question for players of the tree

I've been taking him as a support down bot with Relic into a support/tank build.

IMO Relic is overtuned atm, and he uses it to great potential. His mana cost are low enough that he can afford to spam his saplings, and they are absolutely insane on how much damage they output. Furthermore, they are great in bot lane because you can pressure the enemy jungler massively on their first buff clear just by dropping saplings over in the bushes near the buffs. An extra 120-250 damage taken at the start of a jungle clear has a rather massive impact on how the remainder of the jungle goes for just about any jungler, and mao can further lead his opposing laners as they come to lane from leashing for an extra 120 damage on one/both of them. In the mid game he transitions into a peeling support keeping his ADC safe, and in the late game you can reach full-tank status and just laugh at the enemy team trying to wittle you down through all of your healing.