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Can we talk about Malphites W (TL,DR at the bottom)

MagnumStein·6/19/2015, 10:21:06 AM·2 votes·523 views

Hello there I'm a Malphite main, or at least I was until they changed his W(Brutal Strikes). I like the visual changes to it and I think making the damage active and the armor passive was a great change for him and a step in the right direction. But having an AP ratio that leads to physical damage is just... it just doesn't make any sense and now my build doesn't work at all, I know I am one person and that I am but a mere drop in the bucket (or ocean).

You see I used to run hydra and Ice-born on Malphite, let me explain. I would get hydra and build pure tank from there, the reason is because with his old W(Brutal Strikes) activated his AD would get up to 300 ad. I would activate W, ult, basic attack proccing Ice-born, E(Ground Slam), basic again, activate hydra this is a burst of 1200+ damage in an big AOE, and he still was a tank for his team.

this build doesn't work any more cause the active on W(Brutal Strikes) is an on-hit-effect and does not gain the effects of any healing whether that be spell-vamp or life-steal; this means he literally only has one choice for sustain (life regen).

I have no idea what should be done to make him better. I know he's a tank but there should still be "some" offensive item options for him. If they want to go the on-hit effect route that's fine by me but maybe they can have it be effected by spell-vamp or life-steal (or both?(hex-tech OP lol)), or do something weird with attack speed (probably not that, just throwing out ideas).

What do you guys think? Am I just being a baby and I should just be happy that they're giving Malphite attention at all? I just don't think an AP ratio for on-hit effects that deals physical damage for a tank is a good idea.

TL,DR. I don't like his new W(Brutal Strikes), I don't think its active works well enough. My old build doesn't work any more, and now I'm here to complain like a baby. I just don't think an AP ratio for on-hit effects that deals physical damage for a tank is a good idea.

Thank you and have a nice day

4 Comments

Crowe Stalker6/19/2015, 11:48:24 AM2 votes

The W change was, in my opinion, exactly what he needed to become a stronger jungler and top laner. I didn't play Malphite much until this patch in fact, but one game, I didn't feel like going for something like Rek'sai or Pantheon, I wanted a tank but I didn't want Maokai or Amumu. 'Didn't Malphite just get his W reworked?' I thought as I locked him in for the jungle and started Q (big mistake, W is better if you have a custom runepage full of armor or E to reduce the attack speed of Gromp and therefore reduce it's DPS not to mention Q is the lowest cooldown and yet most expensive, only good start on harassing top laners early) and surely enough I built Cinderhulk into Frozen Heart. Soon after I was just tanking like hell for my team and having some amazing initiations on the backline and even soloing their fed ADCs and winning.

If anything his reworked W on the PBE for 5.12 (reducing the AP Ratio but adding Armor Scaling to his Empowered Cleaves and increasing the range by 25) will actually empower him further and possibly make him a pick in the LCS (I mean, you use your passive right in the jungle which is a no-brainer and you have solid sustain, if the enemy jungler doesn't invade and duel you early you are going to just scale up with your tank stats) His only real problem is, like Warwick, he relies on his ultimate to initiate (Unlike Warwick, he's not getting countered by a QSS, can go Full Tank and has a hell of a better Teamfight. Hell, even after the change the most he'll need for damage in lane is Chalice, Abyssal and Zhonya and in the Jungle he MIGHT get use out of Zhonya and that's it. You should consider Sunfire or Cinderhulk at some point but that's getting off-topic.)

I may not play at the Competitive level, by any means, but the Updated Malphite is hella powerful.

Crowe Stalker6/19/2015, 2:32:29 PM1 votes

I see very few items that can actually build both Tank and AD in the current meta. You could argue both Black Cleaver and Frozen Mallet, but Mallet is Situational and Cleaver is mostly meant for Champions that can stack it fast like Pantheon, Talon and Rek'sai. The W Change was a buff to him as Malphite always scaled off of AP, the same reason you see people build AD on Darius or AP on Ekko. If you don't have good scalings on a stat, you don't get it, that's how the game works.

If you want to imitate the feeling though, Runeglaive Luden's Malphite would be interesting to watch.