Im propain and ive been playing malphite for a long time, enough to know my own about him. In this guide/build ill tell you how to play malphite top, please read the entire guide before judgeing it :) i have some good to know facts in here.

Malphite is unremarkabley reliable top because in most cases top is for AD off tanks, and you pick malphite to counter them as his main ability Ground Slam scales off of armor.

Pros

Can escape nearly any gank with

Unstoppable Force
Can sustain with Granite Shield
Easily wipes minions waves with Ground Slam
One of the best initiators
Counters nearly all AD top


Cons

Vulnerable to magic if you build ALL armor.
Slow and vulnerable to ganks early
Mana hungry early

Granite Shield-His passive makes him even more of a tank 10% bonus HP?! hell yeah man! This makes him able to take a few hits and as well creep damage early if you feel the need to harass it refreshes after 10 seconds of no damage so its good to keep up.

Seismic Shard-Makes your enemy slow and you fast. Helps out when you need to run away, help jungler gank your lane or just plain annoy people anyway its the least focused skill in this guide nice utility though.

Brutal Strikes
Tis just makes you even more of a power house. end game you should have 300+ armor easily and when you stack this on top of it you gain 525+ armor making you almost immune to towers,ad carries and ad users. The attack damage is nice to trade blows with people as well.

Ground Slam-Malphites main ability in farming/harassing and just bringing the pain. This ability slows attack speed and does a hell of a poke to enemies. This clears minion waves with ease.

Unstoppable Force-Best initiate in game or one of the best, this makes the enemy team tremble when they get a rock on top of them. This with {Ground Slam}= So much burst the enemy doesnt know what hits them.

Greater Mark of Magic Penetration Is taken because all his abilities scale off of magic damage.

Greater Seal of Armor More armor why not?

Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist You needm ore MR for those pesky Ability power fools

Greater Quintessence Of FortificationGood for early game if you like it, but for throughout game the Greater Quintessence of Movement Speed Helps you escape ganks and catch people cause malphite is slow.

Teleport-Helps your lane presence to get back to lane easily or port to a ward and ulti on top of bot lane for easy kills, dragon, or helping your team etc...

Flash- just incase Unstoppable Force Cant cut it also another gap close/escape.


SITUATIONAL
Ignite If your facing a pesky healing team Swain, Soraka. Dr.Mundo or just want to kill your enemy faster.

Exhaust-Also Really common as you mostly counterpick with malphite and want to neutralize your Attack damage enemy to make him more gimp.

Ghost- Not a fan of it on Malphite but eh why not?

Heal-an alternative if playing at a lower level to heal bait people or if you just dont got the mentioned above.

Smite-Only for jungle malphite which this guide is not about.
Dont
Surge- No.
Promote- Double no.
Clarity-Useless late game dont touch unless you REALLY like to spam.
Revive- Nope
Clairvoyance-Usefull to your team but leave to support if he wants it, out of meta atm.
Cleanse-You got alot of escapes already.

Darius
Level:Hard
Darius uses bleed damage,true damage, and has built in armor penetration he can bring harder blows to you and kill you at 6 if playing right.

To counter: Build heavy armor farm under turrent, freeze lane and call for backup!

Jax
LevelHard
Jax does mixed damage of magic/attack and can output more damage then you.

To counter: Build health,armor,and farm under turrent try to gank him if you can but hes weasily.

Riven
LevelMedium
Shes even on terms with malphite she cant kill him...usually and you cant kill her, you both farm well. Make no mistakes and it should be even/you win in lane.

To Counter: Build armor and get ganks when you can.

Nasus
LevelMedium
Nasus is farm status but can still easily kill you, out poke, and out sustain/Possibly turret dive you.

To counter: Deny him farm, get him ganked and stack armor.

Yorick
LevelSomewhat difficult
He pokes with his little minions your shield and armor prevents that. outfarm him and can out damage him usually.

To counter: Run to bush/kill ghouls, stack armor and trade blows.

Udyr
LevelMedium
Relies on usually attack speed and pure attack damge/sustain/tankiness. He can beat you in a 1v1 if it drags out.

To counter: Armor, And poke damage.

Lee Sin
LevelHard
Escapes ganks easy, can trade blows with you and has decent sustain try to out farm him and poke him as much as possible.

To counter: Armor, and poke.

The top ap!

If you somehow pick top vs a Karthus, build Magic resist items first such as Abyssal Mask Mercury's Treads, Gaurdian Angel and Aegis of the Legion early to make you MR Tanky and pull out some damage with the armor mix/ap

On your Champ selection you want to counter pick a heavy AD top such as Riven or Renekton your first item is Cloth Armor And Health Potion x5.

You want to save enough to be able to return back with 2 Doran's Shield Many people dont like this item especially stacks but what it gives you is free HP, Sustaint+Armor its built for Malphite and two makes your pretty tanky.

Keep farming till you get enough for Boots and a Heart of Gold


MID GAME

By now you should be building to your opponents style if their top is putting pressure on you get a Glacial Shround It builds into Frozen Heart And gives nice mana/Armor.

Keep farming till you need to teleport to help team/dragon/end laning phase. Do so when your tanky enough by this point you should be.

If you can maanage mana well and like to push use Brutal Strikes by hitting the center minion of the melee one and the caster one till they are 40% or less then Ground Slam and you got easy 6 minions. Or you can last hit if you want to but that is how you never miss >.>

You want to use your ultimate on the entire enemy team and get in their face, and jump on their carry you want them to focus you cause you actually hurt.

If you die your team should win that fight.

If you live you will make their entire team feel it.

Encourage people to buy wards for yourself and if you got spare money ward the enemy wraiths.

Do not yell at people/ Make them feel bad because if they are feeding they have enough to worry about and you dont help if you tell them they are bad and whatnot making you unfocused.
Instead help them, gank for them, ward for them.

Communicate ping targets you want dead :)

Thanks for reading and i hope you destroy top lane with malphite :D