Table of Contents •Introduction •Pros / Cons •Summoner Spells •Runes •Abilities •Items •Warding •Jungle Pathing •Ganking •In-Game •Conclusion

Hello everyone!
Im Silverman43 and welcome to my Malphite Jungle guide! I am a Maokai main, of which I also have a guide. Malphite is mostly seen as a toplaner and sometimes as a support, but Im a jungler who loves off-meta stuff, so why not give Malphite a try in the jungle? It's better than people expect it to be and he is able to go full tank or even AP if you want. This guide included originally only the AP Malphite build for fun, but now this guide includes both tank and AP.

Some abbreviations I use in this guide:
-AD=Attack Damage
-AP=Ability Power
-AS=Attack Speed
-MR=Magic Resist
-MS=Movement Speed
-HP=Health Points
-AoE=Area of Effect
-AA=Auto Attack
-CC=Crowd Control (Stuns, roots, slows, fears...)
-CDR=Cooldown Reduction

Pros + Very Tanky + Good teamfighting with AoE ult and E + Very good Vs AD teams + Can easily stick to targets with this build + A lot of utility + Healthy clears with Granite Shield + Easy to play

Cons - Weak before lvl 6 - Depends on ult for engage - No real escapes - Not that good vs AP teams - Slow movement

Pros + High Burst Damage + Still a little tanky + Very good Vs AD teams + Has some CC + Ult can win teamfights + Ult is almost undodgeable + Easy to play + Can solo carry games

Cons - Weak before lvl 6 - Depends on ult for burst - No real escapes - Less utility than tank Malphite when behind - Teamfighting isn't easy

Malphite jungle is at its best as a counterpick to heavy AD teams. His damage will also increase when building full armor, so that means you'll be able to ult an ADC, kill him or at least chunk a lot of his HP and get out alive. AP Malphite has less utility, but is so fun to play after lvl 6. If you won't get destroyed early game though.

Flash: The best offensive and the best defensive spell in one. Get out of bad situations or get acces to targets faster before ulting them.

Smite: Always take this when jungling. You need it to be able to buy jungle items and secure buffs or objectives. Use it on a monster to deal true damage and restore some health.

Malphite is a tank with less CC than most tanks, so Aftershock isn't good on him. Grasp of the Undying works, but it's far more useful in lane, so it isn't worth taking it. So that's why I take Glacial Augment. It helps with sticking to targets. With this, Malphite is the ultimate teamfight disruptor!

Glacial Augment works simple: every 7-4s, your AA vs a champion will slow them by up to 55%. Additionally, Items with an active slow effect, like Turbo Chemtank and Randuin's Omen, will shoot a freeze ray at them, slowing all enemies in the area. It's a great rune to make up for Malphite's lack of hard CC.

Perfect Timing is another option here, if you want some extra safety. But hey, what's wrong with free boots with extra MS?

Some extra sustain to help with getting through the early game. A free potion every 3 minutes (until 12 minutes) that restore 15% of missing health and mana AND grant 40 extra max mana.

An extra 5% CDR doesn't seem very spectacular, but it means more spell casts, more Smite casts and more use of Active items (and the Glacial Augment freeze ray).

As second Path, I prefer Resolve. Even though it doesn't have a good keystone for Malphite, it offers some tools to boost Malphite's defensive stats even more.

This rune synergizes a lot with Malphite. Especially with his W, Brutal Strikes, which passively increases his armor. Conditioning grants 8 armor and 8 MR after 10 minutes, AND increases your armor and MR with 5%. Pretty good.

Gain 3 max health for every 8 enemy minions or monsters that die near you. Additionally, when you have absorbed 120 minions or monsters, you'll gain another 2.5% max health. All extra HP further increases Granite Shield.

For stat bonusses, you should always go for the extra AS to use Glacial Augment and Brutal Strikes faster. For the next row, take the extra armor in most cases, or the MR vs a big magic damage treat. In the last row the bonus HP is the best choice to enhance your passive.

AP Malphite is a burst Assasin/mage, so going Domination for extra damage is the logical choice.

Predator gives your boots an active effect. Channel for 1.5s to gain movement speed out of combat. Additionally, your first attack or ability against an enemy champion will do bonus damage. This allows Malphite to have better ganks without Unstoppable Force and it will be harder to dodge Unstoppable Force due to the bonus MS and the ability will hit even harder.

I used to play with Cheap Shot in the past, but changed to Sudden Impact because I almost always start fights with my ult. And extra magic penetration makes it easier to burst people.

Collect eyeballs on champion and ward takedowns. Each eyeball grants 1 AP, stacking until 20. When you complete your collection of 20, you get another 10 AP extra. A great rune for snowballing and scaling.

Ravenous Hunter is a possibility too, but AP Malphite relies a lot on his ult, so extra CDR on his ult is necessary.

As second Path, I take Precision, now it doesn't force me to take AS anymore. It has some of the best runes available.

This rune is often overlooked by the much more popular option of this row, Triumph. Presence of Mind reduces the cooldown on your ult with 10% and restores 20% of mana on takedown. It's self-explanatory on an ult-dependent champion like Malphite.

Maybe the best rune of the whole Precision tree, dealing 7% extra damage against champions under 40% HP. It also grants 15 AP for 10s on takedown, increasing Malphite's teamfighting potential.

The stat bonusses you should take here are pretty self-explanatory. Take the AP from the first 2 rows and finally take the HP for our passive.

Granite Shield (passive): Malphite is shielded by a layer of rock which absorbs damage up to 10% of his maximum health. If he has not been hit for 10 / 8 / 6 seconds, this effect recharges. The cooldown is reduced at levels 1 / 7 / 13.

A simple shield that helps while jungle clearing or when ganking so you won't get bursted fast. It scales with HP, so your build should always contain some bonus HP.

• If you want to gank after clearing your jungle, wait for the shield to recharge.

Seismic Shard (Q): Malphite sends a shard of the earth through the ground at his target, dealing 70 / 120 / 170 / 220 / 270 (+60% of ability power) magic damage upon impact and steals 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 % movement speed for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 8s Mana cost: 70/75/80/85/90

It starts of weak and it's really mana hungry, but when building some AP this ability does great single-target damage. And it steals movement speed, which scales with levels, so it's easy to chase people. Because it's single target we don't max it first as it's not effective in jungle clearing. Max second when building Tank, max it second on AP Malphite as it has a high AP ratio.

• Try to save it until an immobile champion tries to run away. You will catch up with him unless he flashes. When he doesn't it's an easy finish with W + AA.

Thunderclap (W): Passive: Malphite's armor is increased by 10 / 15 / 20 / 25 / 30 %. This effect is tripled while Granite Shield is active. Active: Malphite's basic attacks create aftershocks for the next 5 seconds, dealing 10 / 20 / 30 / 40 / 50 (+ 10% of his Armor) (+ 20% of Ability Power) physical damage in a cone. His first attack after activating Thunderclap deals 30 / 45 / 60 / 75 / 90 (+ 15% of his Armor) (+ 20% of Ability Power) bonus physical damage to his target. Cooldown: 12s Mana cost: 25

An AA modifier. Dealing extra damage in a little AoE. It also passively grants armor, that makes it good to level up at lvl 1. Almost every monster deals physical damage, so armor makes the clear healthier. On Tank Malphite, W max is recommended to clear the jungle healthy. And the passively increased armor makes Ground Slam do more damage too. But AP Malphite is more of a caster and isn't going to AA a lot, so we max it last.

• Like most other empowered AA's like Empower and Vorpal Spikes, Brutal Strikes is an AA reset. So you can activate it right after auto attacking to reset your attack and clear faster.

Ground Slam (E): Malphite slams the ground dealing 60 / 95 / 130 / 165 / 200 (+40% of his Total Armor) (+60% of ability power) magic damage to surrounding enemies, reducing their attack speed by 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 % for 3 seconds. Cooldown: 7s Mana cost: 50/55/60/65/70

An AoE spell that does less damage than Seismic Shard, but is better at farming. It's also worth to mention that it reduces AS for 3s. About every team comp has at least 1 AA based champion, commonly a marksman and maybe a toplaner or a jungler. I max it second on Tank Malphite, because of the armor ratio and the utility it provides with the AS reduction. For AP Malphite, this will be the first spell to max as it's the best way to clear the jungle with its AoE burst.

• Try to hit their ADC asap in teamfights. If you can't burst him immediately for some reason ( Barrier/ Heal or a shielding/healing support), try to hit him at least with Ground Slam. Even if they don't die, their damage output will decrease with about 50% at max rank of this spell. (Not exactly 50%, depends on crits if they don't have 100% crit chance.

Unstoppable Force (R): Malphite charges towards the target area, dealing 200 / 300 / 400 (+100% of ability power) magic damage, knocking enemies into the air and stunning for 1.5 seconds in 325 area around impact. Malphite cannot be interrupted during this charge. Cooldown: 130/105/80s Mana cost: 100

This ult is one of the best teamfighting tools. Even though you are behind, if you manage to hit 3+ enemies at the same time, you have a high chance of winning the fight. It is also the sole reason AP Malphite can work. Besides its high base damage is there an AP ratio of 100%! I could make an compilation of all instant deletes I made with this. The cast animation is fast and the AoE is big, so almost undodgeable. But I have seen people who have managed to Flash away from it though. But you still need great reflexes.

• If possible, ult from out of vision. This will make it way harder to react to.
• Unstoppable Force is the perfect setup for an allied Yasuo's last breath.

Note that there isn't a general build. Each game is different, so adapt your build to your opponents. I will show you Malphite's best items and when to buy them.

Always start with your jungle item. Talisman gives some mana regen and burns monsters while healing yourself. It's a little better than Hunter's Machete as it allows you to clear Raptors and Krugs widthout issue early on.

3 Health Potion's are another possibility, especially for first-time Malphite junglers, as it gives you more early sustain than Refillable Potion. I just prefer Refillable Potion as it's useful through the whole game.

The Standard enchantment on every tank who jungles. It's basically the same passive as Bami's Cinder, but it does 300% damage to monsters, making your clears much easier.

A very good item, both the stats and the active. It gives mana, HP, armor and CDR, which is all Malphite needs. The active works as a sort of mini- Predator and slows at the end, which gets empowered by Glacial Augment. This item is useful every game.

As Tank Malphite jungle is mostly used as a counterpick vs AD teamcomps, Randuin's Omen will almost always has its use. It delivers a vast amount of HP and armor and like Turbo Chemtank it has an active slow for Glacial Augment. And its passive reduces the AS of nearby enemies. Great item vs Yasuo, Tryndamere or any other crit-building champion.

Frozen Heart is one of my favourite items, as the 100 bonus armor, 400 mana and the 20% CDR are good against AD champions. The passive isn't bad either, reducing the attack speed of nearby enemies. That's why it's a great item against AA based champions when they build on-hit, like Jax, Shyvana or Kog'Maw

This item is the offensive counterpart of Frozen Heart. It has the spellblade passive, making it quite useful as Malphite relies a lot on his auto attacks. A great item when ahead against an AD laner or an AD comp.

This is a more offensive tank item. I provides almost the same stats as Randuin's Omen, but it has a passive which generates stacks while moving. Those stacks grant you movement speed. At 100 stacks, your first auto attack deals bonus physical damage and gives a slow, which unfortunately doesn't activate Glacial Augment. It helps to get around the map faster and it is useful when you need some extra flat armor.

Another item against AD champions, this item reflects damage from auto attacks and inflicts grievous wounds on the attacker. Because of the grievous wounds, it is an item to counter self healers. Their healing will be reduced by Thornmail. Build it vs red Kayn, Aatrox, Maokai and Lifesteal building ADC's.

Simply the best MR item on Malphite. It also has a great passive besides the flat stats (MR, HP, CDR & mana). 15% of damage taken restores mana & 20% of mana spent restores health. AND it has an aura: nearby enemy champions take 15% more damage. Malphite deals mainly magic damage and in teamfights, you will always be in the middle of the fight, so your AP carries can deal more damage too. It's also worth to mention that Bami's Cinder's passive deals more damage when combined with Abyssal Mask.

Adaptive Helm is primarly a situational item against some mages like Cassiopeia as the passive reduces subsequent magical damage from the same spell of effect. When getting crushed by a fed Teemo, this is your only hope... Other examples are: Heimerdinger's turrets, Anivia's ult and Taliyah's Q.

Warmog's Armor is pretty good on any full tank. You can just heal up after teamfights and tt can also be used to counter champions with a lot of true damage, like Cho'Gath's or Fiora's ult.

This item is broken. It's super useful in teamfights because of both its passive and its active. With this, you can tank A LOT of damage. A must have vs teams that keep on grouping.

Like most junglers you will want to rush your jungle item to clear faster. Runic echoes gives CDR, AP and Mana. This makes a great powerspike.

Our second big item, Protobelt grants some HP, AP, CDR and an active for a little extra mobility and burst. You will usually look to get Hextech Revolver before Kindlegem while building this item because of its passive.

Malphite is melee, so you will get the chance to get some AA's between your abilities most of the time. The Spellblade passive will significantly increase your damage output. Buy Sheen first.

The item with the highest AP, this is ideal vs squishies in a glass canon build. Beware: it grants only AP and it is expensive. Never buy it as a first item.

A must-buy when the enemy team has a lot of MR. The magic penetration makes it solid in both melting tanks as destroying carries. Like Rabadon's Deathcap, you won't want to buy it early as it provides nothing except for raw damage.

This item inflicts grievous wounds by damaging enemy champions. This reduces their healing, making it a good choice vs self-healers like Vladimir, Dr. Mundo or Maokai.

A good item stats-wise with AP and health. But the most interesting part is the %max HP burn damage from your spells, which is doubled while they are movement impaired. Malphite's Q, E and R all activate this for some extra damage, especially vs tanks.

I love CC. So why not put a slow on every single ability? Rylai's Crystal Scepter makes it possible. Perfect for when you need that extra sticking power vs mobile champions.

An item that is ideal while playing against a team with high burst damage. The trick in teamfights is to go in, burst someone, pop Zhonya's to dodge their burst and let your abilities cooldown. A solid buy vs AD teams.

An item vs AP teams, with a solid amount of AP and a passive which blocks the first enemy ability before going on cooldown. Just like Zhonya's Hourglass, a must buy against Burst damage.

The standard boots for AP Malphite. Extra Magic Pen for decent early damage.

Tabi's are great vs full AD teams or when playing against multiple AA-based champions like Jax and Master Yi.

You should get these boots when vs a Full AP team or when they have a lot of CC. Some tenacity can help a lot.

If you want to get around the map faster, these boots are for you. I don't buy them that much though, but they are a cheap option.

First of all, to those who are new to League, there are 3 types of wards.

Stealth Ward, the yellow trinket, is a stealthed ward that reveals the nearby area for 90-120s* and you gain 1 charge every 240-120s*. (*Depends on level.) It's available from the start of the game.

The red, visible wards can take 4 hits from enemy champions before they are destroyed. These wards cost 75 gold, but it can reveal other nearby wards and stealthed enemies or traps like Noxious Trap. You can only have 1 control ward placed on the map at a time, but you can carry up to 2 as long as you can buy them.

The last type of ward, Farsight Alteration, is a fragile ward which takes only 1 hit to destroy. It can only be bought from level 9 on and replaces Stealth Ward or Oracle Lens. These wards are visible, but they don't count towards a ward limit and they can last forever. The most interesting about this trinket is that you can place it from a distance. You can just stand near your blue or red buff and ward baron/dragon pit for example.

Oracle Lens isn't a ward, but it reveals the area around you, revealing stealthed enemies, wards and traps, like a Control Ward. It is free and available at level 1, but I don't recommend taking this at the start.

As jungler, you will almost always carry at least 1 Control Ward. It's recommend to place them into bushes, because the ward is visible. Stealth Wards can be placed anywhere, because they are invisible. If you need vision of something for a short period of time, before ganking for example, don't hesitate to place a yellow trinket.

Where you place a ward depeneds on the situation. When you are playing against Shyvana for exemple, you will try to ward near the dragon pit, as Shyvana gains armor and MR from slaying dragons. So if he slightly knows what he's doing, he will focus on dragons.

Another situation, when the enemy jungler is camping top, help him ward. When he can avoid/survive a gank in that way, the enemy jungler loses time in which he could have farmed in his jungle, so you will get ahead indirectly.

When you are getting counterjungled, ward your own jungle. When you want to counterjungle by yourself, ward the enemy jungle.

Also make sure to ward baron/ rift herald and dragon (like mentioned before). These objectives are worth more than a succesful gank.

These are all examples and the image above only shows some common warding locations. I don't mention Farsight Alteration here, because you should swap your yellow trinket for Oracle Lens at one point in the game, around the time people begin to roam and your support helps with warding. Then it's more important to remove enemy vision. But remember to keep carrying Control Wards. I know, it costs 75 gold, but trust me, it's worth the cost.

Jungle Pathing is this meta can be different from game to game. You will have to react and adapt to the situation quickly. Some starts will be hard, where the enemy cheeses you and steals buffs, or even worse, kills you. Again an example of how important wards are in this game. Let's say you are playing vs a champ like Shaco. That guy will 99% counterjungle you. So you and your team ward your jungle. You see Shaco at your own red, but instead of trying to stop him, you invade Shaco's jungle and you steal his red in return. Another thing are the rift scuttler's. They give a lot more EXP than they used to, so you want to take them asap before the enemy jungler takes them. If you know exactly where the enemy jungler started, you can probably take at least one crab without issues. But if you know it could be contested by someone with a good early game like Lee Sin or Elise, you can better just leave it. You won't lose a game by missing a crab. Malphite will be of more use later on. So now let's get over to the pathing itself.


The most common route I use is to get to level 3. After that you can choose what you are doing next: gank top or mid or farm the remaining camps of your jungle. The easiest start is botlane so you can get a better leash than you would get from your toplaner. That means starting at red brambleback for blue side or blue sentinel for red side. Next come crimson raptor's and the murk wolf camp, with the order depending on what side you are on. The last camp is the remaining buff; the red brambleback or the blue sentinel. After these 4 camps you are level 3 and ready to gank. Also get a rift scuttler whenever it's uncontested.


This clear allows some early ganking, as you will get level 3 sooner than with the standard clear. However, doing this is risky as a smart enemy jungler has enough time to steal you blue sentinel.

You always start red brambleback, whatever side you're on, followed by ancient krug's and crimson raptor's.

So first of all: what is a gank? Most players know this already, so this is for the newer players.
When someone is laning, so 1v1 top/mid or 2v2 bot, and 1 or more others walk into the lane to create an advantage in numbers. This is called a gank. A jungler will be ganking his lanes frequently (unless you are playing a very farming oriented jungler) to get kills or pressure the opponent. Others can gank too, but it will probably be later in the game as they are bound to a lane. Not every gank will gain you a kill or a turret, but when they have to use a summoner spell like Flash to escape, it's good too. Keep track of those summoner spells. Let's say you gank an immobile champion like Vel'Koz. He escapes by using his Flash. If you gank him again before he regains his spell, you are almost guaranteed of a kill because he has no escape.

Sometimes it can be better to leave a kill for a teammate. Some champions, especially assasins, are very snowball oriented and need their kills to not fall off. Some think they NEED to get those kills and some will even flame you when you get the kill instead. But it doesn't matter that much. You won't lose a game from taking a kill instead of the midlaner or ADC. Remember that a kill grants gold to all team members involved in it.

Some lanes will be easier to gank than others. The easiest way to gank is when you are voice chatting with a friend and he can set up for you by starting a fight, or freezing his lane under his turret.
Most of the time top is the easiest lane to gank, because it's a long lane and toplaners tend to have at least some soft CC. Mid is a shorter lane with assasins being harder to gank as they have gapclosers. But some mages like Ryze and Orianna have some CC as well to set up ganks. Bot lane is the hardest lane to gank. It's a long lane, but it's 2v2. 3v2 is harder than 2v1 and most supports can peel for their carry. Some engage supports can make ganking easy. Think about Nautilus and Blitzcrank with a succesful grab. When bot is an adc + mage sup like Lulu or Janna, you will have to engage yourself.

Be careful with ganking a lane that is behind. Some champions can 1v2 easily when ahead. (Those damn Darius and Illaoi...)

There are different types of ganks. The easiest way to gank is when the enemy is overextending and you walk down the river to catch them. That's an ideal scenario. You can also get behind the enemy by walking through the tribushes toplane when blue side or through the tribushes bot when red side. Most laners will especially ward river, so in some cases they won't see you coming. Another way is to ask your laner to engage a fight. The enemy will be disttacted and he won't see you as fast.
The hardest, most risky type of gank is a dive. A tower dive. You and your laner(s) surround the opponent while he is under turret. ONLY do this when your ally pushes the wave under the enemy turret. They will tank the turret until you position yourself well and you start to fight. Only try a towerdive against a low-health enemy. And make sure the enemy jungler isn't near. Otherwise it can be an easy cleanup for him.

As Malphite, ganking early is hard and I don't recommend it if you aren't 99% sure you can make the kill. Once you get lvl 6 things get a lot easier. A good Unstoppable Force is an almost guaranteed kill/assist. The problem is that most people will back to their tower once they see you and Malphite has no gapclosers except for his ult. That's why you should always be aware of easy gank oportunities. Once you get to the target, Glacial Augment will keep him close enough, or AP Malphite will burst him fast enough.

See the images above for the most common gank paths for both blue and red side of the map.

Like I mentioned before: Malphite's early game is weak. You should keep on farming as much as possible to get lvl 6 asap. Once you get Unstoppable Force, you can look for ganks. Then keep on farming till your ult is up again. Malphite scales pretty good with levels and items, so if you can get ahead early you have some snowball potential.

Malphite isn't that good at controlling objectives so you should gank bot before dragon, so you can get some help from your botlane. Counterjungling is pretty dangerous with Malphite as you have no real escape without ult. Especially early on I don't counterjungle unless Im completely sure it's free.

Try to make picks as AP Malphite. See an ADC farming botlane while their support isn't there? Go after him and oneshot him. AP Malphite is basically an assasin.

In teamfights, either engage or peel for your AD and APC. AP Malphite is better at staying in the back to look for a flank to surprise the enemy with your ult. Even though you may be behind, your ult can win the fight. Once I hit 4 people with 1 ult, and our Yasuo could ult them all. We aced them and won the game, even though we were so behind.

Malphite was my first champion when I started playing LoL and I still like him despite his easy kit. It was a lot of fun writing this guide and playing him in the jungle. I hope you enjoyed reading my guide!

If you did enjoy, please consider upvoting this guide! And be sure to check out my other guides below!
If you have any idea or question, feel free to comment them. Any feedback is welcome and Ill try to answer asap.