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Maokai Main here; Thoughts on the Rework

RookPusher·6/30/2017, 11:22:08 PM·4 votes·502 views

http://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/img/champion/splash/Maokai_2.jpg

His rework was awhile ago, and I've read thoughts from others, and I've played him a bit. I wanted to follow up now that I've played him a bit. I don't expect anyone to do anything with this because I'm cynical, and I feel like no one really cares about these posts, but in case I'm wrong, here goes:

His VO:

I'm not a fan of the new VO largely because it's not well articulated. I'm willing to admit I had an affection for this older VO because it was familiar, so I'm not going to bash it, but it could have been improved two ways: better articulation; less angry.

This last one seems really anti-Ent. He doesn't need to be Ivern, but based on his new line "I once had peace, it is better to have purpose." For one thing, it's a good improvement on the old line, but why is he yelling it? Make him sound determined. Trees, historically (in lore) are stoic, wisened creatures. It's out of type for them to be ragey. I'm all for changing the archetype, but what on earth gets angrier as it ages? If we could make his anger more "determination"

His Non-Ult Abilities:

He started out way too OP with his E. It's fun, sure, but I'm not here to ask for stupid buffs. His E was insane and it should have been nerfed. At this point, I like where that ability ended up and I'm fine with it.

HIs Q seems to me that it got a small buff. Nothing dramatic. I'm fine with this as well.

His W is where I have a problem. I've been a Maokai main since I got my bearing in this game. I love Ents. I'm getting a degree in Environmental Management. I still read the Lorax. I've been in the tree game a long time. I love them despite a pollen allergy.

I was pretty angry when they nerfed the range on his W, and reduced the CDR. It was fine because it was a trade off. W's range was 650, then it went to 525 (where it is now). Ok, fine. Wasn't my favorite, made ganks harder, but it was balancing one thing with another - fine.

NOW he loses his damage, which is fairly odd since it only punished big-health champs - the mages of the world didn't care as much. Now all the scaling damage is gone, but his range is still 525...why? You want to remove the damage, I get it. Can we please get the range back?

His Passive:

Overall seems like an improvement. I don't like the "struck" piece of it (where it used to be "cast") but overall it seems fine. 6 of one, Half dozen of the other.

His Ult:

Not a fan. It's bad Nami ult. The best part of this new ult is the animation on Mewkai. (Which is amazing)

I use it to zone, and to dive the back line with a W, then cast it back at everyone but that is a really short root given that he's using an ult. It feels really half assed, it doesn't exactly go with his kit, and if you're W'ing in, then it's not even triggering Courage of the Colossus. I'd love to see it either go the length of the field (like the Ez/Jinx Ult) or be changed.

The fact that you gave him (not me) a Victorious Skin, then completerly revamped him about 3 months later:

What were you thinking here? Has this ever happened before? Also, I'd really like an option to buy the Victorious Skin. Some of us main these champs and need to have all the skins. Why would you do this? Give Gold+ the free skin, and charge me 4,000 RP.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

8 Comments

HalcyonDweller6/30/2017, 11:40:32 PM1 votes

As another Maokai main I like your ideas!

Personally I think that Sapling toss could have been given a bit more counterplay or interactivity since it has more power now.

What I think would have been really cool / appropriate would be to gate some of the ability's power behind another effect, such as:

Sapling toss:

Maokai throws a sapling to guard an area. If an enemy comes within range, the sapling runs to the enemy and explodes, if instead the sapling started in a bush, it jumps onto the enemy and detonates after a period of time.

If Maokai can land an ability or auto-attack on that enemy before the detonation, he can trigger an additional effect:

  1. A spell will ignite the sapling, causing it to deal a DoT for a duration before exploding
  2. an auto-attack will absorb the sapling to heal Maokai (basically a free proc of his passive without affecting it's cooldown).

The reasons I think this would be an improvement over the live iteration of Sapling Toss are as follows:

  1. Enemies now have more defined counterplay to the ability besides just avoid going near bushes, or shield to mitigate the damage. They can peel Maokai or CC him.
  2. Maokai has more interaction with the ability, he gets more meaningful choices as to what to do with it, and he has higher skill expression because to unlock the full effect of the ability he has to interact with the enemy after it hits.
oSEXYPLATYPUSo6/30/2017, 11:51:19 PM1 votes

i agree with most of your analyst of maokai's rework as a fellow maokai main.

and i have commented before on how to make his current kit tweaked slightly to make him a better champ. to make him seem impact-full like he use to be .

i dont like the damage shift from W ... he got hurt badly in early lane phase in bad match ups when they took the "splash " damage off of his E . i also hate the scaling duration or the root on W from 1 sec to 1.4 at max like that .4 seconds makes that big of a difference? i really think the ult is the worst part of his kit. and i think the rework was a failure.

so they hurt his early game lane phase , cheezed him into an full ap support role... and gave him shit for damage on his main abilities and royal fuked his ult that is my review of the rework

since then recent buffs where they just boosted his base HP helps him early in lane cuz he can be more durable and heal more on passive. but for a champ to have to scale into mid game like he use to to make his biggest impact in a game i think they handicapped this by his weak laning phase.

what i would like to see to make this "kit" work better

  1. make his ult travel faster, you arent hitting anyone at max range for the longer duration root so the 2.4 seconds is non existent. they already reduced the cd on it recently , that was my other pet peeve on it... i thought it needed to be reduced by 15 seconds at all ranks

  2. either give better scaling CDR on W or better scaling root duration considering he typically builds max cdr in game looks like longer scaling duration on root would be better. maybe from 1 sec to 1.8 at max rank

  3. i would like to see him having slightly buffed early levels (1-3) on his base AD and base AS (im fine if they reduce the scaling later) that way he can manage farming easier to make up for lost farming tools from previous nerfs

not in any of these am i asking for tanker stats... more damage... or any drastic changes

Ýones7/1/2017, 8:32:03 AM1 votes

I love his new ult.