I'd like to talk about Maokai again
Next to Ryze, I have to imagine he's in the top tier of champs who've been reworked a lot. Since I've been playing it's been 3, depending on how you count it. Not as severely as they have been for Ryze, but enough that your play style changed from one patch to the next. At this point, I don't get why he's this difficult.
To be clear, I don't want him buffed necessarily. I don't mind him being where he is (which is mid-pack - he has something like a 49% WR in most roles). But he's boring. And his ult rework really sealed the deal. There's a lot to complain about.
The nerf to his W which first was range for CD, and then the removal of his tank-eater ability. If you wanted to rework this, I'd gladly take a skillshot version where you root to a location and grap whoever is there rather than what we have today, but that seems a bit more OP to me, and I don't know how to reconcile the noob-y nature of his point-and-click with the clear buff int he form of escaping, AoE CC, and easy tower dodge moves (since his W redirects tower aggro).
His E, which is his most unique ability and also his most bullshit. If his W is newb, then his E is talent-free in that the seed roams wherever the hell it pleases. There was an old Some-E-Card that said "I go into McDonalds and slap a $5 on the counter and say 'surprise me! Because you're gunna fuck it up anyway'." That's how I feel about his E.
It's mana hungry, it's erratic. It almost mandates that you throw it in the brush, but it lacks a real sense of damage or CC, and I feel like we need to fish or cut bait. Either it damages or it slows. For my money, it should change. Seed in a lane = longer slow with zero damage. Seed in brush = more damage with no slow. That's one suggestion. Another is the duration (in it's currently form) needs to scale of HP way more. At full build it maybe hits the one-min mark. At the end game? Really? With an HP focused build it should come closer to two (imo of course). Again, to clarify, it should be one or the other. I'm not suggesting both.
His Q is a necessary evil. It's boring. It's a bit redundant in his kit in that you often W to get to someone, and then Q. Why not just make the root slightly longer and rework his Q into something useful. I don't have a suggestion here because the ability is so whatever. I use it for early game wave clear so the most logical change would be to give it a better ability to clear waves (maybe let it apply a DoT to minions?)
Finally, his Kid Brother Nami Ult was a pretty bogus move. We all saw it as a half-assed change because the Darius Mains cried their eyes out about his previous Ult. This change was your father throwing on the television and making you a TV dinner just so he could watch the ball game in peace. it wasn't good or thought out. It was a bandaid to move on to something they cared about a lot more. It's good engage, but if you're going to give us this slop-tastic ability, at least make it run the length of the field.
I will say, for all my complaints, his passive rework was actually worth a damn. Otherwise we need some changes and I'd love to not see him left in the dumpster.
