Maokai's rework

Nevermind. I'm seeing some of the gameplay on the PBE and Maokai is just so god damn slow it's insane.

Zac looks really good though.

Makes him much better, and properly signifies him as a Warden instead of the generalist tank he's currently played as.

The slow movement on his W means it won't be useful to engage enemies, especially ones running away, but it will still be just as useful as close range enemies attempting to close in on your backline.

His new R, also, looks useless at first glance because of it's slow speed, but it's actually an extremely potent disengage tool (Something Wardens should be known for). Even if your enemies try to hide behind their tank to avoid being rooted, the slow speed of the ult means that it will continue zoning them off since they can't just walk around the first person who gets hit, lest they get rooted too.

The ult can also still be used to engage, but from surprising and clever angles. If you're Maokai jungle (My favorite way to Maokai, personally), and the bot lane is pushed towards your team, you can ult sideways towards the lane wall to create a massive zoning area that traps the enemy in with you. If they try to cross the roots, they get CC'd and die, so it forces a 2v3 fight.

All in all, love it.

As a former Maokai main, I'm REALLY hoping this will make me start to take him up again. Looks very promising and I'm excited to try it out.

Clearly, they hated his W.

They lowered the damage, lowered the root duration and significantly increased the cooldown. Also, I believe it travels slower than it used to.

Going to try him sometime on the PBE to see if he still works as a support

This greatly increases my interest in him. I love the new ult, as it forces more strategic play instead of popping your ult to negate a bunch of damage, and the sapling change is interesting. I also like that his abilities are now all plant htemed in name, rather than having super magic themes to them. If he's a tree, why does he get wind magic? These need to be explained. Magic can't just be a catch-all excuse.

I feel like they've completely ruined him... I'm so disappointed by this rework. His W is awful and his ult is just Nami's. Whoo. He now has Nami's ult.

Lol it looks like they decided to call it a rework when all they wanted to do was remove the one thing that made him really tanky

I can't see how his ult will be useless. You literally going to have to work hard to land it

Also, it looks like his sapling will be strong, more so than shrooms