Can we have a serious moment of discussion about Maokai?

Averia·May 16, 2017·5 votes·3,382 views

I'm actually seriously curious who thought these ideas were good together? And I don't mean this is as a "wah I died to saplings" post, this is a genuine "you fucked up with these changes". Maokai will probably never fulfill the tank niche he's supposed to properly while the current design choices are on his kit.

High % max HP damage (8% base, doubled in brush)
Super high AP scaling (like seriously 2% per 100 AP, or 1% per 50 AP, doubled in brush? Getting upwards of 40% max health damage isn't impossible or even hard)
Stackable trap
No diminishing returns
Impossible to clear without risk of taking damage
Throwing these all on a champion whose first designation is "tank". Seriously, Tanks aren't supposed to deal damage, I could have sworn that was the whole reasoning behind the Mid-year Tank Update in the first place? Was it not to lower the amount of damage output in favor of tankiness and utility?
Almost forgot to mention the stupid "throw it in a bush for double damage" gimmick.

I.e. why do Maokai's saplings just ignore everything that Jhin's traps, Teemo's 'Shrooms, Shaco's Boxes etc. were given as counterplay? Because they're not invisible? They offer absurds amount of zone control and are only really countered by other oppressive mechanics (i.e. Zyra plants). 1 of them is enough to take anything that isn't a full-tank champion off the fields of justice while they return to base, an act that takes anywhere from 20-40 seconds. 2+ is enough to outright kill squishies and 4+ can basically kill anything that's not 3 tank items deep. Not to mention these traps provide zones of control for upwards of a minute and the cooldown is incredibly short even without CDR at 11 seconds.

Maokai was a fine champion before these changes. His ultimate was the only overbearing part of his kit but Riot chose to gut him in favor of a stupid trap gimmick. Literally just changing his ultimate and passive would have been more than enough to completely fix the design problems Riot had with Maokai's kit. Or was it because we wanted to try throwing Maokai into the jungle, when he was already good at jungling? Because now his jungle clear sucks and his ganks have no damage.

There can be argument that there are nerfs/changes on the PBE, however the issue is not the numbers or anything of the sort, it's the actual design philosophy behind the rework to begin with. The only truly problematic portion of Maokai's kit was his generic "I take less damage" ultimate. Which, by the way was just randomly re-applied to Galio in hideous fashion. In fact a lot of Galio's kit would have looked pretty good on Maokai with a few different twists which I think kind of emphasizes how generic Galio's rework was too (seriously the only "situational and unique" mechanic in Galio's kit is the strong magic damage shield), but that's a discussion for another day.

I don't expect the rework to be reverted (The only time Riot's owned up to a rework was the Kog'maw rework which was an obvious failure). However I believe moving the % health damage from his E back to his W and making the E ratio something like .4-.5 instead (or leaving the ratio low at like .3 and increasing the base damage) and leaving the double damage effect on is a much cleaner approach to handling Maokai as a champion. This alone would probably be enough to move Maokai back into the tank role and fix this gimmicky bullshit.

Saplings would then still be powerful, but Maokai would be rewarded more for going into the fray and playing as a tank rather than just hiding in the brush waiting for saplings to effectively remove an enemy champion off the map. This in turn favors a tankier build path and rewards maokai for playing to his strengths: A strong disruptor with lots of CC and self-healing, rather than playing to a "I deal retarded damage" wet-dream fantasy playstyle.

39 Comments

RalanrMay 16, 20173 votes

"Tanks aren't supposed to deal damage"

They are supposed to deal enough to function in solo lanes when they are designed for those lanes.

AveriaMay 16, 20172 votes

I think you missed the entire mid-year update talks Riot made where they said "hey guys, we're lowering the amount of damage tanks deal in favor of making them tankier and giving them more CC and utility".

Hence Gargoyle Stoneplate, Sunfire nerfs (the staple tank damage item), nerfing armor penetration quite heavily (1% off every stack of cleaver, and like 10% of LDR/Mortal), etc.

RalanrMay 16, 20172 votes

{quoted}

I think you missed the entire mid-year update talks Riot made where they said "hey guys, we're lowering the amount of damage tanks deal in favor of making them tankier and giving them more CC and utility".

I didn't miss that at all. And tank damage did drop. That doesn't mean tanks don't do damage or shouldn't do damage. They need enough damage to not only farm, but also interact with their enemy laner in top.

Cause what's to stop your opponent from hitting you if you can't hit back with enough force to make him reconsider his option?

Hence Gargoyle Stoneplate, Sunfire nerfs (the staple tank damage item), nerfing armor penetration quite heavily (1% off every stack of cleaver, and like 10% of LDR/Mortal), etc.

Stoneplate thankfully only reduces your damage when you activate it. Sunfire changes I'd be more fine with if the range wasn't so pitiful. It fails as a clearing item.

Tanks hurt. They don't hurt people that are somewhat durable, but squishies and monsters are supposed to be things tanks hurt.

AveriaMay 16, 20173 votes

Tanks shouldn't be effectively removing an ADC from the field of battle with one non-ultimate (or even ultimate) spell (which is what Maokai is currently doing). Maokai can kill an ADC with as little as 2 saplings depending on the state of the game. Clearing them is inefficient because the only way to clear them is to trigger them.

My problem is not that Maokai does damage, if it was I would be targeting this post at other tanks as well.

My problem is that Saplings don't reward Maokai for playing the tanky frontliner, but rather reward him for buying some AP and stacking saplings in a brush. They lack sufficient counterplay and are an absurd gimmick. They provided Maokai with more than enough value before the rework.

In fact even in my suggestions for fixing the champion, I don't suggest they completely gut sapling damage, I just simply suggest they move the % health damage back to his W (where it was originally) and give E a regular AP scaling with some suggestions for numbers because it removes this stupidly abusive situation where he stacks traps until someone is unlucky enough to get hit by them.

You read one sentence of my OP without hearing anything else and assumed that I meant something completely different from what I actually do.

RalanrMay 16, 20171 votes

Normally I usually am quick to point out the train of thought "tanks shouldn't do damage" because I feel that thinking along these lines can lead to a bad solution.

It's not that tanks shouldn't do damage, it's that that should do enough to do their job.

Now that being said, I more or less agree that his saplings are too strong. I don't believe Riot intended for him to be played support and thus didn't tune his damage for that.

So his saplings should have some reduced damage. Personally I'd just lower the overall %max health damage to something like 7 or 6 at max instead of 8%. I wouldn't remove it as this tends to be helpful with his jungle clears and allows him to be relevant later (plus it's not like this is that new. His W used to have it, which I considered worse because there was no real counterplay to his W. his E has counterplay).

Scalings that encourage him to build more tanky than AP could also help.

AveriaMay 16, 20173 votes

While his W was point and click, I would disagree that it didn't have any counterplay. Especially for ranged champions (the main targets of Maokai's W) the counterplay was to simply use your range.

The other issue is that Maokai's W is single-target, and can only be used once on an enemy within a given timeframe.

Saplings don't have those limitations. They are easily stackable (actually encouraged for the most part), and are Area of Effect. This is really where the problem lies.

There are definitely other ways to fix the problems with the champion, however the current way saplings work will almost always encourage trap-stacking until someone just runs into them and is effectively removed from the map for up to 40 seconds.

RalanrMay 16, 20171 votes

{quoted}

While his W was point and click, I would disagree that it didn't have any counterplay. Especially for ranged champions (the main targets of Maokai's W) the counterplay was to simply use your range.

And the counterplay to saplings can simply be not going near bushes. One is more open than the other, and it's not the root.

The other issue is that Maokai's W is single-target, and can only be used once on an enemy within a given timeframe.

That's hardly an issue. It allows his to dive one target of his choosing without worry of getting stopped.

Saplings don't have those limitations. They are easily stackable (actually encouraged for the most part), and are Area of Effect. This is really where the problem lies.

Except they do. They are outrunnable and can be herded towards minions.

There are definitely other ways to fix the problems with the champion, however the current way saplings work will almost always encourage trap-stacking until someone just runs into them and is effectively removed from the map for up to 40 seconds.

Which honestly is no worse than what Teemo, Shaco, or even Caitlyn does with their traps.

It's just powerful zone control.

AveriaMay 16, 20172 votes

Clearing every bush to prevent even a single maokai sapling is incredibly difficult. Why? Because the low cooldown and high duration of his saplings overpowers the use of other mechanics to avoid them, like wards. You can't just say "don't go into the brush". The game doesn't work that way and your argument just got super fallacious.

Caitlyn has Zone of Control, but only in a singular area of up to 5 traps (at max rank) and she can still be pressured out of this Zone of Control, removing the effectiveness of the Zone of Control entirely. Maokai's traps can be stacked up to a soft-cap where the duration finally goes lower than the cooldown on the number of traps Maokai has placed. This is a huge difference. Maokai could sapling every bush in a quadrant of the jungle and still have cooldown left to place more. Caitlyn can trap a finite space and is forced to remove a Zone of Control to make a new one.

Teemo's Shrooms can be countered by Control Wards and Red Trinket. Maokai's saplings require you to always run away from them. This is not an effective clearing mechanic. It's just the only one available to you as the opponent player.

oSEXYPLATYPUSoMay 16, 20171 votes

but maokai is limited to cds on E and mana cost ... and they time out... its not like they last for 5mins like shrooms from teemo..

AveriaJun 4, 20171 votes

They last for a pretty long time in brush... On the wiki it says they last for 30(+2.5 Bonus HP) duration. I don't how accurate that is, but anything over a minute is pretty oppressive for something that does that much damage and can't be countered effectively.

oSEXYPLATYPUSoMay 16, 20171 votes

that was the idea but they missed on maokai the lowered his effectiveness on CC by making his W shit... and his ult bad.

AveriaMay 16, 20172 votes

And fixing the problem isn't as simple as just nerfing saplings. Either Saplings will always be the main playstyle for Maokai, or he will be unplayable unless Riot makes him too powerful everywhere else in his kit to compensate for completely losing his ability to abuse his saplings.

This is what I mean when I refer to saplings as being a design problem, not a numbers problem. Nerfing them won't fix the issue. They'll just remain the issue until they're nerfed to the point where Maokai will be too underwhelming to be an effective champion compared to other champions in his niche role.

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20171 votes

I disagree, there are ways to change the saplings that would balance the gimmick while still offering unique/niche play.

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

I think changing the design of saplings is also another choice, which is actually something I forgot to say in the original post.

Part of the reason I brought up the fact that it has little counterplay compared to other trap mechanics in the game was to actually bring up the point that counterplay mechanics could be introduced.

However I still doubt that making saplings the main spell in Maokai's kit is good or intended. He's a beefy frontliner, not a backline mage. He should be rewarded more for going in, not setting up traps in brush. Otherwise Riot has completely forsaken his role as a tank and should re-designate his role entirely.

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20171 votes

The saplings are what make his kit unique, and the way they run after people is funny. I would personally prefer if this was kept.

One possible change would be to make the saplings attach to the enemy and slow them (also deal Dot if they were brush-charged) and then deal some burst damage (could be nerfed if too high) after. This would make them have a 'fuse' kind of like dynamite. It would also allow opponents to use cleanse effects to remove the saplings, thus adding counterplay.

Here's something that would encourage him to play more like a vanguard: Gate the saplings to not grant their full usefulness unless he hits the enemy with another ability or attack. The gate could be used to hold back damage, or offer him another passive proc if he triggers it, or some other change that I haven't thought of.

What do you think?

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

I think if going that route, they should make the sapling charge effect completely based on whether or not Maokai has recently CC'ed an opponent champion (say like, 3 second buffer is probably good enough). This I suppose would be a way to reward Maokai for using saplings in his rotation effectively rather than just stacking them in brush.

However I still completely disagree with the level of damage they provide even in that situation. Once again, Maokai is supposed to be a tank. AP off-role has always been a part of Maokai, but never the staple play pattern. Recently until the rework Maokai actually never even bought AP that wasn't Doran's Rings early on.

There needs to be an effective counterplay to Saplings that isn't just "trigger them and run away unless you're playing Zyra and can trigger them with plants at will" if they're set to do so much damage. Almost all other traps in the game are easily cleared with Red Trinket and most of them aren't even as effective as Maokai's saplings (Teemo's Shroom's are probably the only really "strong" trap mechanic).

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20171 votes

What about my idea to tie my suggested sapling's gated power to his passive in lieu of having so much damage?

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

It's an interesting thought, but his passive is ultimately already incredibly powerful. It might have merit but isn't the way I would go with changing his mechanics.

And in that situation, the damage they deal would still have to be nerfed accordingly.

HalcyonDwellerMay 16, 20171 votes

It could provide him a shield then...? I dunno, just trying to come up with some interesting ideas that could be used to fix it without taking away what is cool about it.

Lucian WaifuMay 16, 20171 votes

Riot is reaching a cliff where the game is going to become extremely unbalanced for all the wrong reasons. Currently assassins have slower burst than dps mages, ADC still sucks, supports are doing more and more damage, tanks have been given free percent hp damage while they are suppose to do less damage, top lane has nearly lost its identity, turrets are there to scare away lower elo players because they no longer do damage, baron isn't scary anymore, jungling has become stale because only high efficiency junglers can be effective, keystones still feel off, etc.

420 gramsMay 16, 20171 votes

I think they'd be a lot better if multiple hits on the same champion does less damage. Or maybe not double damage in bushes. It's silly to have that much damage output without needing any damage items. Not to mention they also give utility like vision and a slow.

"Oh, just build Mr! It's all magic damage."

That's great, but I shouldn't have to buy Mr to not get one shot by a tank.

RalanrMay 16, 20173 votes

Then what's the downside of being squishy?

oSEXYPLATYPUSoMay 16, 20171 votes

well it actually does more damage the more HP the target has...so being squishy with more MR kinda helps alot.

ErockandrollMay 16, 20173 votes

[{quoted}](name=420 grams,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=XAvM7gbJ,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2017-05-16T18:28:43.520+0000)

I think they'd be a lot better if multiple hits on the same champion does less damage. Or maybe not double damage in bushes. It's silly to have that much damage output without needing any damage items. Not to mention they also give utility like vision and a slow.

"Oh, just build Mr! It's all magic damage."

That's great, but I shouldn't have to buy Mr to not get one shot by a tank.

Realistically speaking the %HP damage was designed to offer the base level of damage to function either in lane, or in the Jungler, without them doing oppressive amounts of damage to glass cannons. That's usually paired with low or no scaling, preventing them form exceeding that damage level. That mechanic alone, isn't a problem, it's effective at allowing Tanks to function without making them scale crazy with Damage items. The real issue is mainly numbers, that is simply doing too much. But the stacking in the Brush part is pretty problematic, even if you arn't the glass cannon.

But also, if your playing the ADC, you pretty much have to forgo any independents in exchange for you superior objective taking power. And since Tanks will tend to have burstier kits, (because their fairly spell dependent) it is fair that you may get chunked out, especially if your HP isn't topped off. That's pretty much the reality of being a Glass cannon. And even if you didn't want to build a ton of defensive, you still have defensive utilities available, starting with QSS/Mercurials, and now GA has been tailored to ADCS.

meowwow7May 16, 20172 votes

oh no i have to build item 3139 item 3156 or item 3814 to stay alive against ap mao support but oh wait since he's building mainly ap he's just about as squishy as i am [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

Honestly the real problem is that Maokai doesn't even need to build full AP for the trap-stacking fantasy to still be a better play pattern suited to his current kit than playing as the beefy frontliner that his ultimate, and other abilities make him out to be.

We're talking about a support with low income. He maybe has one AP item at rank 5 saplings, and can still kill anything not building full tank in 3 saplings.

RalanrMay 16, 20171 votes

His ultimate does not really say "frontliner". It's more counter engage than anything else.

meowwow7May 16, 20171 votes

i use it as peel or come in from the other side to use to make the enemy either

a. run towards my allies b. separate them c. root them

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

Even at the level of counter engage, his W and Q say frontliner, his passive screams tank.

Every other part of his kit doesn't scream AP mage, they scream tank. Yet they're being overpowered by saplings entirely and pushing him out of the frontliner role.

RalanrMay 16, 20171 votes

Hence why they should nerf the saplings. Maybe increase their cooldown to prevent heavy bush stacking early?

AveriaMay 16, 20171 votes

I'm pretty sure I've said this elsewhere but superficial nerfs to the saplings won't change his playstyle with how it's currently implemented. You could increase the cooldown, nerf the early damage, do what they have on PBE and remove the scaling % hp in favor of flat (8% at all ranks) to mitigate the want to max it ASAP, but it won't change his play pattern to be a beefy frontliner.

Those changes will just lower his effectiveness at trap-stacking early in the game and by level 9 he'll be back at full power.

Directly nerfing the damage would just bring him to a point where he would never deal damage. However, nerfing saplings and buffing other parts of his kit would be a viable option.

That's why suggesting putting his % HP damage back on his W was my first thought at fixing this problem. It essentially reverts him to pre-rework W and E, while leaving the empowered brush mechanic (The numbers would be changed accordingly to prevent the aids abuse that's currently happening still, obviously, but having saplings deal a flat number would make it easier for tankier champions to walk into and accept the brunt of the damage of saplings).

That's another sore point for the sapling damage. % HP damage is not a flat value. It's a scaling value based on your own stats. This means even tanks have a harder time soaking Maokai's saplings than they would in an instance where it did flat damage.

You can provide the same damage to squishy targets with a flat value while making it easier for tanks to avoid being demolished by the damage the empowered saplings provide.

Also, just as a minor side note: A single Sapling should not trigger thunderlords by itself.

RalanrMay 16, 20171 votes

I would be very much against putting his %max health damage back onto his W. It will lack counterplay for melee champions and frankly it was too reliable.

420 gramsMay 16, 20171 votes

{quoted}

oh no i have to build or to stay alive against ap mao support but oh wait since he's building mainly ap he's just about as squishy as i am [slayer-pantheon-popcorn]

Except it doesn't Scale with ap that well so he can do a lot while building full tank and if he's in a role like jungle, he can easily walkover to stack 3 in the bush by the center health pack which zones the most crucial path in the game.

meowwow7May 16, 20171 votes

wait health pack are we talking about sr or tt?

420 gramsMay 16, 20171 votes

{quoted}

wait health pack are we talking about sr or tt?

Twisted treeline, but there's other keys paths in 5 v 5 as well.

ErockandrollMay 16, 20171 votes

[{quoted}](name=420 grams,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=XAvM7gbJ,comment-id=000300020001,timestamp=2017-05-16T20:16:24.168+0000)

Except it doesn't Scale with ap that well so he can do a lot while building full tank and if he's in a role like jungle, he can easily walkover to stack 3 in the bush by the center health pack which zones the most crucial path in the game.

I find it a little funny how they didn't mention the supposed support pickup that everyones is talking about. Because with his base Target HP damage, he doesn't even need items at all. And that is kinda why he fairs well in that role. In fact, because of the utility the saperlings give, I wouldn't be surprised if the support pickup isn't more resilient than that.

Buy and Large, it's a good utility that I would hate to lose. I think it really fits with the new Maokai. However, if Riot want's to make Jungle Maokai his main role, they are likely going to have to put more emphasis on his other abilities, and less reliant on his Saperlings.

Doctor JarvisMay 16, 20171 votes

I don't know how Riot looked at Mao'Kai's current kit and said "yeah, I'll build this guy like a tank." There's literally no reason to; sure, you can survive a little longer after W'ing into a fight, or you can just keep hucking 12% max health damage at the enemy. You know what we call a character with a lot of small, unreliable pieces of CC? A mage. You made a mage, then said "no guys, he's a tank."

oSEXYPLATYPUSoMay 16, 20172 votes

you can do the 12% max hp damage AS MAGIC damage its not true damage so its reduce by MR lets keep this in mind btw... with out ap... that is the base damage

people are getting their panties twisted cuz the rework it self wasnt good and still left him in really bad places top and jungle so people exploited this sappling damage to cheezy some games.

as a maokai main i am not in favor of this at all.. (even as someone who mains support ) 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 W scaling

Pinker 10May 18, 20171 votes

To be perfectly honest, maokai's %max hp was already a horrible idea on his w, you could assasinate a carry pretty easily built full tank. To put %max hp dmg on an AoE ability for a TANK and then DOUBLE IT from inside brush, meaning maokai can (singlehandedly) deal nearly 80% of a player's max hp in dmg with a SINGLE SPELL. If he builds RoA then full tank , that jumps to 100%, one player's worth of hp can be wiped with a single spell. It's not overly likely to happen unless the enemies like 5 man face-checks, but it really makes you wonder how on earth anyone could ever possibly have thought it was a good idea. Even assassins can't do that much damage with a single spell, and they build for it...

This should never have made it past brainstorming, take one second to think about 8% (plus scaling) max health x2 AoE damage, and all it takes is one third grader in math class to realize those numbers are horribly unbalanced.

I've always liked maokai, and the only thing I can say about this rework is WHY?!?!