Malz W Cooldown

I know there are several threads about Malzahar up right now, but I didn't see this specific point addressed so I wanted to add my voice somewhere where it wouldn't be buried.

As a longtime Malz mid main, I was fairly disappointed when I saw the changes that were announced on the PBE-- namely, that his voidlings would lose movespeed gradually, and spawn after a short delay. But I eventually accepted it, because I reasoned it was overly frustrating for an immobile champion to be chased out of lane by voidlings while Malz stays far back in safety, and I also understood the somewhat problematic use of the voidlings to block skillshots in bot lane.

However, the third aspect of the W nerf that was released in patch 7.3 today wasn't even announced on the PBE. The one-second cooldown between voidling spawns, seemingly arbitrarily added, is what I and many other Malz players have a major problem with. This change has so far been justified by the argument that "you'll just have to plan ahead now!", but what I feel the balance team may have forgotten is that Malzahar is primarily an anti-assassin and anti-initiator champion. When a Kha'zix jumps on your team out of nowhere, you don't usually have time to "plan ahead."

The mage rework put most of the damage in Malz's kit on his W. By making this ability very slow and very telegraphed, you completely remove any kill pressure that Malz once had, both in lane and in late-game teamfights against fed assassins (which have very few counters as it is). This is where this champion is supposed to shine, and I cannot help but feel that all of the recent changes to Malzahar are indicative of Riot losing touch with his identity.