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Is Maokai in healthier spot with new ult?

Velasan·4/30/2019, 8:27:41 PM·1 votes·1,202 views

I know this change happened ages ago, but I feel like ever since they switched up Maokai's ult and changed his E that it made him actually less healthy for the game.

Granted the old one was a bit too generalist in approach, where he was good at everything at certain times. However, the new one with his current ult is lumped in with every other engage tank.

That puts him in competition with Sejuani, Zac, Sion, and even Kled for who can survive longest and has better engage. On top of that the new ult really is not any better in terms of healthy gameplay. It gives him even more CC and an increased amount of burst.

For those who don't remember, the old ultimate gave damage reduction to everyone inside his aura, and then if you could maintain the aura for long enough while it was eating mana could reactive it for an explosion that would deal damage to champions you were on top of (aura was not huge). IMO this was a much healthier version of his ultimate, providing a unique niche and ability that other tanks didn't have and went better with a "Warden" style of protecting your team mates.

Also, the E while a cool change, doesn't have much to do with an engage tank. It rewards trolling people by luring them into bushes full of saplings like Shaco boxes or Teemo shrooms, instead of doing anything tank related.

What are your thoughts?

2 Comments

MrFawknSunshine4/30/2019, 9:42:49 PM3 votes

as a maokai otp i would say this

  1. im bias i miss the old kit
  2. the old ult made it better for 1 vs 1 dueling then team fight/cc 3)i think his new kit is more balanced
  3. i think he suffers from too weak of a lane phase to really be a go to pick or overly effective.
  4. his kit doesnt give him a shield which seems to be strong and the tanks that are strong.
ChaosReyn4/30/2019, 8:39:33 PM2 votes

Imo, Maokai is probably one of the most balanced engage tanks currently. More posts that I've seen have complained that his new ult is too weak compared to being too strong. Their main argument: it's laughably slow, and your frontliner can catch one root and basically cover your whole team if they're smart enough to get behind him.

Despite all that complaining, I'd much prefer the other engage tanks take after him - plenty of cc, openings where people can dodge some of it if you're not doing it right, just enough burst damage to be relevant, plenty of defensive stats, and next to no strong, constant damage source outside of their initial entry.

Not to be compared to Kled in any regard - that little shit deals way too much damage - or with Sion, who can build AD and still get tanky from his W passive. Those two, if anything, are more juggernauts than tanks.