Maloch: No Mercy For the Top lane

Build and Guide Maloch: No Mercy For the Top lane

Cheat Sheet
Skill Build     

Shock > Cleave > Soul Eater (Max Soul Eater before Cleave versus difficult or ranged matchups)

Recommended Talents

Flicker, Roar

Items     

War Boots, Crimson Banner, Gaia's Standard, Blitz Blade, Amulet of Longevity, Fenrir's Tooth

Arcana

Indomitable, Assassinate, Valiance

Introduction
Maloch is listed as a Finisher in the game client. While Maloch will certainly finish the game with his amazing ability to do consistent true damage to anyone who dares get into his range, it's better to think of him as a late game bruiser. Early game you can do some great damage to the enemy, but late game you became very difficult to kill while doing some great damage. If you wanted a hero to feel somewhat like a raid boss, this is it.

Skill Build
Shock > Cleave > Soul Eater (Max Soul Eater before Cleave versus difficult or ranged matchups)

Your Ultimate is Shock. A long-ranged leap that deals great damage and knocks enemies up in a large area of effect. After you land, the area of effect creates a zone lasting a couple seconds that slows enemies passing over the area of effect. This ability can make or break a Maloch player in an instant. One good ultimate placement can really turn a team fight. You can either save your allies by slowing the enemies chasing, or use this to split the enemy team by diving the back line. If everything is not going well, you can also use it as a long-ranged escape. When roaming it’s a long-ranged ability to gank the enemy lanes. Basically, no matter what it is you need to do, this ultimate with its moderately short cooldown of 60/50/40 seconds per level into the skill, can do it quite well.

Cleave is your next ability to max in an even lane or a lane where you are doing well. Maloch swings his lance dealing 385/485/585/685/785/885 damaging depending on how many points you leveled into the ability. Which is quite high for damage on its own, but if you hit an enemy hero this ability will also enchant your weapon. If your weapon is enchanted this ability will deal true damage and heal you for 6% up to 24% of your max health for each enemy hero this ability hits. It is important to note that your first hit will not deal true damage. It applies the enchanted weapon. If you want it to give health and deal true damage, you will first have to hit an enemy hero to enchant the weapon and then cast it again.

Soul Eater is our defensive ability that grants us a great amount of survivability besides our massive life steal. Maloch snatches souls in a cone in the casted direction dealing a small amount of damage and granting a shield that absorbs damage up to 800/1100/1400/1700/2000/2300 depending on the health per level of the ability, health with 4 snatched souls. Meaning you need to hit 4 targets to get the full shield. Each soul will basically be equal to 1/4th of the amount your shield can max out at.

Your passive Plunder makes fighting against Maloch alone such a difficulty. When Moloch's weapon is enchanted Maloch deals true damage and restores 2% of his health per hit instead of the regular physical damage. When playing as Maloch be sure to hit Cleave first, to make sure this passive does the most it can.

Recommended Talents
Flicker, Roar

Flicker - 120-second Cooldown: Teleports your hero a short distance   

Flicker is always a great Talent to use. It’s a free short ranged teleport ability that can get you over terrain or towards a position you want to be in instantly. I recommend using this ability and getting good with it, regardless of the hero used, unless you are the jungler. 

Roar - 60-second Cooldown: Increases attack speed by 60% and attack damage by 10% for 5 seconds.

While Flicker will always be the go-to Talent for me. As surviving late game becomes more and more important to ensure you don't lose the game. Roar is a ton of fun and works really well with Moloch's true damage on hit kit. If you want to really feel like a powerhouse for a couple seconds and don't like Flicker, take Roar. This can really take people by surprise as they are fighting against you early game.

Items
War Boots, Crimson Banner, Gaia's Standard, Blitz Blade, Amulet of Longevity, Fenrir's Tooth

We want to rush boots on Maloch. As your lack of ability to get around in the lane and hit as many targets as possible will greatly affect your effectiveness. You want the additional movement speed to adjust your position quickly and hit as many enemies as you can with Soul Eater at all points of the game.

Crimson Banner simply grants us a ton of survivability in the lane and considering how great your ability to gank after roaming to another lane or even assisting if someone roams to your lane is. You should be able to get that lovely 20% health restoration after a kill or assist easily enough.

Gaia's Standard can be built second versus lanes that deal a majority of magic damage as this is your magic defense item. Which grants plenty of health restoration after taking damage with a 10-second cooldown. Early game we basically want to keep our health topped off, as our true damage should already be dealing great damage without the need for additional damage items.

Blitz Blade is going to be when we finally start looking to do some great damage. Granting some simple buffs to stats we use, this also allows our attacks to trigger a chain lightning ability. Dealing a good amount of damage by itself, and every time we attack afterward we reduce the abilities cooldown by 1 second on each hit. Considering our already fast attack speed, we should be able to activate this quite often.

Amulet of Longevity increases all of our healing by 20%. Our passive heals on our attacks, items, and Cleave. This item is why I say our late game is our real raid boss moment of the game. As long as you can continue to hit people with your normal attacks, you will continue to gain massive amounts of health.

Fenrir's Tooth increases damage dealt by 30% when the target is below 50% of their max health. This is built last to increase our true damage and melt people faster. You can replace this with another item if you want to, but I play Maloch like a madman. So, it’s a bit riskier of an item to buy last but greatly increases our damage. You can always go for another tank item if you feel your team needs it, but Maloch isn't the best tank due to your lack of hard crowd control.

Arcana
Indomitable, Assassinate, Valiance

Indomitable grants us attack speed, health, and armor. Everything a Maloch needs to survive. Blitz is a decent replacement here, attack speed is always nice for our passive.

Assassinate grants us some much-needed movement speed to move stay out of harm's way as well as move to a good position to hit enemies as we need to. Basically, the same thing as buying boot first, the more things you hit with your area of effect abilities, the better.

Valiance is great for anyone who deals with cooldowns primarily. We don't care a ton for the health but it's better than Focus. Gaining 1% cooldown speed per Arcana is a .3% difference per. So, shoot for Valiance. Additionally, tons of heroes take Valiance in my guides. It’s a great green slot.

Early Game
Early game you want to gauge a few things. First how long does your opponent want to fight you in normal attack range? Do they want to poke with range and back off? This will determine how we play. You are a late game raid boss, but you can really ruin that early. With how powerful your ultimate is, I would either let your opponent underestimate you or wait for a gank. You have one of the longest ranged jumps in the game. Abuse it to escape or trap your enemies. If they have a huge lead on you, max your shield and simply spam it on the enemy's minions when the enemy comes into tower range. Use your passive to heal and simply stay in lane as long as you can to stay even on gold and levels.

Middle Game
More depending situations. If your opponent is scared of you and you are winning the lane. Push the lane in and gank mid lane. The long-range ultimate will allow you to kill mid lane easily with your mid lane. However, if your losing you should start to level out, and you basically just want to farm top and hope that you get a chance to take down the enemy tower.

Late Game
Team fights are starting, you do massive damage and never die. At least, not to anyone but the enemy ranged carry. Ult the entire enemy team, stack that with your team's abilities and wipe the enemy. Unless your team is super far behind, you can easily set up a team fight. Don't forget the range is insanely long and use it from the jungle or over walls to help hide the abilities use from your enemy. If they see you rise up into the air, they will scatter.

FAQ/Tips
The mark over your head that looks like a little orange version of your spear. Is what lets you know that your spear is enchanted. Use this to know when you're doing true damage and gaining health.

True damage text is white, health regen is green. That will also tell you if your weapons enchanted.

Use your ultimate to leap into or out of the jungle to engage or disengage. Your abilities cost nothing but time. Spamming your abilities isn't bad since you have no mana cost, but be careful not to waste your ultimate. Jumping into the enemy team as your teammates are leaving is sure to get you killed.

Matchups
(Cresht, Easy)     

Cresht has a weaker shield, less damage, and is only a tank during his morph. You can do a lot of what Cresht does in his ultimate constantly. His ult is the better ultimate late game, but in the lane, all you need to watch out for is his knockbacks. Don't overextend, don't get pushed into a tower, and you will win.

(Lu Bu, Easy) 

Lubu wants to fight you at the same range you do. Whereas Lubu is better at chasing people down and slowing them for his allies to catch up. You want to stay in range of him, which is not what a Lubu wants. They want you to run and let him deal free damage. Take people out of their safe zone. Just fight him back, and show him what real damage looks like.

(Zanis, Easy) 

Zanis is a hero who enjoys chasing people down and beating them down. Much like Lubu, they want to chase down people who want to run. If you are losing you can simply use your ultimate to leave. However, due to your massive true damage and health regen kit. You can usually just fight him head-on unless he's fed. His passive gives him a massive damage buff for kills and assists, so he might scale a bit better than you can deal with alone damage wise. In lane, however, he doesn't stand a chance.

(Ilumia, Hard)       

Ilumia's abilities to knock back people with great burst and keep knocking people away will be our undoing. We have no real way of staying in range and keeping the pressure on. You can always use your ultimate to dive on her after she casts a few abilities. Since her knockbacks will be on cooldown, but chances are she will just wait to knock you away over and over.

(Airi, Hard) 

Airi has great range and multiple dashes. While I don't think you will get killed easily by an Airi top lane. I also don't think you will be killing an Airi top lane easily. The only benefit you have from a top lane Airi is that she covers the assassin type, while you are tankier. Assuming you don't feed her, and no one else does. You should be more useful late game.

(Arthur, Hard) 

A good Arthur will use his movement speed to dodge your Cleave and keep your weapon unenchanted. On the note that you do get in range of him, he is covered in short cooldown area of effect abilities and gains armor for free. You will never be able to trade damage with him for free, and his damage is more consistent.