This guide is pretty damn ugly. No BBCODING. No pretty images. Just text.

I do this on purpose, because of two main reasons:

a) I have been reading Mobafire guides since S3 and never during that period of time have I given a rat's *** about how a guide looks. If you need all of those requirements to understand, appreciate or learn from a guide then this one really isn't for you.

b) I rather spend my time actually playing the game. Or reading a book. Or doing pretty much anything else in this world.

Hi! My name is Juan and I actually enjoy playing supp Malphite. If you got tired of playing Leona, or you're too lazy to learn how to play Thresh, or you can't pull off the headbutt pulverize combo, or you find Braum too damn expensive and you ain't got time for that ****, then this my friend is the guide for you! (dw if all else fails you can always go back to playing Taric).

Pretty standard tanky cc supp runes. Malphite's E and most recently his W (thanks Rito) scale with armor so he really benefits from stacking it. In other words if the enemy team has something like a Riven top and a Yasuo mid you're living the dream (sort of).

Again, pretty standard stuff. You can easily run this setup with other supports and do just fine.

Now this is when supp Malphite gets just a little bit different from other tanky supps.

Starting Items:
You should probably get at least 1 mana potion since Malphite tends to run oom rather quickly because of his low base mana stats and the high cost of his q, hence all top lane Malphite players taking Crystalline Flask.

Boots:
I usually don't take moby boots. You take them if you have a lot of opportunities to roam and make plays around the map, but malphite has a pretty weak pre-6. You're not Thresh, nor Ali nor Nautilus, so there's little reason in taking them.
That leaves Ninja Tabi and Merc Treads. As Malphite, you obviously want to get the ninja tabi for that sick armor ratio damage, but you should always look at their team first and determine their main source of damage or damage threat, then buy accordingly.

Purchase Order:
On any other tanky supp I'd usually take Randuin's over Frozen Heart. But then again you're playing Malphite, and Malphite really needs two main things: tons of armor and cdr. Frozen heart gives you both (plus that extra bit of mana that's really valuable on Malphite). The rest of the build is pretty standard.

Options/Situationals:
If you are really behind and you just need to stay alive or the enemy team has a lot of armor shred/true damage, Warmog is your friend. I usually get Thornmail instead of the locket if the enemy team's all ad. Banshee's can be very useful against a poke composition and you can get Randuin's instead of Sunfire Cape if you want to (I prefer sunfire cape because of the aoe damage, which is pretty much everything you will be doing in a tf after you used your full combo).

Elixir of Iron:
I love this thing. It's specially useful if you went for the Ninja Tabis, but you still want a bit of that tenacity. Plus, it makes you look like a BAMF.

This is THE way of leveling up your skills as Malphite nowadays. Back when your w didn't scale with armor I would usually max q second because at full rank the slow becomes really good (not like Nasus's w kind of good, but still pretty decent). Right now though, there's no real discussion about this.

You can always take Ignite for even bigger all-in potential at lvl 6 or if your mid laner doesn't have one and you need it for the annoying Doctor Mundo on the other team, but I prefer exhaust since it just adds more cc to your kit. Flash is still the best spell in the game.

Now as I said before Malphite doesn't have the greatest roaming potential pre-6, so you probably wanna focus on laning till then. Get your Sighstone as soon as possible, keep that river and dragon warded and don't be afraid to go for trades (not too afraid anyways). With these runes and masteries and Malphite's base stats you're pretty damn tanky by early game standards and an e with a couple of w empowered auto attacks do quite a bit of damage to those squishy ad carries, who usually really underestimate that. DO NOT USE YOUR Q FOR LANE HARASS. It does 0 damage and it's pointless, you will only manage to run out of mana. Only use your q when you need the slow.

Malphite's role during the mid and late game is pretty invariable. You are a tf focus support and your job is to keep vision control around the map and objectives and to land sick ultimates. Always remember that you can do a decent amount of damage to squishy targets with your full combo, but you need your team to follow up on your engage or it's all for nothing. With this build, you will have 40% CDR by the end of the game and as long as you don't spam everything for no reason you shouldn't run oom immediately. This means that in a tf you can actually do **** after you used your ultimate instead of just standing there as a decorative rock, hoping that your teammates can make use of what you just did.

Pros:
-Your passive gives you a relatively safe laning phase.
-Great engage/all in potential at lvl 6.
-Reliable impact on teamfights (his ult may technically be a skillshot, but it's pretty damn hard to completely whiff).
-He's a badass.
Cons:
-Pretty weak pre-6 (specially when compared to the likes of leona, alistar, braum,etc).
-Can be kited around easily if he doesn't have his ulti available to him.
-Even though the 40% cdr that you get with this build allows you to use your abilities quite often, your damage falls off more and more as the game progresses so you still rely a lot on your team to win teamfights, even if you land the perfect five man ultimate.
-He has the worst dance in the entire game (seriously).

I honestly think that supp Malphite ain't a bad pick, but if you pick him into a very hard poke lane (i.e Varus and Nami) then you're gonna have a really bad time. You can still win lane by simply surviving till lvl 6 and then going all in, but if you're tryharding at ranked or something consider that you're much better off by just picking something safer. You should also consider the potential wombo combos (Orianna, Yasuo, etc).

Top Malph doesn't really have kill pressure on lane (unless you get help from your jungler or your opponent underestimates your damage/all in potential at lvl 6), but you shouldn't die unless you overextend or get cocky. Malph with a crystalline flask is a very safe laner. Kinda like playing top Maokai these days, it's all about getting homeguards/righteous glory and flanking/initiating on the enemy team. Sort of unrelated tip: if you have a low elo ranked team with your friends, playing a composition with top malph, mid ori and sivir is stupidly effective.

Jungle Malph is pretty decent. If you take these runes plus 9 21 0 masteries you simply do not die in the jungle, and if you go back to base before lvl 6 it's usually because you're either afraid of the enemy jungler invading you when you're low on hp or you want to have some items on you so that when you hit lvl 6 you can immediately go make plays, but theoretically you can pretend you're Udyr and just power farm till lvl 6. Personally I like playing junglers who can gank lanes as soon as lvl 3 and have a bigger early impact, but jungle Malph is pretty good.

In conclusion, all I can say is that Malphite, although not a top support pick by any stretch of the imagination, is pretty easy and fun to play. You won't be able to hard carry games as a Thresh God might, but the main advantage of supp Malphite is that getting your job done is really easy. Just land a good ulti and hope for the best.


Stay hard, my friends.