The Maokai skin and bundle list is up, so I figured I’d post while patiently waiting for the spotlight to go live. I really like Maokai’s art so far, more than I’ve liked anyone’s art since Swain released.
For skins, Maokai’s getting Totemic Maokai and Charred Maokai, both of which look really good. Alistar’s also getting a new skin, Longhorn Alistar, which makes me wonder whether he’s getting his rework this patch. It wasn’t mentioned in the preview so I doubt it. Maybe two weeks from now?
Riot posted a patch preview for the upcoming Maokai patch, and though it wasn’t presented in video form this go round, we still got a lot of good information. At the top of the list, for me personally anyway, is that Vlad is getting a nerf.
You may remember Vladimir’s champion spotlight, if only because it was so funny to listen to Phreak tell us just how overpowered Vlad would be. Riot’s stance is that he’s not explicitly overpowered, which I can sort of agree with. Certain characters do very well against him, but a lot of toons don’t, and he snowballs way too fast with the bonus survivability he gets from his passive. His passive is getting a nerf, but probably more importantly so is Sanguine Pool. I’m excited, to say the least.
Anivia is catching a nerf to her annoying ult -> E combo, which is almost a guaranteed 25 percent damage done to her target with very little required effort. The change will make it cost more mana for players to ‘pulse’ her ult, quickly toggling it on and then off, hopefully reducing the number of times that simple combo can land. I don’t think this will be quite enough, but we’ll see.
Rammus is also getting nerfed, this time on his speed. Powerball bonus speed is down 15 percent. Again, I’m not entirely certain that this addresses his issues, but it should help. I can understand Riot’s resistance to nerfing tanks. There are relatively few tanks in the game – a heavy nerf to one tank makes the rest of the list look pretty sparse.
Lastly, Ryze is getting a long awaited rework. I’ve played a few Ryze games recently. He’s pretty fun if he gets farmed, but the mechanics on Spell Flux make him unreliable in lane. The change will make him a ranged caster-carry. His spells will have shorter cooldowns, longer range, lower base damage, and scale with mana as well as AP. I’m actually really excited to try him out, though I wonder how Spell Flux now works. If the bounce range wasn’t increased with the cast range he could still feel a little frustrating.
Some of the cooldown reduction items are getting a rework, but I’ll cover that in more detail once Riot releases the actual number changes.
It was only a matter of time before intrepid programmers from the LoL community got fed up with the long wait for Riot’s official replay system and decided to do something about it. Matt and Cam, two programmers from Perth, have made a third party League of Legends replay tool, and it only took them three weeks.
Yeah, three weeks. It doesn’t interface directly with the LoL client, and since Riot is currently working on its own replay system, the company has been removing links to the program on the official forums. That said, you can get the program, called “LoL Replay” from the developer’s website.
Up to this point, the best way to see a “replay” of your game was to video record your desktop, which can be a resource intensive process. The LoL Replay tool works by recording network traffic and using the data to recreate the game afterward. This allows the player to view different perspectives from the match, though I don’t know if it’s possible to watch enemy movements.
I’m away from my desktop right now, but I’ll be giving this a test later today. The news is especially relevant now that Riot has released a launcher/patcher capable of supporting replays, even if it is only in beta.
via: PC Gamer
Riot posted the official Maokai ability list to the forums today, and he already sounds different than the PC Gamer exclusive. I’m glad to say that – his ult sounds much better and it’s very cool that his traps deal damage when they land in addition to their explosion effect on detonate.
Here’s the official list:
Arcane Smash: Maokai slams the ground, the force of which knocks nearby enemies back and sends an arcane shockwave forward damaging and slowing his enemies.
Twisted Advance: Maokai dissolves into a cloud of arcane energies. He regrows near a target enemy, dealing damage and rooting it in place.
Sapling Toss: Maokai hurls a sapling, dealing damage on impact. The sapling becomes implanted in the ground warding a nearby area. When enemies approach, the sapling attacks, exploding in an arcane blast that damages enemies.
Vengeful Maelstrom (Ultimate): Maokai shields his allies by drawing power from hostile spells and attacks, reducing non-tower damage done to allied champions in the area. Maokai can prolong the effect as long as he has mana to spend on it. When the effect ends, Maokai unleashes the absorbed energy to deal damage to enemies within the vortex.
Sap Magic (Passive): Each time a champion near Maokai casts a spell, he gains a charge of Magical Sap. When he has 5 charges, his next melee attack drains energy from his target, healing Maokai for a percentage of his maximum HP.
The fact that his ult deals damage in, at least from what I can see of the screenshots, a pretty decent radius makes this guy sound much better than he did yesterday. I also really like his art direction. I’m curious to see how the ground slam will play out. From the description it sounds as though it’s a close range knockback but a long range slow.
Be on the watch for him this coming Tuesday.
We didn’t get the Maokai ability list through the traditional lines of communication this go round. Instead, he was previewed exclusively on PC Gamer, complete with commentary about his different abilities. This is kind of interesting route for Riot to take, but I support it. I love having commentary from people who have played the character. You’ll see what I mean.
Here’s the text from PC Gamer:
Abilities
Q: Maokai’s arms resemble Hellboy’s: one average sized, one large enough to knock out an elephant. Maokai’s Q makes him slam his trunk-arm into the ground, sending a shockwave rippling through the earth towards the enemy. The shockwave acts as a line nuke, similar to Ezreal’s Essence Flux (W) ability. Originally, the wave resembled Kassadin’s Force Pulse (E) and granted Maokai bonus armor, but the result was a messy spell that just didn’t fit.
W: His bread-and-butter initiating move. Maokai explodes into a multitude of arcane splinters, phasing out of existence for a brief moment in order to reform at the feet of an enemy champon, growing out of the ground underneath them to damage and root them in place for a few seconds. This ability is single-target (imagine if Master Yi’s Alpha Strike (Q) stunned a champion instead of jumping between enemies) and is not channeled, as Maokai ceases to exist during the spell, similar to Alpha Strike.
E: Like the Vulture’s spider mines from Starcraft. Maokai plants an acorn into the ground, which lies in wait for a unfriendly passerby. Once it’s found a target, the acorn will pop out of the ground and run to the enemy champion, exploding for light AoE damage when it gets there. This is great for traps, keeping an eye on enemy movements in the jungle and useful in team fights due to its small AoE damage. It can also be used as a scouting tool, similar to Teemo’s Noxious Trap (R), but Maokai will be much more limited in the number that he can place.
R (ultimate): Maokai’s ultimate ability fits right into the current meta-game, where teamfights often decide who wins or loses a match. Think of it as the defensive version of Anivia’s Ultimate. Maokai creates a placeable AoE that drains mana per second while active. Allied champions standing in the area will receive more and more Magic Resist as the spell absorbs damage. It can be maintained as long as Maokai has enough mana, but it’s costly, so we never had it on for more than 6 or so seconds. When the ability is toggled off, Maokai’s cooldowns will be reduced according to how much damage was absorbed during the spell. If you soak up enough spell damage, you can reach a threshold that will, in essence, allow you to double-cast your other abilities as magic flows back into Maokai.
Passive: Maokai’s passive gives him some decent staying power early on in the laning phase, when champions are casting spells to ensure last-hits and harassment. He gains increased health regeneration when champions near him (enemy or ally) cast spells.
He sounds interesting, though I’m definitely bummed that his traps will be limited. I really enjoy trap champions, and I think it would be cool if Riot developed sub-classes of heroes centered around abilities like this. I’ll hold of on judgement until I see the numbers, though. His ult sounds really boring. I hope it has a pretty massive radius, too, or that it at least stacks up quickly. Few teamfights I’m a part of these days take place in one area.
As for the way this was leaked, it’s great to see someone’s opinion, particularly for skills like his W. Riot’s own skill descriptions can be a bit, ah, cryptic at times. I’d like to think we’ll get to the point that we have numerical values for the abilities roughly a week in advance but I doubt it’s in the cards. As we know from the Renekton release, numbers change practically up to the release date.
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