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Recommended Items
Spells:
Ignite
Flash
Items
Ability Order
Void Shift (PASSIVE)
Malzahar Passive Ability
Introduction


This guide will outline how I play


*High base damage*
*Amazing scaling* *Anti-tank* *Anti-mage* *Great wave pusher* *Infinite mana sustain* *Good lane harass* |
Runes




Armor Seals because

Scaling MR Glyphs because

In draft:
If the enemy team is primarily AD, you can subsitute in

You can also pick up Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration. I typically only use these against someone I need to bully out of lane early like



Starting Items:











You're against a ranged poke-skillshot champ like Lux, Xerath, or Ziggs, and aren't comfortable with dodging yet. This is a safe start, allowing you more sustain, better gank escaping, more ability dodging. The downside is you wont be able to harass as much, and you may need to watch your mana if you're spamming






This is the standard. If you can get it, and don't need help in your lane, then get it. You're probably ahead, or had a very long, very passive early game. If you can't get it, evaluate other options listed here. |
If you find yourself at spawn with very little gold, you probably got ganked, or you're behind in one way or another. At this point it's your job to roam to catch back up. A 2nd ![]() ![]() ![]() |
The ideal build starts with this, into
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() and then... ![]() |
If you're just starting to play ![]() ![]() "Why?" you might ask? "It covers all his weak points!" you might say? Because it delays his item dependent power spikes, and ![]() |
Deviating from the core build, sometimes you need to buy those situational items before

Situationals:
Early Game - Pick up ![]() Mid Game - If the enemy ADC got fed, rush this. In the case of Zed, follow up with a quick ![]() Late Game - ![]() |
Early Game - In the case the enemy mid laner builds a ![]() ![]() ![]() Mid Game - If the enemy team is really tanky, building a ![]() ![]() Late Game - This is always a great item to have paired with ![]() |
This item is amazing on ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
TL;DR
Keep track of the enemy's items. If you see negatrons popping up, build a



Ok so, here's the real meat of this guide!
Malzahar has a very unique set of abilities which can be difficult for new players to master. I'm looking at you
Call of the Void!
Let's start with
Malzahar's passive,
Summon Voidling
Summon Voidling - This is a very interesting passive, and often times overlooked in his kit. Malzahar summons a voidling on his 4th spellcast that scales with his AD, and level.
This minion will hide in brush with you, and has an attack priority of:
1. The target of
Nether Grasp
2. The target of
Malefic Visions (Champions, then Non-Champions)
3. The target of Auto-attacks
4. The closest Target
More Details on voidling mechanics here:Voidlings
If you were previously wondering why this guide says to max
Malefic Visions first, but takes one point in
Call of the Void at game start, this is why: you can cast
Call of the Void at the spawning pool to get 1 or 2 free stacks. Note 1 or 2 stacks, no more. You don't want to summon your first voidling untill you hit level 2. One at spawn, One to help your jungler, maybe one for harass, and then your 4th spell should be
Malefic Visions on the enemy champion at level 2 to have the voidling harass him. There is no internal cooldown either, so if you're spamming your abilities in a teamfight, with enough CDR you could have a voidling army blocking skillshots for your team!
Call of the Void - Another interesting spell in his repertoire. This is considered a skillshot, but at the same time it fuctions more as an AoE. Malzahar creates two pillars perpendicular to him, and after a short delay, two projectiles are fired between them. This spell can be used to scout brush, as it reveals a large area around where it's cast. Contrary to popular belief, it's very possible to take half damage from this ability, and IT IS BLOCKABLE BY YASUO WIND WALL. It's also one of the hardest skillshots in the game to master.
On the upside,
Call of the Void hits like a freight train, and has a very long silence. As said before, it functions like an aoe, so if you're perpendicular to the enemy team, or they're lined up sideways attacking your teammates, you can hit the entire enemy team. Not to mention the crazy range on this spell, similar to
Vel'Koz, this has a hidden range boost because geometry. If you cast it on the edge of it's range, the line sticks out of it's range. All of this makes it a great harass tool, a great teamfight nuke, and another easy way to 1shot an entire enemy minion wave mid-late game. You'll want to lead with this in your combo, to reduce counterplay. This spell combined with voidlings makes malzahar an anti-mage.
Null Zone - This isn't quite so unique. This is basically a %based morgana pool. This scales like crazy into late game depending on the item build you go with. You use this as part of your combo when you ult, so that you get full effectiveness because they cant step out of it. This spell is absolutely insane against tanky champions combined with
Liandry's Torment and
Rylai's Crystal Scepter. Your pool will deal raw damage equal to 50% or more of their maximum hp. This spell combined with Malefic Visions makes malzahar an anti-tank.
Malefic Visions - A completely unique mechanic so far. To get a grasp on how broken this spell is, a quick comparison is needed.
Time Bomb is famous for hitting like a truck, with the downside of it being delayed, allowing counterplay like shields, etc.
Malefic Visions has the same base damage starting at rank 3, and has almost the same AP ratio, however,
Malefic Visions is a long duration DoT. While this still leaves open the opportunity for counterplay, most shields do not last 5 seconds, and items like
Liandry's Torment synergize very well with DoTs, allowing them to repeatedly re-apply the item effect.
If it's raw damage wasn't broken, the unique effect on it is. Once the target dies with this spell on it, whether you got the last hit or not, the spell jumps to the nearest enemy(in a decent sized range), refreshes it's full duration, and refunds you mana. There is no limit to how many times it can jump, making this a very interesting tool for wave clearing in the mid-late game. Malzahar has a unique ability to roam due to this spell. Most champions need to push their wave out, then roam. Malzahar can simply place this on either side of the minion wave, and then run out of lane as it pushes the wave for him. This also allows him, if very far behind, to literally farm from behind his turret. This and a voidling will almost always last hit minions in lane if left to their own devices. If this spell comes off cooldown and you still have a
Malefic Visions jumping around, you're free to cast it on a seperate target, and you'll have two of them jumping around. However, if they both jump to the same target, the duration will only refresh, instead of having double DoTs.
Nether Grasp - A better
Infinite Duress?
Malzahar basically pukes up sticky void string and strangles you with it. This is a channeled-suppress, just like
Infinite Duress, though this lasts almost twice as long, and has incomparable damage. Due to the various ranges on
Malzahar's abilities, as well as the slightly short range of
Ignite, this ability can be the most frustrating thing in the universe to newcomers of this champion.
I'm going to get this out of the way and say:
If QSS countered malzahar, it would also counter
Zed, BUT IT DOESN'T. While it does completely remove Zed's
Death Mark, it only stops the suppression part of
Nether Grasp. The damage still happens. Not to mention you can simply not ult that person. If their whole team builds
Quicksilver Sash, that's a lot of sacrificed gold for one ability, and is completely worth it.
As said before, this is a channeled-suppress. What does this translate to?
"I'M
Katarina PLEASE KILL ME"
While his ult has crazy 130% scaling and high base damage, you have to be extremely careful when using it. If you go in for a kill, throw your combo down and ult, and then get hit by one of the many delayed stuns in this game, you are dead. With that being said, lets jump into the combos you need to know in order to bring out the full usefulness of your ult.
NEVER
Nether Grasp ONTO
Olaf,
Alistar, OR
Tryndamere UNLESS YOU KNOW THEIR ULT IS DOWN.


Let's start with



This minion will hide in brush with you, and has an attack priority of:
1. The target of

2. The target of

3. The target of Auto-attacks
4. The closest Target
More Details on voidling mechanics here:Voidlings
The spells you build this up with don't have to hit anyone.
If you were previously wondering why this guide says to max





On the upside,










If it's raw damage wasn't broken, the unique effect on it is. Once the target dies with this spell on it, whether you got the last hit or not, the spell jumps to the nearest enemy(in a decent sized range), refreshes it's full duration, and refunds you mana. There is no limit to how many times it can jump, making this a very interesting tool for wave clearing in the mid-late game. Malzahar has a unique ability to roam due to this spell. Most champions need to push their wave out, then roam. Malzahar can simply place this on either side of the minion wave, and then run out of lane as it pushes the wave for him. This also allows him, if very far behind, to literally farm from behind his turret. This and a voidling will almost always last hit minions in lane if left to their own devices. If this spell comes off cooldown and you still have a







I'm going to get this out of the way and say:
Quicksilver Sash DOES NOT COUNTER MALZAHAR
If QSS countered malzahar, it would also counter 



As said before, this is a channeled-suppress. What does this translate to?
"I'M

While his ult has crazy 130% scaling and high base damage, you have to be extremely careful when using it. If you go in for a kill, throw your combo down and ult, and then get hit by one of the many delayed stuns in this game, you are dead. With that being said, lets jump into the combos you need to know in order to bring out the full usefulness of your ult.
NEVER




As stated before,
Malzahar is also an assassin. This part is really simple, as a rule of thumb, ALWAYS lead your combos with a SUCCESSFUL
Call of the Void. The silence attached to this nuke will almost guarantee that your combo doesn't get interrupted by a delayed stun/cc. The only exceptions to this rule are when you aren't fighting someone with a delayed stun, or it simply doesn't matter. Combos go like this:
>
>
>
>
Call of the Void and
Malefic Visions have a short cast animation and time, while
Null Zone has no cast animation, and can actually be cast while moving. If you have
Ignite available, try to practice casting it DURING your
Nether Grasp. The trick here is that your
Nether Grasp has a longer range than
Ignite. So if you don't think you're in range, don't use
Ignite, or it will cancel your ult. If you get into the habit of casting
Ignite before your ult, just remember that if they
Flash, you wasted
Ignite for nothing.
In teamfights part of your job is to kill the enemy backline, however, in higher ranked games this proves to be exceedingly difficult. As much as people might complain, the reality is that your job is to kill who you can safely kill. If their bruiser is fed and annihilating your backline, you need to kill them to free up your own backline. If their backline is fed, and they are seriously the only threat, you need to change your combo up.
Malzahar has insane damage, so using your full combo on a squishy isn't worth it. In the late game, one
Call of the Void will typically chunk the enemy ADC to half hp. As
Malzahar you need to be a general pain in the *** for the entire enemy team. Hit their backline with
Call of the Void. Place
Malefic Visions on someone who's almost dead, or is really squishy, so it jumps around. One thing that never changes however, is to always use
Null Zone and
Nether Grasp together, and to almost always do it to the enemy tank or bruiser. Your suppression of the enemy tank will allow your ADC full freedom to do whatever they want.
Even
>
>
will either outright kill a tank, or take him extremely low for the cleanup.
If this isn't the case, and you're so far behind that this has almost no impact, then it's probably worth it to combo one of their carries.
If your primary
Nether Grasp target builds a
Quicksilver Sash, try not to use
Nether Grasp on him. In this case, they most likely wont blow their
Quicksilver Sash until they see you ult, but if they do, feel free to punish them for it.


















In teamfights part of your job is to kill the enemy backline, however, in higher ranked games this proves to be exceedingly difficult. As much as people might complain, the reality is that your job is to kill who you can safely kill. If their bruiser is fed and annihilating your backline, you need to kill them to free up your own backline. If their backline is fed, and they are seriously the only threat, you need to change your combo up.







Even



If this isn't the case, and you're so far behind that this has almost no impact, then it's probably worth it to combo one of their carries.
If your primary




Difficulty: Very Easy A big mistake a lot of people make against ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Normal Le'blanc is like your mobile counterpart. She's just as squishy as you, but with more mobility. Stay near your minion wave and harass her down. Her laning harass is fairly weak untill level 6. If she wants to harass you, she will have to use ![]() |
Difficulty: Easy Fizz is a melee champ, and thus at a severe disadvantage. Harass him with autoattacks, ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Easy Not much to say here, ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Hard Talon can be tough matchup due to the nature of his engage. At level 1 he will harass you early with ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Frustrating Nothing really to say here besides... HE. JUST. WON'T. DIE. You won't die, he won't die... welcome to the super farm lane. His ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Easy![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Normal![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Normal![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Hard![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Normal![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Make a judgement call on his skill level if you think you can ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty: Normal Before anything else: ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Against a bad ![]() Against a good ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Difficulty:Very Easy - Hard![]() The reason this is labeled "Hard," is because until her kit rework, her roam is so strong there's nothing you can do about it besides killing her every time she comes into your lane. You can try following her, but if she's smart, then she will lay traps behind her, or wards, and spear you to death as you chase her. If you're at half hp don't get close to her, as her couger form combo has deceptively high damage. |
Difficulty: Hard![]() ![]() ![]() |
05/28/14: | Published |
05/29/14: |
Added "Updates" section. Added Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration to runes Added "Matchups" section. More matchups to come~ Corrected some minor grammatical and spelling errors |
05/30/14: |
Added more matchups Added ![]() Corrected more grammatical errors |
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