield is down, then e will instead shred the armour and magic resist of all enemies hit and burn them for x damage over y seconds.

I wouldn't make any changes to his ultimate because I feel like it's in a really good place already.

I feel like this also adds to the feeling of his identity; molten core wrapped in a cold stone shell.

I feel like changes of this nature won't totally destroy the current feel of the champion but will definitely add some depth to his mechanics by adding another layer of decision making beyond 'are two or more enemies standing next to one another and do I have some allies close by? yes - ult in, no - don't bother'. Instead of just pressing all the buttons and hoping for the best you will need to make decisions about when you want to press those buttons for maximum effect. Your allies get jumped and your late to the party? Ult in and grant them a shield as well as slow the enemies around you to turn a fight around. Or you take a bit of poke, your shield is down, but it was all just a ploy; you turn to dive all over the enemy shredding their defenses and watching them burn as your allies join in for one hell of a wombo.

Most importantly, I think it would make the champion more fun to play because it makes playstyle preferences more pronounced and rewarding; there will be big differences in game play between full tank, hybrid damage-tank and full damage builds.

Cheers