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

Jovius·3/20/2018, 12:03:27 PM·15 votes·6,476 views

**Intro ** I think Malzahar 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.

66 Comments

RiotRiotRepertoir3/20/2018, 10:29:59 PM12 votes

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.

lightdragoon883/20/2018, 6:11:30 PM4 votes

{quoted}

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.

I said this back before the Mage update when they ask what people wanted with Malzaahr. I said all he needed was a new passive and get rid of the Voidlings as he doesn't need them.

But everyone else kept saying "voilding this, and Voilding that" so now Malzahar state is all bout his voilding and his ult. If they do to much damage he OP, if they get 1 shot and/or do low damage, he just a flash+ult bot.

Take away his Voilding, move his Void Pool back to W, keep the spell shield passive as I like that, and he good again. If we need voildings, add it to his passive where every 1 or .5 seconds of hitting with his beam spawns a voilding or something.

Beacon Academy3/20/2018, 9:18:49 PM4 votes

I want old Malzahar back...

People bitching about his old passive...

His passive gave him a unique build path and the AD ratio is the reason why his basic abilities had higher base damage and ratios. It gave AP Malzahar the ability to have some mixed damage against anti-AP laners and allowed AD Malzahar to be a thing by having Voidlings be strong while his spells were weak.

The trade off in different builds let him be strong in base damage and ratios basically.

The CDs on his basic abilities were also longer, making it so he had to think more about using them willy nilly.

Floupi3/20/2018, 4:01:12 PM3 votes

[deleted]

HalcyonDweller3/20/2018, 8:04:10 PM3 votes

Malzahar's kit is a problem, if he's going to get meaningful buffs he needs the reliability in his kit to be toned down. His passive combined with his ultimate, and his ability to push lanes without interacting... those three things together are just too much of a problem for him the be balanced right now. If he got buffs to make him viable, he would immediately become oppressive again due to these problems.

All that said, I upvoted the thread, because you used good reasoning and Malz deserves to be balanced rather than left in the gutter because of some broken kit mechaincs.

I Main Swain3/20/2018, 8:48:27 PM3 votes

he needs a full rework. his kit is inherently toxic regardless of his power level. the only ability that i dont feel is unhealthy in any way on him in its current state is his silence. i started playing him for a while last year and i was expecting him to be harder to play than i expected but actually it was easier, i had something like an 80% win rate (granted im low elo but thats still disgusting). he just needs a full rework

Ainz Ôoal Gown3/20/2018, 7:34:47 PM2 votes

I'd say completely revert him but I'm also not sure which iteration of Malzahar people hate the most to play against. Right now Riot probably simply feels like "put Malz in the dumbster until we have time to rework him again".

The thing is that there has never been a version of Malz that people enjoyed playing against, because he's too easy / oppressive with his Dots and point and click stuff.

And to give Malzahar this shield passive he got with the first rework only accomplished the opposite of healthy gameplay. It gave him more strength but made him less fun to play as and against.

Personally I'd like to see either a skill shot or a dash for his kit, or both. This would make room for plays, increase his skill cap, make him more fun to play as and against and would probably make balancing him easier. I'm not an expert, but at least for Warwick it was almost everything he needed, to make his ult a skillshot.

For example adding the reset mechanic of E to his kit made him a lot more fun to play, more difficult and gave room for counterplay, at least a bit. We need more stuff like this, more skill in his kit that feels rewarding.

Rebonack3/18/2019, 6:01:30 PM1 votes

RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE!

For a bit of background, I was one of the guys who originally popularized AD Malz over on Dominionland before it migrated to the Summoner's Rift jungle. I'll agree here with Hexs, Malz' reliability and primarily reactive rather than active playstyle is something I liked about him.

I haven't played Malz in a long time, though, since AD Malz was removed from the game. I really wouldn't mind a new Void champion with old Malz' passive and a kit built around supporting the voidlings with CC/Utility. Hint hint.