So without having a preamble about how neat I think Malphite is I'll cut to the chase. It's so tempting to build armor and buff his E as high as possible... until I encounter an AP-heavy team. At this point I feel my usefulness as a tank is ulting the enemy team and get out ASAP since my damage output is next to none, Q the stragglers when they run away, and if we win and the next wave of minions isn't there to tank the tower, to tank it myself.

On the other hand if the enemy team is AD heavy I feel like I can do more on paper. But in reality nothing stops the entire team from ignoring me and crushing our carry after I ult, which always seems to be the case.

I guess the question is how do I remain a threat enough to be an effective tank after ulting? Any builds/general tips on how to play him would be appreciated.

The only difference in malphite vs an AP heavy team, is that you build armor and Mr items. Things like Aegis of the Legion, GA, and things like that. But then get banshee's veil, MR boots, and if its really bad you can get a Force of Nature.

Vs and AD heavy team you just need to MAKE them focus you. Having lots of armor will decimate them with your e. so if you can spam that in fights, and have low cooldown. you will be doing very well.

Your E scaling is a trap. It used to be 70%, now at 50%. Even then it sucked.

Buying a thornmail which is the cheapest 100 armor adds a whopping 50 damage. Woot. This should NOT be your motivation for buying armor and you won't get any kills with armor stacking.


You really can't make them focus you, but you do have the ability to put out a pretty heavy initial burst. You snipe with your Q, and then Ult, knock em up, W to boost armor, E to AoE nuke em in the air, and Q to slow one of them as they land.
If they ignore you after that, they are pretty disciplined.


I get Sunfire Cape very fast with Malph because it REALLY helps his farm, which is otherwise weak. He AoE nukes but thenhas to hit each one several times to kill. Sunfire reduces farm time needed by a lot. Great in jungle too.

Sunfire also deals significant damage to the enemy. 35 per second is not trivial for the 800 gold that the aura costs effectively. You cant get a more cost-effective damage source.
Boosting AD for the same cost would give you 20AD, or 20 dps to ONE enemy.
AP boosting adds 40 x 0.7 = 33ish damage every 5 seconds or so to ONE enemy.

So between your burst, your sunfire, your (weak) melee and spamming Q, you should be able to at least be a factor.


My build: 9-0-21

+Meki Pendant +2 heal pots
-> Chalice (500) --- MR early is really strong and this lets me spam the entire game.
+boots 1(350)
+ Giant's Belt(1150) -- Early toughness boost.
-> Sunfire Cape(1600) --- Big farm booster.
+ Negatron (740) -- Fill in the hole. MR now at 108+
-> Sorc Shoes -- Magic Pen GREATLY adds to your damage dealt! Merc Treads arent needed.
+ antimagic (400)
+ cloth (300)
--> Aegis of Legion (1300) --- Even more survivability, plus share with team.
+ Glacial Shroud (1600) --- CDR is the main draw.
-> Banshee/Force of Nature(1900) --- As needed for more health or more regen/MR.
-> Frozen Heart(1100) -- As needed for big armor boost and AD carry hoze.

Malphite has invested too many abilities into countering AD champs to be all around effective in most groups. His effectiveness is further reduced the more AP they have, and further again as the game progresses. He's a solid AD counter though, if needed.

Sit on their AD carry, use ult at a good time (rarely to initiate), and hit more than one target at a time, is about the best you can do to optimize his gameplay in my experience. If your team is relying on you to tank, they seem at a disadvantage compared to ram, amumu, shen, etc.

I always build ninja tabais->sunfire>FofN>

If they're not surrendering by then, depending on their team comp I would build into either a Banshee's veil, thornmail, or if my team is squishy Aegis.

Take not malphite is borderline worthless cause he cant farm for **** without a sunfire.

Congratulations...you have discovered what many of us long time Malphite players knew long ago.

Malphite...is NOT A TANK!!!

He has never in his history of existence ever even once been listed as a tank on Riots Website. Not now, not ever. Is he tough...yeah. Does he benefit from stacking defensive items...you bet. Can he lock down the enemy and keep them from melting your squishy teamamtes...???....not really. That last point is where the wheels come off in the Malphite = Tank debate. Sure he has a niffty ult, but even with max CDR its only up every 60 Sec. Compared to other champions who have more reliable and spammable way to lock down enemies, Malphite is sub-optimal as a tank by the above definition most consider it to mean.

Tank = capable of mitigating damage for yourself AND your teammates.

Since he only mainly only mitigates damage for himself, it's a stretch to call him a tank by that definition.

However, there are a few things Malphite does excel at that make him an excellent counter to certain types of enemy compositions, and sort of tanky/tough at th same time...causing a lot of this confusion.

He absolutely will hard counter teams that over commit in the area of auto attacking physical DPS. If an enemy teams only real DPS comes in this variety, a Malphite geared up with his GS attack speed slow, a Frozen Heart aura attack speed slow, and a Randuin Omen's active attack speed slow, (which all stack by the way) will completely gimp any teamfight they attempt against your team. The likel yhood of competing against such a team is pretty rare, but a Malphite speced that way against it is almost auto win.

He also makes for a really good counter to enemy channeled Ults. Enemies like Kat, MF, and Twitch who can put out a tone of DPS with their ults hate patient Malphite players. These Mals, wait for the perfect time to ult into a channelers face and blow them up with his semi-impressive burst damage. If an enemy team is overly reliant on their channeler to win them fights, they will be sunk.

Finally, Malphite has a very nice (though somewhat buggy) initiation ability. Rather than act like the sheild that other "true" tanks do for his team, he acts like the bettering ram. He uses his ult and toughness to bust into a fortified enemy postion, blow everything up, cause some havok, scare the pants off thier squishy, and then wait. If his team is a good one, they will see his opening and strike, causing a near automatic victory. This is why he was so feared in ranked games for so long...his awesome initiation ability. On the other hand, if his team is a bunch of uncooperative nubs, they will watch as the enemy tears him apart brick by brick and rage at you for overextending. This is even worse when his buggy ult seems to miss knocking anyone up even though 4 champs are directly under you as you land your ult. With a well coordinated team he can be very effective, in a pub its hit or miss.

I wont get into any specific builds right now, but a well balanced build that includes Mpen, AR, MR, and a smidge of AP can go a long way to success. Good luck finding one that works for you, and...

Stay Rock Solid,

-gap81

Since malphite isn't a tank, i love to build him as a AD carry and troll people with brutal strikes. 60% extra ad when you have EI, BT, black cleaver, and TF is pretty hilarious.

Here's how I play Malphite:

Early game: hyper aggressive. His Q ability is one of the best harassment abilities in the game. Early spammage of Q can really shut down those of squishier persuasions. I rush haunting guise because the health beefs up his passive and the AP and magic penetration give him a strong harassment ability up until about level 10.

EDIT: This is where you want to make those AP champs realize that they should still fear you.

Late game: semi-tank and initiator. Here's the sad thing about Malphite: pretty much no matter what you do he's gonna do below average damage late game. You'll be using your abilities more for their utility than because of the damage they do. Tank gear. Glacial shroud, sunfire cape, randuins are all solid items on him. Drinking elixirs of brilliance can help your damage stay relevant until around level 12-13ish at which point you eventually have to give up on trying to deal mad deeps and start being a semi-tank.

EDIT: Against AP teams you might want to grab a negatron cloak at some point, more if for some reason they're actually focusing you first (they shouldn't be).

If you've done well early game it often makes for an easy late game. If the other team can pull you into late game though... things get significantly worse for you. But hey, at least you're not as bad as Garen.

Malphite is a decent enough tank. I mean, compare him to GALIO, who supposedly IS a tank. His freaking ult has the longest CD in history, taunts for a poor duration, and half the time gets insta-canceled by various effects. He has 2 long range AoEs, weak health and only has incentive to build MR.

Compared to that, Id say Malph is a reasonable tank. He is no Shen but with a properly balanced build he can generate enough threat to hold aggro fairly well. I can understand the "not a tank" comments, but this ain't World of Warcraft where all the tanks have taunts out the wazoo.

Remember...Galio IS a tank supposedly. Even rammus only has a melee-range taunt and otherwise no real CC. Alistar is great but he has 1 short duration knockup and a push-away. After that, it takes a while before he can do much else.

So you have to lower your standards a bit when calling a champ "tank". :-)