No offense but there are multiple ways to get close to a dps even without your E and then malth is the winner.
The only ones who can win are greymane , valla and tychus with the bigger they are
Malthael’s ult is always up for team fights, and he actually does quite a bit of damage. Overall numbers and impact he is equivalent or better than most bruisers.
Ive played him quite a bit at high-diamond. I also see him get chosen and perform very well in semi-pro play.
His single target damage is decent, his multi target damage is well above average. His in-combat mobility and either 20% slow or healing debuff are better than most. Also, his ability to dive trade and then res himself post-20 is very strong.
He has few weakness compared to many of his bruiser peers. He can’t 1v5 enemy teams like he used to (unless you have Ana buff), but he is very strong.
I’ll have to look through some of my games when I get home. He is a dominant pick and can play either very aggressive or extremely safe based on what the enemy team has.
Many bruisers have pros and cons and have only specific areas they are good at. The main three you can run in almost any comps are: Thrall, Leoric, and Malthael. They are never bad and have no hard counter.
Maybe if you pick Fear the Reaper against Valla you could drive her away. But if you don’t manage to get her in those 4 seconds, you’re SOL.
Raynor doesn’t even need to worry about trading into Malthael. He can just keep tthbbt tthhbtting away at Malthael and he will vastly out-damage Malthael.
And good luck ever dealing meaningful damage to Fenix before he drives you away or kills you. Your tickle DoT barely even does that to him, but he still has over 1800 combined health and shields at base level.
They don’t have to kill you to win, they could also just drive you away.
In my experience, Tychus is actually the one who tends to do the worst against Malthael, at least if the Malthael player isn’t bad. He has very limited sustain, and if Malthael kites him he loses out on a ton of damage. He has neither the sustain to tank Malthael’s damage nor the mobility to avoid it. His short range especially makes him even more vulnerable to Malthael.
But all the other Rangers can deal with Malthael handily if they are of equal skill.
Problem is, that damage is spread out over 3-5 people. 300 baseline DPS sounds amazing, even OP, right up till you realize it’s spread out over 3+ enemies. Then it’s not so impressive anymore.
He can gets super-high Hero Damage stats even without getting many kills for the same reason Lava Wave Ragnaros can get super-high Siege Damage stats even if he doesn’t destroy any structures himself.
If you’re dealing a ton of damage but it isn’t securing any kills, you’re missing out on 75% of your damage’s value.
If you compare him to a Mage, sure.
He’s got some of the lowest single-target DPS in the entire game for a “damage dealer,” even in completely optimal conditions.
Kael’thas’ basic attack DPS is 72
Malthael’s basic attack DPS is 75.
Kael’thas’ total maximum DPS is 190.
Malthael’s total maximum DPS against Stitches (the highest base health hero in the game) is 191. This is noticeably less against lower base health heroes.
If you compare him to a Bruiser, sure.
Most Bruisers are pretty single-target focused and have limited AoE, with a few exceptions such as Ragnaros (who is really more of a Mage) and Xul.
Sure, but you don’t have to be in the middle of a teamfight to get value out of those. Just poke around the edges a bit, and only commit when enemies are low or your team really needs that extra healthbar.
He has quite a few.
His focused damage is pretty low.
He is very fragile and very easily bursted and focused down.
His escape capabilities are fairly limited.
His initiation capabilities are also fairly limited against attentive opponents.
I mean, Artanis right now can 1v5 if the enemy team doesn’t have enough CC or focused DPS.
For all 3 of them, high single-target DPS, mobility, and/or range.
For as good as they might seem, they certainly aren’t anything too far out of the ordinary, all within about 2% of average, winrate wise.
You’d certainly never pick them as the anchor-point of your team. They work great as supplementary picks, but they aren’t worth a mandatory first or second pick/ban.
I think you are confused about what makes a hero good…
You draft Malthael into the off-lane bruiser slot or as the third melee in a triple frontline team. In this role he is very powerful and always a solid pick.
Your entire argument about what makes him bad literally applies to almost every single hero that fills the same role. That isn’t constructive feedback to people wanting to know how to draft and play Malthael.
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I agree you wont open with this hero is bad because …
If you like the hero and know how to play him, you know how to make him work even at unconditional terms
I think you’re confused about what we’re debating.
I never said Malthael is a bad hero overall. His lane presence is one of the strongest in the game, and Last Rites is a very powerful ult.
What we’re debating is whether he is a good duelist and teamfighter specifically, and even at best he really isn’t anything exceptional on either of those fronts. His main job in any comp is solo-laning and securing kills with Last Rites (and maybe stressing out the enemy Healer if they’re a burst-healer).
Yup. And you don’t pick him as your team’s main or usually even secondary source of damage or frontline, like you can with almost any other Bruiser. He just doesn’t have the damage output or staying power in teamfights for it without a ton of backup.
Read the OP’s post… you are still clueless about what we are debating…
Malthael is a Bruiser, he fills the role of bruiser very well and many people posted advice and builds on doing it. There is no other argument going on in this thread except the one you have conceived in your own mind.
No other bruiser is drafted as your team’s primary damage under regular drafting rules: 1 Tank, 1 Bruiser, 1 Ranged Assassin, 1 Healer, 1 Flex. Malthael will do just as much in a team fight and in the solo lane as anyone else drafted into the “1 Bruiser” slot. The damage from last rights counts as damage, his sustain and mobility count as sustain and mobility, his single target dps is still reasonable.
If you want to add some substance to your points feel free. He has no bad map, no bad “standard” matchup, and is always valuable if played properly. I would also argue he gets exponentially better in triple frontline comps like Tempo Storm used to run regularly.
I’m not debating with OP. I’m pointing out that several of the things you said are wrong.
Our little debate started when I called you out for saying this:
Which you then followed with some blatant falsehoods.
If you’d like to walk those back right now and end this argument here and now, feel free.
Artanis, Thrall, Imperius, Ragnaros, Sonya, and Varian would all like a word with you.
And literally no one in their right mind would ever draft Malthael as their primary damage dealer. That’s called throwing. You need someone else with higher DPS and/or burst for a well-rounded comp.
Malthael is probably one of the best solo-laners in the game.
His impact on teamfights, however, isn’t nearly as impressive as Thrall or Artanis or Imperius or pretty much every other Bruiser, because they all have better DPS and/or sustain than Malthael.
Yep, and that’s really the only thing that makes him worth picking for teamfighting. If he didn’t have that, he’d be completely unviable, and that says a lot about his other capabilities.
It’s a shame they aren’t that impressive.
Compared to a Mage or a Tank, neither of which tend to excel at single-target DPS. The math doesn’t lie, KT, an AoE/burst-focused Mage, has equal single-target DPS to Malthael.
It’s funny that you think math doesn’t count as substance but your own wild speculation and vague generalizations do.
Neither do Ragnaros, Artanis, Thrall, or Imperius.
Have you ever tried playing him in QM? Because if you did, you’d know that’s a load of crap.
Unless by “standard” you mean the kind you’d see in organized play, in which case you’re still wrong. High focused-damage comps either zone him out or shred him nearly instantly.
As Zul’jin, my winrate against Malthael is probably ridiculously high. I literally cannot remember the last time I lost to a Malthael, and my match history indicates it wasn’t within the past ~10 days. He just melts like butter when I turn my attention on him.
Just like literally every other hero with a roughly average winrate.
Whoop-dee-doo. Malthael is a solid hero overall. Who’d’a thunk it.
Oh, right, I thunked it.
Exponentially? No.
Noticeably? Sure. He doesn’t die in 3 seconds if he dives in against a comp with more health for him to heal off of and less damage to burst him down the same way he would if he were up against a comp with real focused DPS or burst damage.
So much silliness…
QM is a clown fiesta.
Artanis is far more niche than Malthael
Last Rights is always available and must be taken into account. Almost every hero in the game is bad without their ultimate. Would you play Varian without picking a level 4 talent?
You are still grasping at straws. Malthael is powerful, mobile, and good at his job if you have half a clue what you are doing. Clearly you just suck on him.
lmao What a joke.
Except for when it isn’t, like before level 10 or when it’s on cooldown.
That’s just outright false. The majority of heroes can have massive impact without their ults. Malthael cannot.
Man, these are some really dang thick straws. Almost as strong as 2x4s…
Meanwhile there’s you over here, who basically just keeps repeating the same thing even after I’ve already refuted it, like if you say something false enough times it will magically become true.
Yup, and that job is solo-laning and securing kills with Last Rites, not diving into the middle of teamfights and getting blown up like you’re telling everyone he should.
Assuming you use his abilities, pick talents when they are available, and play him with half a brain he is great.
I didn’t humor your supposed points because they are only backed up with conjecture and all your comparisons have criteria in them that aren’t realistic — such as suiciding on purpose or not using your ultimate.
He has a self cleanse, a mini-sprint that makes him able to avoid body blocking, a spamable teleport that can be used offensive and defensively, can spec for permaslow/reduced healing. He has a kill closer (something few bruises do), good self-sustain that scales with the size of the fight. He can do camps, double soak, win 1v1s against most of the commonly played off-lanes, or can stall out against any hero while taking minimal tower damage.
His power curve is almost flat since he is good at every point in the game, and doesn’t come on-line late like several of his competitors. As a Bruiser played with half a brain, there is almost nothing wrong with him.
So far your only “facts” that I haven’t covered above are him possibly being bad in clown fiesta mode (against random non-sense), and his inability to 1v5 (which no heroes can do).
So what part of the actual game does he completely fail at? Not illogical situations where he doesn’t pick talents or is fighting a team of five ranged assassins. If you want to provide “facts”, you at least need to put them in specific context. Give me a common map and draft scenario where a well-played Malthael is obviously the wrong choice. Ideally this would be backed up with a replay or video that supports — and skill level cannot be the reason he fails (ie a Silver player getting stomped by Diamonds).