Champion analysis : Malphite

Introduction

Welcome to my first Champion analysis post! This series talks about champions that i feel worthwhile discussing, his current state in meta, in-depth analysis on his impact of game etc..

For my first post, i decided to talk about Malphite, the rock solid. Malphite has been getting more and more attention both in Solo Queue and competitive level, he is very strong in top lane and serve as a strong counter pick to some champion, and amazing utility he brings to the team whether you are laning or jungling with Malphite. 

 Skill breakdown analysis

(Passive)Granite Shield is a passive ability that grants Malphite an absorption shield with a strength equal to 10% of his maximum health. This shield refreshes to full strength when Malphite does not take any damage for 10 seconds.

(Seismic Shard(Q)Active):

  Malphite sends a shard of the earth through the ground at his target, dealing magic damage upon impact and slowing them for 4 seconds. Additionally, Malphite will increase his own movement speed for 4 seconds by the same amount of flat movement speed that the target lost. 

• Cooldown: 8 seconds 
• Range: 625   
• Cost: 70 / 75 / 80 / 85 / 90 mana 
• Magic Damage: 70 / 120 / 170 / 220 / 270 (+0.6 per ability power) 
• Movement Speed Stolen: 14 / 17 / 20 / 23 / 26 % 

Comment: Seismic Shard is a very strong gap-closer ability that allows you to stick to any opponent very easily. This allows him to become an excellent anti-carry. For example, an enemy with 430 movement speed will be reduced to 318MS, which is equivalent to a champion movement speed without any boots, which is a big deal, in addition to that, the amount of MS lost by target is being added to Malphite and allows him to stick to any target like a glue.

(Brutal strikes(W))

(Passive): Malphite's autoattacks will splash, dealing a percentage of his attack damage to nearby enemies.

• Splash radius from target: 200 
• Splash Damage: 30 / 38 / 46 / 54 / 62 %

(Active): Increases Malphite's armor and attack damage by a percentage for 6 seconds. 

• Cooldown: 14 seconds 
• Attack Damage & Armor Bonus: 20 / 25 / 30 / 35 / 40%
• Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana 

Comment:Brutal Strikes is a skill which scales extremely well into late game, especially its active which increases your armor by 40%, this means if your armor is 300, it will be increased to 420, which can almost negate any AD Damage in the game. It's passive also make him a strong jungler in the game.


(Ground Slam(E)) 
(Active): Malphite slams the ground, dealing magic damage to all nearby enemies and reducing their attack speed for 4 seconds.

• Cooldown: 7 seconds
• Radius of AoE: 400  
• Cost: 50 / 55 / 60 / 65 / 70 mana 
• Magic Damage: 60 / 100 / 140 / 180 / 220 (+50% of total armor)
• Attack Speed Reduction: 30 / 35 / 40 / 45 / 50 %

Comment: This is what make malphite such as strong Anti-AD-Carry,  not considering the burst damage with 400 AOE range, the attack speed reduction literally screw any AD champion, when combined with Frozen heart and active of Raduin Omen, it can reduce any champion with attack speed of 2.5 to 0.6, thats more than 70% loss of DPS at least in auto attack.

(Unstoppable force(R))
(Active): Malphite charges to the target location, dealing magic damage to all enemies in the area, knocking them into the air and stunning them for 1.5 seconds. Malphite cannot be interrupted during his charge by anything except his own death.

• Cost: 100 mana
• Range to center of AoE: 1000
• Radius of AoE: 325  
• Cooldown: 130 / 115 / 100 seconds 
• Magic Damage: 200 / 300 / 400 (+1.0 per ability power)

Comment : Malphite signature move, its one of the best initation tool in the game, the CC allows your team to unleash all their skill on them, and also serve as a gap-closer to enemy AD Carry. Honestly this skill is OP, even your team is behind in farm, a good executed malphite ulti turns everything around.


Malphite in the current meta(FOTM)
So, what makes malphite so popular now? It's not like he received any real buff in the last few patches, and in the past he was even considered as under-powered at one point, today you see malphite in competitve play, let me analyze some possible reason for that.

Look at the last 8 champion released in the league, Nautilus, Fiora, Lulu, Hecarim, Varus, Darius, Draven and the upcoming Jayce. 5 champion out of 8 scales heavily with AD, especially Fiora and Darius belonging to the top lane and both of them are heavy AD Aggressive champion, Bot lane with 2 new AD Carry which is Varus and Draven. The sudden increase of AD based champion indirectly help malphite to become more popular, since people are looking counter for those, and a strong common counter would be Malphite. If these new champion all scales on AP, the one getting popular would be Galio instead of Malphite. 

In Conclusion, Malphite is really strong in the game right now, he can carry game single-handedly and not rivaled by much champion, thought he will be nerfed next patch we will see how it goes.