Let me start by saying that Maokai is a lot of fun to play. There. I said it. I admitted I enjoy the guy. I know I’m probably going to get taken to task for the content of this post, but at least we can agree that he’s fun. Beyond the fun, though, I’m having a hard time fitting Maokai into a team.

What works
It would definitely be unfair to say that Maokai doesn’t have his uses. He does, but a lot of it is pretty low impact stuff. His Q is a really nice slow, but it can be difficult to land when your root is on cooldown. His root is awesome, there’s really no more to be said about it (but you know me). It synergizes perfectly with is Q and offers excellent team support. His ult is also strong, so long as the fight happens inside it.

What doesn’t work
It’s actually tough to write about what works without talking about what doesn’t, which I’m sure you noticed. Though his Q is nice, if your root is on cooldown, it doesn’t feel like much and gets very hard to land. His W has a fairly long cooldown, which makes sense considering it’s strength, but I often found myself wishing it was much shorter. His saplings, though adorable, are easily avoided in lane if you stick near your creeps. Also, the throw arc is so wide when used at his feet that they take a lot of time from toss to explosion. When throwing them a distance it’s no big deal; the travel time makes sense. Up close, it sucks. His ult also suffers from conflicted design. It reduces damage taken as long as it’s on, but it deals damage when broken. Unless you’re using it to last hit or your team is crushing, it’s almost always best to keep it running. A well-timed pop might occasionally turn the tide, but then you lose that 20 percent reduction. Also, as I mentioned in my initial post about his abilities, teamfights are rarely static affairs unless you have a lot of CC.

That being said…
That being said I still think Maokai is in an okay place. He’s definitely not OP, but strong enough when played well to support several different comps. My personal complaint about him is that his skills are mostly low impact, providing support without much pizzaz, pretty much my least favorite spot to fit on any team. On any CC team, though, he’s another force to deal with. To be honest, another part of this issue is that I’ve only played him sporadically, not the usual 10-game spree I get with new champions. It seems a lot of other people are really enjoying him, and I suppose I can understand why.

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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.