"Maokai's Supposed to be a Hearty Tank Who Wades into Combat"

Let's go over this again, because apparently no one was listening last time.

A) Jungle Maokai has to max W. That is going to happen no matter what, you need the lower CD mobility and the higher duration CC, especially since Q CC has had its duration gutted.

B) Top Lane Maokai is not going to be a thing without an item that tanks can rush against divers and juggernauts. And since there can never be an item for tanks that beats The Black Cleaver, because The Black Cleaver is specifically designed to punish tanks being played in top lane, there's no way to play him top. Especially when you nerf his bush abuse, the one good thing about his rework.

C) AP Support Maokai arose from the ashes of the rework because you created it. "Play around bushes" is not something a tank can do. It's idiotic. Team fights happen in lane, they happen at dragon and at baron. There are no bushes anywhere near dragon and the bush near baron is in one direction, a smart team can advance from the other direction. This is the same problem that Skarner has, and at least with Skarner you gave him a way to proc his passive regardless of location.

So, what can we conclude here?

The Maokai rework removed the benefits of playing Maokai as a tank while offering him nothing significant in return.

So, let's talk about that specifically in more detail, because Riot is nerfing Maokai without giving him anything good to fall back on.

Why the Passive Buff Will Accomplish Nothing - Maokai is not bad in the late game. No one thinks that. He just has no place in the early game. The jungle is no place for sapling bombs, it's awkward and annoying. Maxing W is required because a tank's power comes online in the mid game and you want to be snaring for longer and snaring more targets, but maxing W makes your clears slower and doesn't give much power to your ganks.

So why is the passive buff largely irrelevant to the mid game? Because in order to be healed, you need to be damaged. And in order to be damaged and not dead, you need to survive damage. Now, every single item has been made worse as a first item buy intentionally. Additionally, they all give less health. So Maokai has less of a health pool to survive burst and less health per item to benefit from his health scaling heal. And he needs armor and MR of a decent amount to survive the damage, then he needs health to make the heal decent.

So basically, the heal buff affects Maokai when he has and three other items, which is when he's already decent. That's not the problem tank Maokai is having, the problem is there's no place to go before team fights are happening.

So either give Maokai somewhere to go or stop nerfing his AP support build, because that's all you left for him.

Also, screw his ultimate. Seriously. Just fuck you for that Riot. It shouldn't feel bad to press R, for any champion. An ultimate should be exciting and satisfying to use on everyone. That's why it's an ultimate. I don't care one-tenth as much about balance as I do about my champion being fun and satisfying to play, and you ruined that.