Champion Update: Maokai

Riot·11/19/2014, 12:19:55 AM·2 votes·139,589 views

Maokai’s the latest champ to go into the champion update workshop, and has come out the other end with some fancy new bark to wear on all of his skins!

Just like Singed, Maokai’s rig was in a fairly good spot while the rest of his look was a bit… well… old. So we changed it up, updating his model, textures, spell effects, and a few of his animations on his base model and each of his skins!

Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

580 Comments

ToughFluffs11/19/2014, 7:12:23 PM205 votes

I am groot.

Iplownedyou11/19/2014, 7:07:40 PM75 votes

I mean, I'd be interested in a treesome with him

TerraRising11/19/2014, 7:43:30 PM53 votes

Maokai in patch 4.20. @.@

P1zzaman1111/20/2014, 12:50:39 AM28 votes

I'm actually not a huge fan of anything really on here. The walking animation lost its sense of heaviness from the old one. His spells are to just average looking magic missiles, that lack the old vines and ancient like magic of his old abilities. The model looks somewhat decent, but making his abilities ascetically magelike when Mao is against magic doesn't make a lot of sense.

Yoella11/19/2014, 8:24:36 PM20 votes

Maokai looks fabulous now, thank you, but I really hate that the tombstones on Haunted Maokai's Ult and Q are gone now... it was kinda his whole theme.

Four Strings11/19/2014, 7:28:53 PM18 votes

Suddenly Totemic is one of his best skins

DeadlockDrago11/20/2014, 2:11:41 AM16 votes

Am I the only one who thinks Maokai in-game model doesn't look, idk, twisted? This is the twisted treant after all, and the art seems fine, but the in-game, once again, doesn't seem to match with it. He definitely looks ancient, but not corrupted like in his lore, or even in comparison to his old look.

Mediocre Joe11/19/2014, 7:21:48 PM14 votes

I actually liked the way he looked before and didn't really think he needed a visual update but I am not too upset with it, I do think charred maokai looks terrible now but overall well done

DonnFirinne11/19/2014, 10:07:01 PM11 votes

Eh, not really a fan of the new walk animation. He used to walk like a big lumbering treant. Now he's bouncing around like he's astronaut teemo or something. Definitely doesn't fit with the slow, heavy moves and sounds that make up the rest of his setup.

Email Support11/19/2014, 10:07:23 PM9 votes

I wish the ultimate had more particle/sound/energy harness like effects. Such as maybe on the ground in the area of the circle, the ground rumbles and shakes and floor cracks as he walks adding a more deadly approach to his ult. Because normally I don't see people run from maokai ults cause i mean. It's just a big flippin circle what could that possibly do? people don't really run in fear from his ult and I think it could be a good way to show that maokai is a lot more powerful than people portray him if it had a deadlier feel to it when a player uses his ult. And add deep booming echo affects of tree branches cracking or unearthly ghost like voices such as a maokai/thresh hybrid while the ult is activated. and more swirling mist on the inside. And then a deep booming explosion (which is nice already) at the end of his ult with particles flying out and maybe all of the damage that was inside being collected escapes in souls at the end and dispersing around the area that you deactivate maokais ult that eventually fade after a few seconds. Yeah everything I just explained may be very hard to understand cause i'm not very good at sentence fluency but hopefully rito gets the main point i'm trying to talk about and I hope you guys get it too because I love playing maokai. He's such a great jungler and can be a great game changer at any moment, fed or not. Thanks for reading!

HartSeekerYorick11/20/2014, 12:39:51 AM7 votes

I really hope Mao keeps his tombstones in his Q when in his Haunted skin. That's my favorite thing about his skin besides his look. That and his default skin doesn't look...Twisted. At all. He's just a plain Treant now :T Disappointed by a whole lot about that.