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Could we bring Maokai jungle back to its former glory?

TheSingularity··15 votes·1,573 views

Nerf after nerf has gone down upon our favourite green peace powerhouse in response to his prominent presence in the top lane. However these nerfs are crushing his jungle viability with CDR nerfs on Q/R, more nerfs after his mini rework/VU and the passive was nerfed in order to hinder his laning phase. His clears/ganks are average at best and the Q cd nerfs smashed his first clear.

Solutions? Smash his mana costs to bits. Buff his base stats, revert the Q cd nerf and/or spell scaling to compensate. Obvs not all of them at the same time. You want to stop him from being an oppressive top laner riot? Make him dependant on mana items and blue buff. This will force him into a passive farm fest until he gets a roa/glacial shroud item, but will not hurt his late-game scaling or his tankyness. But most importantly, this will give Maokai breathing room for buffs to fix his jungling. Nautilus, nunu, sejuani and hell even vel'koz can clear faster and gank better than maokai at the moment.

Plz riot, don't crush a champions jungle performance because of their laning dominance.

Return Maokai to his home in the jungle [slayer-pantheon-thumbs]

26 Comments

Dehitay7 votes

They really should just revert nearly everything they've done to cripple him top lane when targetting a neutral monster. Give him an extra 100 range on his W when the target is a neutral monster. Give him extra heal from his passive when his target is a neutral monster. I was also a huge Maokai jungler back in seasons 2 and 3. Now he's just so sad when compared to a standard jungler.

TheSingularity3 votes

With you all the way, utility jungler for life :D It crushed me inside when they did the same to naut due to his rise to power in top/support. Nerf his rip tide? smash its mana cost so he can't spam it. Dont lower it's damage.

EndlessBug5 votes

I find him alright in the jungle. But I suppose if your opponent is an aggressive Junglers you might get into trouble. I'm usually the aggressive one though...

I don't agree on the gank better though. Dash/Snare, knockback and slow...

TheSingularity1 votes

Naut, pull, slow, knock up, root. Vel'koz/sej long range slow+displacement spells+ very long range skill shots for kill secures at 6. Will agree on the nunu, that was a bad call on my part. In the end it comes down to the fact that his ganks arrive later than those 4 due to how hard the nerfs hit his clear speeds. Even after his early game true damage adjustments, vel'koz still clears pretty well compared to a champion, who originally thrived in the jungle

Bears Dont Care3 votes

Sounds similar to Eve. High mana costs, weaker ganks than before...etc

TheSingularity2 votes

That and she's balanced around her passive, kind of like the old vlad+wOtA leaving little breathing room for buffs

Bears Dont Care2 votes

{quoted}

That and she's balanced around her passive, kind of like the old vlad+wOtA leaving little breathing room for buffs

There was a time in S5 where she was slightly stronger. They had given her +10 base damage to her Q, then immediately after, gutted it by reducing the damage byo 80. S6 Evelynn is the weakest version of Eve thus far.

Anyway, yeah it would be nice to see some of the junglers like Mao, and Naut to return.

TheSingularity1 votes

Nauts not in too bad a spot, no where near as poor as eve or mao. But you definitely know something is wrong when statistic sites stop recording jungle stats..... for a jungle champion EG http://www.champion.gg/champion/Maokai/Top

ltmetal3 votes

My favorite fix to Maokai Jungle would be bonus damage to monsters on Q or E or bonus healing from his passive when striking a monster.

Additional champions who had their jungling nerfed without compensation due to prowess in lane: Ekko Hecarim Nautilus Poppy

Champions who could potentially come out of the dark with bonus damage to monsters or other jungler specific buffs: Blitzcrank Galio Karthus Katarina Leona Renekton Singed TahmKench Talon Urgot

BluePolarizer3 votes

Hecarim did have compensation. It used to be that Q did only 2/3 damage to monsters. Now it does same.

TheSingularity2 votes

yeh and ekko ain't a healthy one to bring into this discussion

MunchCrunchLunch3 votes

maokai with blue buff is like a normal champion without blue buff. I mean in top lane one rotation and your out of mana.

ZT Xperimentor2 votes

Not to mention they gutted his ultimate; not only did they remove his ability to place it away from himself, but they added a hard cap of 10 seconds regardless of how much mana you have. Which as vetterans can tell you, frequently isn't enough depending on the match ups.

TheSingularity2 votes

Its been that long.... I completely forgot how his ult used to be place down... good times [zombie-nunu-tears]

ZT Xperimentor1 votes

I agree, I miss sacrificing a bunch of damage items for the capacity to use his ult for near 3 minutes; not because it was useful (as it could only solo dragon with 5 minimum mana regeneration items), but because it was amusing to prove a friend wrong on fighting dragon without smite or damage. XD I think it was around early season 4 when they changed his ult so detrimentally; may as well play some other classic champions before riot ruins them too.

The Last Ballad2 votes

In addition they should give him the Fiddlesticks treatment and have him become a tree when he stands still.

Sire Hippington2 votes

i'm all for makeing jungle mao viable, but don't you dare to touch his mana. He already is one of the most mana-dependent toplaners out there, and heavy manaconstraints just feel horrible to play.

Rather buff his kit vs the jungle, let his passive steal the health from monsters instead just healing, up the max damage of his W vs monsters, if needed increase either Q or E damage vs monsters a bit.

TheSingularity1 votes

He also has a larger mana pool than many common top laners to compensate for his higher mana costs early game including ekko, fiora and darius. And as stated in another comment, I think both riot and I would rather a healthy solution than a lazy slap on band aid to help mao out.

TheSingularity1 votes

dang it the downvote trolls [slayer-jinx-unamused]

RogueWill1 votes

Isn't sejuani one of the fastest tanks on the clears?

TheSingularity1 votes

One point allot of comments have in common, is buffing his spells vs monsters. But to do that, riot would have to nerf them vs everything else to compensate for this extra damage. Other wise his clears would be broken, turning him into an AP shyvana with hard CC. Riot has avoided this approach with most champions, as to avoid a nerf a champion would need 2 completely different stat sets for damage against monsters and everything else.

If they did do this ^^^^, it would result in the ekko effect. Where there are simply a stupid amount of different components/stats to balance.

Despite this being an easy solution, it is merely a band aid and I can only see it being vaguely healthy if they; maybe add a new component to Maokai's sapling toss. After X seconds (probs 10 seconds off max duration) the saplings grow into bushes that deal bonus damage vs monsters. This would 1: Prevent abusing it as a farm fest spell as they have a charge up time (only being useful for the first camp or 2), 2: make this mechanic totally useless in lane and 3: Won't require adjusting his other spells to compensate.

Nonetheless I'd prefer a much more stable solution than simply wacking a "deals +X% damage VS monsters" sticker on him.

Sire Hippington2 votes

But to do that, riot would have to nerf them vs everything else to compensate for this extra damage.

No, they wouldn't. If clearspeed is what keeps mao from beeing a viable jungler, then uping his clearspeed by increaseing his damage vs jungle only does not need any compoensation nerfs, as it does not affect him in lane or teamfights. If his sustain is the issue, then buffing his passive by returning more health vs monsters or granting a stack whenever you takedown a big monster does not need any other nerfs, as i once again only applies to the jungle, and his jungle can use straight buffs. If his clears are slow now, slaping 10% damage on Q or E or even a flat damage number that therefore will fall off later on in impact will certainly not result in him haveing broken clears. Shy on the other hand always was defined by fast clears, even befor that buff, she was amongst the fastes clears, what she lacked was ganking impact and lategame presence, which both couldn't really be buffed without impoact her at top aswell, and by that time she was a strong toplaner.

Increaseing the impact vs jungle only is the healthiest way to help jungle mao, especially if clearspeed and/or sustain are the issue, as there are no spillovers to lane mao that might cause issues. The only imortant thing is that he bonus vs junglemonsters gets taken away again if jungle mao ever becomes stronger than lane mao because of item changes or something else. This is where riot simply failed hard with shyvana.

TheSingularity1 votes

His damage isn't the big issue here. It's the cool down nerfs on his q which deals a majority off his damage to monsters after his first camp (since it has the lowest average cool-down and is easier to hit multiple targets with).

Secondary are the healing nerfs on his passive and a lower hp regen and hp regen/lvl nerf. All of which hit his early game sustain pretty hard when combined with the above cooldown nerf. Since he RELIES! on spamming his spells to proc that passive, the most spammy one being his Q, was obviously nerfed very recently.

And tertiary is the only spell that has had its damage nerfed semi-recently, twisted advance which was particularly effective against the beefier monsters. This isn't that big of a deal as it doesn't help clear those pesky midget monsters (which generally cause the most trouble for utility tanks)

Sire Hippington1 votes

His damage isn't the big issue here. It's the cool down nerfs on his q which deals a majority off his damage to monsters after his first camp

if that is the issue, then his damage IS the issue, as it affects dps and thus clearspeed. If clearspeed is the issue, any change that buffs clearspeed is a viable aproach.

As it looks to me, the best aproach would be a small flat damage on Q vs monsters, like 15 at all ranks. This would result in a slightly lower dps than before the nerf on rank 1 Q, and a slightly higher dps in higher ranks without impacting clears later on all that much(later clears weren't impacted by that nerf). Aditionally, if killing big monsters add a stack to his passive, it might balance out the reduced spaminess. It would be one aditional passive proc on a full clear.

he RELIES! on spamming his spells

Yes, he does - so how could you ever think that 'Smash his mana costs to bits' is any good aproach??? Ever considered how it would impact jungle mao, especially if your opponent succesfully denys a blue-start?

TheSingularity1 votes

Tbh dude. I'm just throwen out ideas. In most cases he'll have either a blue or mana item. And if not he has in jungle mana regen from his jg item.

And tbh. When was the last time anyone other than shaco invaded you at blue lvl 2/3? Cos I've not been invaded early in eons.

Will say i like you suggestions in the first part. Would be interesting to see how the stacking thing panned out. As it fits him thematically. Like kicking unwanted guests out of his forest and using them for sustenance.

Narvuntien1 votes

I miss Maokai jungle, I got most of the way to mastery 5 on him in the jungle.. only switched to top when it was FotM.

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