Ok so about the Malzahar changes...

warpenguin555·Nov 9, 2016·104 votes·5,883 views

[removed] "Prefers to attack targets with Nether Grasp (R) or Malefic Visions (E)"

Its too early in the morning for me to be pissed, so just can we have some context as to why Voidlings are becoming uncontrollable. Its going to be so fun to have the Voidlings pushing minions while I all in the midlaner. If Malzahar is supposed to be the master of these things, why is he not allowed to control them anymore. The other changes I can accept, but this one is just plain stupid. Please revert it.

71 Comments

lighning23Nov 9, 201643 votes

no way this nerf goes through the pbe. Its just a flat out stupid and unnecessary nerf.

EDIT: were safe boys this change was reverted.

warpenguin555Nov 9, 201623 votes

{quoted}

Its just a flat out stupid and unnecessary nerf.

this is why im concerned. He's in a good spot right now, and these nerfs look like a good example of changes for the sake of change

DoseqisNov 9, 20167 votes

Hmmm... him being in a good spot is debatable, he is a pretty toxic champion in general at the moment you can't really stop his shoving and he can just poke you while his passive prevents all in's on your part.

deadlychuckNov 10, 20166 votes

I feel he's in a terrible spot right now.

On a knife's edge between being brokenly strong or completely worthless, as there is so much kit interaction and internal dependency, that making a change to any part of his kit resonates with unintended side effects to the rest of his kit's power or mechanics.

wiggywonkaNov 10, 20163 votes

which means hes balanced? why are u trying to make an argument out of nothing

deadlychuckNov 10, 20166 votes

Yes, balanced. But balanced isn't always good, because there's a difference between being balancing on an edge and balancing on a gradual slope.

5000000000000000Nov 10, 20165 votes

Being balanced on an edge means he's balanced for that patch, and would likely become unbalanced the next patch. Especially when that patch has huge changes.

EigneNov 10, 20162 votes

IM SO SICK OF CHANGE FOR THE SAKE OF CHANGE. like poeple who work at riot just want to cahne stuff so they can see their work on the rift.

deadlychuckNov 10, 20166 votes

I agree. Though the complete inability for riot to properly balance or adjust the new design of the champion speaks volumes about how little consideration went into the rework.

Having played many hours on him (i think like 100k mastery pre-rework between this and my malz smurf), the way they redesigned him felt like it was done with an amateur understanding of his kit and its different play styles. They attempted to meld the AD and AP play styles, without a clear understanding of the limitations and strengths of either.

Christ SuperstarNov 9, 201621 votes

Soo, can we just revert him to pre-rework state, so he's actually Malzahar again. If anything, he should have been "Annie'd" instead of reworked. Like, let's "Kog'Maw" him! Keep new Q, old W/E, put 0,1 AP scaling on lings aaaand 50% dmg of old ult.

But nooo, we have to change him to... "this". (Yes, I'm still fucking pissed at the rework)

warpenguin555Nov 9, 20168 votes

I'm not against that right now. As long as he can keep the E refresh. Made him more fun. The rest can be reverted

xaritscinNov 9, 201618 votes

at this point they practically should remove the voidling mechanics out of him and just put another spell on W. make him just use the rest of the kit since his passive is focused on his R.

Yorick gets a better job as a master of minions than him. and that's a shame, its like they didnt learn anything from that rework.

it was either focusing on the voidlings or gutting them for the ultimate and the DoT damage patterns.

if the minions are too much of a hassle for the enemy then they should make him into a generic mage instead.

let another champion be the master of void armies. they fucked up and unless they revert him back to pre-rework state there's no point on having them.

morris1Nov 9, 201619 votes

You know, voidlings are cool, but I always found it weird how his dagger does absolutely nothing.

Bladerunner7777Nov 9, 20164 votes

Sacrificial knife

No use mid-combat

Velzard of KozNov 10, 20162 votes

He could use it to reflect sun into eyes of his opponents to narrowsight them so that they can't dodge his ultimate. Oh wait, now I understand why he doesn't use the knife.

Mira Arya EntheNov 9, 20166 votes

Just remove voidlings and give us his W back.

VeltoxNov 9, 20164 votes

It's a simple concept on how it should be. Ap>better spells Ad>better voidlings

deadlychuckNov 10, 20164 votes

Except for the past 6 months it's been AP > better spells & voidlings AD > worthless

And the best part is, that even after these changes, post-update voidlings will still be worthless against towers.

iTaLenTZNov 9, 201614 votes

The rework has been a complete failure and this just further proves it.

YokoNomiNov 9, 201612 votes

Malzahar had been my main for quite some time prior to the Mage Rework, and for a little longer afterwards, before finally losing some interest due to the nature of his kit, in comparison to other champs I'd have a higher likelihood of playing. If this goes through, I think I may just consider him retired from my list of choices. This is depressing.

warpenguin555Nov 9, 20164 votes

If this goes through I'll probably leave mid lane. The only other mage I'm willing to put the same time into is Azir and he's left in an unplayable state for good chunks of time. I guess I'll be stuck at support.

YokoNomiNov 9, 20165 votes

I'll probably keep playing Annie. People always love fighting against Annie.

My Waifu VanillaNov 9, 20162 votes

I'd rather play against Annie than all the Viktor and Syndra I end up against. At least Annie doesn't have multiple failsafes in her kit like Viktor (impossible to contest waveclear, mobility, a shield, an ultimate not 100% necessary to get kills, etc.).

ScoroctNov 10, 20161 votes

May I ask what turned you off after the mage rework? Was it not being able to use the old W? Or does controlling the minions feel that unappealing? Or was it the reduced burst on R? Personally I find his E and Q to still be fairly the same and feel good, and I enjoy the voidlings more than the old W.

NilokNov 11, 20161 votes

Malzahar is a Slayer type champion, a champion who's job it is to get kills. However, post rework he has had the lowest kda of all slayers by a wide margin and of most mages.

The Malzahar rework is a failure not only because it isn't fun or rewarding, but because it caused Malzahar to fail at his intended role.

YokoNomiNov 14, 20162 votes

More or less this. The biggest problem is that the bulk of his damage depends on his W.... just his W. This means that despite the damage a successful w chain can do for me, I'm wholly dependent on them not only spawning before their timer runs out, but to actually be able to catch up to the target. If they can't catch up, I feel useless. At the very least, with his old kit, I was well within control of my damage, and made my hits count.

If they took away the ability for those minions to efficiently deal said damage, what am I to do?

TheorexNov 13, 20161 votes

I completely agree. Its one thing to move all of his damage onto his Voidlings. Its one thing to reduce his passive effectiveness to 1/4th of what it originally came out as. Its one thing to remove damage from all of his other skills.

But when you collectively look at malzahar now.

He has all of his Damage on his Voidlings, His Passive is only good for blocking a Massive Hit or a CC, unless its already been popped (Don't even argue that his passive is op if the enemy team has AoE or a hurricane), All of his Skills aside from his Ulti got damage taken off of them.

And Soon, they are going to remove damage off of the voidlings.

I am looking at the PBE atm; how Surrender@20 says 100% attack speed the client says 100% movespeed. You have effectively 2 seconds to spawn voidlings. Off of two charges.

Malzahar will have no way to reliably poke people back during laning phase because of his lose of minion control.

I don't know what riot is thinking. But this is not the answer.

YokoNomiNov 14, 20161 votes

Malzahar has effectively become for mid laning, what Irelia use to be for top laning. No, I take that back, at least Irelia's kit still worked. I main Annie now... Annie of all champs. I mean, she's super powerful as a nuker, but there's more to enjoy in a kill when the enemy actually has time to panic before dying.

Tenth LeperNov 9, 201611 votes

Not only will this hurt his dueling but his mana regeneration too, because when waveclearing the voidlings will kill minions that haven't been dotted or spare one that has been, interfering with the spread.

warpenguin555Nov 9, 20165 votes

Yeah if this shit goes through he will have no laning to speak of and killing anybody in lane will become next to impossible unless the enemy is alone. If this shit goes through why would anybody want to pick him?

WarlockLawNov 9, 201610 votes

What the literal fuck? Is he even strong now, because I rarely see him anymore. Even so, this is certainly not a good way to nerf him, this completely destroys his potential as a laner if he can't control whether his minions push or kill the enemy.

The Space CowboyNov 9, 201610 votes

Why not just remove his spell shield, or make it harder to get? This is dumb. After reading the notes, the new gameplay is going to be 1) spawn lots of voidlings 2) hope they agro enemy laner before they get killed 3) cast malefic visions on whichever champion they targeted to get 200% bonus damage 4) ultimate.

Conclusion: Malz will be very predictable, much like GP in a duel.

GrReaper96Nov 9, 20168 votes

At least GP can TRY to outsmart an enemy in a duel. Malzahar just hopes his voidlings AI will outsmart the enemy

hhaavviikkNov 9, 201610 votes

since malzahar his rework his abilities have felt like shit, Q doesn't do shit, E doesn't do shit, R doesn't do shit and 80% of your damage is crammed unto W with all your other abilities damage nerfed, he's so extremely reliant in W that if this change goes through he's utter trash for anything but safely farming mid

Potato DocNov 9, 20169 votes

I agree with all the changes, except the one you mentioned.

For melee champs fighting him was an absolute nightmare, but that just olafs him. Wasn't the purpose of the rework to make the minions more controllable?

warpenguin555Nov 9, 201614 votes

Yeah. The rework was supposed to make the voidlings feel like they mattered. How the hell are they supposed to feel like they matter if they are too busy pushing a wave instead of attacking the enemy you unloaded your entire kit on?

Only Play DariusNov 9, 20168 votes

Because the voidlings are the most annoying part of his new kit and have the same problems as old Yorick, take power out of them and put it somewhere else.

My Waifu VanillaNov 9, 20163 votes

The voidlings do hold a good weight of his budget early game, but I would hardly say they are the most annoying part considering how unbelievably easy it is to just stop them. On live damn near every mage can kill the void lings before it has a chance to multiply and you can also just smite it in teamfights. What everyone cannot do is deal with is his point and click suppression besides hope he doesn't catch you in a dark alley somewhere.

TeemoXNidaleeNov 9, 20166 votes

Not surprising if it goes through, considering the assassin rework...

warpenguin555Nov 9, 20166 votes

Assassin Updates: we're going to make them so cool and then we're going to gut them in favor of ADC's

atleast thats the vibe im getting from the boards right now. probably not too far off

JunkοNov 9, 20168 votes

That's basically how it will go down though.

Riot will see that a 20/0 assassin is killing ADCs instantly and gut them, even though ADCs are way worse once they finish a few items.

My Waifu VanillaNov 9, 20165 votes

What? Are you saying you don't like ADCs 3 shooting you with right clicks later in the game while healing for 1/4 their own health each auto?

BardfulNov 9, 20164 votes

What was the point of malz rework I never understood. When I heard he was part of the mage update I thought "Oh they are going to change his ult and his burst because they are frustrating, I just tried to play him ftp and he was pretty fun." and then they kept that awful point and click cc while removing the passive I liked and replacing it with something really bad. I mean if rito is watching I like a lot of what you did but this champ was just reworked to be more frustrating to deal with and that is it.

ProvidenceNoxNov 9, 20164 votes

It's like they are trying to make him an afk push champ... they ruined him enough in his update already :(

Toru ItaiNov 10, 20164 votes

just revert the whole rework!

Serika ZeroNov 10, 20164 votes

Sadly, they failed at the malzahar rework as well, just like pretty much all reworks done in the past. Its pointless to question their changes and just find a way to adapt or move on.

Old Malza: immobile control mage, very good at counter engaging and protecting adc from assassins/tanks that jump on them New Malza: summoner who's kit revolves entirely aroudn his W (voidlings), Q damage nerfs because of new W, E damage nerfs because of new W, R base damage removed because of new W

so, what will happen after changes, you'll have to wait and see. I personally found its pointless to care about riot and their decisions from an emotional point of view or get attached to champions. You will just get disappointing, constantly

Mira Arya EntheNov 9, 20163 votes

The rework turned him into clunky, OP but unreliable trash anyway.

Gosh DarnNov 9, 20161 votes

I think it's to prevent one W + E from clearing the wave with no other factors involved since they're getting 200% damage to minions. Either way, this adds a huge amount of randomness to his kit. If they decide to attack the right target, new Malz will be way stronger. If they decide not to, there goes like 60% of your damage.

La BarbotteNov 10, 20161 votes

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i got 3 seconds, after that they fuckin run around the map like headless chickens

KingnewgameplusNov 10, 20162 votes

Jungle Yorick : alright just gonna gank with maiden... got flash. Let me take a melee minion and lea- aaaand the maiden took the whole wave and I'm being reported.