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Spells:
Teleport
Flash
Ability Order
Granite Shield (PASSIVE)
Malphite Passive Ability
Introduction
Malphite is an anti-physical-carry-tank with a big arsenal of CC. He can easily take a solo lane or jungle.
Allthough this is pretty much a standard build, I have seen no good Malphite Guides here on Mobafire (except perhaps PsiGuards), and thus I would like to contribute my way of playing the big stony thing.
feel free to contact me with quetions and feedback,
my IGN is "Gott der 7 Meere" on EUW.
There are a number of possible lanes for Malphite...
- Top - He can put a lot of pressure on top lane with
Seismic Shard, is very hard to gank but it is advised to take
Teleport because he can - and should - turn around any fight with
Unstoppable Force.
- Jungle - Thanks to his
Ground Slam and
Brutal Strikes he can clear camps in the blink of an eye, his
Granite Shield gives him excellent sustain, and his ganks with
Seismic Shard,
Unstoppable Force and red are very strong.
- Mid - I have seen Guardsman Bob do this and tried it out myself - you can poke and burst down squishy AP-carries very easily, but you have to be very carefull mid. The real reason you would go mid, is that you don't need
Teleport to be everywhere with your ultimate. You shouldn't build AP just because you go mid.
... and his possible builds ...
- Full Tank - Even without a single damage item, Malphite will still do a lot of damage (thanks to the Armor ratio to his E) and CC. Your tasks are (in order of importance) to initiate on clustered enemies to make them panic, to protect your carries by shutting down dangerous ultimates and keeping the enemy damage away from them and finally to kill high priority targets.
- AP Tank - Because Malphite is unstoppable on his charge and the damage of the following
-
-
-
-combo can be greatly enhanced with items like
Abyssal Mask - to the point where it takes out targets - building him with his nuking potential in mind is very effective.
- AA Tank - Increasing his damage with regard to his auto-attacks is less effective but still viable. Items like
Trinity Force and
Hextech Gunblade make him more of a hybrid that can deliver sustained DPS on top of his strong combo. Some teams can shut this kind of play down with kiteing and poke, others will be completely destroyed by it.
The guide will cover mostly an AP Tank


Granite Shield (Sustain): Powerfull shield that basically removes your need for





Seismic Shard (CC, Damage, Farming, Finisher): This is your primary ability in lane, allowing you to trade damage, lasthit and cripple ganks. Once you get your






Brutal Strikes (Damage, Farming): Awesome for jungle and farming big creep-waves. You will only need one point early in jungle, and, in lane, you may even skipp this skill until later. Never forget to turn this on before fights.




Ground Slam (Damage, Debuff): For one, this skill allows for easy farming and pushing. Intrestingly, the damage scales of your Armor, so you won't have to sacrifice damage for tankyness. Other than that, the AS-debuff makes you the powerfull anti-AD tank that Malphite is. If you get






Unstoppable Force (Initiator, CC, Damage, Gap-closer): Firstly, the distance you travel is quite big, and you can use it in all manners you would use

Note that it is not always advisable to start a fight with

Concerning my skill order: You skillorder should be flexible. All his skills have their good sides. Against enemies with escapes, get



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If you want to jungle, take Smite to secure dragon/baron/buffs. | SPACE | Teleport: you can turn around ganks, teamfights and push. |
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Flash extends the range of your skills and gives you a gap-closer. | SPACE |
You get Exhaust vs
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Avoid











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Allthough you shouldn't build AP glass-cannon, any tank or utility items that give you additional AP are most welcome as you have two splendid ratios that can take advantage of it.

-







You depend on your skills to do damage, and your damage is directly related to your oponents MR. Allthough you will never be able to deal true damage (ignoring all MR), you should at least aim to do so with as many defense penetration as you can muster. Never go for expensive AP if you have no penetration, its just a huge waste.


-









You have two skills that are affected by Armor and you are a hard tank. There is no question that you will get Armor, only how much. You should aim to get at least 100 Armor asap, rising to ~200 late game and peaking when you use


-













Get two




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Sooner or later you will have to survive AP-carry burst in team fights.

-






Upgrade your boots soon because you don't want to waste your ult or


-






Your skills provide your damage, and especially your ultimate with its long CD is your primary killing tool. CDR is the most valuable offensive stat you can get, as your ult decides battles.

-








All your Mana issues can be solved with blue buff. If you don't get that, either save your skills for when it matters and get some mana so you can use your full combo, or build




-




Never underestimate the value of aura items for your teammates. Every team should aim to get Aura items that help it's carries, effectively giving them more stats/gold. As Malphite you have three nice choices for aura items that give you great benefits and also help your team:






Stats not listed here are thouroughly ineffective on Malphite, or go against the thought process of my build (Crit, AD, Spellvamp).
Get as many Tire One Items as you can, they are most cost-effective. Good upgrades provide you with 3 or even 4 of the stats stated above..




0/21/9 Get something out Defense, the rest is open for change. You can go 0/21/9, 9/21/0 or 0/9/21 or even split your points 0/15/15.



































Note that until now we only bought parts and no full item. We do this to spread our defenses and stats as wide as possible for as little money as we can. Your core of:
leaves room for wards and gives you plenty of upgrade choices. This can deviate depending on what you do... (try to be flexible)





(Top lane vs physical damage)





(Mid lane with blue buff)




(Jungle Malphite)












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Every upgrade of your ![]()
|

Focus on your role exclusively. Go full tank if your team has no tank. If your team has tank, and needs more damage, or if:
Skip



In the end your builds will look like these Example Builds:





(Average Game on Top Lane)





(You jungle and don't get too much farm...)





(You play mid and are lucky to get blue buff)






(Full build and pentakill Malphite)






(Full build as pure rock Malphite)
I hope by now you realize that a clever build needs to be flexible. Every game has its own requirements and obviously teamplay is better than any build. Don't dismiss items just because you have never seen them on Malpithe.
You should also know that your ROLE in the game limits your item choices, and your team and enemies strenght over the different game stages (early/mid/late) imposes strict requirements on your effectiveness.
- "That heal/stun/slow/attack/ult saved my life, that was soo close, thank you very much."
- "I underestimated my enemy, it was my mistake, it won't happen again, I promise."
- "Kind Sirs, getting Mercs against that team is a decent thing to do."
- "[all] Talk kindly to your fellow gentleman, it is hard for them too."
I am happy with this guide as it is. If you have something to add to my line of thoughs write to me. I greatly appreciate discussion and arguments about builds, I don't want you to adapt my style, I see it as an experiment that yields good results and should be appreciated as such.
Thank you for reading!
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