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Malphite Build Guide by

Devourer Malphite Jungle: Crushing enemies and the meta

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0 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Naeramar

Malphite Build Guide By Updated on

Guide Discussion More Malphite Guides

Spells:

Smite

Flash

Items

Starting Items

First Recall

The Core

5th/6th item options - aggressive

5th/6th item options - defensive

Full example build

Ability Order

Malphite Passive Ability

More Malphite Counters

Introduction

This is currently a work in progress

Hi, my name is Naeramar and I have been playing League since the start of season 2. I don't currently play ranked, so I can't put a fancy elo badge on this, but I have some experience.
was one of my first champions and one of the few that I have consistently enjoyed over the last 4 seasons. I usually play him on the top lane, but have been playing a lot of Jungle recently as well. He is a full tank with a lot of powerful croud control that can contribute a lot to team fights and can also carry his weight when he's alone.
This guide to jungle is a little different, as you may have already figured out. Most people I have seen use either or , since those are the most logical choices for an AP-scaling tank like . However I have recently experimented with building him using , and I have found that this results in a vastly increased damage output. While being a little squishier than the traditional full-tank build, with this build is still far from fragile, and depending on your later itemization, can become either a deadly bruiser with supreme damage output and dueling potential, or a fully functional tank who can take a heavy beating and punish the enemy with consistent damage and croud control.

Concept and Stat Priorities

The basic idea of this build is simple: Stalker's Blade: Devourer as well as attack speed runes synergize extremely well with Malphite's , giving you a damage potential that surpasses that of a traditional tank. This synergy is further amplified by the two other core items, and . This build, like most on-hit-based builds, relies heavily on interactions between items, abilities, and most importantly basic attacks. As a result, the most powerful stat for this build is Attack Speed.
Because gains damage from Armor and plays such an important role in this build, Armor is also very valuable for this build.
Another stat that is very important with this build is Health, because it contributes to your tankiness and also increases the damage of your . The passive of that item makes a much bigger difference in this build, since and your high attack speed from runes causes it to be procced much more often.
Finally, Cooldown Reduction is also quite beneficial, as it increases the uptime of your and also helps you proc your as often as possible.

Abilities and Summoner Spells

Passive: Granite Shield
causes you to gain a shield that scales with your maximum health and is reapplied after a cooldown. This makes you a lot more durable than other champions and allows you to stay in the junge longer. This passive is part of what makes such an excellent jungler and an even better tank. Even when building damage in the early to mid game, this makes it quite tough for enemy champions to kill you in a duel.

Q: Seismic Shard
Your Q, , is your only ranged spell apart from . With this build, it is a pure utility spell, since you don't build any ability power and it has a low base damage. While jungling, spam it on the large monster to get it down faster and to keep proccing . Especially against the Rift Scuttlers, the slow is very useful.
When ganking or fighting champions, you should open up with a Seismic Shard as you move in, this will make it harder for your target to escape, as it gets slowed once by the ability itself, and then again by your first autoattack and the proc.

W: Brutal Strikes
This is your most important ability as Devourer malphite. It empowers your basic attacks, giving them extra damage based on your armor and an additional AoE effect. should be the first ability you max out, and you should use it whenever it is ready, both against monsters and champions.

E: Ground Slam
is your second-strongest basic ability after . It deals AoE damage and scales a lot better than , this it is the second ability you max. You should basically spam to clear camps more quickly and maximize procs.

Ultimate: Unstoppable Force
Your ultimate is an invaluable tool for initiating ganks and team fights, and one of the strongest ultimates in the game when it comes to its impact in a team fight. It allows you to quickly close the gap on a champion and disable them. When you use to engage, you might want to consider holding on to your until they try to escape, since you have already gotten your initial spellblade proc from your ultimate.

Summoner 1: Smite
Smite is, of course, essential for junglers and needs to be taken to play this build. Against champions, however, the empowerment gained from your makes smite a useful tool to prevent escapes and make chasing easier. Using , and in the correct way, you can almost keep enemies perma-slowed, making your ganks very effective and dangerous. Don't shy away from using your on champions, since you can clear all jungle camps except Drake, Herald, and Baron without needing smite. If you have spare smites, use them on the Ancient Krug, since the gift of heavy hands gives you even more croud control and scales exceptionally well with attack speed.

Summoner 2: Flash
I won't go in-depth on since you are hopefully all familiar with it. I personally think it's the best second summoner spell for malphite, because you already have enough cc to not need , and I don't have any trouble securing kills without . As for , it's really subjective which one is better, but I have always preferred and I'm just much more comfortable with it.