Hey guys, thats my first guide on Mobafire and to be honest the first guide i´ve ever written ;) it is for Malphite, the Shard of the Monolith. Malphite is no real OP-Hero. Usually nobody gets fearful when he sees a malphite in the loadscreen. Mainly Malphite is thought of as an easy,tanky bot... or mainly a noobhero. Hardly a lv 30 plays Malphite, but he is usually quite useful for your whole team and Ground Slam and Brutal Strikes with his bonusarmor make him a great AD-Counter.
A good Malphite player can deal quite good damage, but i place malphite as a tank and a sololaner. If you have no jungler for a sololane, you can also do double lane, best with a heavy harasser like Rumble, Cassiopeia, Swain or Caitlyn...

I take the Greater Quintessence of Health because with these Bonus-HP his starting HP are almost 800 then... with your passive you can easily lasthit and ignore the damage by your laning enemies...
Greater Mark of Mana: This can solve some of Malphites Mana-Problems, especially at the start of the game.
Greater Seal of Defense: Bonus Armor increase your Damage with Ground Slam and are useful as a tank anyway.
Greater Glyph of Magic Resist: Caster are usually main damage dealers and Malphites basic MR is not rly high. This will help you.

You can pick any kind of defensive Runes in order to increase your survivability on the lane and in the teamfight. You won´t regret it. I personally recommend to choose either Manaregen. or Manarunes to solve your constant Manaproblems.

I choose 0/21/9. I think its crystal clear that you need 21 def Points as a tank. I upgrade Fortify because this is useful for your team and helps you at the sololane when you´re away or towerdived (due to lacking stuns/taunts Malphite can easily be towerdived, he would have to waste his ulti). Evasion works well with your Boots. If you plean to use Mercury´s Treads, dont take it and go Harden Skin and Defensive Mastery .
The 9 Points in the Knowledge-Tree are mainly used to get Regeneration, especially your mana. I also upgrade the TP-spell, if you experience that you die often you can also take Good Hands .

You start with Dorans Shield, that gives u HP, Armor and Regen. I think this is better than Regrowth Pendant although you will have to sell it later.
When you go back the first time (hopefully you´ve farmed over 200 Gold because you can stay on the lane for a long time) you buy your Ninja Tabi.
Now you look: Heavy Physical damage -> Glacial Shroud, Thormail
Balanced Damaged+Dominating -> Warmog´s Armor
You experience that you die often -> Guardian Angel
Heavy Caster harassment -> Force of Nature, Quicksilver Sash
You want to deal some damage to your laning enemies -> Sunfire Aegis

All in all you should finally have a lot of Armor and a bit over 3k HP. You will also need some MR but remember, this doesnt increase you damage. Bonus HP are great because your passive becomes more useful.

Other alternative Items are Randiums Omen, Frozen Mallet, Aegis of the Legion etc.

If you have a sololane, you will need either Teleport or Fortify, having both can make your lane almost "unpushable". Dont worry to take Flash or Ghost because you have no escaping spell.

Everything else is fairly unnecessary. You may run out of mana but Clarity is a waste of a summoner spell. Heal is a waste anyway unless you play against Karthus. Clearvoyance... maybe, but remember - you´re not the supporter. Exhaust and Ignite are not made for you anyway because you are really no killer.

You start right off with Seismic Shard. This slow will make it easier for your jungler to gank. If you play vs somone causing a lot of Magical damage like Cho'Gath, max this second, before Brutal Slams. Then you skill Ground Slam for the first time. This is your main damage spell on the lane and in Teamfights and can be used well for farming. If you turn Brutal Slams on, you will cause more damage because of an increaed Armor. Brutal Slams is also useful for farming, because you dont have to hit creeps at very low life directly. Besides, you deal damage to near opponents while farming.
Max Ground Slam first. You can kill a wave of Minions quickly and get almost all Last hits, and last but not least it consumes little mana only. Well placed, it can reduce the DMG-output of opponent ad-carries well, because you reduce their attack speed.

You initiate Teamfights with your Ultimate Unstoppable Force. Before you do this, turn Brutal Slams on. This will prevent you from taking quite a lot of normal dmg. You bash right into the carries (hopefully AD-Carries) and use Ground Slam. If someone wants to escape or someone needs to walk somewhere, slow him down with Seismic Shard. Now oyu´ve done your job and may die. Your team will do the rest. Without the ulti your practically useless, you can spam some Ground Slams but this will not really help you winning the Teamfight.

So, Remember: Always hit the squishies. Throwing up tanky chamions in the air is a waste because for them the damage is neglectable and Ground Slam is pretty useless because they dont deal damage at all.