Malzahar is a champion dear to my heart. He's the reason I became enamored with League of Legends, and despite the fact he's only rarely been competitive I still consider him one of my favorite champions.
I was curious how well Malzahar might work in today's Health stacking meta, so I put together a few spreadsheets to examine the question. The spreadsheets model the ideal case where all of Malzahar's abilities, most importantly Null Zone and Nethergrasp, do their maximum damage.
The first and most obvious takeaway is that Malzahar represents a significant threat to any tank he can lock into his Null Zone, provided he has a Deathfire Grasp. Even with 3500 Health and 210 Magic Resistance, the amount of Ability Power Malzahar needs to potentially eliminate a tank or bruiser outright is well within the bounds of reason.
This is important, not because we would expect Malzahar to flawlessly one shot tanks all the time, but because it illustrates how much of a threat he poses even to tanky champions. In the idea case, Malzahar needs as little as 340 Ability Power to crush a thoroughly decked out bruiser or tank. With the core of items required to do so only filling four slots, Malzahar has plenty of room to build defensively.
Is Malzahar a viable pick to focus down a scary bruiser or tank? I don't know, but it's something I'll have to test out the next time I have the opportunity.
Showing posts with label Malzahar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Malzahar. Show all posts
Monday, February 11, 2013
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Thought: Syndra and Malzahar
Yesterday I talked about winrates and how they do not necessarily indicate a champion is overpowered or underpowered. While that is correct, large deviations from the average typically indicate a problem.
Today Syndra's winrate has risen to 30%, up from 25%. This is 20% below the average. To an extent one expects technically challenging champions to start out below-average and work their way upwards. However, even Rengar had a 37% winrate at worst, and that included a bugged, unreliable snare. You could argue Syndra is more technical than Rengar, but to that large an extent? Not likely.
There isn't one problem which defines Syndra, but a plethora of small issues. Aiming her E to push her spheres into targets isn't easy, and is a critical skill for asserting lane control and sieging turrets. The substantial delay between the command to throw a sphere or minion to a location and its arrival is also an issue. Her mana costs across the board are hefty, with players claiming even Chalice is insufficient to solve her mana problems. To cap it off the range on Syndra's ultimate is dramatically shorter than all of her other abilities, a mismatch which cripples her. Taken all together, Syndra is a difficult champion to play for very little reward (aside from buff grabbing hijinks).
Yet, if LolKing or Elobuff's data went back two years one could find a champion who was even worse than Syndra. Malzahar, everyone's favorite prophet of doom, had the most underwhelming skillset of any champion ever launched.
The issues affecting Malzahar were many. His Voidlings moved significantly slower and attacked whatever they pleased, which was rarely anything useful. His mana costs were higher, making him even more reliant on his Malefic Visions to maintain his mana pool. His ultimate's range was pathetic, an amazingly bad 475. To add insult to injury his ultimate's duration, and by proxy damage, were shortened by Mercury's Treads and completely countered by Cleanse. Malzahar was utterly horrible.
Malzahar was so bad that in the patches that followed he received a total of fifteen buffs, with one small nerf reducing the effect of a previous buff. It was half a year after those buffs, and a substantial shift in the meta, that he saw any further changes. Since then he's received as many buffs as he has nerfs, making it clear just how underpowered he was initially.
Syndra reminds me of Malzahar because her issues are similar in nature, though not as severe. I expect to see changes to the responsiveness of her abilities, the range of her ultimate, and her mana costs in the near future, mirroring many of Malzahar's early buffs. She's also very fun despite her issues, which was the case for Malzahar as well.
Today Syndra's winrate has risen to 30%, up from 25%. This is 20% below the average. To an extent one expects technically challenging champions to start out below-average and work their way upwards. However, even Rengar had a 37% winrate at worst, and that included a bugged, unreliable snare. You could argue Syndra is more technical than Rengar, but to that large an extent? Not likely.
There isn't one problem which defines Syndra, but a plethora of small issues. Aiming her E to push her spheres into targets isn't easy, and is a critical skill for asserting lane control and sieging turrets. The substantial delay between the command to throw a sphere or minion to a location and its arrival is also an issue. Her mana costs across the board are hefty, with players claiming even Chalice is insufficient to solve her mana problems. To cap it off the range on Syndra's ultimate is dramatically shorter than all of her other abilities, a mismatch which cripples her. Taken all together, Syndra is a difficult champion to play for very little reward (aside from buff grabbing hijinks).
Yet, if LolKing or Elobuff's data went back two years one could find a champion who was even worse than Syndra. Malzahar, everyone's favorite prophet of doom, had the most underwhelming skillset of any champion ever launched.
The issues affecting Malzahar were many. His Voidlings moved significantly slower and attacked whatever they pleased, which was rarely anything useful. His mana costs were higher, making him even more reliant on his Malefic Visions to maintain his mana pool. His ultimate's range was pathetic, an amazingly bad 475. To add insult to injury his ultimate's duration, and by proxy damage, were shortened by Mercury's Treads and completely countered by Cleanse. Malzahar was utterly horrible.
Malzahar was so bad that in the patches that followed he received a total of fifteen buffs, with one small nerf reducing the effect of a previous buff. It was half a year after those buffs, and a substantial shift in the meta, that he saw any further changes. Since then he's received as many buffs as he has nerfs, making it clear just how underpowered he was initially.
Syndra reminds me of Malzahar because her issues are similar in nature, though not as severe. I expect to see changes to the responsiveness of her abilities, the range of her ultimate, and her mana costs in the near future, mirroring many of Malzahar's early buffs. She's also very fun despite her issues, which was the case for Malzahar as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)