Hi all and welcome on my first build on mobafire! (under construction)

Let's talk about Malzahar, the Prophet of the Void. Malzahar
I've see a lot of people build this champion as a burst-mage assassin, and this is a viable choice but not he's better role. You are a AoE-DPS AP carry (Area of Effect-Damage per Second), so what's Malzahar need? He needs to survive during a teamfight for does the max amount of damage possible for your team. I'll explain this better later in this guide.

PROS Really good harass All 4 spells and his passive does damage One of the best single-target ultimate in the game Built-in mana sustain A safe pick Great AoE Damage Monstrous DPS damage

CONS Low mobility No escape Farm needs practise Items-dependent Not so great skins Needs good positioning Probably focussed

Flash and Ignite are your friends. You will (or should be) using these spells for almost all (95%) of your games.

Flash

Simply the best summoner's spell in the entire game. Flash will help you escape from a gank or for the desperate situations that require to jump over wall and go away from bad situation. It's saved my life countless times. Definitely a must-have.
Note: If you have not unlocked Flash yet, then a proper replacement would be Ghost.

Ignite

Ignite will add that extra bit of damage and can make the difference from your enemy escaping with 15 health followed by a table flip, to a nice and solid kill. Works also great vs an heavy sustained enemy as Dr. Mundo.


These aren't better than Flash or Ignite on Malzahar in general, but there are times when you might want to consider them.

Heal

Now over Barrier after 4.5 patch, this is okay if your enemy can burst you down instantly. Not recommended though generally, but fares well if against Veigar, LeBlanc, or other heavy bursters. It'll save your life a fair share of times. The defensive replacement of the offensive Ignite.

Teleport

Great for getting back to lane faster. Great and mandatory if you are playing Malzahar top. But it makes you weaker in lane though since you don't have Ignite.

Ghost

Only if your level isn't high enough for Flash; otherwise, Flash outclasses Ghost infinitely because you're not a melee initiator. Except for dominion. Ghost is better than Flash in dominion.

Now i explain why need survivability:

For the example of the burst damage build, you got all the burst damage AP item ( Deathfire Grasp Rabadon's Deathcap Zhonya's Hourglass Void Staff ecc..) and when you join your teamfight, you should focus the enemy carry (admitted that you "can", you are in range and/or you will not be interrupted) with your single target ultimate, ok.. gg wp, he's dead. And then? You die, dude. Because you got less 2000hp, you are the ap carry so you will be hardly focussed, and you have NO ESCAPE and no possibility, as katarina Voracity, to re-skill your skills faster.

So? You need SURVIVABILITY, cause you are a DPS AP champion, you need to keep yourself alive for re-cast your Malefic Visions that got low cdr, and for "survivability" i mean HEALTH, and wich are the best healt-ap items that guarantees a lot of DPS damage? Surely not Deathfire Grasp, but Rod of Ages, Liandry's Anguish and Rylai's Crystal Scepter!

Your teamfight's role is to cast your skill and then go away, keeping yourself alive, waiting for when you can cast again and/or your DPS damages do their job!

I win some of "already-lost-game" (yes, that game when you lose all the lane, enemy's Vayne is fed and you lost middle-inhibitor at minutes 18) because of the AoE DPS damage that I gives in a teamfight after build my core items. With this build you can overturn a early bad game into a win! You got a team, let's they do their work, your job isn't to one-shot people, is to do as much as you can AoE damage, and your abilities lets you to do this!

New masteries are really interesting. Basically, they made it so AP Mages aren't forced into the exact same points every game. Now you actually need to decide which ones are more suited for you.

I prefer the 21-9-0 Combination for more survivability over the 21-0-9 wich provides basically more buff-durations, speed and mana regen. but if you think that your enemy laner is a easy matchup you could take the utility tree.

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Offensive Tree
4 points here for 5% cooldown reduction, that's always a good thing on a mage.
this will help you to last hit in early lane phase.
[icon= masteries=feast size=40] this will synergies very well with your's and E passive
Full point here for simply more free-early AP = more early harass-damage.
3 points here it helps you finish your enemies.
3 points here for more magic penetration(!) and more armour penetration that will helps your Summon Voidling to do more damage.
Simply more damage!

Defensive Tree
reduces a little enemies AA harass damage, that's a good thing for your weak early game.
a little more health regen. Isn't so much but helps you to stay more in lane and keeps yourself alive.
36 health bonus, not so bad at all!
the main reason why i prefer defensive tree is this masteries. +3% Max health is really underrated for a mage. You need to survive more. It will also synergies very well with this build since you will build 1350+ extra HP from items.

Utilities Tree
If you really prefer the utilities tree these are the masteries you could take
you got no escape and low mobility. 3 points here helps you to run away and/or to roam.
simply more mana regen.
10% cdr on your Flash and Ignite increase your escape possibility and your kill potential

Runes are based on what you prefer. They're also expensive.

If you could, go for these:

Recommended Greater Quintessence of Ability Power Flat AP Quints are generally the best way to go for AP Mids. Increases your early damage output, and when is that ever bad?

Recommended Greater Mark of Hybrid Penetration Hybrid pen Reds are very viable marks for Malzahar. They help get rid of the enemies' pesky magic resistance and helps you do more damage. Everyone always builds MR runes so you might as well make them all useless and the armor pen boost increase your AA harass damage and your Summon Voidling damage.
Greater Mark of Magic Penetration if you haven't a lot on IP for the hybrid pen marks you can take these. These are the standard for an AP midlaner and are also good.

Recommended Greater Seal of Armor For some armor, pretty self-explanatory; Helps a lot for late-game and also to reduces AA harass. These are ideal if laning against AD Casters mid.
Greater Seal of Mana Regeneration Mana regen for more early game harass. Usually Doran's Rings with your Malefic Visions and masteries=feast will cover mana regen, but Mana Regen recently got buffed and might be good on players who go oom a lot early or have trouble managing mana.

Recommended Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist MR per level runes give you 27 MR at level 18; I never spend enough time in remembering that Malzahar's Magic Resistance DO NOT SCALE OVER LEVEL. It's only 30 at the beginning of the game and it will remain 30 if you not do something for cover this weakness. This Glyphs helps you to not gets one-shotted by magic damage.
Greater Glyph of Ability Power Hey, maybe you're a dude who really loves wrecking and snowballing in the early game. Flat AP blues will give a stronger early game, but then u need recovering MR from another source.

Summon Voidling This is Malzahar's passive. Every 4 casting spells, the next spell will also summon for 21 seconds an uncontrollable voidling that engage your enemies. You can have more than one at the same time, and this pet has a priority scale of attack. He will engage at first the unlucky ones that suffers your ultimate Nether Grasp, then an enemy afflicted by your Malefic Visions, and if there's no one of these up, will engage the ones that you are auto-attacking. The nice thing to remember is that this pet can tank for you tower shots (if you are not attacking enemy champions, of course) and jungle's neutral monster. You can takes alone the blue-buff at level 6-7 without taking damage from the golem.
Call of the Void is a nice long range harass that silence your opponents so he can't cast nothing for reply damage on you, gives you time to go back out of his range. This can also be used for protect you for an enemies that you know want to skills on you. It has also a great amount of AoE Damage, and we like it.
Null Zone is your anti-tank AoE spell, it works very well late game, because it does damage based on a percentage of the target's max health EACH SECOND. Poor fool that ones that understimates this spell and not go away from it early!
Malefic Visions is your primary spells. It's single target and DPS, that's make it perfect for harass your enemies. Another great use of this spell is for farm: when an enemy afflicted by this spell dies, it restores an amount of Malzahar's mana, helps you to stay in your lane more without going out of mana, but you need some practise on this.
Nether Grasp is pretty much the best single-target ultimate of the entire game. Has an high mana cost (but with the next coming soon patch this spell will be buffed with low mana cost), does tons of damage and, most importantly, suppressed your unlucky target for 2.5 second, make him unable to do everything! The "only" cons is that is a channelled spells that could be interrupted, but the uses of this ultimate are awesome. Are you being dived under tower by a Zed with his Death Mark? No problem, put a Null Zone under you and cast a Call of the Void on you; when your fool Zed appears besides you use your Nether Grasp on him and watch he dies in a bad way.
In a Teamfights you should try to use it on the enemy's carry, the one's that do more damage, for stop him and kill him faster with your team. Your AoE damage will do the rest.

Call of the Void at level 1 is for long range harass, then max your Malefic Visions first. Put a point on Nether Grasp whenever you can, of course, and then go to max Call of the Void.

Null Zone is maxed last because in late game we got more tanky enemies and more life = more damage taken by Null Zone.

Mana potion make me cast more Malefic Visions when i was unlucky for the creeps re-positioning when the creeps affected die out of range to make the Malefic Visions to "jump" on another creeps. But vs an hard lane or an hard-harass lane i start with two Health Potion for more survivability.
Remember that Malzahar got a weak early game for his high mana-cost, low health and no escape without Flash.

At the first back, when i got at least 1525 gold, i pick catalyst the protector and Boots, ALWAYS.
If you are forced to recall earlier you can take little-part of catalyst the protector, ( Sapphire Crystal or Ruby Crystal) but this is your primary item, it helps you to farm and harass with more health, mana and sustain when your level increase.

You need to rush Rod of Ages because his passive stack during game time, and with this item you got less mana problem, more health and, of course, more AP. All stats that Malzahar needs.
Then I usually go for Haunting Guise and then for Sorcerer's Shoes, but you can swap the order of this two item if you haven't enough gold (or if you need more mobility earlier).

Liandry's Anguish and Rylai's Crystal Scepter are your "bread and butter" items for many reasons.
They gives you 800 extra life (that's mean Survivability), 130 AP (more damage), 15 Magic Penetration (again more damage).
But the thing that is awesome are their passive, that will synergizes to each other very well.
The Liandry's Anguish's passive give's you max-healt-%-damage as your Null Zone, and Rylai's Crystal Scepter passive give's you and your team a nice utility: a AoE 5sec slow with your Null Zone.
Also, the slow of Rylai's Crystal Scepter doubled the Liandry's Anguish passive's damage and the Liandry's Anguish's damage refresh the Rylai's Crystal Scepter's slow.

You have no idea of how much damage and utility these 2 items gives for your team.


This item is a great choice for a mage: more armour, more AP and his most valuable stats, his active. If you are focussed hard you only need to cast your AoE damage spell and then activate zhonya, waiting that your enemies die when you are invulnerable and safe from damage.

I usually never purchase Rabadon's Deathcap if i'm not very FED. I prefer tu build more health-utility items for carrying my team by the super hard dps pokes-slows of my spells due to my build, but if i got a lot of early gold i pick it for snowball harder.

Your team are heavy AP so your enemies build a lot of MR? No problem, Void Staff is the way! This item is self-explanatory, i don't spend more time on this.

Nasus? Dr. Mundo? Aatrox? Vladimir? Volibear? There's a lot of hard self-sustained champion, then Morellonomicon helps you and your team to take them down also when your Ignite is on cooldown!
Awesome item for every AP caster that needs mana. If your jungler isn't giving you blue buff and/or you are vs a hard burst AP damage as LeBlanc you can purchase Chalice of Harmony early (in all case only after Rod of Ages!!) and then upgrade it into Athene's Unholy Grail after your core items.
The only reason this is not in the core is that it doesn't give you survivability or an usefull active like Zhonya's Hourglass. But in a balanced build I will purchase Athene's Unholy Grail for more spam-skills, thanks to the cdr and mana regen. that it provides.
Are you vs a 4x fedly AD or AP? That's a bad thing. Pick one of these. I don't wanna know how your team fell in that situation, this items can help you to survive a little more, but in these case could be very hard to overturn a game in your favour.

Hi, my name is Barbe, I’m on League since preseason 4, in about a year of playing I reach the Gold IV in solo-queue at my first ranked season by maining Malzahar and by prioritizing team-play instead of kill-chasing. English is not my first language so I’m sorry if I’m not talk it correctly all the time.

There's a litle example of how this build works, also in ranked game (S4 actually, i didn't test enough in 2015's preseason)

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