You've picked Malphite and your waiting for everyone to get into the game. Here's your not "too long; didn't read" guide, but your "First Game Pro-Malphite" guide.


Items: Boots, 2 Health Potions, 1 Mana Potion

Skill: Solo? Take Brutal Strikes ("W") Duo? Seismic Shard ("Q")

1. Boots: Mercury's Treads
2. Armor of choice: Sunfire Aegis, Force of Nature, Thornmail
3. Shield: Aegis of the Legion, Glacial Shroud to build Frozen Heart
4. Weapon: Frozen Mallet or Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Level 6: Your ultimate is a great way to initate a fight or to get away, use it wisely and quickly adjust to the learning curve like any other skill shot. You need to aim it properly if the target is running away.

Good luck!

Malphite is a great champion. Build him like a tank. Pick what you prefer as your summoner spells. Base your items off of your enemy and how Malphite was created as a champion. Speed is a bonus, most of his skills revolve around slowing the enemy down, if you're not fast, there isn't really a point in catching up, is there?

You don't need to kill steal to dominate as Malphite, good farming and smart moves will play the trick. Help your squishies out and make sure you have some wards in the brush and call MIA's. Basically follow good playing etiquette and don't be rude to your teammates.

So you want to play a good Malphite? Malphite is one of the quickest champions in the game of League of Legends. He has great crowd control (CC) and by far the most talked about initiation for battles. Malph is a sure-to-be tank. There should be no other build for him. He's "rock-solid".

Personally, I use the runes that I use for Singed. I indicated what the best ideal runes for Malphite would be seen above. Ideally, those are the runes that I'm aiming at fully completing when I can. Don't use a rune page meant for Ashe or any other carry. Keep in mind runes are for a level 30 summoner, shouldn't bother with runes under that level.

The masteries that I have selected are awesome for any tank! I split the four between Offense and Utility for a few reasons:

Ranked games Malphite is sometimes chosen to head to the top lane with a jungler on the team. There is a lot of money already made. To change it up and you're facing someone who is a better farmer than you (Nasus), take the two extra points and add it to the Defense tree for cooldown reduction. That should help with the cooldown on Seismic Shard.

The other reasons are personal, players should never base their builds for champions off directly from guides. They should change up the masteries according to the enemies that they are facing.

Defense, defense, defense. Malphite is a tank, if you can't fill to Initiator on the tree, there's something wrong with your masteries for this specific tank.

On every thank that I have ever played, I always take Mercury's Treads. There's no reason not to take them, there will always be someone on the opposing team who will try and slow you down. Of course the
Tenacity helps prevent too much hindrance against you if you need to chase someone out of the pile. These boots are a must.

All the other items are based on the enemy players and how they are building. Malphite is a good champion that can stay in the middle of a fight and not move. Having a Sunfire Aegis is beneficial just because of the area of effect (AoE) damage that it deals to others. Bonus health that is a must on any tank.

Force of Nature is perfect if the enemy team is magic heavy. The added movement speed plus the magic resistance gives moves you from dominating to invincible.

Guardian Angel, Frozen Mallet, Frozen Heart, and Warmog's Armor are all optional items to take.

Guardian Angel gets you back into the match when you might have been aced on or you die first but your team still needs you to be the target of all the damage. Tanks are SUPPOSED to die. It's ok to not have a Guardian Angel for this reason. When it comes down to it most, sometimes it's better to have this cushion.

Frozen Mallet is nice for slowing down your enemies and adding to your bank of health. Malphite's speed + a slow = dominant in a lane or any team fight.

Frozen Heart is an item I only take if I need the extra armor with magic resistance, usually I will pick Thornmail over it though if I'm facing a Vayne or Ashe (any strong carry with physical damage from their basic attacks). Frozen Heart also brings lots of cooldown reduction to the table. Glacial Shroud is fine even if you don't complete the Frozen Heart.

Depending on the situation and how you have to tank, Aegis of the Legion is a great shield to build first! The aura protects someone you might me diving in to save or any other tankish player you have on your team in the middle of a fight. Health, magic resistance, and armor, of course, all necessary on a tank.

Pick your preferences. Pick depending on your team chemistry and the opponents that you are facing.

Ignite is almost always a must on any champion that isn't Soraka. More times than not you will be grateful for having it because that extra damage gets you the kill of that person that just flashed away and you can't keep up with. Malphite, this shouldn't happen to him anyway, he's fast, duh.

Flash, great for that extra leap to initiate or knock up the runaway with low health. Also a cheap way to get out of a fight if you're in over your head.

Other honorable mention: Teleport
Teleport is one of the best summoner spells for farming or saving someone. You can teleport to a ward or a minion and knock up the enemy pursuing the squishies on your team or just to farm.

Pros:

Fast
Strong
Easy target
Bonus shield
One of the best initiations in the game

Cons:

Low mana early game, hard to harass with
Not very strong early game
Rather ugly to look at

This is your ultimate. They call it ultimate for a reason. I've already mentioned a few times that this is one of the best skills in the game. Until you face a good Malph or play him the first few times, you won't really understand this.

This ultimate knocks up all the surrounding champions within a certain distance of Malphite. It does require some skill to be able to use, it just takes practice. You need to be able to use it like a skill shot, predict where the player is going to run to next.

Another good part of this is that you can catch up, kind of like Arcance Shift that Ezreal has, or Flash because you can easily transport across the screen quickly. The cooldown towards the end of the game isn't horrible, so it is nicer than Flash, essentially.

This is a fairly straight forward and broad guide - easy to review and remember. In the future I plan on adding a few sections including: how to lane to maximize potential, how to gank properly, fundamental game skills necessary to play decently at level 30, a jungling guide, champions which are most effective against Malphite, champions which are least effective against Malphite, just naming a few.

Your comments are appreciative for improving this guide. I understand that everyone plays their champions differently, please feel free to adjust this guide to your needs and especially to the enemy team that you are facing in game.

Play safe, enjoy the game for what it is, simply a game, and be a good teammate!