Malphite
Rework
Why a rework?
Why does Malphite need a rework? Well this is just my personal opinion, but below I have listed a number of reasons to support my opinion.
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Underwhelming gameplay fantasy
At the moment, Malphite’s gameplay fantasy isn’t really exciting. Right now, his gameplay fantasies (in my opinion) are:
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hitting a big ult on multiple enemies and winning a team fight because of it
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going against a full AD team and out scaling them.
The last one isn’t even a fantasy the player can control, so it isn’t really a strong one. The lack of a clear gameplay fantasy is of course logical, since Malphite is an old champion and the designers at Riot didn’t really work with gameplay fantasies back then.
With all that said, I think there is a lot to improve here.
Toxic meta champion
Malphite has almost always been a rock solid champ, mostly because of his utility and ultimate. But the last years he has crumbled in popularity and winrate, excluding the last few patches.
The moments that I have known Malphite to be meta, I have seen him as a toxic meta champion (again my opinion). I have seen Malphite as an extremely safe Q + Arcane Comet poking top laner that can safely wait until he can win fights by using his ult in (team)fights. Which is quite toxic to play against in my opinion.
Or he is just straight over buffed, like he has been the last couple of patches. Where he just out stats most champs and again still has huge impact in team fights because of his ultimate. This is of course very fun to play, but not fun to play against.
Underwhelming kit (excluding his ult)
In my opinion, Malphite’s ult feels amazing and is one of the strongest ult in the game. This however may be the cause to why the rest of his kit is underwhelming. Hitting an enemy with a Q, auto attacking a champion with W or slamming the ground with E aren’t really the most dopamine inducing abilities. I think this is also the big reason why Malphite is a toxic meta champion. Since his base kit needs to be overbuffed to keep up with the newer champions and their more modern designs. But in combination with his ult, it makes him broken.
I think taking some power from his ult (but keeping it groundbreaking) and giving some more power and feel good moments to the rest of his kit would be a healthy change.
Shard of the Monolith
It’s important that the gameplay fantasy of Malphite becomes stronger and is clearly defined for this rework. For this I looked at the current lore of Malphite which I think is quite interesting. Thus, my goals for Malphite’s new gameplay fantasy is for, playing Malphite, to feel like playing as:
“A sentient shard of a magical Monolith that is trying to put itself back together by collecting other pieces of itself and growing into an unstoppable behemoth.”
This is something that I will try to accomplish by adjusting Malphite’s current gameplay.
Rock Solid Design Pillars
The gameplay fantasy isn’t the only thing I will have to take note of. Before I began coming up with flashed out abilities, I first needed to set clear goals for what I wanted to accomplish with his rework. What would be the goals and limitations for his abilities? I split these goals over four pillars.
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Keep the Rock Simple
The most essential pillar for me was to keep the simplicity of Malphite’s original kit and keep Malphite as a simple champion (especially since I tend to make things too complicated). Therefore, my goals were:
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The skill for players to perform mechanically on Malphite should be minimal
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Skill max order should be extremely clear: Q => W => E and should in most cases be the optimal order for players
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The order or combo in which the player needs to use its ability should mostly be the same for most situations, making it easier to learn
Easy to Learn, a Little Harder to Master
Another important pillar for me was to give Malphite’s kit a little more depth, but still keeping it simple. For me, a great example of this has always been the Q from Warwick. It’s simple to use, yet by timing it right, you can make huge outplays by following your target's dashes, blinks or even teleport. My gameplay goals here are:
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Add some skill expression into Malphite’s kit for advanced players, without making it essential for playing Malphite
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There can be alternative uses for abilities, like using ult to escape, etc.
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The AP one-shot build should still be viable, but should be a little more skillful (putting Big AP scaling on abilities that are harder to hit). Making it less frustrating to play against
This way, Riot would also have more options for balancing around both low and high elo. Since if Malphite is too strong in low elo they can shift more power to the more skill expressive parts of Malphite and reverse.
Unstoppable Force
As I have said before, I want to make Malphite’s basic abilities to have a bigger impact. These are my goals for this pillar:
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Shift some power from his ultimate towards the rest of his kit
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Make his abilities feel more like a colossal sentient rock is performing them (this is mostly visual, but I try to also incorporate this idea into the abilities design)
Rock doesn’t always win
As for every champion, Malphite needs some clear strengths for the player to play around and some clear weaknesses where the opponent can play around.
Malphite’s Strengths
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Anti AD & Armor Scaling Tank
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Utility
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Poke & Zoning
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AOE impact
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Short Trades
Malphite’s Weaknesses
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Magic & True Damage
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Armor Pen
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Max HP damage
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Kiting
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Extended trades
Post Mortem
What is my reflection on this project? Did I succeed? And what is the most essential part of this rework that I would be willing to sacrifice all the rest for?​
Did I succeed?
Personally, I think I came up with some very interesting ideas for a rework for Malphite. This whole rework is of course just conceptual and no doubt that there will have to be a lot of changes to make it work. But since I cannot play test these ideas, I am not able to perfect this rework.
But overall I think I accomplished my set goals and design pillars for this rework (conceptually) and I personally would be very hyped about seeing it in game.
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What is essential?
Lastly, I want to talk about what was the most essential part of this rework. So if you would ask me if I needed to scrap everything except one idea, it would be the new Q ability, Seismic Strike and the additional Monolith Shard part.
Personally, I think that even adding this ability alone would make Malphite way more exciting. It just gives his kit way more depth, but still keeps the simplicity of its original form.
I also think it ties in well with his new scaling passive that I came up with. But I would be willing to sacrifice this if needed, since I can see how it would be harder to balance or how it could be too strong.