I haven’t written a “state of the champion” post in a long time, and though I just posted some negative vibes about Miss Fortune, I’ve got a few left over for Malzahar.

When Malzahar launched I really enjoyed him. He was very mana efficient, a great farmer, and he had an ult that could really decimate some people. If they took Cleanse or bought Mercury treads, though, he dealt little to no damage, which is why I stopped playing him. Riot gave him some range buffs to help his survivability in team fights, which I thought was understandable. It seemed just about perfect, too. He wasn’t so far away that your teammates couldn’t get to him but he wasn’t getting smashed the instant he stepped in the fight.

Fast forward to today, when not only has his range been buffed to one of the longest in the game, it also gets suppression, meaning you have no way to escape it unless you buy a Quicksilver Sash. He retained his incredibly long attack range and his Malefic Visions is still a ridiculously efficient farming tool. After playing him a few times and laning against him quite a bit, I think it’s safe to say he’s been overbuffed. His ult has become a source of great frustration, both because of the stun duration/damage and the fact that it is completely unavoidable.

As it currently stands, you basically can’t be on the same screen as Malzahar without either a teammate present or a tower between the two of you. Between. That’s important. Even if you’re at your tower he can easily put you to the gray screen without much risk to himself. His Null Zone also means that he can take golem easily, bringing his ultimate down to a very low cooldown. You’ll see it every fight for sure, and usually from a distance that will make you scream.

Thing is, I’m not sure what to do about Malz. I think they could lower the range on his ult and maybe reduce the duration. They could also reduce its base damage and give it a small AP bump so that he isn’t such a “level 6, you’re dead” kind of toon. Whatever the case, they need to do something. He’s at the top of my list of toons that are incredibly unfun to play against.

Heimerdinger has slowly risen to become one of the champions I see most in-game. Though known for his incredible pushing power, he is also an excellent defender and farmer, giving him the items needed to put out big damage over the course of the game. With yesterday’s grenade buff, I think Heimer is among the strongest support champions, despite his turret vs. tower nerf.

I was pretty shocked to see Heimer catch a little buff. Yes, his turrets deal less damage but he can toss more grenades so his net effect on towers is just about the same. The real key to Heimer is getting a strong early farm and good early magic penetration. Magic penetration, especially early in the game, increases the damage output of your missiles for some nice harass. My personal preference is to max turrets and missiles side by side and stand well back behind my creeps so that should my opponent come to harass they catch a missile in the face.

Heimer is strong in teamfights because he gives his team control over positioning. What could have been a successful chase through the woods quickly turns into death for you or multiple teammates if Heimer comes to back up his teammate. The slow from turrets is great CC and the heal his ultimate provides can keep a push alive. In short, Heimer is one of the most frustrating characters to play against if played well.

Phreak dropped into a recent forum thread to say they (the devs) aren’t quite done with Heimer. He specifically calls out the Heimer vs towers situation, which is really the worst of it. If his team has good ranged harass, he’ll stand by and lob grenades until your towers are gone and there’s precious little you can do about it.

Heimer is unique because he gets to play a different game than everyone else. While not quite the micro fun of a Chen or Meepo from DotA, he still has big control over the positioning of teamfights and the lane creeps. If you’re playing Heimer right now, enjoy your day in the sun. It won’t last forever.

If you’ve played ten games over the course of the last week, you’ve probably seen Shen in nine of them. He’s one of the most popular toons in the game, and probably the best tank around. It seems timely to give some discussion to his strength and the path development around him will likely take.

First off, Shen’s a tank. Anyone who tells you otherwise is nuts. I played a game recently in which the Shen on my team got a malady. Malady for god’s sake. His passive gains more damage the higher your health pool, so you’re best off building for health. Building items like Sunfire Cape and Aegis can give you the health you need along with resistances to beef up your tanking.

Shen’s real strength a this point comes from his ability to avoid damage. His W skill can reduce huge amounts of incoming damage. Pop it when you’re about to take damage from multiple sources and you can laugh as your health goes nowhere. With the ability to both taunt with Shadow Dash and run from a fight, it’s pretty easy to escape death.

On top of his ability to avoid/mitigate damage, Shen has surprisingly high damage output. His Ki Strike hits hard, and the fact that you can dash to catch/taunt a running target gives you unparalleled chase.

From a development standpoint, Shen poses a unique problem. The shield design went from being a static shield to blocking damage from all incoming sources. It took his shield from being next to worthless to extremely overpowered. I could see Riot reducing the amount of damage blocked, or turning it into a percentage damage block. The percentage seems to be the best fix, but I’m guessing it will probably going back to a static shield. I think Shen’s biggest problem, though, is that he works on the energy system. With a passive heal and his incredible ability to mitigate damage he has virtually unlimited laning potential, giving him the farm required to become unkillable. He needs to lose one of those benefits – the infinite spell casting, the healing, the damage mitigation, the dash – in order to fall in line with other champions, or he’ll still be sitting head and shoulders above every other tank in the game.