Malphite, the Shard of the Monolith

Overview

Malphite is a champion that excels at durability, lane domination, and initiation. Combining the allotment of abilities given to him, he is able to slow enemy champions' movement speed, slow enemy's attack speed, and throw enemies up in the air. By building Malphite with tanky items, you become very hard to kill while also doing good damage to boot. Malphite is best suited when the enemy team has a lot of physical damage champions.

Abilities

Granite Shield (Passive)

Absorbs damage up to 10% of Malphite's maximum health. Refreshes after 12 seconds of not taking any damage.

Along with his (Q) ability, Seismic Shard, Granite Shield makes Malphite a great 1v1 laner. While the buff is up, it makes trading damage with your lane opponent an almost guaranteed victory for Malphite. This helps establish early game dominance. But be careful, after the shield has been removed, you have to not take damage for 12 seconds for the buff to reappear. Along with the fact that you only have one ranged ability early game on quite a long cooldown, your opponent will try to exploit this, so make sure once your shield has been removed, you play passively until it comes up again and then continue to harass. Doing this will generally result in a lane victory, especially if the opponent is a squishy champion.

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Seismic Shard (Q)

(Active) - Malphite throws a shard at the enemy, stealing movement speed and dealing magic damage upon reaching the target.

Rank 1: Deals 70 magic damage, steals 14% movement speed, and costs 70 mana.

Rank 2: Deals 120 magic damage, steals 17% movement speed, and costs 75 mana.

Rank 3: Deals 170 magic damage, steals 20% movement speed, and costs 80 mana.

Rank 4: Deals 220 magic damage, steals 23% movement speed, and costs 85 mana.Rank 5: Deals 270 magic damage, steals 26% movement speed, and costs 90 mana.

Other Notes: Has a 7 second cooldown, and a 0.6 ability power ratio . Lasts 4 seconds.

Seismic Shard is what allows Malphite to have lane presence as well as helping him not be endlessly kited. It not only slows the target by a certain percentage, but takes that percentage and gives it to himself. This not only allows him to chase champions with ease, but also helps escaping a ganking situation by throwing the shard at a fast champion looking to kill you. This ability is generally leveled up first as it gives him the much needed ranged attack power in the early game and as previously stated, synchronizes exceptionally well with his passive, Granite Shield.

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Brutal Strikes (W)

(Passive) - Malphite's attacks also hit other nearby enemies for a certain percentage of his attack damage.

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

Rank 1: Melee attacks passively do 30% splash damage to nearby enemies, increases armor and damage by 20% and costs 55 mana.

Rank 2: Melee attacks passively do 38% splash damage to nearby enemies, increases armor and damage by 25% and costs 60 mana.

Rank 3: Melee attacks passively do 46% splash damage to nearby enemies, increases armor and damage by 30% and costs 65 mana.

Rank 4: Melee attacks passively do 54% splash damage to nearby enemies, increases armor and damage by 35% and costs 70 mana.

Rank 5: Melee attacks passively do 62% splash damage to nearby enemies, increases armor and damage by 40% and costs 75 mana.

Other Notes: Has a 16 second cooldown.

Brutal Strikes is the least noticeable of all of Malphite's abilities and is mainly good for the armor increase during the duration of the active. The percentage increase of damage isn't as helpful because none of his abilities scale off of it and he is rarely auto-attacking during team fights. Also, because of the fact that sunfire cape (does aoe damage per second) is normally an item most players go for early on him, and his lack of reliance on mana late-game, he really doesn't need the damage to farm either. However, early game, it does help a bit in clearing minion waves a bit faster without the need to use mana. As previously noted, the only thing that is very good about this ability is the armor increase. While a six second duration isn't much, during the initiation period of a team fight, that extra armor only helps in soaking up more damage, and further cementing his role as a great anti-physical damage champion. It's also worth noting that during the duration, his Ground Slam ability will hit for a bit more.

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Ground Slam (E)

(Active) - Malphite slams the ground, dealing magic damage and slowing the attack speed of enemies around him for 4 seconds.

Rank 1: Deals 60 magic damage, slows enemies' attack speed by 30% and costs 60 mana.

Rank 2: Deals 100 magic damage, slows enemies' attack speed by 35% and costs 65 mana.

Rank 3: Deals 140 magic damage, slows enemies' attack speed by 40% and costs 70 mana.

Rank 4: Deals 180 magic damage, slows enemies' attack speed by 45% and costs 75 mana.

Rank 5: Deals 220 magic damage, slows enemies' attack speed by 50% and costs 80 mana.

Other Notes: Has a 8 second cooldown and adds 50% of your current armor to the damage. (i.e. if you have 420 armor it will add 210 damage as magic damage)

Although Ground Slam plays second fiddle to Malphite's other non-ultimate damage ability, Seismic Shard, it is still a decent ability. The main problem with the spell is that it isn't ranged, which only really poses a problem early game, when you do not have your ultimate, and your movement speed steal on Seismic Shard is pretty weak. It scales with your armor, so along with the active on his (W) skill, Brutal Strikes, he can still do decent damage late in the game, even without any straight-up damage items. The other major component of this ability is the fact that it slows the attack speed of enemy champions hit by it. With a well-placed ultimate, you can effectively hit every champion with it, and slow all of their attack speeds. The 4 seconds of attack speed slow, is enough to help give your team the edge in a team fight. (along with the disable from your ultimate) When combined with the passive from the item, Frozen Heart, and the active of the item, Randuin's Omen(both slow attack speed); Malphite can annihilate the damage capabilities of any champion that relies on attack speed for their damage.

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Unstoppable Force (Ultimate)

(Active) - Malphite rushes to the target location and knocking up any champion in said location and stunning them for 1.5 seconds.

Rank 1: Deals 200 magic damage, and has a cooldown of 130 seconds.

Rank 2: Deals 300 magic damage, and has a cooldown of 115 seconds.

Rank 3: Deals 400 magic damage, and has a cooldown of 100 seconds.

Other Notes: Costs 100 mana at every rank, and has a 1.0 ability power ratio. (deals 1 damage for every 1 ability power Malphite has)

As with a lot of other champions, Malphite's ultimate ability is most definitely his signature one; it's what makes Malphite, Malphite. By hitting the bind you have for this ability, you will receive a targeting reticule in the shape of a small circle. Once selecting the targeted area you wish to go to, Malphite will rush to that location and knock up any enemy caught in it, and stun them. The obvious use for this ability is on a large group of enemy champions during a stand-off between both teams. It is an amazing disable, and a great gateway for other friendly champions to use their devastating abilities as the enemy will not be able to position to avoid it. (Such as Amumu's ultimate, Kennen's ultimate) Although, it does not have to be used purely as an initiation tool, even though it's great at it. For example, if there is only really one champion on the enemy team that is causing your team pain, and that champion likes to wait until a team fight has been going on for a couple seconds before joining in, such as a stealth ability champion or an assassin, you can save your ultimate solely for jumping upon that champion once he shows his face. This allows your team to switch your focus upon the champion because all of Malphite's abilities chained together can leave a squishy character very vulnerable. It's also a good idea to save it in a team fight because of other possible scenarios. For example, the enemy team has a knockback, such as Janna's ultimate, the advantages of your initiations can easily be countered, so it'd be a good idea to save it for when you are knockbacked, and said knockback is on cooldown. The possibilities really are endless, and is up to the player to assess each situation differently. It's also worth noting that this ability can be used to escape as it has a decent range and can also go through most walls. (an advantage that can also be used to catch champions who flash/blink over walls)

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Other Notes

• While Malphite's abilities are essentially screaming at the summoner to stack armor to make use of his W (Brutal Strikes) and E (Ground Slam) ability, if the enemy has a lot of magic damage, definitely invest in magic resistance.
• In terms of doing damage as Malphite, since most of your damage scales off of ability power, it's not the best idea to invest in it, unless of course you're messing around and doing an ability power Malphite build. As games go further and further on, and the enemy champions get more magic resist, both innately from leveling up and from items, your damage peters off. So, early-mid game, when magic resist is scarce, and you have a sunfire cape (perhaps) your damage is actually very good, at late game, you should really focus on being an annoyance rather than a huge damage dealer. (Though even late game, a good placed ultimate, ground slam, whilst having a sunfire cape still does respectable damage, but again, the disabling is the best part)
• This kinda goes without saying, but, his ultimate, Unstoppable Force can interrupt channeled abilities, such as Katarina, Warwick, and Malzahar's ultimate.
• Malphite's abilities allow him the possibility to jungle (not covered here)
• There is a visual difference on Malphite's model when he does and does not have his passive, Granite Shield, up.
• Malphite costs 1350 IP to buy.

Skins

Malphite's skins are pretty straightforward, as they generally just change what Malphite is made out of.

Shamrock Malphite presents his pride of the Irish by recoloring the default skin to completely green. Coral Reef Malphite, as you could probably guess, has him fashioning things you would find in a coral reef. Barnacles, sea weed, sea sponges and even a starfish make up an array of colors and textures. When Granite (Coral) Shield is down, all coloration on Malphite's skin dissipates and makes for a stark contrast for when his passive is up or not. And to round off the set is Marble Malphite, which is another recoloring of the default skin, to represent a marble aesthetic.