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Strategy is highly subjective and may become outdated without any notice. Because of this, the League of Legends Wiki has decided to retire strategy pages and would recommend using other platforms (such as YouTube) to find guides. For more information visit this thread.
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Champion Spotlight[]
Recommended Items[]
Tips[]
- Playing As
Maokai
- Saplings can be tossed into brush for empowered effect - but don't stack well.
- Try looking for flanks or other situations where
Nature's Grasp is unavoidable or takes enemies by surprise. - Maokai's passive makes him extremely durable from focus fire spells - so long as he can still basic attack something.
- Playing Against Maokai
- Saplings will chase the first enemy that gets too close, but detonate after a few seconds or if they collide with other enemies. Be especially careful around brush saplings, as they are much more dangerous.
- The cooldown on Maokai's self healing is heavily gated on how many times you hit him with spells. Careful about wasting abilities on him.
- Maokai will avoid taking damage while he's using
Twisted Advance, so don't waste your abilities.
Tricks[]
- Ability Usage
Sap Magic
- Maokai greatly benefits from enemies that keep spamming skills, as it reduces the cooldown of Sap Magic. Casting spells will also reduce its cooldown, but be aware of the mana costs.
- Maokai greatly benefits from enemies that keep spamming skills, as it reduces the cooldown of
Bramble Smash
- Bramble Smash will knock enemies back based on how close they are to Maokai.
- Use Bramble Smash after entering with Twisted Advance to push the enemy towards your allies and allow them to deal damage.
- Bramble Smash has a nice synergy with Protobelt as the active on said item will launch Maokai forward (assuming the enemy is knocked back).
- Twisted Advance
- Although it can be used as an entry, try to use Twisted Advance to catch enemies who might be running off.
- It travels slowly so plan ahead for when to use it.
- Although it can be used as an entry, try to use
Sapling Toss
- Saplings are empowered when thrown into brush. This makes for easy jungle clears, especially with camps that are near brush such as the buffs and the Krugs.
- Throwing saplings into a bush grants vision of that bush, making them useful as a sort of ward.
- Nature's Grasp
- The brambles of Nature's Grasp travel slowly, making them easy to avoid. Try to plan when to use them so that the enemy won't have enough time to react, or when they don't have an area to escape to. Additionally, casting the ability diagonally, along with any other skill shots with substantial width, allows it to cover more ground than it would otherwise.
- The duration of the root scales with the distance the brambles travels.
- Brambles stop on the first champion hit. Position them in order to root as many champions as possible.
- The brambles of
- Runes Usage
- Item Usage
- Try to build items that provide ability power and tankiness.
Mercury's Treads are a good build on Maokai for the magic resistance and the reduced crowd control effects.
Dead Man's Plate lets Maokai chase enemies and slow them with the Crushing Blow passive.
Rod of Ages is another good build on Maokai because it grants him health for durability and mana and ability power for his spell damage.
Hextech Protobelt-01 is a good option for Maokai. It allows him to close the gap on enemies that were hit by the knockback of Bramble Smash or catch up to enemies that are out of range of Twisted Advance. The extra health, ability power, and cooldown reduction are also useful.- If your team is heavy of magic damage dealers, building an
Abyssal Mask is a viable choice as it will provide you with the stats to stay durable and allow your team to do more damage.
- Countering
- Be wary of bushes that may have saplings in them. While they last just as long as saplings that land outside of a brush, they deal extra damage.
- Nature's Grasp moves really slowly, and stops on the first enemy champion hit. Avoid getting hit by a bramble.
- Be mindful of how often you cast abilities. The cooldown on Sap Magic is reduced whenever you cast an ability.