Maokai's Ult, An Idea to Weaken/Strengthen the Twisted Treant
As we all know, Maokai has seen some definite growth in popularity because of his Top position dominance in LCS and Worlds competitions. Yes, he was nerfed due to said dominance, but I feel that this nerf may have been too drastic, instead of looking at the strength of his overall kit. Although he is still very powerful, his ultimate is something that can be both strengthened and weakened, to create more of a balance in his kit.
So the current version of Vengeful Maelstrom is as follows:
Vengeful Maelstrom Toggle: Maokai creates a magical vortex around himself, protecting him and allied champions by reducing damage from non-turret sources by 20% for a maximum of 10 seconds.
When the effect ends the absorbed energy is released, dealing magic damage to enemies within the vortex's range, plus bonus magic damage based on the damage stored by the damage reduction effect.
Now I feel that his ultimate is extremely powerful mainly because he is able to use this spell basically whenever/whenever he chooses (as the CD is fairly low at all stages of the game), with little to no risk for doing so. My thoughts on this are that **Vengeful Maelstrom **should be reworked to be an activated skill-shot in which a player targets an area to place the Maelstrom for Maokai's team. Basically, we up the cooldown on Vengeful Maelstrom to 90/70/60 and make it an on-use skill-shot to place wherever a Maokai decides is best. If deciding to dive a turret, you can place it offensively. If you need to defend your own and teamfight there, you can place the Maelstrom defensively.
The way this strengthens Maokai is he is able to place Vengeful Maelstrom anywhere on the map without actually having to stand inside himself. This isn't to say he won't be tanking the front lines, but there can be situations where a Maokai hadn't activated his ultimate during a teamfight and is too low to continue fighting so he activates it for his team to continue that fight. However, this ultimate comes with a price as well, because although you may place it where you wish, it is really only useful in certain situations (all-out teamfights, defending a tower dive/tower destruction, engaging in a tower dive/tower destruction. Basically, instead of Maokai's current ultimate being on him, I feel that Vengeful Maelstrom should be a static, non-moving ultimate.
This would allow Vengeful Maelstrom to have counter potential. It can be used as a zoning tool/defensive tool/offensive tool, but it will be lack luster if you place it in the middle of a fight and the enemy team is smart enough not to stand inside of it and get out as soon as possible. So placing **Vengeful Maelstorm **would actually take practice and knowledge of different in-game scenarios and situations, not just "Oh, I'll turn this ultimate on and my whole team and I benefit wherever I go because it stays on me regardless."
This is the way I see his ultimate being used instead of how he just walks around with it now. As it stands now, Maokai is able to use his ultimate whenever, wherever, instead of having to make wise decisions on how/when to use it. How Riot would tune the numbers to reflect the strengths and weaknesses is up to them, but this is how I see Vengeful Maelstrom becoming more balanced.
