Play maokai top he's super strong

Too Ton·Nov 9, 2014·2 votes·655 views

Early on you get poked a lot and you have no damage. Once you are full build you never die. Passive is activated so much in teamfights and that means your allies aren't getting hit. Your ult is not THAT useful but every little dps not taken counts. Your saplings are wards late game and early when you can't have slots for wards. W is a meh lock down but late game catching someone out is useful. No one beats me :D jk unless everyone including my lane fed maokai can win it.

8 Comments

7ha7guy777Nov 10, 20142 votes

olaf rushing hex drinker will chop the tree down. it is not fun playing mao against olaf

SalidfingersNov 10, 20141 votes

Even going cowel, mercs and bork eats mal.

Lord DusteonNov 9, 20141 votes

How are you going to get full build if early on you do no damage and get poked a lot.

Otherwise, anyone who outscales/can push hard can easily force him to go oom,

Mayor StubbsNov 9, 20141 votes

Maokai is so strong top lane because he scales ridiculously well, it'll be tough to find a higher scaling champ. Also once you have a rod of ages on him he is nearly unkillable (in lane), does pretty good damage (easily enough to push someone without sustain out of lane) (ex: a w-e-q combo does roughly 50% health of standard top laners) Top lane is the only role I try not to play because I'm bad at it, but when I have to I generally take Maokai because he's easy to play/not die with and generally speaking a safe pick for any team comp.

EndlessSorcererNov 9, 20141 votes

How do you usually build him and what runes do you use?

When I play him, I usually have Hybrid Pen Marks, Scaling Armor Seals, Flat MR Glyphs, 1 Flat Armor Quint and 2 Health Regen Quints. I typically start Doran's Shield into Iceborn Gauntlet first when against AD opponents and Crystalline Flask into Spirit Visage against AP opponents. A typical final build for me is something like: item 3047 item 3025 item 3065 item 3151 item 3143 item 3190 . It might be a bit more damage heavy than standard, but I find it stops people from ignoring me in team fights and lets me duel effectively. I'm also not a huge fan of Rod of Ages on Maokai, so I try to avoid it.

Also, how do you rank your abilities? I typically do QWQEQR before I finish maxing Q, followed by W.

Though, I'm not sure I agree with you saying that Maokai has no damage early. When against melee opponents, you can just Q-AA for a quick trade, which can stop them from effectively retaliating. Also, if you get slightly ahead of a squishy opponent in lane, you can easily get a Sheen as your first item to increase your damage and trading significantly. Your Q makes a good interrupt for autoattacks and your W is good for dodging key abilities, so you can avoid a lot of damage in trades if you time your abilities correctly.

NoMonkuNov 9, 20141 votes

Maokai is good. He scales well and can easily catch targets to set them up for his team. His flaws, though are his early laning is somewhat weak so he can be bullied out with the right champions. Also if you play correctly against him, outside of getting ganked, he doesn't really have much kill pressure so you can actually take something more risky, lets say Nasus against him in solo Q and do well if he doesn't harass you enough. Early on it is just a farmfest that he wants, so as long as you yourself can scale incredibly well with him, you will be able to do well later in the game.

Too TonNov 10, 20141 votes

Thing is I dropped nasus for maokai. Nasus has even worse laning and late game he doesn't teamfight that well. Maokai has tankier stats while providing hard cc.

NoMonkuNov 12, 20141 votes

I never said Nasus was superior to him. I was just saying in the matchup Nasus is more favorable as he can do what he wants to do early, which is farm to win.