No, this is not a topic where I complain that Malthael is OP, or that he needs major help. According to heroesprofile, he’s at 49.5% WR at diamond and Master. And about 50% overall. Not perfect stats but not horrible either. (His popularity though it not in a good spot)
However, there are some things that I wish were adjusted on him. Because a lot of things about Malthael produce “feel bad” moments, which any game should avoid.
1. First, Malth has a lot of mana tension. It’s not a bad thing in a vacuum. I understand they want to keep him legit in the solo lane, and they won’t want a hero with infinite sustain. There are two things about it however that I don’t know if they are intentional or not. 1. This makes Malthael a pain to play if you’re in the solo lane without “Die Alone”. And no talent should be mandatory.
The second issue, which bothers me more, is that you can become useless in a team fight if you run out of mana. You can’t just walk up to enemies to auto attack and apply your trait. And I’ve a few times had to look at an enemy that would die to Last Rites, unable to do anything because I don’t have the 100 mana. This never happens to me on any other hero. And it always feel s bad.
Now, I’m not saying high mana heroes are bad. But they usually have that drawback in exchange for another advantage (Like Garrosh who can set up a kill with one button). Malthael, doesn’t like long fights. But he’s not a hero who bursts people down and creates fast fights. So the amount of mana he burns feels overkill, since he has no way to create the situations he thrives in to make up for it.
2. Malthael’s siege damage.
If you leave Malthael alone in lane in the same amount of time that other bruisers would destroy a gate or tower, nothing will happen. The damage you deal when hitting structures is often meaningless. Malthael has to count on the minions to deal structure damage for him. This means that if the enemy has decent wave clear, they can shut you down completely by just killing the minions. The structure changes have unfortunately made this worse. Since the defender can just move close to their minions so that your cleave hits them, and you have to leave when the fort / keep targets you. You can’t hit the structure to avoid this because your siege damage is pitiful.
Malthael doesn’t clear waves that fast from AA. He can speed it up by spamming Q, but then he runs out of mana. And most heroes with decent wave clear will kill your minions just as fast, without butchering their mana bar.
When you’re Malthael, and you’ve cleared a wave, and there’s no merc camp to take. You have to just do nothing most of the time. This feels really bad. There are a lot of un-fun moments like this for the hero, so I hope the devs can try and make playing him a bit more dynamic. He is not a very popular pick, and I think that has a lot to do with it.
I think he could use higher base damage on minions mercs and structures. Doesn’t have to be a lot.
Except against DW I would always choose Maltael over any other %-dmg hero. I love pressing my R on DW after some hits and he is the only one I fear as DW, ofc.