* Fixed a bug where Nether Grasp would sometimes only deal 4 ticks of damage instead of 5.
V1.0.0.120:
* Null Zone o Base damage reduced to 4/5/6/7/8% of the enemy's max health from 5/6/7/8/9%. o Ability power ratio reduced to 1% per 100 ability power (0.01) from 1% per 80 ability power (0.0125). o Cooldown reduced to 14 from 16. * Nether Grasp: ability power ratio over the duration reduced to 1.3 from 1.5.
V1.0.0.108:
* Fixed a bug where the Malefic Visions spell cast by opposing Malzahars behaved improperly.
V1.0.0.107:
* Null Zone o Percent of health damage increased to 5/6/7/8/9% from 4/5/6/7/8%. o No longer has a minimum damage dealt. * Summon Voidling now spawns after 4 casts instead of after 5.
V1.0.0.103:
* Call of the Void mana cost reduced to 80/90/100/110/120 from 90/100/110/120/130. * Null Zone mana cost changed to 90/100/110/120/130 from 80/95/110/125/140. * Nether Grasp range reduced to 700 from 750.
V1.0.0.100:
* Malzahar's Voidlings will now attack the target affected by Malzahar's most recently cast Malefic Visions. * Call of the Void cooldown reduced to 9 seconds from 10 seconds. * Null Zone o Mana cost reduced to 80/95/110/125/140 from 90/105/120/135/150. o No longer places a blank buff on Malzahar. * Nether Grasp o Now suppresses summoner spells in addition to stunning the target. o Range increased to 750 from 650.
V1.0.0.98:
* Base movement speed increased to 315 from 310. * Malefic Visions: o Range increased to 650 from 600. o Cooldown reduced to 15/13/11/9/7 from 16/14/12/10/8. * Nether Grasp range increased to 650 from 575.
V1.0.0.96:
* Nether Grasp range increased to 575 from 450. * Fixed a bug where the stun component of Nether Grasp Nether Grasp would not break even if the channel was broken.
V1.0.0.87:
* Summon Voidling: o Increased Voidling's movement speed to 451 from 419. o Fixed a bug where a Voidling's attacks would reveal Malzahar through the Fog-of-war and Brush.
Summon Voidling (Innate): After casting 4 spells, Malzahar summons a Voidling for 21 seconds. Voidlings have 200 + (50 x level) health and 20 + (5 x level) damage.
Voidlings grow after 7 seconds (+50% damage/armor), and Frenzy after 14 seconds (+100% attack speed). Voidlings attack the target affected by Malzahar's most recently cast Malefic Visions.
Call of the Void (Active): Malzahar opens up two portals to the Void. After a short delay, power erupts from the portals, dealing damage and silencing all enemies caught between the portals.
* Cooldown: 9 seconds * Range to center of wall: 900 * Wall width: 400 (estimate)
Null Zone (Active): Malzahar creates a zone of negative energy for 5 seconds. The zone deals magic damage to enemies that stand in it for percentage of their max health each second (damage to monsters is capped).
* Cooldown: 14 seconds * Range to center of AoE: 800 * Radius of AoE: 250 (estimate)
Cost: 90 / 100 / 110 / 120 / 130 mana
Health To Damage Per Second Ratio: 4 / 5 / 6 / 7 / 8% (+1% per 100 ability power)
Malefic Visions (Active): Malzahar infects his target's mind with cruel visions of their own demise, dealing magic damage each second for 4 seconds. If the target dies while afflicted by the visions, they pass the curse on to a nearby enemy unit, refreshing the duration and restoring mana to Malzahar. Malzahar's Voidlings are attracted to affected units.
Nether Grasp (Active): Malzahar grips his target in an engulfing void of energy, dealing magic damage every half second while stunning and suppressing them for 2.5 seconds.
Probably the most misplayed of the "OP" heroes in my opinion, it seems people don't even understand why Malzahar is so unbelievably strong. Unfortunately this strength probably has him next in line for the Great AP Nerf Stick but I don't even mind too much if his damage gets ticked down a little. But why, Uta, why would you not mind if such a sick damage dealer has his damage taken away!?
Masteries As touched on in most of my AP posts, this is up to your playstyle, matchup, et cetera. I favor the 0/9/21 as per my Kassadin build because I find Strength of Spirit extremely powerful, and I find that Malzahar has such an incredible amount of standing threat level that he doesn't need that much help offensively or defensively. You can, of course, run the 9// to get 15% spell pen as well as 3% cdr, but I don't think he needs the mpen that much. Yes, shocking. Generic Teleport/Flash Caster 0/9/21
Runes Again, depends on playstyle, matchup, et cetera. As always try to understand that rune and mastery choices are important primarily for early-game, and thus you should try to get a handle on how you like to play. I run triple mspd quints and some random assortment of mpen/mr5pl/appl but that's mostly because I had that as my Anivia runeset and never bothered to change it. The main thing for me is the mspd quint, which a lot of people may not agree with (and go for your own thing) - I favor it for the laning power and for the extra mobility afforded, which can come in handy against heroes like Irelia and Singed.
Summoners The only "requirement" at the moment is Flash, as it's again returned to being the hands-down strongest movement spell. The other spell is typical AP flexibility, as I've seen and run myself stuff ranging from Ghost, Teleport, Clairvoyance, Ignite, Exhaust, etc. I'd really leave it up to matchup, and try to figure out what might help you the most. I've even contemplated running Cleanse once against a team with Ashe.
Opening items Sapphire + 2 pots, you really don't need to do anything else. You *could* open Boots-first but I don't think you need to on Malz, such is his laning and farming strength.
The other main option is the other standard AP caster opening, in which you open DRing into 2-3 DRings for similar HP and faster AP slugging power, at the cost of HP Procs and max mana. The main downside is the Cata level proc, which gives you a lost of durability, as well as the inability to create Veil/RoA. Also max mana does sort of hurt when you don't have Blue Buff.
Skill build QEEQER R>E>Q>W
This might catch some of you off-guard. "Why're you neglecting W?" Well aside from his recent nerf to its damage output, it's probably the most overrated skill in his repertoire early on. It's dead weight in laning (unless you try to do the 1HKO cheese), is mildly effective in teamfights unless you have a lot of chain AoE CC (and even then it's arguable if it's worth it with everyone's max HP being so mediocre), and most importantly costs you significant nuking power from Q, which is his single strongest skill.
Items Most of Malzahar's build follows "standard' AP builds, and he's flexible in that his skills do so much damage that it doesn't really matter too much what you do. I can see the base damage on his skills being nerfed at some point (seriously 320 at level 5 of E lol). Sapphire into Cata with Boot1 is your #1 priority. After that you can mix in stuff like RoA/Banshees, Deathcap, Void, Rylai, whatever. The goal is to be resilient enough to take some damage (as most teams will definitively aim for you, but your damage output is only there if you survive), while outputting the absolute most damage you can. It's not too complicated, and not a whole lot of item builds will "fail."
Play Laning There're two "modes" to Malzahar, shall we say, that he can switch back and forth between with the flick of a spell. E is one of the strongest laning skills in the game because it's a single-target nuke, because it gives him mana, because it helps him farm/push, and because you can damage someone without even meaning to (if they get careless with positioning). A lot of people like to sit back in "farm mode," in which you spam your E on creep and rack up creep stats. That's fine. He's also got a "win mode," however, in which you just spam E on your opponent. With 650 range it's a decently ranged spell and can establish some lane power, especially against heroes that have less range, less sustainability, or have a skillshot that you can juke out. Especially when you hit 6, people are deathly afraid of going under a certain level of HP, and will fight tooth and claw to avoid getting hit by an E. This is "nice." Standard footsies and spacing come into play for landing the E, but considering that you can be nonchalantly firing auto-attacks to last-hit with your slick animation, the threat of a random E is pretty nifty, especially for denying last hits.
The other key to his laning is landing Qs. A lot of Malz players will tell you "but that's so hard to land, and they can dodge it!" Well my friend those are bad Malz players. The whole damn point of playing Malzahar is his Q. Love it. Cherish it. This skill is ridiculous. With an absurd 900 range and 400 width it outranges almost everything (even Karthus' ridiculous 875 + 200 radius Q) and even comes with one of the strongest forms of CC in the game (silence). It also has a deceptively thick hitbox which means you'll hit people that don't look like they'd get hit.
So how do you make it hit?
Realize that Q and E combine to form Volg Zangief's White Fang. E induces them to back away from you, so you can use Q to pincer them/lead them toward you or use E to lead them into Q. Either way you can land one spell, and sometimes both because they'll often attempt to avoid E and get hit by the hilarious 900 ranged monster. For example, if you go into push mode and hit E on a creep, but the other player gets greedy and wanders into E jumping range off a ranged creep, you can fire a Q right behind them - normally they'd simply back off the E to avoid it, but they now risk walking into Q, so they have a split second to decide which to avoid. Sometimes you'll get lucky with an E bounce and land both, for a giant "free" nuke.
Against other spellcast heroes you can do a reverse, too. If they go into trade with you, fire a Q in between, at their max casting range - if they commit to the trade, they'll run into the Q, get silenced, and actually eat an E and not get anything for it. On the other hand if they back off, you've wasted a spell, but Malzahar's mana sustain is so strong that he can afford to cast that "threat," which will get under the opponent's skin the more you repeat that sort of deny.
The moral of the story? Embrace Q, because it wins lanes.
The side-effect is that for Q to be "worth it" you need to punish them with Q in terms of damage. This is why I forgo the quick level of W and instead opt for the stronger Q. Landing Qs quickly add up with these damage exchanges. It's also worth noting that the duration for silence increases per level, so you get extra 1v1 strength for every landed Q. As a side note, this also means you're going to have to get used to using his auto-attack to last hit. Fortunately his base damage is fairly high, and his attack animation is pretty slick. You'll get used to it pretty quickly.
Post-lane The strength of Malzahar lies in his 900 damage poke that happens to be AoE, CCs, and does a crazy amount of damage. During standoffs you can fire this at opponents and whittle them down a LOT, or at least keep them honest. Also bear in mind that Q double-strikes, and so you can actually puncture Veil AND silence them. Totally fair.
The combination of a well-placed Q and E gives him one of the strongest one-two punches in terms of damage as well as CC. It doesn't hurt that he also has an ult that terrifies opponents so that it's hard for most people to commit to a 1v1 into him, and once you hit a decent level he also can punish tanks with a EWR combo.
Also note that if you get proficient with Q you can consistent land follow-up silences to stuns as well as deny initiates. For example if the other team has an Amumu and he fires Toss, you can Q the target he's tossing, so that when he arrives he's silenced and cannot follow up, leaving him vulnerable to fire. This is especially important in the case of Rammus, who happens to have a giant casting time for W. Furthermore because his ult is so good as a form of CC you can actually silence E W R and basically gib their Amumu without him ever landing an ult, if you so desire. This. Is slightly strong! Never mind the damage output of W and R, the fact that an initiating tank can get counter CC'd for like 4 seconds is very, very nasty. You can cockblock a lot of tanks this way. Learn to land Q.
Dat ult Is pretty strong, mostly because of the 2.5 second suppress which will almost always guarantee a kill or heavy damage on the target. It also messes up initiators' rhythms when you cast it, and single-handedly ruins the days of fed tanky DPS type heroes who'd rather not be sitting there dangling for that long. However, once you start landing Qs you'll notice that R actually pulls you out of position in fights, as fights will often move really far away from you. You might also find that your teamwide DPS kinda drops with your ult. As such you can go many fights without ever having the chance to ult, or only use ult as a cleanup to hold people trying to run from the fight.
Just beware that Cow and GP can break through it with their skills, and that projectile disables (ie. headbutt, Kass Q, etc.) will proc after you start casting, resulting in an instant cancel. Be patient.
Positioning Due to the nature of Q being a T-intersection to yourself, as well as Malz' superb 1v1 skillset, Malz actually positions differently from normal AP casters. In this way I liken him to Kassadin 2.0, in which Malzahar actually prefers to engage via a flank, as opposed to a straight line vs line. This is because teams tend to stretch out "vertically" so to speak, as tanks go forward and squishies follow... in a line. When you engage via a perpendicular flank this means they're engaged in this beautiful little line... exactly perpendicular to you. Fire a Q, hit their whole team. This is actually why you'll often see good Malzahars drift off to the side when a fight may be breaking out, because it's a preferred position.
"Well what if they go after you?" you might ask. Well good point, and this is why I favored Ghost/Flash for a long time. But even if they do, fear not, Not only do you have an anti-initiate with Q, if they mis-coordinate it, you can ult someone and cause a counter-initiation, and if they broke their lines to gib you then they're generally not going to be in a pretty position. Also hopefully you have some degree of survivability.
If they only send an assassin after you, well... that's usually a bad idea because Malzahar is still Malzahar. Hi, bye, why so dead.
Voidlings These little buggers tend to get forgotten by mediocre Malz players, even during laning. When you have a set Voidling it's akin to having Annie's Tibbers - once you land an E they start taking great damage from that Voidling. It's also worth noting that his cooldowns are such that you can have two voidlings at a time if you spam all 4 skills in rapid fashion. That means if you're going for a kill in lane you can actually cast a voidling, wait for your cooldown, set up the proc, and then unload in a way that you summon a second voidling, allowing for a moment where you have two voidlings (including a frenzy'd one) beating on your target. Hint: that's a lot of DPS. Depending on your mana situation, especially if you have blue buff, you also want to unload spells ASAP to summon voidlings during tower bashings, as they'll both do a lot of damage and they'll take some tower hits.
On July 20 2011 05:48 Lanzoma wrote: Another use of voidlings in lane is pushing people out of their preferred position. Have a voidling next cast? Hit E on them and they're forced to run back and/or eat a million damage. You hint at this but don't explicitly say it.
Blue buff Is not as premium on Malzahar due to his good mana sustain, although it definitely helps. When you get blue buff, if you have farm and your team positions to protect you, you can actually poke down an entire team with hilarious impunity, and force down towers that way. This is incredibly strong. But if there're heroes that need the blue buff more, step aside, because while it means you can't cheese people there're heroes that NEED it much more than you do.
In summary Malzahar is ridiculously strong because he has one of the strongest pokes in the game, coupled with two of the strongest forms of CC in the game, including one being AoE. It even pierces Banshees! Along with his incredible base skill damage and one of the most terrifying 1v1 damage combos, his skillset allows him to be the poking, initiating killer-CC-bot that we all knew and loved in Kassadin. Or maybe that's just me. People who think his Q is unreliable need to get better at it. They're called "skill"shots for a reason. He's also one of the few AP heroes that can consistently gun down tanks, and also has one of the best anti-initiates in the game. Stop acting like the AP ratio nerf to his ult killed him or something. For all I care it could have 0 AP ratio and he'd still be insane.
Last edit: 2011-09-17 06:20:44
oraoraoraoraoraoraoraora
Seuss United States. July 20 2011 05:12. Posts 2981
If they pop up at the front of the forum, I'll lock them. Otherwise, they can just die at the back of the forum. That Malz thread has a last post in May, so as long as nobody bumps it, it's fine. I can't be bothered to close all the old, existing threads.
For the Glory that is TeamLiquid (-9 | 155) | Twitter: @NeoIllusions | Jinteki
Great job on the guide, it's very detailed and comprehensive.
My 2cents:
1st cent: Another use of voidlings in lane is pushing people out of their preferred position. Have a voidling next cast? Hit E on them and they're forced to run back and/or eat a million damage. You hint at this but don't explicitly say it.
2nd cent: Cata is a strong opener, no doubt, but boots + pots -> 2-3 drings -> dcap gives more damage faster plus an early speed advantage for an even more aggressive laning phase. I used to do cata first a lot, but I don't feel Malzahar needs the extra flat mana with E at his disposal + dring flat regen. Basically, cata vs 2-3dring boils down to the hp regen proc vs the extra ap early game and giving up the RoA/Bveil option later in favor of faster Dcap.
In other words, it's a matter of preference, but I still think you should mention the other item path for the sake of completion.
Southlight United States. July 20 2011 05:58. Posts 9999
Is it weird that Malz does NOT feel like an AP carry to me? Most AP carries (Annie, Brand, Anivia etc.) have a crapton of AoE damage and a low-CD stun. But malz doesn't. He's really more of an assassin...except he can't jump people. As southy mentions, he's great when someone willingly comes forward (i.e. an initiator), but otherwise has to be very patient.
So maybe Malz is the opposite of an assassin? Instead of hunting down and eliminating the glass cannon, he waits patiently for the tanky cc source and beats them to death. I have no idea what to call this, but from my personal observation it better defines his place in the metagame.
He has less burst damage than Annie/Brand; he's more like Anivia in that his damage pops out slowly, so that the longer the fight goes the more consistently he'll kill people. Which is more-or-less the definition of a carry IMO, as AD carries don't really blow shit up either. Most of the "carries" that you expect from AP aren't really carry carry but more carrying via being a "Nuker" which is what Annie and Brand are IMO.
Edit: The comparison I've always made is that Annie has First Strike (MTG reference) while Malzahar's damage just starts piling up. If Annie is like 20-1 first strike you're probably boned but if her first strike isn't strong enough she can seem a bit weaker. Malz' damage overall is higher from a numeric standpoint but because he doesn't have first strike, the effect he can have on a fight from the onset is lower.
noooo now people will realize he's actually too good.
mmm maybe a note on how malz can beat sustain champs via pushing? if you ever randomly get thrown top solo. It's actually a pretty strong part of his gameplay, at least at my level of solo q. can't trade? push push push. inifinite mana makes him kinda redic for it.
Wala.Revolution Liechtenstein. August 01 2011 18:13. Posts 6034
I've been running 0/9/21 with Flash/X, HP/mpen/X/flat AP. The extra hp allows for more aggressive trading level 1-3 and usually you can come out on top with voidling + sos + pots and enough mana to continue harassing.
Set it up right and you'll do a lot of damage with e because either the person runs away and takes full E damage without contest or they fight against E/voidling/autoattacks, which should favor you most of the time. Or they'll be dumb and hesitate and take even more damage. Many times I got kills level 2-3 with (Q)Flash-E/ignite-auto although they were at best decent.
Problem is if they can somehow shrug off harass you lane may be pushed around level 4 which will expose you to gank especially at top lane.
Think Q v W at level 4 is up to the player because w allows for extra spell so you can push faster with voidling if you're going to go back. Also deals more damage if they stay on it for 2.5 seconds while ulting.
Also note you can ignite while ulting IF you're in range of ignite otherwise you cancel ult.
Think it's a good idea to add rest of his stats to stats section.
Stuck.
Craton United States. August 01 2011 22:02. Posts 10177
On August 01 2011 12:26 Kaneh wrote: noooo now people will realize he's actually too good.
mmm maybe a note on how malz can beat sustain champs via pushing? if you ever randomly get thrown top solo. It's actually a pretty strong part of his gameplay, at least at my level of solo q. can't trade? push push push. inifinite mana makes him kinda redic for it.
There is 0 concern about people thinking current malz is "too good."
On August 01 2011 07:39 oberon wrote: Is it weird that Malz does NOT feel like an AP carry to me? Most AP carries (Annie, Brand, Anivia etc.) have a crapton of AoE damage and a low-CD stun. But malz doesn't. He's really more of an assassin...except he can't jump people. As southy mentions, he's great when someone willingly comes forward (i.e. an initiator), but otherwise has to be very patient.
So maybe Malz is the opposite of an assassin? Instead of hunting down and eliminating the glass cannon, he waits patiently for the tanky cc source and beats them to death. I have no idea what to call this, but from my personal observation it better defines his place in the metagame.
hes more of a delayed nuker. even with WR he can easily take someone out of the fight, but his 5-second self-suppression makes it really dangerous to initiate in a 5man fight.
zer0das United States. August 02 2011 14:31. Posts 3864
I started dinking around with Malz after reading this, and I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun he is to play. His damage is a bit slower, but the sustainably is quite good. He's good at punishing a lone wolf trying to flank during a team fight too. Jarvan kept trying to gank me from behind after teamfights had been initiated, and I'd just suppress him and he'd be dead before his team could do anything to help him. Also nailed a Kat trying to shunpo and death lotus my entire team... that was pretty satisfying.
He's pretty easy to mid with due to the awesome range of his q. Only real complaint against him is he seems a bit weak if your team coordinates poorly (more so than other champions). Barring that though, he's pretty beastly.
Craton United States. August 02 2011 21:26. Posts 10177
On August 01 2011 07:39 oberon wrote: Is it weird that Malz does NOT feel like an AP carry to me? Most AP carries (Annie, Brand, Anivia etc.) have a crapton of AoE damage and a low-CD stun. But malz doesn't. He's really more of an assassin...except he can't jump people. As southy mentions, he's great when someone willingly comes forward (i.e. an initiator), but otherwise has to be very patient.
So maybe Malz is the opposite of an assassin? Instead of hunting down and eliminating the glass cannon, he waits patiently for the tanky cc source and beats them to death. I have no idea what to call this, but from my personal observation it better defines his place in the metagame.
hes more of a delayed nuker. even with WR he can easily take someone out of the fight, but his 5-second self-suppression makes it really dangerous to initiate in a 5man fight.
On August 06 2011 08:36 Phrost wrote: On a side note: if you ult a caitlyn at max range that is about to use her net to push back then hilariously long mind lazers ensue
Same with Valkyrie Corki. Cross screen mind lazors \o/
Baa?
Craton United States. August 06 2011 20:45. Posts 10177
On August 06 2011 08:36 Phrost wrote: On a side note: if you ult a caitlyn at max range that is about to use her net to push back then hilariously long mind lazers ensue
i find about 80% of the time the ult simply fizzles and 20% it does a long-range ult.
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Carnivorous Sheep August 06 2011 10:42. Posts 8736
