I've only been playing for a few days. I'm not usually a tank guy but he was fun last night. I like not dying. I've seen many full builds on him but I need advice on the best way to play him through the levels. Should I go top, mid,
bottom or jungle? Do I kill minions or champs?
I appreciate any help you can give. Also, if you don't mind, I'd like to add names to my friends list.
Thanx so much. Hal
This is unrelated, but damn, this is what forums are supposed to be about, this is nice, real nice.
Top lane is usually best for him. As you might have noticed, his ground pound's damage scales with his armor value (as well as AP) and has a large auto attack speed debuff attached to it, so malphite tends to work well against physical champions who rely on auto attacks to deal damage.
Malphite can be built in a lot of different ways, but generally, you are going to want to go pretty tanky. A few good tank items to think about buying on him are sunfire, frozen heart, randuins, and banshees veil. If you want to mix a bit of offense into your build, iceborn gauntlet and abyssal scepter are both pretty good.
As some other people have said, always focus on last hitting as many minions as you can. Aside from the support, every laner in the game needs to be last hitting minions, regardless of how many kills they get. Don't think about it as "should I kill minions or champions," think about it as "I always need to be last hitting minions, and if I see an opportunity to pick up a kill, I will take it." Try to focus on killing minions with your auto attacks. Malphite is too mana hungry to be constantly wave clearing with his abilities in the early game. If you're last hitting with auto attacks, you're free to use those cooldowns and mana to attack your lane opponent, so you wont have to choose between creep score and kills.
I'll leave some words regarding safe farming.
Every champion has a zone of control. Meaning there is a range for how far they can:
For every champion it is different. This is important to Malphite because he is a melee champion, but he has a range on his Q and R. The way trading champion damage in lane works is a cost/benefit analysis of "is it worth it?"
Now for a really important tool: farming under your own tower.
| To kill | Do in order | |- | Melee minion: | 2 tower shots + AA | | Caster minion: | AA + 1 tower shot + AA | | Cannon minion: | a bunch of tower shots + AA + 1 tower shot + AA|
Tips:
Hope that helps.
Edit: How could i forget about freezing lane!
So, a MASSIVELY important tool for you, once you get the hang of last hitting minions, is to be able to freeze the minion battle line anywhere in lane you want. It is possible to zone away the other champion, kill their minions faster than they kill yours, AND have THEIR minions PUSH lane at the same time! This makes it much safer for you to farm and not worry about a second champion getting at you and you dieing 2v1.
How to do it:
What this does for you:
Edit2: One last thing
#If the other champion can kill you, even uder your own tower, don't be there.
So...
For the first so many minutes of the game (forgot the number) kills give reduced gold. So unless you get first blood really early kills do not help much. And at that point people respawn very quickly and turrets take reduced damage for the first seven minutes. Especially at level one you want to clear minions quickly to get XP, because hitting level two gives a large stat boost. Minions are OP very early in the game and can kill most champions early if there are enough of them.
However, some match ups require you to be more aggressive because the opponent's champion gets stronger faster than the one you are playing. In others playing safe is better because they start stronger but will be weaker later on. Other than learning from playing the various match ups, good guides usually list which opponents you should try to fight early.
As far as Malphite goes, his main strength comes from his ability to start fights well with Unstoppable Force, so the main measure of if you got enough gold/xp is whether or not you can survive jumping into the enemy team to give your team an opening.
Top is best, though he can jungle as well. If the enemy brings a lot of physical damage to the table, well they just handed you a fun little game. Armor is one of the best stats on Malphite (Though some Magic resist is needed as well, I'd say Merc treads and Banshee's would be plenty in most situations), stacking Frozen Heart, Iceborn Gauntlet, Sunfire cape and Randuins are pretty well going to make you hit like a truck.
Full AP malphite is like a sneaky 18 wheeler ready to run you over... With some HP and a good amount of AP its almost unstoppable.
Malphite is usually a niche pick against AD heavy teams especially ones reliant on attack speed as he has a % armor increase and does more damage on his "Ground Slam" (E) when he gets more armor Malphite "Ground Slam" (E) is crippling against champions who rely on attack speed (attack speed reductions is applied last, so the more attack speed they have from items/abilities the more attack speed will be removed)
You can go for CDR and tanky items like 
and pretty much just be a durable utility machine
Or you can go for AP and try to burst and kill whoever you target if you get enough damage... i am not quite sure what would be best to get if you are building AP Malphite
Top lane is generally the best lane for malphite, but he can mid, jungle and support. For every game you should focus on minions as they are a more reliable source of gold than kills, but of course kills never hurt.
I'm reading this post for the third time. It feels like I'm taking a course on physics. Each time I play a few games I go back to reread this. Each time it makes a little bit more sense.
Thanx to eveyone that replied to this post along with everyone that is helping me in game.
Top is best, in my opinion at least. Starting you should go either cloth armor or full magic mantle depending on your match up, after that a negatron cloak/chain vest with a chalice of harmony(again depending on your match up). Mal if played right is very hard to bully thanks to his passive, build to counter and you'll be that unbreakable rock in top lane. Exceptions to this build apply but this is what i normally build.
Top or jungle, however there are much better choices over Malph at the moment, although he is a good cheep option.
If you don't know what items to buy, the recommended items are usually pretty good. It may take a while for you to become familiar with all the item names and when to buy them (it did for me, at least)
Hey Halutza!
Malphite main here :) It makes me really happy to see people playing someone who is arguably my favorite champ in the game right now.
I tend to take Mal a different route than most players, but he works for me. Mana is going to be your biggest challenge early on, so you'll have to be conscious of what you're using, and how much Mana you have left.
Mal's Q is his best early level skill, and honestly my favorite for both starting and ending fights. Depending on the enemy team composition, he can put enough pressure on the top laner (and draw the Jungler up there) to actually cripple the game entirely.
I wrote up a guide on how I play him a little wihle ago, which I'll link HERE if you want to check it out. Results may vary, and a skilled opponent can outduel you early if you make the mistake of engaging for an all-in before level 3.
Best advice I can give is to always farm--kill the minions for gold, take care of your turret, and see if you can get someone who can capitalize on your ult's knock-up to back you up later in the game.
(Somehow managed to get a Yasuo 38 kills with our Ults working together).
Feel free to add me in game if you want to play or talk a little more about the champ.
