Malphite, The Rock Solid Behemoth
****NOTE: THIS IS A TANKING BUILD!!! Forgot to put that in the title :-( Part of me wants to try the melee malphite, but i love tank malphite so much that i'd have a hard time deviating away from it***
Skills:
Q: Seismic Shard - Shoots a rock shard at targeted enemy, lowering their movespeed by 30% and giving it to you for 5 seconds (very good for keeping people in distance)
W: Brutal Strikes - Passive: Cleave on physical attack, Activate for increased damage for a short time
E: Ground Slam - Deals damage in a small AoE around yourself +70% of your total armor, on top of applying a 60% attack speed debuff for 4 seconds to all whom it hits
R: Unstoppable Force - Sprints towards the targeted area (with a small bit of travel time) dealing AoE damage and knocking any champions it hits into the air, which leads to a 1-2 second stun when they hit the ground
Passive: Creates a shield that absorbs 10% of your max HP, this shield takes 10 seconds of being out of combat (aka Not getting hit at all) to regenerate itself. *Note: The shield WILL heal itself back to full if you have been out of combat for 10 seconds even if it had previously lost hp.*
Runes: -% cooldown, HP, mana regen, magic resist, dodge
(Personal Setup: -6% cooldown, +118hp @1, 175hp @18, 20 armor penetration)
Summoner Skills: Flash and Teleport ... other options include, cleanse, heal, smite (to grab jungle buffs / early creep a bit better)
Ideal Mastery Build: 9/0/21 or 9/21/0 (non utility specs may have mana problems)
ITEMS:
Starting:
Meki's Pendant, 2 health potions
1650 or 2000 gold:
Warden's Mail and Boots 1
500 or 1000 gold:
Chalice of Harmony and Ninja Tabi
1675 gold:
Glacial Shroud
1125 gold:
Frozen Heart
740 or 1325 gold:
Negatron Cloak or Catalyst The Protector
XXX gold:
Finish it into Banshee's Veil
1150 gold:
Giant's Belt
2140 or 2050 gold:
Frozen Mallet or Warmog's (I highly prefer frozen mallet on malph, but your choice)
1625 gold:
Sell Chalice of Harmony and buy Guardian Angel (having the res if the game makes it this far is HUGE)
SKILL BUILD:
1: Q (Use to potentially cause some harassing and if with a good aggressive lane mate this spell could lead to an early game kill...also good to survive...even level 1 is a shift of 60 MS in the chase)
2: E (Ground slam will be your bread and butter throughout the game, try to use it early game to rack up creep kills and if you get the chance to, put a harass on the enemy)
3: E
4: W (First level gives 30% cleave and 30% damage boost, useful for hitting backrow mobs once or twice and setting up a big wave kill with ground slam, useful if you get up to the towers as well)
5: E
6: R (Awesome ability that has three uses -A- To initiate a fight by charging into the ~enemy team taking the brunt of the initial burst and dropping a fast early ground slam ~-B- To be used as a good form of crowd control if you manage to initiate a fight without ~needing to rush in, you can save it for when you have 2-3-4 or in some circumstances ~all 5 heros within the aoe for a big time stun followed up with a nice ground slam ~debuff -C- Not the greatest use of it...but if you do get ganked or find yourself in a ~very unfavourable position you can use this to run the heck away, use it like you would ~flash, through terrain where possible.... I highly discourage blowing it on this ~cooldown...but if its that or dieing...by all means go ahead and try to survive with it )
7: E
8: Q
9: E (maxed out here)
10: Q
11: R
12: Q
13: Q (maxed out here)
14: W
15: W
16: R (maxed out here)
17: W
18: W (maxed out here)
Early Game(1-5): If you are with an ideal lanemate you can start thinking hero kills as early as level 2 or in some favorable cases even level 1, go for the hero kills where you can, slowing with seismec and landing a ground slam....without overextending and whilst not putting yourself in harms way...don't be afraid to blow flash and get a kill that way. Other than that, last hit where possible and if you see an oppurtunity to get a couple kills with ground slam use it, its a fairly low mana cost.
Mid Game(5-11): Somewhere in this bracket is where you should start making your presence very known if it hasn't been already. If you have chalice+warden's already you are already becoming a formidable tank even at such an early stage. Not to mention at level 7 it should only take 1 melee smack and a ground slam to take out the entire back row, so use this to your advantage for some good farming. If the possibility to gank or help another lane arises, take it, you are a great ganker with your ulti and the powerful 1-2 punch of seismec shard+ground slam. Again, use flash OFFENSIVELY in any case possible that you think will directly lead to a kill. Consider going for the golem buff>lizard buff> dragon kill if no other junglers are around, ask for help getting the golem buff if you need it, but dragon should go down extremely easily solo, although any nearby DPS'ers that want to stop in should be welcomed to.
Mid-Late Game(11-16): This pretty much plays out the same as mid game, except anytime your team pushes or does any group activity, you SHOULD be there, make your presence known all over the map and cause most enemys to play very defensively and cautiously by acting as an intimidator, just know when it's too much and don't get yourself baited into any traps :P
Late Game(16+): More or less the same still, except at this point you should be nearing your buildup to banshee's veil, and should basically be borderline invincible except to a PURE WHOLE TEAM focus fire...in which case, your team probably did something wrong if this happens :-P You are the tank at this point, be wary of this fact, and play the role, get up front, throw your slows around on the higher threat targets so your team can hopefully capatilize on it, keep groundslamming away and enjoy the ride =)
Lanemates/Partners:
People you want: Somebody who can snare, continual slow, stunners...basically people that can give time to do some work and go to town (as well as massively increasing the effectiveness of your slow and ulti) You also could prefer a good harasser, **Ranged is a big plus but not necessary**
Such As: Viegar, Ryze, Annie, Karthus, Anivia, Morgana, Tairic, Singed, Alistar, Blitzcrank (to a certain extent, if he's good :P) Evelynn, Twitch, etc.
People you don't want: To be honest I don't really think there is horribly bad lane partners for malphite... basically any one that's low damage and bad lane control early on will be your worst matches as you want to be scoring kills pretty much from the get go. Examples of these would be along the lines of: Gangplank, Warwick, Dr. Mundo .. those are pretty much the only ideal hero's i can think of, even then laning with any of them would still work, just not very well until you could be the creep killer @ lvl 7 which is when both warwick and gangplank start to shape up into better hero killers anyways
How to approach battles:
You are the tank. Period. You get right into the fray, and try to make yourself as big of a target as possible. You can take hits for quite some time before you hit the dirt. Aside from that obvious fact, try to seismic shard anyone who is giving your squishy's problems that can't break it (even more so if they are melee) and drop ground slams all over the place for a nice output of damage, but try to center it around the physical dps'ers as you will be taking off a huge portion of their damage with ground slam + frozen heart (85% reduction) Use your ulti as previously described in the skill build section under -A- and -B- and you should be laughing your way to victory if the team behind you is competent. Just keep putting spells out, and once you have the spare mana to support it just start popping brutal strikes when you can for some added DPS
Final Note: I do love malphite and while he may not be the *best* tank as far as his damage negating *abilities* go....he is still great in the fact that his ulti is one of, IF NOT THE SINGLE! best initiator skills in the game, and leaves you in great position to ground slam...which basically co-exists as your main source of damage and your tanking ability against melee's. Against caster's...you just wether the storm and hope your team picks them off for you, not to say you can't take many of them down by yourself :P
Additional Credits To:
Bezier for answering my passive shield question
ChronicleX for asking the question originally
Coronach for giving an official answer on it, so we know it's not just heresay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~END OF MALPHITE, THE ROCK SOLID BEHEMOTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
****NOTE: THIS IS A TANKING BUILD!!! Forgot to put that in the title :-( Part of me wants to try the melee malphite, but i love tank malphite so much that i'd have a hard time deviating away from it***
Skills:
Q: Seismic Shard - Shoots a rock shard at targeted enemy, lowering their movespeed by 30% and giving it to you for 5 seconds (very good for keeping people in distance)
W: Brutal Strikes - Passive: Cleave on physical attack, Activate for increased damage for a short time
E: Ground Slam - Deals damage in a small AoE around yourself +70% of your total armor, on top of applying a 60% attack speed debuff for 4 seconds to all whom it hits
R: Unstoppable Force - Sprints towards the targeted area (with a small bit of travel time) dealing AoE damage and knocking any champions it hits into the air, which leads to a 1-2 second stun when they hit the ground
Passive: Creates a shield that absorbs 10% of your max HP, this shield takes 10 seconds of being out of combat (aka Not getting hit at all) to regenerate itself. *Note: The shield WILL heal itself back to full if you have been out of combat for 10 seconds even if it had previously lost hp.*
Runes: -% cooldown, HP, mana regen, magic resist, dodge
(Personal Setup: -6% cooldown, +118hp @1, 175hp @18, 20 armor penetration)
Summoner Skills: Flash and Teleport ... other options include, cleanse, heal, smite (to grab jungle buffs / early creep a bit better)
Ideal Mastery Build: 9/0/21 or 9/21/0 (non utility specs may have mana problems)
ITEMS:
Starting:
Meki's Pendant, 2 health potions
1650 or 2000 gold:
Warden's Mail and Boots 1
500 or 1000 gold:
Chalice of Harmony and Ninja Tabi
1675 gold:
Glacial Shroud
1125 gold:
Frozen Heart
740 or 1325 gold:
Negatron Cloak or Catalyst The Protector
XXX gold:
Finish it into Banshee's Veil
1150 gold:
Giant's Belt
2140 or 2050 gold:
Frozen Mallet or Warmog's (I highly prefer frozen mallet on malph, but your choice)
1625 gold:
Sell Chalice of Harmony and buy Guardian Angel (having the res if the game makes it this far is HUGE)
SKILL BUILD:
1: Q (Use to potentially cause some harassing and if with a good aggressive lane mate this spell could lead to an early game kill...also good to survive...even level 1 is a shift of 60 MS in the chase)
2: E (Ground slam will be your bread and butter throughout the game, try to use it early game to rack up creep kills and if you get the chance to, put a harass on the enemy)
3: E
4: W (First level gives 30% cleave and 30% damage boost, useful for hitting backrow mobs once or twice and setting up a big wave kill with ground slam, useful if you get up to the towers as well)
5: E
6: R (Awesome ability that has three uses -A- To initiate a fight by charging into the ~enemy team taking the brunt of the initial burst and dropping a fast early ground slam ~-B- To be used as a good form of crowd control if you manage to initiate a fight without ~needing to rush in, you can save it for when you have 2-3-4 or in some circumstances ~all 5 heros within the aoe for a big time stun followed up with a nice ground slam ~debuff -C- Not the greatest use of it...but if you do get ganked or find yourself in a ~very unfavourable position you can use this to run the heck away, use it like you would ~flash, through terrain where possible.... I highly discourage blowing it on this ~cooldown...but if its that or dieing...by all means go ahead and try to survive with it )
7: E
8: Q
9: E (maxed out here)
10: Q
11: R
12: Q
13: Q (maxed out here)
14: W
15: W
16: R (maxed out here)
17: W
18: W (maxed out here)
Early Game(1-5): If you are with an ideal lanemate you can start thinking hero kills as early as level 2 or in some favorable cases even level 1, go for the hero kills where you can, slowing with seismec and landing a ground slam....without overextending and whilst not putting yourself in harms way...don't be afraid to blow flash and get a kill that way. Other than that, last hit where possible and if you see an oppurtunity to get a couple kills with ground slam use it, its a fairly low mana cost.
Mid Game(5-11): Somewhere in this bracket is where you should start making your presence very known if it hasn't been already. If you have chalice+warden's already you are already becoming a formidable tank even at such an early stage. Not to mention at level 7 it should only take 1 melee smack and a ground slam to take out the entire back row, so use this to your advantage for some good farming. If the possibility to gank or help another lane arises, take it, you are a great ganker with your ulti and the powerful 1-2 punch of seismec shard+ground slam. Again, use flash OFFENSIVELY in any case possible that you think will directly lead to a kill. Consider going for the golem buff>lizard buff> dragon kill if no other junglers are around, ask for help getting the golem buff if you need it, but dragon should go down extremely easily solo, although any nearby DPS'ers that want to stop in should be welcomed to.
Mid-Late Game(11-16): This pretty much plays out the same as mid game, except anytime your team pushes or does any group activity, you SHOULD be there, make your presence known all over the map and cause most enemys to play very defensively and cautiously by acting as an intimidator, just know when it's too much and don't get yourself baited into any traps :P
Late Game(16+): More or less the same still, except at this point you should be nearing your buildup to banshee's veil, and should basically be borderline invincible except to a PURE WHOLE TEAM focus fire...in which case, your team probably did something wrong if this happens :-P You are the tank at this point, be wary of this fact, and play the role, get up front, throw your slows around on the higher threat targets so your team can hopefully capatilize on it, keep groundslamming away and enjoy the ride =)
Lanemates/Partners:
People you want: Somebody who can snare, continual slow, stunners...basically people that can give time to do some work and go to town (as well as massively increasing the effectiveness of your slow and ulti) You also could prefer a good harasser, **Ranged is a big plus but not necessary**
Such As: Viegar, Ryze, Annie, Karthus, Anivia, Morgana, Tairic, Singed, Alistar, Blitzcrank (to a certain extent, if he's good :P) Evelynn, Twitch, etc.
People you don't want: To be honest I don't really think there is horribly bad lane partners for malphite... basically any one that's low damage and bad lane control early on will be your worst matches as you want to be scoring kills pretty much from the get go. Examples of these would be along the lines of: Gangplank, Warwick, Dr. Mundo .. those are pretty much the only ideal hero's i can think of, even then laning with any of them would still work, just not very well until you could be the creep killer @ lvl 7 which is when both warwick and gangplank start to shape up into better hero killers anyways
How to approach battles:
You are the tank. Period. You get right into the fray, and try to make yourself as big of a target as possible. You can take hits for quite some time before you hit the dirt. Aside from that obvious fact, try to seismic shard anyone who is giving your squishy's problems that can't break it (even more so if they are melee) and drop ground slams all over the place for a nice output of damage, but try to center it around the physical dps'ers as you will be taking off a huge portion of their damage with ground slam + frozen heart (85% reduction) Use your ulti as previously described in the skill build section under -A- and -B- and you should be laughing your way to victory if the team behind you is competent. Just keep putting spells out, and once you have the spare mana to support it just start popping brutal strikes when you can for some added DPS
Final Note: I do love malphite and while he may not be the *best* tank as far as his damage negating *abilities* go....he is still great in the fact that his ulti is one of, IF NOT THE SINGLE! best initiator skills in the game, and leaves you in great position to ground slam...which basically co-exists as your main source of damage and your tanking ability against melee's. Against caster's...you just wether the storm and hope your team picks them off for you, not to say you can't take many of them down by yourself :P
Additional Credits To:
Bezier for answering my passive shield question
ChronicleX for asking the question originally
Coronach for giving an official answer on it, so we know it's not just heresay
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~END OF MALPHITE, THE ROCK SOLID BEHEMOTH~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
