@RiotRepertoir - Could we please get some thoughts about…

Jovius · 2018-03-20T12:03:27.943Z

Intro ** I think Malzahar is in a very poor state after his nerfs, despite him sitting around 50% win rate in solo Q. His base damages and his scaling ratios have been nerfed serveral times in a row and he now feels like a mid lane support, not a carry. His win rate is solid purely due to his Ultimate and people not being able to play around it and itemize for it. **Current state I've been a Malzahar main since season 2, when I started playing this game. I have a 70% win rate this season on the guy (http://eune.op.gg/summoner/userName=jovius) over some 60 games and I can still have success on him after the hard nerfs. Malzahar was, up until 8.2, part of the Trinity of champions with Azir and Ryze, however he was the only one receiving such substantial nerfs, while Ryze and Azir continue to be staples. The way you carry game as a Malzahar now is not through his damage, which is on the lower side of the spectrum in average damage done (as per Champion.gg http://champion.gg/champion/Malzahar/Middle?), which is of course partly biased towards poke champions, but is still ridiculously low, considering Malzahar is supposed to be one of the prototypical sustained damage champions. Instead he now serves as a Flash+R bot for your team, which is further encouraged by all CDR available for his flash. This is further evidenced by the fact that in Platinum+ elos, he has on average more deaths than kills, with the average number of kills being 4. These are Karma support numbers. I hate playing him like this, because it is not the style I'm looking for from a mid laner. My other champion for mid is Orianna and I just enjoy her so much more lately, despite her being significantly less reliant, having greater room for error (a missed Shockwave can be a difference between a win and a loss). Suggestions for improvement ** Could we somehow lower the champs reliability in favor of gameplay? I hate being an ult bot for my team or for my voidlings for that matter, because not only is Malz's damage low, but even this damage doesn't come from the champion, it comes from his voidlings. Please, change him. Remove the voidlings. Give him his old W back. Make it so his ult only slows, unless the target is affected by E or standing in his (old) W. Redistribute the damage from his voidlings into the champion himself. Reduce his reliability, improve his damage, make him a carry again. Voidlings aren't iconic. The champion fantasy will not be dramatically altered without them. When you say Malzahar, people think about his Ult, his Space aids (E) or his CC. Voidlings are just...there. But without them, the Champion doesn't deal damage. Ad absurdum, the champion should be renamed to "Voidlings" and his current W should summon the Malzahar to ult the target the Voidlings attack. **TLDR After the nerfs, Malzahar no longer deals sufficient damage, his scaling his poor and his success is entirely dependent on his Flash+R combo with jungle assistance. In late game, he is there just to Flash+R the priority target, often sacrificing himself for the ADC. His damage is low, because he is too reliable. Decrease his reliability, increase skill expression and give him room to be a carry through his damage.

AMYS GRAVEMar 20, 20182 votes

good answer.

nm1010Mar 20, 201812 votes

I hereby sign my name as someone who does not play Malzahar for his reliability, I play him for his DoT play style.

lordbreddMar 20, 20185 votes

seconded

RyuujinBlazeMar 20, 20185 votes

Thirded

Pwnage69Mar 21, 20186 votes

Fourthed.

Well let me correct that as above is all PRESENT TENSE.

I DID play him for his DoT play until the Q and E damage was ~~nerfed~~ castrated with the rework, as was the ult damage and old void zone. Then that rework happened patch 6.9 with hotfix nerf + 6.10 through 6.15 nerfing all skills/dmg/mana.

Then, finally, 6.23 mini rework to voidlings for a buff, but resulted in OP support Malz, who was still garbage midlane.

That is, until that support meta got repeatedly nerfed (7.3, 7.7, 7.8), ultimately ~~killed off~~ no longer being meta with the gutting nerfs 7.11 and 7.12. Well I "suppose" there was attempts to "buff" q and r on 7.11 to bring mid lane viability, but those got nerfed 7.12, again on 7.24, and OH LOOK again 8.2.

Malefiic vision "Space **ds" long ago reduced to (barely) a "space tickle". Added to the loooong list of "ultimately astronomically less enjoyable" neutered "reworks".

-Kassadin(bring back silencing Q that actually did dmg as well + riftwalk truly being a walk and not a rift "crawL) -LB 1st rework I still enjoyed her, despite her silence on Q (like Kass and Talon) being removed, but the 2nd rework? Dead. -Sona: rework initially was lovely due to the nerfs she received pre-rework, but then gutted shortly after (healing, shield, q dmg, passive, base stats including movement speed, mana costs, base cooldown on ultimate; literally everything).

I could go on and on, so I'll just say the few reworks that I actually like or at least am indifferent to: Kat and WW. Technically Urgot as well, but considering he was destroyed 1.0.0.143 due to Team Mrn sailing to LCS with their legendary Taric-Urgot combo until the rework several YEARS later? Way too long to finally fix him. Still looks only mild compared to the brutal Olaf Rework and Evelyn stun days of S1.

ChaddyFantomeMar 21, 20184 votes

{quoted}

Fourthed.

Well let me correct that as above is all PRESENT TENSE.

I DID play him for his DoT play until the Q and E damage was ~~nerfed~~ castrated with the rework, as was the ult damage and old void zone. Then that rework happened patch 6.9 with hotfix nerf + 6.10 through 6.15 nerfing all skills/dmg/mana.

Then, finally, 6.23 mini rework to voidlings for a buff, but resulted in OP support Malz, who was still garbage midlane.

That is, until that support meta got repeatedly nerfed (7.3, 7.7, 7.8), ultimately ~~killed off~~ no longer being meta with the gutting nerfs 7.11 and 7.12. Well I "suppose" there was attempts to "buff" q and r on 7.11 to bring mid lane viability, but those got nerfed 7.12, again on 7.24, and OH LOOK again 8.2.

Malefiic vision "Space **ds" long ago reduced to (barely) a "space tickle". Added to the loooong list of "ultimately astronomically less enjoyable" neutered "reworks".

-Kassadin(bring back silencing Q that actually did dmg as well + riftwalk truly being a walk and not a rift "crawL) -LB 1st rework I still enjoyed her, despite her silence on Q (like Kass and Talon) being removed, but the 2nd rework? Dead. -Sona: rework initially was lovely due to the nerfs she received pre-rework, but then gutted shortly after (healing, shield, q dmg, passive, base stats including movement speed, mana costs, base cooldown on ultimate; literally everything).

I could go on and on, so I'll just say the few reworks that I actually like or at least am indifferent to: Kat and WW. Technically Urgot as well, but considering he was destroyed 1.0.0.143 due to Team Mrn sailing to LCS with their legendary Taric-Urgot combo until the rework several YEARS later? Way too long to finally fix him. Still looks only mild compared to the brutal Olaf Rework and Evelyn stun days of S1.

Fifth'd

FloupiMar 21, 20184 votes

[deleted]

Abraxus followerMar 21, 20184 votes

seventh

Apocalypse LemonMar 29, 20181 votes

8th'd I'd give up any and all reliability to be able to do damage again.

hyperion834Mar 31, 20181 votes

9th'd as well

over the course of a year i have come to love malzahar. I started playing him late January of 2017 as a support. his playstyle was perfect for me and I couldnt get enough of him. and as mentioned above, since 8.2 riot might as well have thrown him out of the jungle and bot lane. I still play him mid just for the nostalgia of playing him but it really isnt that enjoyable. and the worst part is that i cant really find any other champions that fit my playstyle as well as him. since 8.2 league has just kind of fallen off of my radar. if riot would maybe revert his w or just give him more damage that would be greatly appreciated Malzahar

Pwnage69Apr 1, 20181 votes

Bump for visibility

ForcepowaMar 20, 20183 votes

Yeah, I don't think many Malzahar mains play him for his reliability. In fact I would argue there are other champions that are far more reliable.

Q - 'Unique' Skill shot W - AI Driven one shot-able minions E - Low Range Point and click that rewards you on enemies positional mistakes R - Only reliable ability. (Skarner has a better version of this ability)

I will say though that in Pro Play he was used for his ult reliability. Now replaced by Skarner

Although I say all this with a bit of bias. I've been playing Malzahar since he was released. Stopped playing LoL after all the changes but still follow LCS pretty heavily.

JoviusMar 20, 20184 votes

Firstly I really appreciate you found the time to discuss the champion!

As for your resposne, I understand the sentiment here, but isn't there some kind of a sweet spot, a sort of a middle ground between his current state and my suggestions? From my experience when talking to other Malz mains, we are not picking him for his Ult, we just like a dark mage with DOT abilities and cool thematic. We like his silence, we like his DoT and we loved his old W.

I concede the argument with damage done wasn't the strongest one, but from my perspective as a long time Malz main, I've never felt his combat power to be this low.

I have people flashing away or running away with slivers of health that would have been a 100% dead before. I understand this was exactly the point of the changes, but I feel like they really went a bit too far. When you can't kill your laner after sucessfully poking him down and landing your combo, what's even the point going for the fight in the first place. His ult is one of those "I want this target dead" ults, similar to Syndra or Veigar. If you can no longer do that, let me tell you that is not a good feeling.

He's a short range mage that has to get into the thick of the fight in order to succeed, but now I feel he isn't rewarded enough for it and judging from the reactions here and on reddit, a lot of long time Malz players feel the same.

Would you say he is in a good state power wise? Are there perhaps any plans to revisit him later? His current W seems to be a source of lots of trouble with Malzahar, while also being the least fun of his abilities, that is however necessary for him to deal damage. Any plans for that?

RiotRiotRepertoirMar 21, 20185 votes

Would you say he is in a good state power wise?

I do think he's pretty balanced. I wouldn't claim his power is perfectly allocated to the right parts of his kit.

Are there perhaps any plans to revisit him later?

There aren't immediate plans, but things like that can always change. Malzahar is difficult because he is trying to fulfill several different thematic and gameplay fantasies: shadow magic DoT guy, minionmancer, lockdown mage, a few other minor things. I can see how that's the champion that was created years ago when Malzahar was originally made, but in today's much larger roster, if we were designing him from scratch, we'd probably make him really awesome and cohesive at one of those things. I guess he's a victim of the time he was created, in a way.

His current W seems to be a source of lots of trouble with Malzahar, while also being the least fun of his abilities, that is however necessary for him to deal damage. Any plans for that?

The most recent changes to his W where the voidlings became very killable were a step in the right direction imo, but they're really not supposed to be a significant portion of his pvp power budget (because he really lacks the agency to help them succeed). If anything, if we were to do some power shifting, my starting point would be reducing voidling pvp presence even more and putting some of that back into Q or perhaps a reworked/modified ult.

Ez dePazMar 21, 20183 votes

Really sad hear that this is the direction things are going especially when the intent with reworking malz in the first place was to involve the voidlings more in his kit. What made you decide to kill the pets?

Pwnage69Mar 21, 20182 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ez dePaz,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=s849IBAE,comment-id=0009000300000000,timestamp=2018-03-21T02:11:51.193+0000)

Really sad hear that this is the direction things are going especially when the intent with reworking malz in the first place was to involve the voidlings more in his kit. What made you decide to kill the pets?

Because the initial voidling rework buff given to him patch 6.23 was OP, and literally repeatedly reworked again and nerfed 7.3 through 7.12.

Post rework Malz performed poorly (patch 6.9). Then they reworked minions with 6.23. That change slowly became support meta god tier (he was top winrate shortly by 7.1 lasting through first half of season 7 until 7.12 patch).

Then Riot began to openly nerf Support Malz, who was garbage mid lane, starting 7.3 (you can read their statement about Support Malz trend on that patch note), followed literally multiple mini rework nerfs on Voidlings all combined until finally being killed 7.11.

At 6.23, they would spawn instantly on cast, which built charges over time similar to Heimerdinger's Turrets and Teemo's shrooms. They would multiply into a mini horde which was nice visually as well tactically when clearing waves and even blocking skill shots. Then they were reduced in number along with no longer building charges, but requiring Malz to cast spells to get "charges". No more level 1 W cheese in tribush with this.

Followed this by reducing movement speed, no longer able to spam multiple charges immediately, slow the movement speed when they leave a short radius from Malz, removed lifesteal, reduce their health by 1/3, THEN have them die on 1 hit from champion attacks AND turrets.

Ez dePazMar 21, 20182 votes

I agree that all of the post-rework versions of the voidlings have been very problematic, and I belive a big reason for that is that there are too many of them. Balancing around 1 voidling rather than 3 would be far easier.

Mossy LungsMar 21, 20183 votes

What about giving him back his old W aoe spell, and putting the Voidlings onto his ult? I always thought that made more sense thematically. Imagine you ult and are suppressing them and two portals spawn on the left and right of the ulted enemy spawning one voidling per portal per 0.5 second of the channel/suppress so up to 5 voidlings (no aoe dmg portal on ground anymore though) and the voidlings focus and attack the ulted target, you could even make it to where the voidlings despawn timer doesn't start until after malzahar finishes or cancels the suppress so they can linger around a little longer after, and give them an actual total health and then they focus targets inflicted by his E while they are still around. Some of his damage would have to be tinkered with and I'd think a shorter cooldown would be better for this kinda setup (110/90/70).

Just an idea.

warpenguin555Mar 21, 20185 votes

IMO the combination of Shadow DoT & Lockdown mage is the what makes Malzahar who he is. If either his DoT or his lockdown were removed I think I'd play somebody else instead. Those are what I play him for. Ik you didn't say those weren't being removed, just wanted to give feedback:)

SkyroarMar 21, 20184 votes

I agree. More specifically, Malz is a single-target DoT + lockdown mage with some other advantages.

If anything, I'd say a more radical rework for Malz would be to remove voidlings entirely from his kit. No more super-safe weave clear, no more tower-shredding, which in turn would make one of his weaknesses more relevant (getting outranged), and make it easier to balance him around his strong points.

501 BMIMar 21, 20181 votes

I sure would love a high damage dot spreading mage. I see your point on Malz, he touches so many things it's impossible to make him strong at everything without being op, and taking parts away will ruin him for the subset of players that part was important to. Maybe my favorite champ still hasn't been created yet.

UltîmaMar 21, 20183 votes

To be honest Repertoir, I feel like "Minionmancer" was never part of Malzahar's core identity, and was thrust unto him during his rework rather than something Malzahar players enjoyed. Yes, they were necessary to maximize his damage output in his old kit, but Malzahar was otherwise a wave-pushing, vision-bouncing, lockdown mage.

The minions were given way too much priority in his new kit, and shared the same counterplay issues as Yorick's old ghouls, which led them to get repeatedly nerfed to their current state. Now they don't even feel satisfying to use. What's even healthier or more fun about the current version of Malzahar compared to how he was pre-rework at this point?

Abraxus followerMar 21, 20181 votes

have people at riot considered giving him a mini rework? kinda like eve

lordbreddMar 21, 20182 votes

{quoted} If anything, if we were to do some power shifting, my starting point would be reducing voidling pvp presence even more

His voidlings already barely have any presence in pvp by the time mid game hits, and early game depending on who you are up against they literally have none. I have had match ups where I cant even use them for farming cuz a xerath/anivia/brand etc one shot them. I am the odd one out as a malzahar player though that legitimately loves the voidlings as part of his character.

morris1Mar 23, 20181 votes

I too like voidlings as part of Malzahar's kit, but mostly because I played a lot of AD Malzahar before his rework. That's also where the problem lies: most AP Malzahar players before the rework didn't ask for his kit to be voidling-centric. The rework went against this anyways, and surprise surprise Malzahar's voidlings became broken without even having to build AD and were subsequently nerfed patch after patch. They should just make the skill AD only again, even if it means AP Malzahars would have 1 less abillty in their kits, then Malzahar could at least get AP ratio buffs and both sides would be (at least somewhat) happy.

fdgdgergMar 22, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I do think he's pretty balanced. I wouldn't claim his power is perfectly allocated to the right parts of his kit.

There aren't immediate plans, but things like that can always change. Malzahar is difficult because he is trying to fulfill several different thematic and gameplay fantasies: shadow magic DoT guy, minionmancer, lockdown mage, a few other minor things. I can see how that's the champion that was created years ago when Malzahar was originally made, but in today's much larger roster, if we were designing him from scratch, we'd probably make him really awesome and cohesive at one of those things. I guess he's a victim of the time he was created, in a way.

The most recent changes to his W where the voidlings became very killable were a step in the right direction imo, but they're really not supposed to be a significant portion of his pvp power budget (because he really lacks the agency to help them succeed). If anything, if we were to do some power shifting, my starting point would be reducing voidling pvp presence even more and putting some of that back into Q or perhaps a reworked/modified ult.

...Viktor 47...:(...

DW DianaApr 17, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I do think he's pretty balanced. I wouldn't claim his power is perfectly allocated to the right parts of his kit.

There aren't immediate plans, but things like that can always change. Malzahar is difficult because he is trying to fulfill several different thematic and gameplay fantasies: shadow magic DoT guy, minionmancer, lockdown mage, a few other minor things. I can see how that's the champion that was created years ago when Malzahar was originally made, but in today's much larger roster, if we were designing him from scratch, we'd probably make him really awesome and cohesive at one of those things. I guess he's a victim of the time he was created, in a way.

The most recent changes to his W where the voidlings became very killable were a step in the right direction imo, but they're really not supposed to be a significant portion of his pvp power budget (because he really lacks the agency to help them succeed). If anything, if we were to do some power shifting, my starting point would be reducing voidling pvp presence even more and putting some of that back into Q or perhaps a reworked/modified ult.

I'm sorry but his entire kit is currently based around his ult. You know, that one you gutted and that every non-malz player complains about? Try something crazy and new, like making the one peice of his kit that underperforms worthwhile again?

If his ult is the problem, have it be a channeled DoT, take away the pool that you made null and void (couldn't resist) when you made it a beam that continued after qss, have the void spawns do damage, have hp, have an inherant slow and faster movement speed towards targets of his e. In short, give him kill pressure that doesn't rely on a 2 second stun, and then he won't need to have the ult everyone doesn't want him to have!

P.S 10thed!

DeadUnbornMar 21, 20181 votes

hey way off topic, but with Irelia's rework coming out I wanted to ask what is the difference between Blinded and Disarmed.

SithesisLordMar 21, 20181 votes

Blinded = Can AA but will miss all AAs for the duration. Disarmed = Cannot AA. Think of it as a Reverse Silence. If you´re Disarmed, you can cast abilities and Spells, but not AA.

DeadUnbornMar 21, 20181 votes

but then basically they are the same shit right? I mean I get one uses the auto attack anim and the other one doesn't, but they are the same

SithesisLordMar 21, 20181 votes

No. Take for example Kayle.

A blind would still allow her E splash damage to happen.

A disarm wouldn´t, because she wouldn´t be AA'ing at all.

Missing AAs because you´re blinded and not being able to AA are different things.

A Stattik proc wouldn´t happen if you´re Disarmed, neither would a Spellblade proc.

Basically, Blinds makes AAs useless but lets on-hits go through. Disarms stops AAs altogether, thus preventing on-hits as well.

Sun Wu RyuumokuMar 21, 20181 votes

but I'm not sure most of his player base would want to see him become much less reliable.

Why do u care ?? his ult isn't healthy for the game, like most point and clic hard cc (don't know why u kept mao W). When u reworked Talon and removed his OS AOE counterplayless u didn't cared about players base (not saying i prefered old, the new talon is better... don't focus on this). So why care now ?? game health is what matter.

His ult need to be reworked.

Teridax68Mar 21, 20181 votes

Would you consider creating more of a separation between his immediate damage and his crowd control? I feel like Malzahar would feel much better to play against, even with a point-and-click suppress, if he didn't also deal a large amount of damage at the same time. This goes into what you've mentioned with lowering his reliability, but while I think some players appreciate the reliability of his ult's crowd control, the reliability of its damage, and his damage overall, has been central to the frustrations of playing against him. Therefore, keeping his ult's CC component relatively reliable, but looking into other, less reliable ways of shifting his damage, could probably help him out significantly.

SkyroarMar 21, 20181 votes

Hello, RiotRepertoir.

Let me tell you that, as a Malz main for years (since season 3?) that flash+ulting an opponent while my team is nearby to finish them off is the single, most boring aspect of his kit. It's cheap, it feels cheap, and I'm under the impression that this is the main reason why 1) he has been nerfed; 2) spellbook is such an important keystone on him.

I have a lot more fun with him when I'm actively trying to outplay my opponents (hitting Q, waiting for the right moment to reset E, kiting/ avoiding skillshots in the meantime), but it seems his core combo is no longer rewarding. The damage nerfs and the lack of damaging keystones have all contributed to Malz no longer being able to kill his targets even when the player can pull off the combo near perfectly (which is not often, and not that easy). All that because this champion is extremely strong as an ult-bot: you only need your team nearby to kill your target, not yourself. And no, that's not fun for Malz mid-laners who want to carry.

The reliability of his ult is fun as a defensive mechanic (when you get dived, you do your combo, and then lock your target for that long-ass time, hopefully killing him or making him retreat), or just in 1v1 in general, but otherwise, it's something that is more important to your team than to yourself. Result? Malz's damage has been nerfed in order to preserve his reliability, further locking him into a spellbook ult-bot.

My suggestion for a future revision (even if a small one) is to make his ultimate duration scale based on your combo. This means that, if you unload your skills and then ulti your target, the surpress will last its normal duration. HOWEVER, if you flash+ulti someone, the duration should only be half as long, or 1/3 as long. Then, bring back his Q ratio. Bring back his ulti ratio, perhaps. Allow us to go back to sorceror shoes, to aery/ comet, to building damage again.

Veiled NightmareMar 22, 20181 votes

I have little issues with how Malzahar is now, though I like any iteration of him that pulls as much power out of his W and puts it into his E as possible. I would be totally happy with W being a ''useless'' ability like other champions have, and keeping his mana very manageable, and making sure his E will clear waves if the melees are below a reasonable health threshold. I play him for the dance early game to get the E spread while trying to land Q's on minions/enemy champ. Then I love his push playstyle, forcing your opponent to push back or kill you. It rewards your positioning, and allows you to either roam, or get a better back. And finally I love the ability to hit a side lane, shove it quick and join fights. That's why I play Malz, though I could be different. I like his reasonable safety, reliable waveclear, and punishing opponents that don't position well. I like that he shuts down assassins, and that I get rewarded for prioritizing the fed enemy champion if there is one. Rant over I guess, just putting in my opinions on him.

Hexs FortuneMar 18, 20191 votes

{quoted}

I think a directional shift to where Malz is less reliable but deals more damage could make for a solid champion. I bet a lot of people play him in large part for his reliability, however, so I'd be pretty hesitant to just sign him up for that kind of work. Not many mages have that reliability profile anymore.

Citing his per game damage relative to other mid laners doesn't seem like a very convincing reason for change tbh. These charts tend to have pretty high correlation to whether the champion deals a bunch of AoE damage rather than single target, as well as whether they have high or low reach. Malz's damage is pretty single target focused and low reach overall (especially when compared to many other mid laners), so I'd expect him to be pretty low on these charts.

I could buy that Malz would be more satisfying if he traded off some raw ult CC duration power for a bit more damage, but I'm not sure most of his player base would want to see him become much less reliable.

I know this is an old post, but I agree with your reservations! I play malzahar exactly for his reliability. We have so many champs that are unreliable, yet powerful when they land.

Guess what? League is full of mobile bursters who exploit that sort of gameplay and Malzahar exists as one of the very few reliable forces that can keep them in check.

@RiotRepertoir - Could we please get some thoughts about the state of Malzahar

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