Riot is planning an update that will restore Malzahar to his former mid lane glory, while simultaneously weakening his terrifying presence as a support, according to Riot’s latest post in the Dev Corner of the League of Legends forums.
The Prophet of the Void was once a powerful contender in mid lane, but following his rework in Patch 6.23 late last year he’s left much to be desired.
The update’s main focus will be his voidlings, the cuddly little monsters that he rips from the void to do his bidding for a few seconds with his W, Void Swarm. In their current state, they give him too much power as a support, despite a huge nerf in the last patch, while not giving him much power at all if he chooses to play mid. This is because he can use Malefic Visions (E) to build up a small army of them and throw them all at the enemy ADC, regardless of how easy they are to kill. Even though his W is great for harassing and zoning an enemy ADC, he can’t summon voidlings quickly enough to deal much burst damage to duel in mid.
Related: Rammus is the next vanguard tank to get a big update
Both his E and Q seem to be in a decent state, but changing his W to a system that rewards skilled play rather than just mashing your W and other abilities to make swarms appear would be a step in the right direction. Without any specifics to go on, we’re left to speculate what this new W will look like. Perhaps if you could summon a voidling just in time to block an enemy ability, it would empower the voidling to deal more damage. Another idea could be removing the multiplication of voidlings every time one attacks, and instead making the two that he can summon deal more damage to enemies that have recently been damaged by a spell. Another possibility would be summoning more voidlings after landing an ability on an enemy that was recently hit by a prior voidling, instead of voidlings multiplying as they attack targets.
There are numerous ways to add more counterplay to Malzahar’s little friends, while at the same time making them more challenging and engaging to use without taking a nerf to overall damage. We’re just happy that he’s finally going to get some long-needed attention.
