Might As Well Just Give Malzahar A Different Passive

Thuban·Jul 26, 2016·10 votes·978 views

The shield was a bad idea to begin with. With all the nerfs it's now beyond useless.

16 Comments

DeathBurstJul 26, 20166 votes

A free banshee's veil with a lingering effect from level 1, it's far from useless. Even if the lingering effect is only .25 s, it's still better than Banshee which has no lingering at all. And that's still a 2.5K gold item.

ThubanJul 26, 20162 votes

Except Banshee's Veil isn't popped with a basic attack.

ReikkenJul 26, 20161 votes

It's harder to hit someone with a basic attack than with a skill, generally speaking, so that's not really a disadvantage.

DeathBurstJul 26, 20161 votes

Yeah OK, the comparison isn't perfect, you can also argue that Banshee gives you plenty of stats, and that's why it's more expansive.

Still, it's similar enough that you should understand why such a "shield" is really powerful, even if the lingering effect is very short. All other similar shields in the game have no lingering at all, and they are not considered useless because of that.

AlutrosityJul 26, 20163 votes

For those of you confused Malzahar players who are clearly new to the champion, it the passive is useless because encourages him to play like something that he is not, and that is a tank. Tanks absorb damage, tanks tend to buy mercury treads, the elixir of iron, things which grant tenacity and reduce the effectiveness of cc. Malzahar is not a tank, he is a battle/control/harass mage whose job is to create havoc by spreading his malefic visions, silencing the front line to prevent an unwanted engage, or potential follow up on a hard engage, and lock down his targets while being backed by a small army of voidlings. His passive contradicts that style, his passive encourages him to play in a stupid, unsafe way because there are certain players out there who will try to go for an engage and hope that their shield will pop in right in the nick of time and save them, only to get blown all the way to fucktown, or take what might as well amount to zero damage and suffer no form of meaningful interaction/retaliation with his enemy.

Malzahar's Void Shift passive is toxic.

plantersJul 26, 20161 votes

that seems more a problem with people being stupid than the passive. The passive was introduced so that malz players could get into the thick of things more effectively similar to how victor has shield to my knowledge. It is especially important considering he is so short ranged as a mage.

Have a Nice GameJul 26, 20162 votes

I always thought Malzahar, being the immobile mage with high ratios that he was, was the type to blow up champions trying to get near him. Not the other way around.

That shield defies that.

plantersJul 29, 20161 votes

Malzahar was, in his original form, an annie clone. His type of play was to basically silence one opponent and blow them up with high base and scaling damage. Hence he was known as being an AP assassin even though he wasn't. When riot reworked him they wanted to lower the burst and make it more sustained. They achieved this by shifting the power into his voidlings and making them more on call. To add to this they gave malzahar the shield so that he could follow up on initiations without necessarily being blown up when he, as a short range mage, got into the thick of things. What the first person is talking about is people stupidly initiating fights with probably something like flash ult which is dumb where they could use something like hecarim initiation and then malzahar ult to finish off the opponents. This is a far more logical way of executing on the champion.

Have a Nice GameJul 29, 20161 votes

But Malzahar was classified as a mage assassin ._.

plantersJul 30, 20161 votes

let's be real here riot's old tags were kind of a joke. Yeah in the old tags he might have been an assassin, but realistically even malphite could have been as well. even now they're generally not that accurate. The new tags that they have created but havent updated the client with officially, skirmishers, juggernauts etc. is what im going off of because they actually make sense in reference to the current way the game is played, and being designed.

AshranReaverJul 26, 20163 votes

I'd much rather have the old passive of getting a voidling every 4th spell than that shield. The second someone desires to kill malzahar all they need to do is hit him once and wait 1 second. Sure that's a tiny bit difficult for melee but malzahar's rework was a nerf, post rework balancing was a nerf, mage items were nerfed, and finally his mediocre movement speed was nerfed to the lowest available. Old malz was fragile, but he had damage, new malz is tissue and his passive, W and R might as well not exist against anyone who knows how to deal with him.

balbraakselJul 26, 20162 votes

What? But it's extremely powerful? I never felt so safe playing support when I chose him as support, lol.

Rico NastyJul 27, 20162 votes

Malzahar's entire kit is toxic and honestly fixed none of his issues, just ended up overbuffing him and throwing his balance out of wack.

lilpokflufJul 26, 20161 votes

I don't like the shield, not a fan but even if they nerfed it again he's still super strong 1v1 and requires jungler help to even get flash out of him.