Malphite Rework Idea

Multiple Disclaimers :

• These are just ideas for reworks in case Riot is planning one for the Champions I post these about. The goal of these posts is to hopefully give ideas and/or a direction for the champions compared to where they are now in the game. I sincerely hope these are at least taken into consideration as I believe they would change the champions I mentioned for the better, especially since the characters I mention usually have very one dimensional, outdated kits compared to more recent champions.

• I have not mentioned any numbers of durations, damage, or spells widths, etc. because I believe that numbers are only for balance purposes. Any champion can become overpowered or completely useless just with number changes, even the most one dimensional champions, and to assess whether a champion can be interesting to play and interact with or against, numbers are relatively irrelevant in comparison to the actual kit ideas, strengths and weaknesses.

• I would like these posts to become discussions, as I think it could be very interesting to see opinions on my ideas and how to make them better, what makes them completely unusable or anything in between, as long as these discussions involve constructive criticism.

Abilities :

P : Seismic Charges : After dealing damage with abilities, gains charges of Steady. Auto attacking enemies with Steady charges consumes one charge, grants a small shield and does more magic damage.
Q : Shatter : Slams the ground, dealing magic damage in an area in front of him, slowing enemies. W : Encase : When shielded, gains unstoppable while the shield is up. Roots himself to the earth, sapping its energy, shielding himself, and creating an area of damage reduction for allies only but cannot move during the duration of the ability. Can be canceled. The area, shield and unstoppable remains as long as he is grounded. E : Seismic Barrier : Creates a barrier in front of him with a health bar that blocks spells and auto attacks. Takes twice the damage from ability ticks then from auto attacks. Can be shattered by Shatter, dealing magic damage in a cone in the direction of the ability, knocking back enemies slightly. R : Earthquake Shove : Rams enemies, deals magic damage and carries them in a short straight line, pushing them back after the traveled distance.

Ideas behind the abilities :

Malphite has always been a Vanguard type of Tank, which is fitting in a sense, since he’s supposed to be a massive earth elemental with tremendous strength, but it doesn’t fit his lore, as a servant of an ecosystem called the Monolith. In his lore, after being the last of his kind, as he was brought to Runeterra and has trouble serving humans, with their so called “fluid temperaments”. Being a Warden means that he would be able to serve his teammates with his elemental prowess or fight enemies with his tremendous strength.

With the idea of being a Warden in mind, most of his abilities would have to be “supportive” of his teammates, but to avoid alienating the Malphite players who see him as a threat to the enemy team, I managed to find a setup that would put these two identities together. With his E and Q combo, he would not only be able to peel for his carries but also do damage if needed. A choice between a slow and a small knockback needs to be made though.

Speaking of the E, a few things need to be explained to completely understand how I envision this ability working. The barrier strength would scale with his armor and magic resist, and the damage would scale with his ability power. With this scaling set up, he would be able to build tank if necessary and protect his teammates from projectiles with stronger walls, or damage enemies better if his team lacks damage.

__Note : His spells would have low range though, making him more threatening the closer he is, also meaning his AP build would be more risky. __

Basically, the damage he would do would scale with AP, but the E barrier strength would scale with his armor and magic resist, imitating the stone giant himself.

An important factor to keep in mind is the unstoppable passive, a key part of this champion and his theme to most Malphite players. Taking the unstoppable out of his ultimate, and into a passive makes him more consistent as a champion and more reliable to peel for his carries and engage his enemies when needed. Putting it onto his shields also fulfills the fantasy of a stone golem that keeps getting stronger the more stone he has on him. The way he receives shields through his passive also means he has to be in combat in order to proc it, and he needs to not be focused for it to last long.

Finally, his ultimate, would help with the whole kit, being able to control enemy positions and setup his abilities if need be. I based the ultimate on two things; the Malphite ultimate in the Odyssey PvE gamemode, and Gnar’s current ultimate but with a dash and without the stun. I removed the unstoppable characteristic from the ultimate, but placed in his passive for Malphite players to be more careful of how to use it, and to allow for counter play to what would be a move without a cast-time.

All in all I personally feel this ability kit would be able to fulfill the idea of a champion that would be able to go either Top, Jungle or Support depending on how the ability damage fairs in each position, like old malphite but with more versatility, more meaning to each ability and to the champion’s design philosophy.

Difference between old/new Malphite :

The current iteration of Malphite on the live servers is very one dimensional; a brute force-armor based-engage on the enemy type of champion, which has not only been done but is also very niche since he basically works like a mix between Sion and Rammus, but without the intricacies of those champions. This alone creates an identity crisis with the champion.

At the moment, Malphite also has relatively toxic game mechanics such as a point and click poke ability with a very avoidable cost, an attack speed slow that’s incredibly easy to proc and basically removes certain champions from the game (Vayne, Caitlyn, etc.) which also synergises with his whole kit, causing the champion to be very make or break, and mostly unfun to play with relatively no skill input from the player to better what the champion does; no skillshots apart from a very fast ultimate, making it easy to land.

In contrast, the Malphite I’ve thought of here would offer varying types of gameplay with relatively similar abilities apart from the E and W, which are taken from other champions and that I’ll get into a bit later. The passive I’ve thought of is a mix between the current passive and W, but with a bit more input from the player, the Q is basically the old Q but in a line skillshot and the new ultimate is the current ultimate but with a bit more utility.

Now onto the W and E, which are taken from the old version of Maokai’s ultimate and a slightly different version of Yasuo’s windwall respectively :

• Maokai’s old ultimate was considered a toxic ability because, for no skill input or any real negative side effects, while still being in a 5v5, it would reduce the damage your team takes and return that damage blocked into the enemy in the small area his ult was taking. But with this reworked version of it, the ability doesn't do any damage, the damage reduction would only affect your team, you as the player would have to forsake your personal input on the fight by standing still and offering damage reduction and generally be forcing you to make a choice between protecting your teammates(leaving them to peel for themselves) or dealing damage and peeling for them.

• For the barrier the E offers, it would make the tanking less champion oriented and more on an ability that would require positioning. This would allow making Malphite naturally less tanky to allow more skillful tanking based on ability usage. Tanks are always seen as a less skillful role because of the lack of player input required to tank. A good example of input based tanking would be Galio with his W or Braum with his E, as it requires timing and opponent ability prediction or reaction to use effectively, as opposed to just standing there to tank.

In conclusion, the Malphite ability setup would theoretically allow more versatile gameplay as well as more design philosophy oriented gameplay with regards to his lore and fantasy, instead of fulfilling the basic role of a tank in its most primitive form, which is seen in his current iteration.