'League of Legends' is Building on Malphite's Anti-Physical Damage Identity

Malphite has a pretty established role as a tanky threat to physical damage-dealers in League of Legends, and with future changes to the rocky behemoth, the balance team is looking to hone in on his signature identity.

In the PBE cycle prior to Patch 7.17, Malphite had several changes being tested that would help push him in this direction by building on his passive shield and giving him more sticking power when nearby enemy champions.

Those changes didn't make it through to Patch 7.17, but even though they're not currently on the PBE for more testing, more changes are still being worked on internally to find a better spot for Malphite.

"We've been testing some Malphite changes that have shown quite a bit of promise, in particular giving him a stronger edge against physical damage comps, really playing up his W as a physical damage counter," Riot Meddler said in a recent announcement regarding the champion's changes. "Haven't yet found the right set of other changes to pair with those buffs though, so we'll be pushing that work into 7.19 instead."

Below were the tentative changes that were being tested briefly on the PBE.

• Seismic Shard (Q):
• Cooldown changed from 8 at all ranks to 11/10/9/8/7
• Mana cost lowered from 70/75/80/85/90 to 50/55/60/65/70
• Magic damage lowered from 70/120/170/220/270 to 60/90/120/150/180
• Movement speed steal changed from 14/17/20/23/26% to 20% at all ranks
• Movement speed steal duration lowered from 4 seconds to 3 seconds

• Brutal Strikes (W):
• [New Effect] "While Granite Shield holds, this bonus is tripled to x."
• Armor lowered from 15/20/25/30/35% to 10/15/20/25/30%

The new effect on Malphite's Brutal Strikes that was being tested refers to the ability's passive increase of Malphite's armor as well as his Granite Shield passive that gives him a recharging shield. If he could keep his shield up during fights, his armor would be much higher, increased by 45 percent at rank one without factoring in bonus armor ratios.

Changes to his Seismic Shard ability would mean many more Shards being thrown out with reduced mana costs and cooldowns as well as more speed stolen, but the damage would be lowered by quite a bit at most ranks.

Meddler closed his comments about Malphite by saying that the champ is currently performing alright in his current state, so they'll be proceeding carefully with future Malphite changes.