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[Rework Suggestion] Maokai

JackAqua·11/16/2013, 4:52:57 PM·16 votes·1,379 views

Maokai Maokai, the Twisted Treant

In my opinion Maokai is one of the best Champions in League. I like his Lore and his Design, the way he's allowed to buy anything as long as he gets his CdR and his Kit's overall function. However, even though I like him so much it won't change the fact that he lacks alot other Champions have.
Sure, he has alot of Unique aspects as well, but currently these aren't as 'useful' ( bad chose of words ) as someone elses kit, like Jarven or Lee Sin or whatever Stonewall and Foxdrop just finished playing.
So I'm going to attempt changing his kit in a way I think he could get better, however without only buffing his stats and with keeping the overall function of his kit.
I hope you like my ideas.
I'm going to include possible numbers and stats in this suggestion, please ignore these, because I have no way of testing their viability. (and neither do you -_-)
Also, the reasoning behind my changes will be under every Ability, skip these and read all Abilities first, please.

#Abilities

Sap Magic
Passive : Every [35 seconds] Maokai gains Sap Magic. While active his next basic attack will heal him for [7% of his maximum health]. Each time a champion's ability is used near Maokai the cooldown of Sap magic is reduced by [5 seconds.]

Maokai's passive was based on spell casts, so naturally he was stronger with CdR and a low-CD team, given that he can auto-attack at the right time. With this change Maokai fights better alone, can stack his Passive out of battle without having to use spells
(-> more sustain in the jungle and in lane ) and allows for him to be better in more team-comps. Sadly, this would be considered a strong buff, so I increased the amount of stacks he would normally need from 5 to 7 and because of another reason ...

Arcane Smash
Maokai smashes the ground and sends an arcane shockwave forward, dealing [70/115/160/205/250 (+ 40% AP) magic damage] and slowing enemies hit by [20/27/34/41/48%] for 2 seconds. Enemies within [100 range] of Maokai are also briefly knocked back.
[55 Mana Cost] and [6 Seconds Cooldown]

This Spell remains unchanged, because it's awesome and I haven't found any faults in it. If you have, although, please write them in the comments and I will try adjusting it to my 'rework suggestion'.

Twisted Advance
Maokai transforms into a cloud of arcane energy, becoming untargetable while quickly travelling to a target enemy or Sapling. Once Maokai reaches the target, the target takes [80/115/150/185/220 (+ 80% AP) magic damage] and is rooted for [1/1.25/1.5/1.75/2] seconds.
[75/80/85/90/95 Mana Cost] and [14 seconds Cooldown]

By allowing Maokai to also travel to Saplings with his Twisted advance, his Saplings, which were only annoying mini-wards until now, become much more important. Also it gives Maokai an escape and mobility ability he did not have until now.

Sapling Toss [Range 1000]
Maokai hurls a Sapling to a target area, dealing [40/75/110/145/ 180 (+ 40% AP) magic damage on impact within 175 range]. The Sapling becomes implanted in the ground, granting 300 Range vision of its surroundings for up to [60 seconds].
After a 1 second delay after landing, the sapling will seek out nearby enemies. When an enemy comes within 250 range, the sapling will chase for up to 2.5 seconds and explode in an arcane blast that deals [50/100/150/200/250 (+ 60% AP) + 2% of Maokai's maximum Health as magic damage] to enemies within 175 range. There can never be more than 4 Saplings active at one time, if a fifth Sapling is placed the first Sapling will explode instantly, even when running.
[70/80/90/100/110 Mana cost] and [12/11/10/9/8 Seconds cooldown].

With this Change Saplings become much much more important to Maokai.
Also since wards are limited in season 4, this change will make Maokai much more viable due to a sorce of Utility other Champions do not have : Vision. It's actually just an overall buff and I'll leave it at that.

Vengeful Maelstrom
TOGGLE: Maokai creates a great vortex of natural energy in a 600 radius area, reducing all damage done to allied champions in the area by 20% and storing the amount. Maokai can prolong the effect as long as he has mana to spend on it.
When the effect ends the energy is released, dealing [100/150/200 (+ 50% AP) + the stored amount as magic damage].
The stored amount canot exceed 10% of Maokai's maximum Health.
[75 + 30 per second Mana Cost] and [40/30/20 seconds Cooldown]

Overall I attempted changing Maokai to be much more Health based, not to buff his damage as a tank, but because I think Health damage in a magic theme fits Maokai much better. The amount changed is not much and I tried mitigating the buffs with slight nerfs -> Less Range, 1 second more Cooldown, needing 7 stacks, making him slightly weaker in the early game, to make it seem fair.
All in all the actual changes were only to his W-E combo and his passive. Anything else is actually only a Stat change, sadly, so please keep this in mind.

I hope you like these small, but strong changes, if so please upvote this thread so someone at riot sees it. Please leave your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
Thank you for reading.

18 Comments

SnowLeopard9111/17/2013, 7:34:03 AM3 votes

The passive as you have it stated is far too strong in a team fight situation, where he could conceivably be healing 7% per second with abilities flying everywhere. There needs to be a second clause that says something like "Maokai cannot benefit from Sap Magic more than once every two seconds", with the actual time between procs being a question of balancing. EDIT: This is assuming that the 7% heal isn't already what's in place, but a significant boost. I like the idea of having it cool down over time, but I'm wary of it being simply a better Volibear passive in a team fight.

Other than that, I really like the idea of dashing to saplings, and I'm really glad that someone is going to such lengths to make Maokai more viable again. He was my first real jungler, but I've not felt like he provided enough to a team to be pickable over Udyr lately.

Dicerson11/16/2013, 5:29:34 PM3 votes

Maokai's theme has been one of my favorite's, with an ult mechanic ive always loved. But due to the fact that there are others that do his job better, he needs a rework. And this does exactly that perfectly.

It doesnt take away what Maokai is, but still gives me viability when compared to other champions.

Perfection.

SeedyVirtuoso11/17/2013, 1:47:45 AM2 votes

Seems legit :] nice ideas i like playing maokai but you're right, he does lose out to some champs. but if his saplings were to be more useful i would definitely play him more often. upvoted

TwitchInMyPants11/16/2013, 10:47:08 PM2 votes

If nothing else is considered, giving Maokai the ability to advance to his saplings is a very cool idea.

Fishing Boat11/16/2013, 9:39:46 PM2 votes

I like some of your ideas, especially making his saplings more useful as a tool.

SirFur Bear11/17/2013, 8:26:41 PM1 votes

Like the ult relying with interacting with his health, since naturally you build health and not ap

Sirz Benjie11/18/2013, 12:36:48 AM1 votes

I don't like it. I have more than 200 games as maokai.. and i just don't like it. I just think he needs level 1 saplings to cost a lot less mana because you max that last and it costs so much for so little damage..

Also, I do agree about the passive, but 35 seconds seems like a little much.. But make it so it comes around normal..

AbiwonKenabi11/18/2013, 3:33:42 AM1 votes

I like the addition of sapling changes to W; I honestly see it as relatively balanced too, as Maokai has to decide whether to save W for the gapclosing root, or use it as a re-position tool. It also has some similarities to J4's mobility combo, as it needs two abilities in order to actually move him.

The only problem I see with it however is that saplings aren't immobile; they will chase after enemies. A fix to this might be that the sapling is frozen upon casting W on it, that way it won't become a sticking tool for squishies far out of range (can't Twisted Advance on them? Use the sapling to chase after them and gapclose for you, followed by a Q)

botherdglobe5/31/2014, 11:08:17 PM1 votes

this needs to be real.Maokai needs ateention hes fallen offalot secence other junglers do better.

IS1851d50c2facc8712b06711/16/2013, 10:44:15 PM1 votes

ere

GwingMaster11/17/2013, 1:43:57 AM1 votes

This is great. I especially love the changes to sapling interaction. It gives him a vaguely lee sin feel without robbing him of his unique identity. You're right, Maokai is an AWESOME champion and these changes do an excellent job of tweaking his kit.

Also, the changes to his passive and ult really feed the magic absorbing angle of his lore. Love it.

turkeyBACON11/17/2013, 1:49:09 AM1 votes

Your title for this was making me ready to disagree with you almost immediately but after reading it, I realized that this was more QoL buff and balancing than a Heime level rework. I pretty much agree completely with your suggestion to allow Maokai twisted advance to saplings. I'm not certain any other changes need to be made since he's so underplayed at the moment. That one change doesn't seem to be enough to put him into op territory but make him much more useful.

ProtowType11/17/2013, 6:38:55 AM1 votes

I like your ideas on Maokai, especially the one about his saplings being more useful to his mechanics. However, I think you should think about his early mana game because he is very mana hungry early game. He is my favorite jungler and I like to see that there are new things coming to his overall play style. My only concern for him is his early game mana problem.