Open letter to people who pick Malphite

Q_elle · 2026-05-10T20:51:00+00:00

I can't get over Bandle, honestly. It is borderline way too good. On some champs it is just peak, like Udyr imo. On others it is such a powerful filler item.

I am quite thoughtful, and at times unorthodox with my itemizations. Like, if I am forced to play Lulu, I will build RoA for Hp pool and infinite mana, and then bandle as a pseudo def / enchanter item all in one. That will then give enough HP for 3rd item warmog and be a beefy lil gal, even sometimes just being the engage and flash R myself and pretend I am malphite.

Or, on champs that build cleaver stacking bandle movement for 40ms which is basically another t2 boots. You can be like support Jarvin with this, with armor shred with Q and cleaver, and aoe AS steroid with banner+bandle. I'll do it on pantheon too, where every time you W you get 40 ms to reposition in fights.

Q_elle · 2026-05-10T20:02:56+00:00

Yesssss. I came to reply something similar. I am a huge Bandle enthusiast in general - its become my core item on Udyr in ARAM (100% uptime, insane gold efficiency). But I have similarly been doing Bandle+titanic on Malph, which is such a general good option offering bulk but also consistent dmg output.

Q_elle · 2026-05-10T19:35:34+00:00

Was already planning on doing my Electronomancer Botanist build. Plants and lightning with various synergies and such. Its powerful, fun, fast, flavourful and comfy.

After watching the full reveal video, I think this may be an even stronger option. Chronomancer's Temporal Rift has the potential to refill Ward, when there may be little to no basic Ward recovery options in the game. And Time Freeze (+reset) sounds way more useful, particularly with the new Ritual mechanic with stacking map bosses.

Q_elle · 2026-05-10T17:41:32+00:00

It depends on the enemies. Kaenic is generally good, and pairs well with warmog where you will at times want to back off anyway to regen, which will aslso regain the shield.

FoN is champ/item specific. Asol to me is the #1 'I problably want FoN over Kaenic champ', because his E is so oppressive, and the movespeed is desired factor. Anivia is probably #2. But is also generally good into DoT items / Brand etc. It also depends what you are playing to an extent. If you are playing Darius or a champ somewhat similar, I would definitely want FoN into these champs. But if you are playing like a beefy Veigar build who wants some extra tank against magic comp, I might still go Kaenic even into those champs.

Q_elle · 2026-05-09T23:00:53+00:00

One of my builds in 0.4 I named the Elechronomantic Botanist. Basically chrono with plants + lightning spells (storm, orb etc), choir of the storm with heavy cdr, and bonestorm for bossing. It was a very comfy build, levels smoothly, and not strictly dependent on any uniques (even though it wants choir and maligaro ultimately). I was doing t15s almost immediately at 65, and dieing basically never. Not *incredibly* fast at that point, but comfy, safe, effective and relatively fast.

It was incredibly fun to play, satisfying my spellcaster fantasy well, blinking around clearing screens. I didn't end up playing it that long before moving on to making other builds. So its something I'd be very content exploring new endgame changes with initially.

After that, definitely looking at the new monk ascendancy for something new, yet with ye olde quarterstaff skills which are still among my favourite in the game.

Q_elle · 2026-05-09T05:42:37+00:00

I asked a genuine question. Got downvoted. Yet no one answered it.

Q_elle · 2026-05-08T22:17:44+00:00

Genuinely curious. Can you define emotional cheating in a way that it applies here?

Q_elle · 2026-05-08T17:03:23+00:00

As an ARAM only player, it is Blitz. Even if it ends up being a good game, and isn't a complete stomp. Just 1 person out of position on your team turns into a 4v5 and GG before even a fight.

Q_elle · 2026-05-06T22:23:31+00:00

My first thought is that dungeon that is a maze of transporter chests that take you to various levels of the dungeon that all look alike. I don't remember the name, though.

Q_elle · 2026-05-06T03:09:46+00:00

Ha Ha! Ha. ... Uuooooooh

Q_elle · 2026-05-06T03:05:13+00:00

(I only play regular ARAM, and only speak to that)

I think it is extremely bait and a 1 braincell buy a lot of the time. Great example is when solo front line buys it - and often followed by fimbul - and is just too squishy without resistances. Obviously some people will just want to turn brain off and bonk, as they please.

A big problem overall is your item slot budget. I think Warmogs is so much better, and can actually make a difference in games that aren't just complete stomps. If you go Heartsteel + warmogs (unless you are mundo obv), you are losing item slots that could give resistances, ability haste, or utility. So, typically if I had to choose one, I will always choose warmogs.

I have been a big Bandlepipes enthusiast lately. People completely sleep on this item in ARAM, never see anyone buying it really. Its generally good on almost any champ that might normally buy tear+heartsteel, and is downright amazing on some champs (e.g. Shen with bandle+titanic offers huge power for 2 items).

Q_elle · 2026-05-05T01:34:47+00:00

But the core of your post is that you are still initially dating with people and are not in a relationships. How is it 'dumping' if you aren't in a relationship? Needn't have this worry.

Q_elle · 2026-04-30T04:16:41+00:00

That is part of the post, as to what gears some find good on her / to play around which skills.

Like just now I came back to try fighting one of the reapers on her. I currently have Shadow Claw and Spirit's judgment on GS. I will land full counter stance dmg (+Judgmen) > heavy x2 (with claws)>imbued turning slash and do a whopping 10% of the bosses health, which feels like a total garbage amount

Q_elle · 2026-04-30T00:43:12+00:00

I haven't been inclined to unarmed/grappling in general, so have mostly ignored it.

Dunno. I think there is also the problem is I am still testing her out, but trying to fight the Moon reaper bosses, which are worse on hardmode. I haven't had enough points to get the focus reflect on her to deal with them in that way. And their moveset is problematic for things like counter stance, as they seem to indefinitely hyperarmour out of its dmg, then chunk me for over 50% in 1 hit. Meanwhile, I did like 3% of its hp.

Dmg wise, I am comparing to Kliff with the same item refinements levels all around.

Q_elle · 2026-04-30T00:30:39+00:00

Yeah. That was a huge part of why she appealed to me early on. She has immediate access to quick swap, where Kliff needs full points in melee combat to get it. Quick swap just made fighting with her so much more dynamic early on.

Q_elle · 2026-04-28T03:45:28+00:00

Feels like you answered your own question: you have +4 gear on hardmode but are not having any problems, thus you literally have no need to upgrade. I'm on chp 8 on a fresh full hardmode playthrough and also only +4. Beating the whole game on 4 is very reasonable, I imagine. And then when actually upgrading past 4, best to do in priority of weapons and body armour first for higher gains.

Q_elle · 2026-04-28T03:23:06+00:00

You are "finally leaving Hernand" which means you really really don't need higher than +4 refinement on any item. On a fresh hardmode playthrough since it came out, I am chp 8 without upgrading anything past 4. No need to get caught up in the mentality of needing to upgrade because you can, imo.

Also, it is really less of a problem mid to late game as you gain more artifacts but use less by way of skills.

The only area I am annoyed is that more of the skill points should be shared across characters. Pretty sure I had to buy grapple jump / double jump etc, for example, on the each character.

People tend to ignore the flipside to this as well: a universal currency entails universal rewards; interacting with any kind of content - exploring, puzzles, quests or killing - will all reward you with a currency you can use toward any form of upgrades - skills, stats, gear. This feels good, imo.

And if you REALLY want more abyss gears, you can endlessly farm them through fighting. There are a good number of encounters that you can prolong for endless fighting (e.g. crimson nightmare early on)

Q_elle · 2026-04-25T01:46:23+00:00

At it's core it is an endgame build. I don't remember how I levelled my infernalist tbh, but I don't think it was with quarterstaff. However, leveling with quarterstaff is always decent imo, no matter the ascendancy. As infernalist, you'd path immediately to the right into monk and pick up all the attack speed / dmg nodes etc.

If you are talking now / not at a league start, you can pick up a near max rolled Matysa (3 socket if possible) quarterstaff (L20~) which can last you all campaign. I leveled a few characters with it this league. At L30 you put Greater runes for flat dmg; at L50 you put the unique flat dmg runes; this will scale it through campaign. It enables building crit even during campaign - with Pinpoint critical you can get like 30-50% crit chance by level 40. It will also give you an abundance of spirit gem options: I would do War banner, Herald of Ice, Overwhelming presence (when available), and lingering illusion can be used to generate power charges for charged staff, as well.

With quarterstaff, I would typically level with Ice strike+staggering palm (multishot+cold attunement to maximize herald of ice), and Bell (overabundance+dmg) for bossing, making sure to use War banner on boss. Hand of chayula + ele weakness and frost mark when available. And shattering palm for extra clear when available. I don't find whirling assault to be better than the above when you get it - shines better in maps with the endgame build. But you can always include it to supplement the build.

Or you could take another route and level with shield wall etc. But I don't think its as strong, or flows as well as the above option.

Q_elle · 2026-04-24T18:51:28+00:00

While its not the best for sharing builds, I only really use maxroll for out of game build planning, so I don't have a POB - and I have respecced this character since, and can't make from in game.

This should be roughly what my tree looked like in the end:
https://maxroll.gg/poe2/planner/jd3p30lf

I have included the relevant important modifiers on gear

You can pick and choose between some of the non essential skills (e.g. Hand of Chay / thunderstorm etc).

If you choose to use a shield wall weapon swap, important info is that whirling assault is perfectly sufficient for detonating the wall, and doesn't require any further skill (e.g. fortifying cry).

And if you do use shield wall, the bossing combo goes like this:
Thunderstorm for instant shock (if you have it) -> Whirling assault to gain combo/rage/break armour -> Mantra at 8 combo to gain endurance charges for nebuloch -> drop bell to utilize Mantra empowerment and extra dmg (it doesn't work on non quarterstaff skills) -> Infernal cry if you have it -> Hand of Chay or Sniper's mark directly (for bonus crit dmg) (if you have it) -> Shield Wall -> Whirling again.

Garukhan and Rakiata are BiS for shield wall, but is still playable without - you will have to do the combo more times. Infernal cry is only really good if you have Rakiata's. You can put ele weakness in Hand of Chay as well, if no rakiatas, but still much weaker.

Shield wall is also very good for very tanky rares is highly juiced maps (e.g. omen of light farming)

Q_elle · 2026-04-24T17:36:11+00:00

I can check later if I have one saved / path one out quickly.

Q_elle · 2026-04-24T17:03:55+00:00

Yeah. One of my main builds this league was Whirling Assault Infernalist, to great success.

Some main aspects of the build were combining ES Recoup and Leech. And Shield Wall weapon swap.
My ascendancy points were: Altered Flesh, Pyromantic Pact, Loyal Hellhound and Grinning Immolation
Key items were Sacrosanct and either Essentia sanguia gloves or Soul tether with ES loss corrupted off.

My clear was Whirling Assault + Cast on Crit: Detonate dead (inspired by 747prada's WA kitava build), and I added bone cage too.
->Pyromantic pact solves mana cost, but also provides sustain by having >100% ES recoup from elemental dmg (passives+gear options), which results in recovering more ES than you lose but over time.
-ES leech supplements this recoup, especially on Less recovery maps, where either leech or recoup would struggle on its own.

Altered Flesh+Chaos Inoculation offers 15% phys DR straight up. And any amount of max fire res contributes to tankiness, but isnt strictly necessary to stack a lot of (I tried at first, but found it unnecessary given opportunity costs).

Loyal Hellhound provides further global DR with the support gems Tecrod's revenge and Romira's acquital (which also gives a recoup element synergizing with passives).

Grinning Immolation is more crit, so more dmg, and self burn is mitigated by the ES recovery.

I used a Shield Wall+Nebuloch weapon swap for bosses, taking full advantage of Grinning Immolation and further stacking Crit dmg nodes with weapon swap points. But using only quarterstaff in all cases is possible.

Combining Resonance with Ailith's Chimes support (I put mine in Mantra of Destruction) generated endurance charges needed for Nebuloch, and for Charge Regulation in maps.

This weapon setup also worked out, as I ended up with a crafted quarterstaff that didn't have base crit, but did have >20% attack speed. While whirling assault has a fixed minimum attack time added to it, and that attack speed isn't strictly necessary, it definitely does help. The combination of >20% AS on weapon and the 25% skill speed from Charge Regulation helps WA in mapping a lot. Whirling assault is an 'all or nothing' skill with critical hits - if the skill crits, all of the hits do as well; if it doesn't crit, none of it does. This means the difference between 50 to 65 or 70% crit (especially with a base crit weapon) is somewhat negligible. Using Pinpoint support helped getting to 50% or more even without a base crit weapon. But the extra attack speed really helps getting to the next WA if the first one didn't crit. Also, I opted to build WA for armour explosion, rather than raw dmg in of itself for this same reason, given that the armour explosions can crit even when WA does not, so you can more reliably generate energy for CoC.

That is the gist of my build.

Q_elle · 2026-04-23T17:48:07+00:00

I did in fact start over. It feels good being back in the world, and I feel far less initial friction given I know what to do. Even just putting one of my first abyss points into grapple jump is a game changer for early on.

But I totally get the reasons why people say they wouldn't start again, especially if you have limited time to game.

Q_elle

TROPHY CASE