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[see what I did there?]
Anyhow let's start with the review.
Summoner Spells:
Runes:
Items:
I really like the whole battle boss theme you have going in your guide. It looks great! Now time for the actual guide content.
Skills:
You go really in-depth into Void Swarm and Malefic Visions later on which is pretty impressive.
Items:
Farming as Malz:
Combos & Voidlings:
In Game:
Early Game:
- Pretty much summarizes what Malzahar could do, but more could be added upon it. You mention focusing on farming and punishing the opponent. If I wanted to try out Malzahar for the first time, how would I find the perfect balance between doing both? Also, since teleport should be your primary spell, you can talk more about utilizing it at this stage of the game. For example, when to use it to get back to lane vs when to save it, or using it to flank/gank/countergank another lane, as your Nether Grasp can very easily force plays.
- Saying that late game turns the game into an ARAM play-style is very inaccurate, and a lot of the times it is the wrong play. There are many different strategies involving the late game. Some include: 1-4 siege, 1-3-1 siege, Baron baiting, Dragon baiting, etc. Teleport can help you execute some of these strategies. Try talking more about these different kinds of strategies.
- "use your Nether Grasp to lockdown the priority target (most likely the enemy ADC)." Keep in mind that this would be impossible to do a lot of the times without leaving your back-line. A new Malzahar player could read this, trying doing exactly this, and probably get himself killed.
Late Game:
Overall a great guide in terms of content and style, but a few mistakes that really keep the guide from shining as bright as it could.
Now the answers :D
Summoner Spells and runes
About Ghost-> Teleport and precision->inspiration I already know, those are the optimal choices when playing malz. I took ghost as my usual SS since it was the best fit for me at the time, but since recently I don't play as much malzahar I could do a quick "feel test" to see if I like more teleport now. About the secondary tree I'm a bit more resilient to change it since I like it a lot more over the inspiration tree thanks to its great power in late game (even an assist chain can nearly reset your ult) while providing mana to fight with, GdG is... obligatory since there is anything else inside the precision tree. Surely I can add it as an option, there is nothing to stop me to do so lul
About Barrier and the AP shard, for the first one sure, it's not a bad idea and your reasoning makes sense, so I can add it; about the AP shard eeeeeh I just have a sweet spot for the Transcendence+time shard, even if I know that it's slow AF. Maybe I could suggest it together with Gathering Storm, a thing that I was considering adding, what do you think about it?
Items
Yeah, Morellonomicon is still there because in the previous item chapter interaction it was one of the "important" items, so I just forgot to declass it. About Shurelya's Battlesong I can agree, but Spellbinder has its use; I don't build it that often, but it helps a lot in really prolonged games. Zhonya's Hourglass is enough nice to enter in the "other nice items club".
Shoes are for losers, for those champions that get a "-5 MS" nerf and for those who forget to put them in the complete build after a year.
About the BB theme you have to thank Jovy, she did an absolutely great job :D
Answers pt.2, the revenge:
Skills:
Apparently Call of the Void never silenced for 2.5 seconds, it has been a 2 second silence since 6.9, when I wasn't even playing LoL, and before it was max 3 sec., the only possible answer is: me big dum dum that can't read.
I remember that phrase, I knew that it was phrased weirdly, but then forgot about it, I'll try to reword it. About the broken link it seems that when I passed from the chapter layout to the mono-chapter one I forgot to update it, mb.
I never thought about that with Nether Grasp, like it makes sense but I didn't think about it, so adding it asap lol
Items
Sigh unfortunately I know, I can't find a layout that I like and that people can understand from it. I tried with a more "only categorizing items by group" instead of creating a real route, but I can understand the confusion. Back to the drawing board, I guess.
If you mean RoA it's in the second build, the spellbook one :p
In game
Everything can be summed up with "this usually is one of my weakest chapters" (together with the pros/cons one, that someone had the care to point to me already), so all of your suggestions are more than welcome and I'll try to integrate all of them.
I really appreciate that you spent so much time writing all of this, thank you very much for all the compliments and even more thank you for your precious feedback, this will help me quite a lot! :D
Gentle reminder that the guide is for those reading the guide, not those writing them :P
Gathering Storm is definitely a viable choice, it out-scales Scorch after 20 minutes and it does more damage than Scorch in an all-in combo or extended trade. So it depends on how the first 20 minutes of your games tend to go. Even if you don't take Gathering Storm, you wouldn't take the CDR stat shard, since it gives you negligible benefits early on, and you can easily get 40% CDR before the CDR stat shard really starts shining. Keep in mind you need to be level 18 to get the 10% CDR, and most games never even get to that stage.
I'm glad the review helped you. :)
I could take an example that I think it's a better teamfighter than malz, Xerath: xer can be always active in a teamfight mostly thanks to his Q since it has a longer range and a low CD, then he has a self-peel in form of his E (I think, I can't remember now if it was his W or his E).
Another immobile mage? Cassiopeia. Even if she lacks hard CCs like malzahar she has a built-in slow (thing that with malz you don't have since you have to rely on rylai's) that grounds units, crippling them and making it a form of self-peel. Then she can always fight thanks to her Q+E that literally shreds anyone.
Do you see where I'm going? Malz is an immobile mage that doesn't have any reliable source of peel (out of his R, but I don't call a peel skill that has a 60 seconds cd "reliable"), obliging him to a backline position or else... he explodes. Sure, you can put a lot of pressure with your Q, but as I said before malz kit tries to counteract this possible pressure. That's what I meant when I said that he isn't a great teamfighter, he's a lot "dump everything and run away" imo
About damage... meh, just personal opinion here, but honestly malz damage isn't anymore what he used to be after repeated nerfs, you really need to get a lot ahead to be of relevance. And anyway your damage falls off pretty quickly in late game, you need to close the game before 25 min or else you'll feel the wrath of the enemy team lol
And finally QSS, sure they postpone their items, but a 1300 gold purchase isn't a great deal if it's needed to remove a great threath as malz ult. It's quite depressing when the only possible targets for your ult are a leona or a really behind irelia, trust me.
Anyway, I hope now it's more clear what I meant, if you think of a way I could replace that phrase tell me, I'm open to suggestions!
tl;dr being a "not that great teamfighter" doesn't mean that he's bad, but surely he isn't the best
What sort of pressure does Cassiopeia and Xerath bring when they can't get a lead on the enemy team?
And QSS not a big deal?!? If the enemy has a lead - yes, but if they are even or even behind - it kinda is a big deal because they'll need more time to reach their item spikes, which gives your team the opportunity to get ahead or even close the game. So yeah - anything that prevents or delays the enemy from reaching their full potential is a big deal.
Now, I know that you are expressing personal opinion, but - no offense - you need to back up that opinion with arguments better than "short range - they'll run away" or "one item - not a big deal".
Anyway, best regards and GL & HF on the Summoner's Rift.
It could be even that we have just different playstyles, I tend to be more defensive in-game, while you could be more aggressive, who knows; and maybe you can see your opinion more on the game phases chapter, where I should have written something similar to what you said.
Anyway surely I'll redo the pros/cons chapter (I think everything derives from that) since, after your comment and after giving it a quick look, I can see it didn't aged well since the initial creation of the guide a year ago, so ty for the... accidental feedback? Dunno if it was your original objective lol
Have a nice day :^
You have my respect for writing the guide, I can only imagine the time and effort you had to put into creating it. And if you need help revising the guide or wanna discuss matchups, builds etc. I'm always willing to land a hand to fellow Malzahar players :D
Best Regards
S
Very good job on the look and the content is amazing. Everything is great about your guide, I'm happy to share the top of the list with your guide xP
I would upvote a second time if I could.
Yes, it has come a long way since its publication, but there is still a lot of room for improvements and that's why I still think that the first spot needs to be yours ;D
If you can't do it today, maybe you can tomorrow, who knows :^
Yeah, I don't really like Banshee's Veil on malzahar since the item passive doesn't interact separatedly with malz passive, but it is always a good source of MR/AP, so I'll put it right now (since I have already the editor open lol)
First of all, great guide! I see you put a lot of work into this ^^ I would also ask you one question - what do you think about rushing Shurelia as first item? It has really low cooldown and if you combine it with celerity rune then Malzahar's all-in can be soooo dangerous ;) In the other hand it doesn't give any mana, so some issues may occur :/
So, shurelya's first item... I saw that a lot during this MSI (if you didn't see, try to look at pobelter's malzahar here; it's a completely different item build focused more on raw power and utility) where they take first tear of goddess for the mana and then first complete item shurelya's. I'm not really fond of it, I must be honest: yes, it synergize with celerity (I wrote it literally today lol), but if you don't use it literally when you are in the face of your enemy the effective burst time is really limited. Moreover it just came in mind that celerity is one of the "adaptive stats" runes: that means that all the bonus that you get from shurelya's goes to AD instead of AP.
Quick math: Malz's base AD is 55+the AD he gets from S+P tree+the AD he gets from levelling up (I don't know the precise number, sorry) -> at least 63 AD
Doran's ring gives 15 AP+40 AP from shurelya's -> 55 AP
So if you try to take shurelya's as first item (with this build, mind this), you would just get more damage on your AA (or on your voidlings AA, but you lose time casting them, reducing even more the burst time)(I know, with an amp tome there isn't any problem, but I want just to take this isolated case).
In the end, if you take shurelya's first item it is only for its active on its own; then as you stated it doesn't give mana or mana regen, so laning phase would be tricky.
All of this doesn't stop you to take it as second or third item: after the lost chapter item (luden's, archangel or glp) you have enough mana and AP to overcome the adaptive stats problem, so you can float at the speed of sound AND do damage with your skills.
I hope everything is clear and helpful and I hope it answers your question :D
And about the rune page (for completionism's sake) he used inspiration (with Unsealed Spellbook, Magical Footwear, Minion Dematerializer and I guess Cosmic Insight) and sorcery (here I have to completely guess since right now I didn't find the exact rune page; I guess he used The Ultimate Hat and one between Transcendence, Celerity and Scorch)
If you want to try this build do it now since the dematerializer has a change in the PBE (that will probably ship in the next patch) that nerfs it heavily, changing completely its gameplay
If you need any tip for your guide I'll be happy to help anytime :P
And obviously thank you for your offer, I'll remember it :D