LoL Malzahar Guide

LoL Malzahar Guide by ActuallyRich

I missed his champ discussion for Malzhar. Being my favorite champ, I just can’t let something like that slide. I’m here to explain how to play him, how to build him, what champs go well with him and which counter him. I don’t have the technical knowledge to create a guide on mobafire so I’ll make it right here.

Table of Contents

1.Intro

2.Abilities

3.Runes/Masteries

4.Items

5.Early Game

6.Mid Game

7.Late Game

8.Champions to Watch out for

1. Introduction

First and foremost, this is going to be REALLY long so get ready to buckle down.

Malzahar is an easy champion to play, but a hard one to master. [I’m Silver 3](www.lolking.net/summoner/na/51152535)(ranked anxiety sucks) with my major issues being map awareness and not spazzing out in team fights. I’ve done my best to learn just about damn near everything that is Malzahar.

Let’s start with passive and abilities.

2. Abilities and Passive

Passive – Voidlings

Every fourth spell Malzahar summons a voidling. Like every other guide author in existence who loves their favorite champ, I’m gonna tell you that this is one of the most powerful and unique passives in the game.

It has 50% of your armor and attack damage with two berserk timers. When it first spawns it has half of it’s normal stats. At 7 seconds in, it hits its first timer and gains full stats. When there’s 7 seconds left it hits its second timer gaining increased attack speed. This little guy is your buddy. You will love him, cherish him, and mourn his loss when he soaks skill shots for you.

The voidling has an attack priority.

Nearest Enemy<Most Recent Malefic Visions Victim<Nether Grasp Victim

To play Malzahar at an adequate level you don’t need to understand how to control the voidling and it’s spawn very well. If you wish to continue past being just adequate though, you’ll need to know a couple things. They’re easy in theory, but somewhat tough in practice.

Try to time your all-in with your voidling berserk. Quite a few summoners don’t understand how much damage the voidling actually does. It’s a lot. It does a lot.
Try to get your ling into action as soon as it spawns. If it has to run around the wave to get to its target then it’s wasting time. Hit the melee minion on the edge with your visions so that your minion is in play as quickly as possible. You can use your minion to tank turrets if you’re careful. Barely step into turret range then jump out before it shoots. Your minion should aggro on it giving you a few shots before you have to leave.

Q – Call of the Void

Malzahar summons two portals that launch void energy horizontally at each other damaging and silencing enemies.

This is one of the strangest skill shots in the game, bar Vel’Koz, but it’s probably the most rewarding. It’s sideways instead of forward. With a 3 second silence and 70%ish AP scaling this spell hits like a truck and really ruins people’s day. It works best in the jungle where close quarters means multiple enemies getting hit in one cast. Did I mention that you can silence an entire backline? You can silence an entire backline.

W – Null Zone

Malzahar summons a big purple puddle on the ground that does %hp per second. It can get up to 15% of HP in one tick, but maxes out at 40% of a champions health in one cast.

In the early-mid game this spell is really lackluster. It’s good for dragon and other neutral mobs, but not much else. In the end game is when it starts to shine. Chunking tanks for 10% of their HP per second, and doing the same for anything else that stands in it.

You have to make a choice when using this during team fights. Bruisers and tanks or carries. Which one gets the puddle. I prefer to use it on tanks and then dropping everything else on carries.

Also, this spell has 0 cast time. If you’re being chased you can drop it in a choke point to deter enemies.

E – Malefic Visions

Malzafart afflicts his enemy with a DoT that lasts 4 seconds. If the target dies while the DoT is active it will refresh, jump to the closest enemy and grant Malz a bit of mana. This spell is your “flare” for your voidling and your farming tool. It has the same scaling as Call of the Void, racking an impressive 70%ish bonus. You want to prioritize this spell for leveling.

If you feel like it’s worth the mana you can cast this on a near-death minion that’s close to the enemy champion

Remember, don’t rely on this spell to last hit. You’ll miss CS if you only last hit with space aids.

R – Nether Grasp

Malzahar channels a face laser at his target suppressing and dealing damage over 2.5 seconds. This spell also has pretty massive scaling. At full build you’ll be putting out 1.3k in one cast easily. Now, a note. Your target is suppressed, but so are you. Moving or casting will break the ult, so be careful.

This is the last hit in your combo. General purpose combo goes like this. CoV->Null Zone-AIDS->ULT->Ignite While Ulting->Anything that’s off CD

Leveling priority

Ult, Space Aids, CoV, Null Zone in that order.

Try to land the ult while they are in the puddle.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING WHEN USING FACE LASER. Do not, I repeat, do NOT dive into the enemy team to zap a squishy. This spell is first and foremost used for punishment and picking. Someone positions wrong? Zap. Assassin dives the squishies? Zap. Don’t worry about QSS too much either. It will remove the suppress, but not the damage.

Besides teamfights, there’s one other thing to note. Nether Grasp is an absolute horror for anyone that tries to tower dive you by themselves. If possible, try to nail them while they’re right under the tower.

3. Runes, Masteries, and Summoners Spells

Masteries

Go with 21-0-9. You can get much more out of the utility tree for 9 points than you can out of the defense tree.

Runes

Malz is pretty flexible when it comes to runes. The only thing that’s a must with runes is hybrid pen marks. They give a solid damage increase to both voiding and your damage. Everything else is whatever you feel comfortable with. I personally run armor seals with 4 ap and 5 mr glyphs followed by flat AP to top it off.

Summoner Spells

There’s only three summoners that work REALLY well with Malz. All the others are kinda meh.

Flash – Always, ALWAYS take flash. Malzahar is brown but not the fast kind. This will save your ass and secure kills.

Ignite – You can use ignite while channeling your ult. Be careful though, because your ults range is slightly longer than ignites. If your out of range and hit ignite you’ll cancel ult and move to cast ignite. No bueno.

Teleport – It’s a pretty simple spell. Gets you back into lane quick, surprise ganks/saves, you know, the usual teleport silliness.

4. Items

My general build looks a little something like this when finished. It’ll leave you with 3k hp and a little over 600 AP.

RoA->Boots->Death Cap-> Finished Boots-> Void Staff-> Ryali’s/Liandry’s

Build Process

Starting, Ring 2 pots and vision ward.

Little ways in decide on which RoA mat you want. Catalyst or Rod, doesn’t matter too much. Just grab what you want depending on your playstyle.

After RoA is complete grab tier 1 boots then start on Deathcap.

After Deathcap is finished you want to complete your boots, and now void staff!

After void, you have another choice to make. Ryali’s or Liandry’s. If the enemy is getting tanky or has loads of Mpen grab Liandry’s first. If not, Ryali’s. Their passives work so well together, and with this build, that it’s just too good to NOT get.

5. Early Game

Before you take your first skill you have to figure out if you’re going to be leashing or not. If you are you might think about grabbing null zone as your first spell. If you’re not leashing or you’re invading go with CoV.

Leashing

Blue Team, Jungler Starts Blue

Purple Team, Jungler Starts Red

Once you’ve figured if you’re leashing then grab your ability and spam it in fountain until you have the right amount of charges on your passive. Two for leashing, three for invade or watching off buff.

Now you’re in lane and you should be rarein’ to go. Be careful because you’re not very strong in the early game. CS and try to poke until level 6. Once level 6 hits you can go all in and wreck some face. There are two conditions that will facilitate an all in.

• Malefic Visions jumps to the champion. Flash, Null Zone, Ult, Ignite, Visions again after ult. Should be a kill.
• You land a CoV. Flash, Null Zone, Visions, Ult, Ignite, CoV after ult and try to pick them off if they’re not dead.

6. Mid Game

You’re getting really dangerous here. Push your lane out hard, start roaming, pick off the pushed lanes, kill the jungler at his buffs and make sure not to leave your tower long enough that the enemy can push it down.

7. Late Game, Team Fights and besieging.

You should be damn near lethal now. Try to stick with your support, as they won’t be split pushing and can help set kills up in a most fabulous way. If a lane is getting pushed you can drop visions on an caster minion and walk away. It will jump and jump and jump and jump and it just leaves a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

Teamfights

You are, in effect, the anti diver. Anything that comes past your front line you can kill. If you’ve swept up their front line without using your ult then jump in and grab anyone who’s left over.

Sieging

Malz is a pretty good sieger. With a good range on CoV and visions jumping down the wave you can poke pretty well. Catching people under turrets, with your ult, where your ranged can get them is a ballsy move but can pay off pretty nicely.

8. Champions to watch out for.

Allied

There are quite a few champs that have pretty good synergy with Malzatard. Anyone that forcibly moves or keeps enemies locked in an area are stellar.

J$, Thresh, and Ori ults. They will bring the champs to your null and CoV or you can drop them where they ult. Either way I love them.

Warwick has some good synergy. Completely shutting down two champions and the steroid effecting your ling(citation needed) makes for some silly teamfights.

Enemies

Nocturne, Morgana, Ahri, Nami and Fizz. They all have one thing in common. Delayed CC. Delayed CC will seriously ruin your day if you try to ult. It’s just a mess. I don’t even want to talk about it.

J$. His ult, even when on the enemy team, turns that little circle into a hell hole if you’re anywhere nearby.

Authors Notes

I rushed to get this out since I’m at work, but I think that about sums it up. Thanks for reading and make sure to be a Malzastar!

EDIT: ONE THING I FORGOT
In laning pphase vs assasins, or against melee 1v1 in general, do not throw your CoV and Null AT THEM when they’re about to jump to you. Drop it on you, and time it right so they gap close straight into a shit storm.

A note I forgot on CoV: It lasts a little while. It’s not just one milisecond there then gone. People can walk into it during the ending part!