Hello Summoners, my name is Goods NA and I am a Malphite main. As of today, I have 132 ranked games played with him and a 64% winrate. I used him mostly in the top lane to climb from Silver to Platinum this season. Malphite is a SoloQ stomper who carries teamfights incredibly hard if you land a good ultimate. He is very versatile in the sense that he can build full tank and be unkillable as he dives into the backline, or build AP off-tank and deal tons of damage through burst.

Runes will depend on how you want to build;

When going tanky, I take flat armor reds, flat armor yellows, flat MR blues and movement speed quints. MS quints can be switched out for armor quints if you wish, but I like having a little extra MS on tanky champs with no mobility.

When building AP, take magic pen reds, armor yellows, MR blues and AP quints. CD/lvl or MR/lvl are also good.

Masteries are pretty standard 9/21/0 taking CDR and AP in offense and armor and magic resist in defense. I usually get "tenacious" to synergize with Merc treads

When you play Malphite top, you either want to max Q or E.

Against ranged opponents and squishies, you typically want to max Q and harass as much as you can. Take AP quints, get either a flask or doran's ring. When maxing Q, try not to spam until you can put more than one point into the skill. After you get your blasting wand and 3 points in Q, your lane harass is strong enough to poke down most opponents who don't build MR.

Against most melee champions, starting and maxing E is best because it synergizes well with the tank items you get early on. When you can build sunfire and frozen heart first, maxing E gives it a lot of power. You can simply E your opponent whenever they get into range.

Lets talk about Malphite's new W. Its active is largely the same except it scales off of AP now (RIP AD Malphite). The main difference is the passive; it used to be that all your melee attacks would damage nearby enemies regardless of activating the ability or not. In lane, this could mess up your CSing so it was best not to get it until you had to. With the new passive, Malphite gains percent armor upon leveling up the skill. Since the bonus is percent armor, it is still best to max this skill last when you actually have armor in your build. The only time I would think about maxing this ability second over Q or E is when you are against full AD and you are building Sunfire>Frozen Heart>Thornmail so you can get super tanky earlier. The active, now scaling off AP, also means that in teamfights you can do some good AOE damage with your clapping auto-attacks in-between your Q and E cooldowns.

Malphite has a number of viable build paths, but The strongest two for top lane are the ones mentioned in this guide: Full Tank and AP-Off Tank.

I will acknowledge that full AP Malphite is strong and fun to play, but In my opinion, a tanky top-laner who can put out sustained damage is more beneficial to most team comps.

Full Tank:

Sunfire > Frozen Heart > Merc Treads > Abyssal Scepter > (other tanky items)

This build gives you a lot of survivability and teamfighting power with the triple auras. In lane, you would want to build this way against AD bruisers, and most melee champions. You also have a lot of waveclear after you finish Sunfire, which is why I rush it with Frozen Heart.

AP-Off Tank

Bami's Cinder > Abyssal Scepter > Merc Treads > Iceborn Gauntlet > (more ap if winning, more tank if going even or losing)

This is the build I try to go for when I take AP runes and max Q. I usually still rush Bami's cinder to help me farm the early levels, then go straight for the Abyssal Scepter. I typically don't spam Q until I get 3 points in Q and at least have a Blasting Wand, sometimes waiting until abyssal is finished to start poking. Poking with Q during levels 1-4 isn't very good because it costs a lot of mana and doesn't do much damage until you have AP. It will also tip off your lane opponent that you are building AP and he will rush MR to counter you. If you just farm the early levels and then start spamming Q after blasting wand and around level 6, you can surprise most people with your damage.

The Iceborn Gauntlet should be the third full item you complete, after Sunfire and Abyssal. It gives you much more sustained damage, more AOE damage, and helps you stick to targets after you ult them. Make sure to get one point into W as you finish this item since it will allow you to get a sheen proc off in between your E and Q cooldowns. With these three items and merc treads, you can still safely dive the backline, but have a little more burst and sustained damage. When Soloing a target the combo looks like this:

R > E > auto > Q > auto, auto, (sheen reset) > W > auto/Sunfire burn > E > Q

Malphite is VERY good IMO for ranked play. One 4-5 man ult can win a teamfight even if your team is behind. If you can memorize the cast range of his ultimate, setting it to smart cast means you can pull off flash-ults and take the other team by surprise. However, diving into 5 takes patience and control; you have to make sure your team sees you and knows that you are about to go ham so they can follow up. Having one more champion on your team that can dive is very useful as Malphite usually can't kill squishies on his own.

Unstoppable Force is one of the few ultimates in the game that can completely turn a game around. It is literally UNSTOPPABLE, meaning it cant be interrupted. Windwall, Janna Ult, Ahri Charm, Thresh flay, none of these abilities can stop it. The only way to avoid it is to dodge with a dash or flash, and if you master the flash-unstoppable force combo, it is nearly impossible to dodge.

Malphite synergizes well with any other champ with AOE abilities, but there are two champions that are the best and they are Yasuo and Orianna. Yasuo and Malphite is an insane combo; since unstoppable force is so easy to land on multiple targets, yasuo just has to be in the vicinity to use his ult and delete people. Orianna synergizes in a similar way with her ult; she can give Malphite the ball, let him ult, then shockwave everyone who got knocked up for big time CC and damage. This combo is a little harder to pull off since Orianna has to be in range for her ult.

Another plus for Malphite is he doesn't have many counters in lane. The only meta champion atm that gives him trouble is Vladamir who is often banned anyway. He hard counters lots of solo que stompers like Riven, Fiora, and Irelia, and does well in pretty much any other matchup.

He is also VERY easy to learn and doesn't take much mechanical skill to play. Although this is mainly a top lane guide, Malphite can actually play every role effectively except for ADC. If there is interest, I can make a Malphite jungle, mid and support guide as well.