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Malphite Rework Idea

GrReaper96··16 votes·1,031 views

What Malphite is supposed to be:

  1. THEMATICALLY a mountain-like being, tough, immovable and earth-based skills
  2. An armor-scaling champion, the opposite of Galio
  3. Being able to have 2 distinct play-styles, as a tank and a mage

What Malphite is now:

  1. The exact opposite of an immovable mountain, quite mobile and hardly any of his skills feel very earth-like
  2. More of a free-stats champion when it comes to armor, relies too heavily on armor unlike Galio and MR
  3. Mage and tank play-styles are pretty much the same, land a good ult and try to do something with your remaining skills

This rework hopes to give him a more solid identity: a slow, immovable tank who can chose to forgo his tankiness in order to increase mobility and dish out more damage overall.

#[MALPHITE, THE SHARD OF MONOLITH]

Movement speed decreased from 335 to 325

##ABILITIES ##[Passive] -- HEAVY SKIN Malphite shields himself for 100% of his armor, refreshing if he has not taken damage in the last 10 / 8 / 6 seconds.

When Heavy Skin is active, Malphites exterior is covered in solid stone, granting him bonus armor equal to 25% of his armor and immunity to knockup

When Heavy Skin is down, Malphite loses his exterior and becomes much lighter, gaining 30 bonus movement speed

##[Q] -- SEISMIC SHARD Malphite throws a rock towards a target location, dealing 70 / 120 / 170 / 220 / 270 (+ 60% AP) magic damage in a small area (700 range, 150 radius, 1500 missile speed)

When Heavy Skin is active, the rock thrown is larger, increasing the impact radius by 50% and slowing enemies hit by 50% for 2 seconds

When Heavy Skin is down, the rock is thrown is lighter, increase the range and missile speed by 50%

Cost: 70/75/80/85/90 mana | Cooldown: [8 seconds]

##[W] -- CAST OFF Passive : Malphites basic attack deal 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 (+10% armor) physical damage which splashes to enemies around his target. This damage is doubled when Heavy Skin is active.

Active : Malphite breaks out of his Heavy Skin, immediately losing his shield and dealing magic damage equal to 50 / 75 / 100 / 125 / 150 (+50% armor) plus the remaining amount of his shield to nearby enemies (200 radius). Malphite will maintain the bonus armor from Heavy Skin for 3 seconds upon using Cast Off

Can only be cast when Heavy Skin is active

Cost: No cost | Cooldown: [0 seconds]

##[E] -- CRATER SMASH Malphite slams the ground, dealing 60 / 90 / 120 / 150 / 180 (+ 60% AP) magic damage to all nearby enemies and creates a crater around him (400 radius). Enemies inside the crater have their attack speed slowed by 20% (+ 10% per 100 bonus armor)

Knocked up enemies that land inside the crater are pulled towards the center of the crater.

Cost: 70/80/90/100/110 mana | Cooldown: [14/13/12/11/10 seconds]

##[Ultimate] -- UNSTOPPABLE FORCE

Malphite leaps towards a target location, becoming immune to crowd control effects for the duration and, upon impact, dealing 200 / 300 / 400 (+ 100% AP) magic damage to all nearby enemies as well as knocking them up for 1.5 seconds.

Can only be cast when Heavy Skin is down

Cost: 100 mana | Cooldown: [130/115/100 seconds]

19 Comments

rework trundle7 votes

I don't know where to start, this is genius.

I especially love the passive, and that you respected the nature part of his lore.

Riot please hire this man.

GrReaper966 votes

Thanks i really appreciate it! I got the idea of his passive solely from how his passive shield is visually unlike any other shield in league. Unlike the other round force field shields, his is literally his skin, which crumbles when he loses his shield. I always thought this was a very cool aspect of him and wished it reflected more on how this affects him in battle.

Atinizer2 votes

I have a few thoughts on this but first I'll get my general feelings out of the way now before my criticisms come off as too harsh: I think this is a pretty cool concept with the passive changing how his abilities work, it's clear that you really do love the champ and want to see him made into something that is more unique and interesting.

Passive: This feels extremely overloaded, there's a lot going on with just this one ability as you have a 300 HP shield, a knock-up immunity, and his old W passive temporarily. The speed up kinda feels like it's just thrown in there and it doesn't really make sense other than that you want him to be less mobile. Sej has slow immunity, bonus armor, and magic resist; this has a shield, bonus armor, KNOCK-UP immunity, and a slight speed up. You're invulnerable to a large portion of CC in the game, have a big-ass shield, and have bonus armor. If there's anything I'd take out I'd say the knock-up immunity since you literally make Yasuo cry and be useless along with Alistar.

Q: Honestly I don't see any problems with this spell except that it feels like it punishes you for having your passive down which means it punishes you for going in with your ultimate and tanking like you should be. Perhaps give it a weaker slow on the tiny rock so that it doesn't feel so bad to not have your passive?

W: Old Taric tried this, it didn't work. Not only is your radius practically nonexistent but the amount of times you can or want to use this are few and far between. The reason old Taric got some mileage out of it is because it shredded armor for his ADC to just pop off on. My advice would be to scrap it entirely because it feels boring and just on paper I can already see it being fairly useless. The passive portion of it makes as little sense as his current W because why the hell am I auto-attacking multiple times on a tank mage? Taric at least has rhythm and flow to fit his passive hits in.

E: A 60% attack-speed slow late game is absolutely ridiculous, think of how slowly you attack while you're withered and this is even more than that. This is also for an entire group of people rather than just a singular target. The falling part of when you knock people up is pretty cool but it makes the combo with your ult feel like Oriana ult but better.

R: So I can't initiate with this unless I just pop my W on nothing. Why? It makes no sense for me to have to take away my shield, my bonus armor, and the good version of my Q just to use my ultimate to start a fight. There are much better ways of putting counter-play into a kit than limiting me to using it in the middle of the fight when I'm supposed to be the main person my team is relying on to go IN with.

Again, I don't mean to flame you, I just want to point out a lot of the issues the kit has and hopefully help you come up with a more SOLID concept. (Get it? :D )

GrReaper961 votes

The purpose of this rework is to help separate tanky Malphite who focuses on peeling from aggressive Malphite who focuses on engaging.

The passive shield is actually MUCH weaker than the current shield early-mid game. Pre-6 literally one aa would break it. Only untill he buys 3-4 armor items does it reach live value. Dont forget base and scaling health is much higher than armor in terms of numbers. At live, the bonus armor can reach up to 90% at max rank. Compared to thhat, 25% bonus armor is quite a big nerf. These 2 changes and the fact that he has low mobility with his shield up makes up for the knockup immunity.

For Q, that was the point of removing the slow. While you have the shield, you function as a peeler, and cc helps with that. When your in aggresive mode, you want to dish out damage better, which is where the range and speed bonuses help.

W functions entirely to remove his shield. Just a very simple skill that doesnt make you have to search for damage to cast your R. Not all skills on a champion have to be very complex and impactfull. The radius is exactly the same as his current E radius, so its actually quite big cause his model is big.

For E, his live cripple is 30-50% based on rank. The AS slow is actually weaker than live, and even late game unless you have 4-5 armor items and your passive up, it wouldnt be as strong as live. I too was surprised that his E right now has quite a strong cripple. Seems like a lot of people underestimate it.

Making you make that choice was exactly the point of the R change. It makes you choose whether to keep your shield and focus on peeling, or drop it and hard engage. All tanks have a payoff when wanting to engage. Mal simply has to sacrifice a portion of his tankiness for a powerful engage.

im a moron1 votes

Also! Just for note, Malphite's base movement speed is lowered in this itteration, making him really frigging slow than he already is (even with boots)

yoshi27901 votes

315 movement speed is IMO, incredible low for a melee champion, and too low. I would just keep 335 movement speed. and then lower the bonus by 20.

I LOVE the idea though!

GrReaper962 votes

I know that its very low, with the slowest champion, janna, being at 320. But i wanted to give the impression of a slow mountain walking about, and make it so that the fast-moving feeling when you lose your skin is awesome. Of course if it proves a too much of a problem the numbers could probably be adjusted, but id say at most 325 ms to match Nautilus, our other "heavy" champion.

Arakadia1 votes

Does his ult gain anymore counterplay?

GrReaper961 votes

Yes. He can only cast his ulti when his shield is down. This intends makes him less of a 1-button- champion who just engages blindly. Malphite needs to chose whether to hard engage, wasting his E and shield, or whether to focus on peeling for his carries, making use of his shield and tankiness while waiting a better moment to use his ult. This has its ups and downs for both tank Malphite and mage Malphite, while preserving the feeling of satisfaction when using his ult well, which many Malphite players adore.

Arakadia1 votes

Yeah but it still doesn't give the enemy a solid chance of dodging it without flashing. And he's still going to one shot.

GrReaper961 votes

I didnt want to completely destroy mage Malphite since a lot of people really like it. However, it does give the opportunity for enemies to react, as as soon as they see him cast E they know hes getting ready to ult, and immediately get out of range.

Arakadia1 votes

There are two problems with this.

First of all his ult would still be an undodgable nuke followed by burst before you hit the ground.

And second if the E>R combo is too unreliable people won't bother and just go R>rest of kit.

AP Malphite is not at all healthy right now and that is why AP malph players like it. It may not be strong but they do like the cheesy unfair one shots.

GrReaper961 votes

Yeah i just wanted to make Malphite have more clear tradeoff when going AP and Tank, and make more choices and give more reaction time. Other than that the only way is to completely change his ulti, making it lose what its charm. Of course, this is just an idea of how to maintain that identity while making him more of what he should be. If it poses too much of a problem then the best way would be to change his ult completely like Galio, but id like to avoid that until options run out.

Julybabo141 votes

Well the way you made it makes him quite mobile for an imovable object isnt it?i have a better idea for hes q.pick up a rock from the ground hold it above your head and trow it like mega gnar's q.W,everytime he q s and w's after he instead absorbs the rock giving him a stack of armor based on how much hes aa killed that time.hes e gives a brittle instead of aa speed reduction and hes ult is as you described it but it takes a little cast time to do it just like galio but it has a bit wider cirlce

zero3561 votes

Good, but

Ideally, for full AOE damage, I would ult then pop my W Which I can't do because R requires no shield and W requires it

It's a mismatch that needs to be reconsidered

Also, too much from the passive. The total amount of stuff I think is fine, but spread it out.

And i would suggest only adding the CC on E if he has his shield up But what to do with it when his shield is down? You could also play around with the idea of an earthquake if you don't want a crater.

Ðeath XIII1 votes

This is really bad.

The whole point of Malphite ult is that it is quick initiation w/o specific targeting. You removed that. In addition, you made a shit shield. It's supposed to be HP. Do you understand how bad that is going to be if it scaled off armor? You'll have a 40~60 hp shield until your 3rd item when playing against a magic damage dealer. In addition, you heavily tied other mechanics into the shield. You had to make a bullshit reason for why Malphite would want to remove that shield by gating his ult. You've made him even more worthless by unnecessarily clunking his kit up. You have to be in a crater for an attack speed slow? What are you even doing? Riot made his W become stronger while his shield is up to give more gameplay, but they didn't sacrifice smoothness or gameplay for dumb interactions. Let's not only make him worse than Alistar, let's gut his Q into a skillshot without adding anything! Might as well play Gnar.

LuaDotExe1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Ðeath XIII,realm=NA,application-id=A8FQeEA8,discussion-id=uu9Fnwzd,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2017-10-02T17:38:59.979+0000)

This is really bad.

The whole point of Malphite ult is that it is quick initiation w/o specific targeting. You removed that. In addition, you made a shit shield. It's supposed to be HP. Do you understand how bad that is going to be if it scaled off armor? You'll have a 40~60 hp shield until your 3rd item when playing against a magic damage dealer. In addition, you heavily tied other mechanics into the shield. You had to make a bullshit reason for why Malphite would want to remove that shield by gating his ult. You've made him even more worthless by unnecessarily clunking his kit up. You have to be in a crater for an attack speed slow? What are you even doing? Riot made his W become stronger while his shield is up to give more gameplay, but they didn't sacrifice smoothness or gameplay for dumb interactions. Let's not only make him worse than Alistar, let's gut his Q into a skillshot without adding anything! Might as well play Gnar.

A tad harsh there, friendo. I disagree the Q skillshot thing; if you turn it into a skillshot instead of a target spell, it lets you put more into it; it'd be much more fair to play against Veigar W if it was what it was now, instead of an instant burst on the target. The same goes with Veigar's Q ability; they were able to let it pass through the first target because it became a skillshot.

Ðeath XIII1 votes

{quoted}

A tad harsh there, friendo. I disagree the Q skillshot thing; if you turn it into a skillshot instead of a target spell, it lets you put more into it; it'd be much more fair to play against Veigar W if it was what it was now, instead of an instant burst on the target. The same goes with Veigar's Q ability; they were able to let it pass through the first target because it became a skillshot.

You know the difference between Veigar and Malphite, or you're being intentionally blind to try and prove a point. Tanks get the luxury of not having skillshots on every ability. Malphite Q as-is is a mana sink that either gives him the ability to farm early or use the speed difference to help auto with W. What's the point of making it a skillshot aside from FORCING you to put more power into it. Which Op didn't even do. With his missle speed you can't miss, in addition he didn't add any power except it being AOE, which has 0 help because top Malphite doesn't want the lane to push out.

If your going to make arguments stick to similar champions. You could of at least picked Sion.

LuaDotExe1 votes

It seems like Arakadia and Atinizer's been here, so I'll TRY to keep it short, since for the most part, they know what they're talking about. Gonna try not to be too harsh, but take what I say with a grain of salt.

I like it, but his ultimate still very much has the counterplay issue; the only thing here is that it may feel a bit clunkier. It's supposed to be an engage, and he has to've taken damage first in order to use it, meaning either the enemy team is unloading lots of poke, or you're already in the fight. You still have the ability to hit it, without ability for them to fight back. Chances are, too, you're definitely gonna get it off; they can't pop you unless you're AP.

Your base damages are a tad high, meaning that Malphite is going to be unloading decent damage still, despite going full tank. 270 base damage on an 8 second cooldown is pretty good, and you're going to be building CDR to abuse your ultimate.

I feel like by causing his shield to scale with pure armor, you're going to have issues where you're building armor when you don't want to, simply because it increases your shield. This kinda conflicts with your whole "relies too heavily on armor unlike Galio and MR" thing.

Honestly, I think I'd scrap the AoE-on-auto all-together.

I think it's good for the Q to become a skill-shot, so that you increase the skill floor a little.

I'm not too sure how I feel about his E attack speed slow lingering. It's either useless or busted, since you could keep them from leaving it and get the full effect, or they could just walk out of it.

I don't really think you accomplished the differentiation between AP and tank playstyles; you're still gonna ulti in, and E into Q. The only change is that your is an AoE now.

A bit of a wrap-up: honestly, I'm not sure whether or not this fixes Riot's main problem with him: he's an ulti bot, and when you don't have ult, your abilities are rather underwhelming. A common trend I'm seeing with these ideas of a Malphite rework is a crust that's broken off, and him becoming either burstier/faster when it DOES come off. In my honest opinion, I don't think the state changing fits him, because you're giving him more mobility when, again, he's supposed to be this unmoving behemoth.

Edit: I failed at keeping this short I'm sorry;;;;

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