Well unfortunately the developers gave Malay an absolutely monstrous discount in imperial so they’ve put themselves in a pickle. Despite missing 2 armors, Malay elite elephants are still tanky vs arrow just due to raw hp. Any additional buffs will probably break Malay.
I did make a post a while ago talking about how elite battle elephants needed 20 more HP.
While it obviously needs testing the benefit is Malay elephants see relatively little gain. But other than things like this where the Malay elephant receives relatively little benefit, the problem is Malay elephants are very strong as is.
Also the order of some of the changes for elephants was weird. Trample damage and elite elephant main hit damage changes didn’t make a ton of sense. For example vs 3 targets with 5 melee armor the damage per hit went from 30 → 26 → 19.5 and the last drop was a 25% reduction. They should have reintroduced the 16 main attack damage when they reduced the trample to get a smoother progression of 30 → 26 → 22.5 with a final transition of → 19.5 only if needed.
This all being said you can still use them well if you practice with them. But I wouldn’t be surprised if the elite upgrade being buffed slightly would be better for balance/more varied play.