Malphite is one scary rock. A staple of the top lane with his strong initiation and fantastic scaling, as well as a relatively safe laner, he finds play at all levels when the comp suits him. Due to his damage scaling with his armor, and having an attack speed slow, he is usually picked into heavy AD comps that consist mostly of auto-attackers. He is more of a solo q champion, as he makes great use of wombo-combo team comps and the poor positioning and co-ordination of players in there, so doesn't see an awful lot of competitive play. However, as the main initiator of a team he is very difficult to rival, and few champions can keep up with him.
Strengths
- Strong team initiation
- Crushes auto-attack reliant champions
- Fairly gank resilient
- Safe laner
- Strong Laner
- Useful if just for ult when behind
Weakness
- Low damage without items
- Needs gold to be really effective the later the game goes
- Can be shut down by good positioning from opponents
- Bad vs heavy AP comps
- Low impact in a teamfight after his ultimate is used
When to pick Malphite
- Your team needs strong initiation
- Vs heavy auto-attacking compositions
When not to pick Malphite
- Vs low/no autoattackers (heavy AP comp with Urgot etc)
- Against laners that scale harder than you (Nasus)
Malphite's skill set
Passive- Granite Shield
Use in kit - This gives Malphite an effective 10% extra health, keeping him safe during initiations and makes him a little bit harder to kill. It's also the closest to sustain Malphite has, as this refreshes if he doesn't take damage for a few seconds, allowing him to use the shield instead of health so any harass his lane opponent has can be negated by passive play.
Summary - Providing a shield refreshing every 10/8/6 seconds that is equal to 10% of Malphite's maximum health makes building tanky very efficient and makes him about 10% harder to kill!
Using this skill - Late game this skill simply makes you really tanky, but it can mostly be abused in lane to prevent harass. By dipping away from your opponent for the shield's cooldown, you can negate a lot of harass and keep yourself farming in harder matchups, despite being melee.
Q - Seismic Shard
Use in kit - Malphite's only obvious CC outside of his ultimate, and his poke in lane. This has a slightly unique factor of stealing movement speed, rather than just slowing enemies. Sticking to enemies is really no problem for malphite thanks to this, even those sticky late game ADCs
Summary - With good base damages of 60 scaling to 270 damage, and a cool 60% AP ratio, this ability can really chunk an opponent late game and in lane. It also scales with movement speed stolen from 14% up to 26%, but it has a very high mana cost of 70 scaling to 90 mana per cast mean it's really hard to spam this without having some serious mana sustain.
Using this skill - As mentioned before, this skill is used to poke and stick to targets. Early game it can really hurt, especially with some early AP. Late game, it can help you stick to the enemy carry (preferably the ADC), and if full tank it simply allows you to do this so your other skills and auto-attacks can really hurt.
W - Brutal Strikes
Use in kit - By passively boosting Malphite's armor stat, it makes him significantly bulkier both in lane against AD's and late game. Once activated, it gives him nice splash damage to help him push and gives some extra damage in trades.
Summary - Granting 10%-30% passive extra armor the scaling on this gets pretty nuts (with just a thornmail not including base stats this grants up to 30 armor!), and this is the first reason he's so effective against AD champs. The activated splash scales with both 10% of AP and 10% of armor, and this means if Malphite gets any significant armor or AP this really makes his auto-attacks hurt.
Using this skill - Always pop this skill in trades unless you are low on mana in lane. It is the only way you even remotly hurt with your auto-attacks, and is especially potent when you get a big armor item like chain vest on your first back. Late game, use it when attacking enemy carries, and it can also be used to shove waves fast and hurt towers a bit more if you are relegated to split pushing with teleport.
E - Ground Slam
Use in Kit - This is what makes Malphite SO good against auto-attackers, and one of the reasons he can duel a jax in the late game, and is one of the few champions that can. It is an AoE attack speed slow, and the damage scales with armor and AP, much like his W. Again it rewards Malphite for being against AD threats and building armor.
Summary - A short range attack, with a 30% armor scaling and a 20% AP scaling. The base damage scales ok from 60 to 220 and it has a relatively low mana cost. The main reason you ever max this is that the attack speed slow scales from 30% to a crazy 50%.
Using this skill - Just slam your fist into the ground near the enemy ADC and it will cripple them for a full teamfight. It is also great in lane when trading against auto-attackers such as Jax or Tryndamere as it really lowers their extended trade potential.
R - Unstoppable Force
Use in kit - This ult IS Malphite's kit. This is the main reason he is played. Crazy CC knockup for up to 1.5 seconds, which is impossible to affect with tenacity because it's a knock up. Malphite also can't be stopped while in motion, and it has a crazy range of 1000. If you step even slightly out of position against Malphite THIS will be on you immediately and it will often kill you.Summary - 1000 range and a missile speed of 1500+ while in motion and being immune to all CC give this skill amazing initiation potential. It has fantastic base damage of 200s scaling to 400, considering its AoE, and it has great AP scaling too of 100%!
Using this skill - Oh man this skill. Try to use it on a grouped squad if your team can follow up and wombo your opponents. It can also be used to escape in lane if your flash is down, or peel for your carry from range if it comes up mid-fight. However, the keys to this skill is catching people when they are out of position before big fights late game, roaming to mid or botlane in the early game and the fact this skill is ALWAYS useful in the hands of a good player, no matter how far ahead or behind the Malphite is. Add the crazy AP ratio and this can really turn games on its own.
Malphite's Build Paths
Iceborn Gauntlet, Frozen Heart, Warmogs, Banshees veil, Ninja Tabi/Merc Treads, Thornmail
Against full AD teams you swap the banshees for a randuin's omen, and the sunfire cape can replace any armor item if you rush it. This will make you nigh on unkillable late game, even when tanking towers! However, your damage will be fairly lackluster on your ultimate, but your sustained damage with Iceborn means you can provide that little bit of damage as you scale later into the game, and makes you even stickier than usual!
Football!
Rod of Ages, Zhonya's Hourglass, Voidstaff, Rabadon's Deathcap, Sorc shoes, Liandries Torment
This makes your ult one shot people. It's disgusting. But man, it is SO much fun. Go to youtube, find AnkleSpankin playing Malphite and you will understand that Malphite can be an awful lot of fun! Screaming football at the top of your lungs as you 'tackle' the enemy team with your ult and watch their health disappear! However, you are REALLY squishy with this build, so careful positioning is needed.
Using Malphite
Lane - in favourable matchups (basically auto-attackers like Jax, Tryndamere and Fiora), feel free to play aggressive and trade, using your E to get the upper hand. You don't have a lot of kill pressure if playing tank Malphite, and even AP malph takes a while to get going, but if your opponent makes a mistake or you get a gank post-6 you can really easily score kills
Midgame - Roam with the team and look for picks with your ultimate. Malphite WANTS to group early and create picks or teamfight, as that's what he excels at. Try to keep towers alive where you can, but snowball an advantage for team where you can so that your late game is even scarier. Siege where possible as the monstrous tank you are!
Lategame - Group some more and look for ults onto squishy targets or big wombo combos and make sure your team can follow up. This is when Malphite wins games. Long death timers and such good initiation mean you can really pick people out, and if the enemy team decides to group and steps too close that can destroy them too! Don't be afraid to tank towers either as you should be crazy hard to kill by anyone bar an AP threat.
Summarising Malphite
Crazy Engage and late game, and great utilty against AD carries make Malphite a fairly niche pick, but amazing against auto-attack based teams. His crazy scaling with armor and long range engage means he is an ADCs worst nightmare, and he can really ruin a bad AD's day.
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