I like playing Malphite. He is very tanky, but can deal lots of damage. He is suited for solotop or as a support for the AD-Carry.
You can easily get hit by Mundos cleaver without taking damage, with your Passive on. Malphite can easily escape when he is ganked due to his ult and his q.
His surviveability in teamfights is very high, even when you are focused.

I take flat Health marks and quintenssences for more health and due to that a better shield due to Malph's passive.
I take flat armor seals for early lane sustain and magic resits per level glyphs for more magicresist, when i need it.

My masteries are 0/26/4 for more lane sustain, health and damagereduction.

I usually start with a Doran's Shield, cause i'm the tank then i buy normal boots for early movementspeed. I'm grabbing then a Heart of Gold for more health, more Gold and I'll need it later for Randium's.
Now I'll get a frozen heart for more armor, mana and CdR. Depending on the enemy's team i'll get Mercury's or Ninja Tabi. Next will be a Force of Nature for more Magic resist movespeed and Health regen.
After That i get a Thornmail for can fully tank a Tower. Then i sell my Doran's Shield and get Sunfire Cape(HP + Armor for E)/Frozen Mallet (for HP)/Athene's Unholy Grail (Magicresist and "infinite" Mana)/Warmog's (HP)/Guardian Angel(Armor, Magicresist).
The last Item is Randium's and the Consumables :D.

When you got your full build you'll have over 200 mr and over 400 Armor.

When you are a sololaner get all skills first then max either your q (better escapes, ranged harassment) or your e (better creepfarm, lowering attackspeed).
If you will support your AD-Carry get your w at lv 4 or higher(,cause you don't need it in the lanephase much).
Skill your Ultimate whenever possible, but thats always like that and i don't have to mention that.
You need your w when there are teamfights for more damage, splash and armor.

Skillexplanations:
Your passive grants you a shield of 10% or your max health --> full life you got 110% health. it's refreshed, when you won't get damage for 10 seconds.

Your q spell steals after hit movespeed of the hit Minion/Champ --> good to chase or to escape.

Your w grants passiv your basic attacks some splash damage (troll malph gets some Tiamats for more splash :D) and active you get more attackdmg and armor.

Your e damages everyone near you and slows his attackspeed --> good to stop the AD-Carry. The damage scales with 50% of your armor.

With youzr ult you can dash somewhere in range and you knock every one airborne you hit --> good to engage in a teamfight.

I take Flash and exhaust with malphite.

flash to escape and Exhaust for slowing an enemy champion or let his towerdive failing.

You can take Teleport/Ghost/ignite/Smite with malph, too. I can't recommend the other summonerspells when playing malph except clarity when you just want to spam your spells.

Malphite is due to his passive a good tank, but he can kill some champions in 1 vs 1 too.
When i play Malphite, I won't die fast and sometimes I only die in teamfights, so 0 deaths in laning phase.

If there are any questions, feels free to ask and i answer them as good as i can.

My text can have some misstakes because English isn't my native language, so please tell me the misstakes and i'll correct them.

Thank you for viiting my Guide