i like Mal more than brainless RQWE ryze.
First mal has aoe silence, second he can help take down tanks with his null zone, and then he has his ult, simply stun their main carry or who ever is the most dangerous and let team do their job. but of course, cleanse screws up him big time...

You must be playing some real braindead people. Null zone is way too easy to walk away from i dont know what tanks you are killing with it. At least morgana can stun you in it to make hers useful. As it is his AOE takes about a second to get away from costing you a whopping sliver of health.

If you even get to their main carry without being ripped to shreds with malz its a miracle getting off a full ult on one, yeah right. If for some reason their cat jumped on their keyboard and removed cleanse you would still be dead before your ult even finished.

I'm 30 at a moderate elo and climbing, I'm currently on a 16 win streak with malzahar so he cant be that useless...

Yes cleanse does suck, Yes plenty of people use it but it DOES NOT make malz useless

People just play malz wrong, hes all about zone control and support damage. Malz doesn't start fights, he ends them with well placed spells.


TIPS FOR MALZ:

Since malefic visions does small damage over time quickly magic pen runes boost his damage significantly, with that said sorc boots are a must on malz, mercs are nice but if you're in CC range you're in the wrong position in the first place

before you have a ton of ap ( lvl 6-11ish) use his ult to stun, cancel and then use your full combo. hitting with null zone + call of the void + malefic visions + ignite is always going to be more damage early on and you can avoid being food for melee dps

if the enemy has 2 or more high health champs, ALWAYS get deathfires grasp. you can easily hit 45-50% current health late game every 60 seconds, I have killed full health 6k hp chos 1v1 in 3 seconds with DFG and a full combo

Malz is mana hungry, get a tear asap so late game you can take advantage of his ridiculous AP ratios and spam to your hearts content, Mp5/18 seals are a great pick for keeping malz in lane and become better than flat @ level 5!

Rylais is an absolute must, it makes nullzone a great tool for controlling the positioning in a fight and for covering retreats, and its slow duration refreshes until after the last tick off MV

Call of the void allows you to scout into fog of war, use it for bush checks and around corners in the jungle, you can even check the river sidelane gank bushes from around the corner within the safety of your towers range.

Pay attention to your minion, when summoned it will go after the closest hostile target. This includes enemy champs next to a tower, this will draw tower aggro to you not the minion!

If you are not mid try to lane with a champ that has a spammable or long lasting AOE to get the most mana return you can from MV, great lane mates are Morde, Nasus, and Cho

Null zone delivers its first tick of damage instantly, use this to finish off runners.


A good Malz build:

Sapphire + hp pot

rush tear
sorc boots
rylais (belt first)

after this build to what the opposing team has
need to spam alot of spells asap? finish archmage
low death and plenty of assists? mejais
enemy stacking magic res? voidstaff
high hp team? Deathfire

get archmage now if you havent already
zhonyas
lich (if the match has gone this far then this is your best pick, extra burst and the move speed can and will save your life)

This makes no sense at all. How can you do any damage at all and stay out of CC range?

by using his great spell and auto attack range to keep at a safe distance. You may be thinking primarily about his ult which is best thought of as a clean up tool, a carry/high priority target disable, and a defensive spell not his primary means of damage.

This would go a long way toward giving Malz more variety so that he's not stuck constantly stacking AP.

http://www.leagueoflegends.com/board...d.php?t=154505

That being said, his ult is a cleanup tool, a carry disable and an ambush tool, not an initiator. It *is* possible to kill someone even if they've cleansed the ult, and very very soon cleanse will be useless against Malzahar when it's tweaked to only clear CC and not DoTs.

People have no idea what they are talking about when commenting on Malz. As someone who is 70-45 with him and 800kills-420 deaths-850 assists, let me break a little down for those misinformed.

Malz has amazing harassment early game with malefic visions (your first priority). While it does not do much with its first level, it provides enough damage to minions to help you farm mid (or with a partner in a side lane), while also popping onto foolish enemy champs that stand by. The next ability to take is that of call of the void (Q). This allows for annoying harassment. Once I get to level 6, I should almost have a guaranteed kill. If you are laning with a teammate, ping someone with no cleanse and start your ult and ignite. As your teammate attacks, they should be approaching low health, if not dead. If they do survive, immediately pop malefic visions and then place call of the void as they are running to finish them and maybe even pop malefic onto their partner. Null zone is something that should be a late game spell as it really does minimal damage early on and is easily avoided.

At this point, I go back and get boots and a giants belt. Then finish rushing rylais and sorcerers boots. After, I start building deathfire grasp for that needed mana regen and extra AP. The next item is Zhonyas Ring as AP is your friend. Malzahar has the best AP ratios in the game, so this is where he needs to be exploited. After Zhonyas, I go for Void staff, or banshees veil if I am feeling defensive.

Now, team fights is where all the "pros" start to proclaim their unending knowledge of how Malzahar is terrible. Truth is...he is not. When a team fight arises, a general scenario tends to play out. You yourself should never initiate or even be at the front line. Once someone initiates, you immediately pop clal of the void and malefic visions on whoever your team is focusing. You then proceed to move to the side and single out a champ that you yourself can finish off with your ult and ignite. The rest of the team should be harassed enough by your initial silence/big damage, and malefic visions to really stop you from finishing one of their buddies. At this point you should turn your attention back to the cluster of enemy champs and drop null zone to either take their health away, or force them to spread out/retreat. Malefic visions should be ready to go as should call of the void, so go ahead and drop both back.

I can not tell you how many times I have been able to snap multiple kills in a team fight because malefic visions is bouncing around. This really is his bread and butter in my opinion.

This same strategy applies great when pushing a turret too. You simply drop null zone to keep them away from the turret and if they do approach, punish with a call of the void.

I am not saying Malzahar is a premier champion, but defending his ability to actually perform - which he more than can.

What is happening with that buff to his ultimate? Is he getting that new CC suppression or what Riot?

I quite enjoy Malzahar, and don't think many people in this thread have a god**** clue what they are talking about. If you've ever used his ulti in a team battle, you're a total failure...you have 3 other skills that do a TON of multi-target damage...all of which have chaotic animations that make things hard to distinguish in a team battle. His ulti is for clean-up, chasing and running away, that's it.

People also complain about his passive, and while I agree that it's lacklaster lategame, it does it's job helping you farm and harass like a beast early/mid. I consistantly farm Mejai's/RoA in under 15 minutes with him and usually tack on a Rylai's/Boots 2 by 25.

I consider Malzahar a late game mage, because he needs items to be super effective, but once he gets them? Teams blow up left and right...ever see a Malzahar do work with 700+ ap?

Just go play Annie. She has better CC, better survival, higher damage output and better mana management early on. That's why Malzahar is not good.