If you try to go with autos as your main damage output, you’re going to get exploded by anyone with a gap closer/better range, or you’ll end up burning all of your defensive abilities and be exposed. Instead,only utilize her autos between skills, which you’ll be casting liberally late game (assuming you make it there; her early game can be rough if you like being aggressive).
Frankly, once fully built, she becomes nearly impossible to catch if running for her life, and hard as hell to reach if among allies. One of her prime weaknesses is her light A being body-blocked by any–and every–thing, which means you must risk your positioning to get that damage–and trust me you need and want it.
She only has two damaging abilities (and, no, her dark B doesn’t count) with a short range that never changes, neither of which is threatening on its own. Her damage and ratios are as close to perfect as can be–she cannot burst down whole teams, even if they clump up, but she will likely gun you down 1v1 if you let her light A land. If you eat a full combo and don’t back off, you’re looking at losing half of your health (do remember that since the defense item nerfs, people hardly rush any anymore, so this sort of damage is from a tier1-2 shield in my experience).
She is extremely slippery. Extremely. But until late game, those two skills have really long cooldowns that will have Malene playing defensively for around 15 seconds. Make no mistake, her dark B is where it’s at–her light B scales, but not well enough to eat more than one instance of heavy damage (assuming you build for CD+damage); her shield will never amount to Lorelai’s so anyone saying it qualifies as an ultimate is mistaken. Her light B is fine though, I personally only care about its mspd boost.
2v1, she’ll run instead of fight, she can’t really handle multiple targets at once. Gank together, retreat together–if one of you hangs around trying to poke her into overextending while the other is leaving, or has left, Malene will send you running back to your turret. Leave Malene no counter vision and wait for her dark B to go down–that’s when you gank, especially if she stays dark form. Her light B basically protects her from nothing, so a gank with gap closer CC while in light form is what you could also look out for. There is about a. 5 second delay before being able to cast an ability after form-switching, so even if the player is on the defensive and without vision, there’s a good chance of being able to shut her down before she can escape.
Late game with just AS, HC, and SC, light Malene’s cooldowns (in order) are 7/8/2, and for dark Malene, 4/10/2. For me, these are more than acceptable, and when landing full combos feels more frequent than it really is if you’re concentrating on your positioning and maintaining map awareness. And if you find yourself in need of damage but without skills, switching forms back and forth, even without Aftershock, deals damage they won’t see coming. You should be doing this all game anyway given that form-swapping is free, minus the cooldown.
You may find it interesting to know that Malene’s switch to dark form unleashes an auto-attack that deals two seperate instances of damage at once (the switvh to light does not), including her base WP damage which isn’t much, but every little bit helps. Furthermore, swapping forms resets her auto-attack resulting in decent, but dependable, burst that ensures you can down fighting should things go sideways for you.
I personally build Malene with AS, SG, BM, Crucible, SC, HC. These three cooldown items grant the values mentioned earlier along with improved damage to structures. I prefer these over the Clockwork since it grants no worthwhile reduction in CD times past my own build, the CP and energy aren’t worth it with Malene if you build HC. I really don’t even care about the structure damage SC provides, I only care about the extra health, even the cooldown is secondary; that’s also why I prefer the Crucible over Aegis–the extra survivability is vastly preferable to having a reflex block 30 seconds sooner. All the slipperyness in the world doesn’t matter if you blow up on contact with the enemy. I like her better in top lane where I get less attention and need less additional vision and can harass freely without the jungler or Roamer having two sides to gank from. In mid lane you’re almost always outranged, which is one of her bigger weaknesses–you really want an opponent with a shorter range so they have to walk into your abilities to hit you.
My only problem with Malene is that she has no real energy issues, even in the early game. If she does, it’s because she’s hasn’t been forced to back in about 5+ minutes. This is coming from someone who starts with two crystal bits, since I only poke with her empowered autos and the occasional dark A. She really should have slightly higher energy costs early on. As for her cooldowns, I’m on the fence: with just SC, AS, and HC, her abilities feel like they’re up all the time, but I know that isn’t the case. Hell, several times I’ve switched forms to escape only to find the ability on cooldown (but close to ready), or the switch itself still on cooldown. No one in their right mind is going to build 4 cooldown items on her, and if they do, they won’t be doing any damage worth a damn. With 4 crystal items she could do fearsome damage, but the moment she’s breathed on, she’ll drop dead.
Without constant focus on positioning and ability timing you’re either taking alot of damage or hardly doing any, to say nothing of how she’s built. She also has some of the worst wave clear I’ve ever seen–she can tear up a turret, but getting there is suffering. Her range puts her at constant risk in any engagement, even with her escape up. This is how she is balanced and, frankly, it makes her a blast to play.
