cuz people played him as a cheezy support with E
instead of being what he is designed to be... rito shit the bed with his rework...
as a maokai main.. who loves the champ i hate the changes , he was an average of 46% win rate priort to rework and stayed the same after the rework expect as in the support role which shot up to 53%
and i happen to know the champ forward and backwards... i have the 12th most mastery points on him in NA... even with his shit win rate i maintain 55% + win rate on him. i have always played him as an AP BRUISER mainly top, but i have played him jungle, mid and support prior to the rework. i have ideas that i think would make him better and make him what riot wants to make him with out increasing his ap ratios or base damages...
i will copy n paste my reply about what i would do for maokai:
i have ideas on how to make this Rework maokai kit work and be effective...
i still play him as a tanky cc bruiser as i did prior to the rework . they took the % hp damage from his W and put it on E and over buffed it
they took the impact damage from his E cuz it was too strong in lane and he couldnt be shut out vs a bad match up and then they take the %hp damage on W to E now and people build him full ap go support and he has a win rate over 52% at support...
maokai out of the recent ap support tree meta
has a 46 % average win rate prior to the rework and after it in top and jungle
he has had this win rate since the end of last season... with those low #s i still maintain a 57% win rate with him top/jungle when his win rate in those roles are on average 46% since the season started (so before rework and after rework) 39-27 on him in the last month for a 59% win rate with a kda average of 3.39
i loved the champ i loved everything in his kit and play style.
i highly dislike the rework and think rito shit the bed on it... i have purposed thoughts and ideas that i think would fix this issue in my opinion
but if they simply give him lower CDR on W and make the duration of the root worth leveling (it goes 1.0 to 1.4 at max rank ) and lower the CDR on his ult by 15 seconds at each rank 120/110/100 currently so down to 105/95/85 seconds and make it move slighty faster , they can nerf the E damage and he would be fine and able to function as the protective type of counter engage tank they want him to be...
maybe just give him a lil higher flat ad base and a lil better attack speed at lvl 1 ( even nerf the scaling on it later is fine to compensate)
and a pet peeve is the clunky slow animation of his heal proc on passive , it use to be the fasted auto attack in the game now its weird
im not asking for higher ratios or damage or tank stats. just some cdr and a lil better duration on the root on