I love Maokai, and if he were in a better place, with a non-shitty Ult, I'd play him a lot more consistently. Today I went to see how some other supports were doing and was shocked to see Maokai occupying the 7th highest win-rate (.28% play rate).
What did I miss? I assume this was a combination of nerfs and item changes, but what is giving him an edge right now?
Alzon2 votesSupport Maokai is kinda deceptive. The champion needs enough defensive stats to survive at the front of fights. If you play him as a support, he won’t get that kind of survivabity and will be relegated to peeling and vision, not frontlining. Meanwhile, Alistar, Leona, and Braum have huge defensive tools that are not item-reliant, and so they can frontline. Thresh, Blitzcrank, and Nautilus have huge zoning strength that lets them also frontline without items. Maokai has neither of these things. He relies on gold to buy items that make him tanky enough to survive engaging. This is what makes him a frontline threat. He can’t get that kind of income as a support unless he gets fed.
ROYALR3IGN1 votesHe has a really good kit imo to be a support. I'm actually surprised hes not played more as a support. He has enough CC to be peel, hes a teamfighting beast, and he has sustain in lane. Build a relic sheild and on him and hes just as good as Alistar if not better with his ult. Plus he has free wards on his E for checking death bushes for 30 seconds. And now that you mention it I might just pick it up and start playing it myself.
RenownedWheat421 votesHe rocks as support imo.
You can start sweeper and E for free wards and poke, as well as zoning because no one wants to eat his Es for free. Great CC and peel, huge lockdown and gank assist, tanky as hell with his passive while steal being able to dish out a ton of damage.
He's especially good if you still want to play like a tanky support into mages/enchanters because he can fight back in the harass/poke wars with his E, but still has far more reliable engage than any of them can provide.
RookPusher1 votesYou guys are scaring me because I'm trying to climb out of bronze. If the possibility exists to do it as Maokai I don't know if I'm going to play the OP champs that can carry.
Don't sentence me to a life down here ya jerks!
Hammermancer2 votesYou play too many champs
Pyoure in broNze 4, pick 2 champs, doesnt matter who, and play those
Youll get hronze 1 by knowing your kit alone
RookPusher1 votesYou play too many champs
Pyoure in broNze 4, pick 2 champs, doesnt matter who, and play those
Youll get hronze 1 by knowing your kit alone
I also think I die way too much.
But I'll be frank, I don't think knowing the kit alone is enough to climb. I can make LCS level epic plays on Naut. It doesn't matter. I once help off a gank on my overextended ADC with all 3 of the bot laners attempting to kill him alone. He, in all caps, in all chat said "bro, the plays, please add me after"
Wasn't enough to do shit. I've moved to Poppy largely because - I feel - knowing her kit well would allow me to carry.
Hammermancer1 votesI also think I die way too much.
But I'll be frank, I don't think knowing the kit alone is enough to climb. I can make LCS level epic plays on Naut. It doesn't matter. I once help off a gank on my overextended ADC with all 3 of the bot laners attempting to kill him alone. He, in all caps, in all chat said "bro, the plays, please add me after"
Wasn't enough to do shit. I've moved to Poppy largely because - I feel - knowing her kit well would allow me to carry.
Be realistic, if you were silver 4 material you'd be able.to hardstomp bronze 5-3 with crit soraka
Dont blame the team, learn where you're bad and fix it
RookPusher1 votesBe realistic, if you were silver 4 material you'd be able.to hardstomp bronze 5-3 with crit soraka
Dont blame the team, learn where you're bad and fix it
Respectfully, I think you're assuming a world of difference between bronze 4 and silver 4 that is more of a pot hole than a chasm.
Hammermancer1 votesI was bronze 5 for half of last season then i stopped playing stupid shit and just focused on three champs, i relearned them and the core of the game instead of huffing my own farts abput how it's anyone elses fault but my own
I know exactly how much skill is between bronze 5 and silver 5, its actually quite a bit.
If you want to quick and climb in bronze then just lock in the following
Mid/top 
Slam.your skull into the enemy towers for remembers bronze about 45 minutes
Get said towers
Build a tri on garen, take resolve, take demolish. Build a lichbane, peotobelt, and a fuxling nashors on ziggs resolve.secondary, chrysalis and demolish, its bronze this.build will do fine On tryns just get crit attack spees On brand just cap csr and a rylais
You literally cant fuckit up if you just follow the formula but you'll sink back down or stagnate next season due to this being anti-bronze cheese
RookPusher1 votesI was bronze 5 for half of last season then i stopped playing stupid shit and just focused on three champs, i relearned them and the core of the game instead of huffing my own farts abput how it's anyone elses fault but my own
I know exactly how much skill is between bronze 5 and silver 5, its actually quite a bit.
If you want to quick and climb in bronze then just lock in the following
Mid/top
Slam.your skull into the enemy towers for remembers bronze about 45 minutes
Get said towers
Build a tri on garen, take resolve, take demolish. Build a lichbane, peotobelt, and a fuxling nashors on ziggs resolve.secondary, chrysalis and demolish, its bronze this.build will do fine On tryns just get crit attack spees On brand just cap csr and a rylais
You literally cant fuckit up if you just follow the formula but you'll sink back down or stagnate next season due to this being anti-bronze cheese
Yeah, a guy I play with said the same thing. I refuse to play Garen.
Hammermancer1 votesI dont see the issue, the first step to climbing is admitting you need to improve, the second step is to learn the macro, well before the micro
Eleshakai1 votesI dont see the issue, the first step to climbing is admitting you need to improve, the second step is to learn the macro, well before the micro
Unless you're playing support, step 1 is learning to CS.
If you can farm effectively, you'll win most games simply by out-golding your opponent in low tier games.
(for support, it's less formulaic sadly)
Hammermancer1 votesTo be faor of you have a bronze adc then you're better off taking the farm
RookPusher1 votesI dont see the issue, the first step to climbing is admitting you need to improve, the second step is to learn the macro, well before the micro
Well as I mentioned previously, I die way too often. With rare exception, if my KDA score isn't 3+, I lose the match.
Nevurwin1 votesHes the 7th highest only because of his extremely low play-rate .28%. If more people played it his win-rate would drastically drop. Most champs with very low play-rates like that are generally pretty high.
Basically .28% is not a good sample size.
Example : The average player bases never touches these champs, which explains the low play rate... The high win percent is because the people that play them are Mains/OTPs. If the average joes dipped into these champions, their win-rates would plummet.
Aurelion Sol Middle 53.95% 1.07%
Heimerdinger ADC 53.68% 0.57%
Mordekaiser ADC 53.18% 0.11%
Kayle Middle 53.13% 0.20%
Swain ADC 52.42% 0.25%
Pika Fox1 votesHeal passive, good targeted lock down that can also dodge abilities, another good CC, an ult that is similar to namis and takes the entire lane, bush control.
Pretty much similar to why support trundle was a thing. Good CC, good lane sustain even though melee, good free stats. Just other things as well instead of enemy adc -gold from trundle q.
Eleshakai1 votesto the OP - champions that are only played a tiny bit in a role are likely specialists, meaning they're better at their champ than most since it's all they play. It doesn't matter if a champ is strong or weak if a person is extremely good at it, which inflates the winrates a fair bit.