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Is there a reason why Malphite is getting nerfs on the PBE?

shicky97·8/12/2017, 1:46:34 AM·2 votes·1,222 views

Here's a summary of the total changes for anyone that doesn't know what I'm talking about:

Seismic Shard (Q):

  • Cooldown changed from 8 at all ranks to 11/10/9/8/7
  • Mana cost lowered from 70/75/80/85/90 to 50/55/60/65/70
  • Magic damage lowered from 70/120/170/220/270 to 60/90/120/150/180
  • Movement speed steal changed from 14/17/20/23/26% to 25% at all ranks
  • Movement speed steal duration lowered from 4 seconds to 3 seconds

Brutal Strikes (W) :

  • [New Effect] "While Granite Shield holds, this bonus is tripled to x."

The above bonus refers to the bonus armor he gets from his W Passive ability.

These seem like some pretty hard nerfs overall. I mean his Q is getting up to 90 damage shaved off total in addition to a cooldown increase before level 9. Sure they are lowering the mana cost and increasing the Movement steal by decent amount to compensate, but it still looks like it will turn out to be a major nerf.

I don't really understand what warranted these changes, Malphite is sitting at just below 50% winrate at the moment and his laning phase is already pretty abysmal, especially if your opponent had the presence of mind to buy a Magic Resist item to stop you from poking them down with Q.

Maybe they're doing this to bring him in line with the tank rework and make him not burst people as hard, but he doesn't really have anything else going for him other than having exceptional damage for being a tank.

Anyone is welcome to chime in and try to justify these changes to me, because I'm just not seeing the reasoning behind it right now.

25 Comments

Darkdemon6538/12/2017, 1:53:56 AM4 votes

My guess is the leader-of-the-balance-team's boyfriend lost to a Malphite recently.

jwebb01138/12/2017, 1:51:26 AM2 votes

cuz he isnt playable and suffers from a sorry laning phase pre lvl 6

and hmm why the hell not ?

it makes his Q more of a poke tool and his W is a buff actually

he has one of the worst mana cost early game with Q ... i think its interesting to see them tweaking him a bit

LyingOnLine8/12/2017, 1:50:57 AM1 votes

Probably because his laning phase consisted of him spamming Q poke, hitting people a couple of times, and disengaging because lol movement speed steal. Or just spamming Q on cooldown, which happened fairly often.

So they shifted that from his Q doing damage to him having to do his damage with autos and W. After all, spam Q poke was some horribly boring and uninteractive shit.

Iota Theta8/12/2017, 3:15:18 AM1 votes

I'm happy for the Q nerf, because most people max it first and it makes for a boring lane phase (I love playing as Malphite), similar to Panth's. Malph doesn't have a whole lot outside of his ult, and, if he builds tank, the W buff will give him enough durability to survive his initiation. Don't forget that the new bonus will also buff his W's active damage and his E's damage for those initial bursts or trades.