SoloMid - Guide

Summary

Runes

• 9
  Greater Seal of Scaling Health(+1.33 health per level (+24 at champion level 18))
• 3
  Greater Quintessence of Ability Power(+4.95 ability power)
• 9
  Greater Mark of Attack Speed(+1.7% attack speed)
• 3
  Greater Glyph of Scaling Magic Resist(+0.16 magic resist per level (+3 at champion level 18))
• 6
  Greater Glyph of Scaling Cooldown Reduction(-0.09% cooldowns per level (-1.67% at champion level 18))

Summoner Spells

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Starting Items

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Final Build

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Masteries

12Ferocity

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0Cunning

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18Resolve

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Skill Order

Q	ARCANE SMASH	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
W	TWISTED ADVANCE	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
E	SAPLING TOSS	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
R	VENGEFUL MAELSTROM	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Introduction

Maokai is a hard tank and teamfight initiator. His entire champion kit is built for being a tank, with a % damage reduction ultimate, a very strong heal with his passive, and a lot of easy to land CC. His ultimate and passive allow him to soak up more damage than most, if not all champions in the game. Due to his CC, initiation capability with Teleport flanks, and his ability to stick to backline targets, Maokai is inevitably one of the strongest tanks in the game.

The most crucial point of the game for Maokai will be the early game. He is very reliant on not falling behind early, but if he survives the laning phase he will be relatively low economy for the rest of the game. The reason for this is that if he falls behind, it becomes impossible for him to fulfill his role as an initiator and tank. However, he has a pretty safe lane with his ranged abilities and performs quite well in a number of matchups.

This guide will cover how to build Maokai, in addition to providing tips on laning and teamfighting as him.

Runes

• Primary Runes

Quints
• 3x14.85 Ability Power
Marks
• 9x15.3% Attack Speed
Seals
• 9x11.97 Health Per Level (+24 At Champion Level 18)
Glyphs
• 3x0.48 Magic Resist Per Level (+3 At Champion Level 18)
• 6x-0.54% Cooldowns Per Level (-1.67% At Champion Level 18)

Masteries

• Primary Masteries

12Ferocity

0/ 5

5/ 5

0/ 1

1/ 1

0/ 1

0/ 5

5/ 5

0/ 1

1/ 1

0/ 5

0/ 5

0/ 1

0/ 1

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0Cunning

0/ 5

0/ 5

0/ 1

0/ 1

0/ 1

0/ 5

0/ 5

0/ 1

0/ 1

0/ 5

0/ 5

0/ 1

0/ 1

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18Resolve

5/ 5

0/ 5

0/ 1

1/ 1

5/ 5

0/ 5

1/ 1

0/ 1

5/ 5

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1/ 1

0/ 1

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Summoner Sets

• Primary Summoners

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Skills

• Primary Skill Order

Q	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
W	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
E	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18
R	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18

Starting ability rankings

E -> Q -> W

• This is the most common start
• Starting E gives free vision, and does a lot of damage, and you can stack them to help with a jungle clear.

Q -> E -> W

• If you need to shove a lane early eg if you’re vs Fizz, start Q insteadE -> Q -> Q -> W
• If your jungler has communicated that you won’t be getting a gank before level 5, you can go E -> Q -> Q-> W for a slightly better waveclear and 1v1

Rank priority is

R > Q > W > E

P: 

1. You can stack your passive before minions spawn so you have it charged for when the game begins
2. Use this as much as you can in lane to sustain yourself through poke and traded damage

Q: 

1. You can interrupt most dashes with this ability
2. Primary waveclearing tool
3. Try to harass the enemy laner with this while you clear the wave
4. Note that it slows whoever you hit, and knocks targets up if they’re in melee range. At level 5, you can clear a full wave with two rank 3 QsAlternatively, you can E Q to instakill the back line, but you’ll have to auto the melee minions

W: 

1. Primary engage tool: it guarantees a snare onto whoever you target
2. Flash -> W is a very common strat
3. During the travel time of your W, you are invulnerable
4. You can time the ability to avoid incoming damage and maybe escape an execute
5. You can also W to a minion as a part of your escape path in a gank
6. You have to watch your timing with when you use the W
7. Your W will follow your target no matter how far they run, which means you can very easily overextend with it
8. If you don’t have follow up, it’s better to W onto a lower priority target who can’t dash very far away

E: 

1. Good for checking bushes and getting vision
2. You can stack these on a jungle camp early to get quick exp or to help your jungler
3. When all-inning, you E -> W -> Q because you can root the target to guarantee the E’s long travel time doesn’t make you miss

R: 

1. Super straightforward ability, use it whenever you can while fighting
2. Timing the detonation with the Q can actually do a surprising amount of burst damage
3. This spell actually hits quite high, and you shouldn’t underestimate its damage
4. When teamfighting, you want to pop your ult for the damage to secure a kill, or to damage as many people as possible if you’re disengaging

Starting Items

• Primary Starting Items

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Every stat on Doran’s Ring is incredibly helpful for Maokai. His early laning is centered around getting as much CS as possible, and these starting items are much better than the alternatives to help you achieve that.

Item Builds

• Primary Items

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Core Items

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Both  &  do a lot of things for you as Maokai. Sunfire Cape helps your push and helps you a lot in trading, while Spirit Visageincreases your healing from  and  Both also give you a very good amount of HP, and a specific resist that will aid you based on your lane matchup. With both items, you end up doing a significant amount of damage while simultaneously being very tanky. In terms of boot choices, you want Mercs vs lots of AP/cc, Tabis vs heavy AD comps, and Swifties vs low mobility comps

Rest of your items

  

*Your final build will always consist of Boots, Spirit Visage, Sunfire Cape, and a combination of 3 of the items above. *

1. If they have a lot of AD damage through the form of auto attacks (like 2 AD Carries), you would want a Frozen Heart, Randuin’s, and Thornmail as the last three items.
2. If they have a lot of AD damage through the form of spells (like 2 AD Casters), you would want an Iceborne Gauntlet, Randuin’s, and Thornmail as the last three items.
3. If they have a lot of AP damage, you would want a Frozen Heart/Iceborne based on the above criteria, plus a Guardian Angel and Banshee’s Veil

Lane Matchups

Medium

1. Early game trading vs Poppy is really hard, as she outright has more damage potential than you, and her shield passive tends to absorb a lot of your damage
2. Focus on getting farmed
3. If you’re getting a gank from your jungler, you want to trade and poke her lower
4. Be careful of counterganks as she will chip away at your health pool too
5. She’s really gankable early game since her escapes aren’t very good against you
6. Her W does not block your snare
7. You can dodge her charge by using W to a creep
8. TP plays are really important in this matchup, since whoever gets their team ahead will have the advantage in laning phase
9. When she gets Sheen and Spectre’s Cowl, she can easily outtrade and bully you out of lane
10. At this point, you want to play as safely as you can and just focus on getting farm, since you won’t be able to outtrade her until lategame

1. If you can farm early game and get your first few items, you’ll be able to push him out of lane whenever you want
2. If he gets a few good trades off and you start falling behind, you will need help in order to fight him off
3. If he’s ahead of you, he can waveclear instantly and harass you off your creeps really easily
4. When you get your two item power spike, he won’t be able to do any damage to you at all

1. Main thing you want is a Spectre’s Cowl and Merc Treads asap
2. It’ll stop his chain roots and mitigate his damage
3. You want to call for ganks on Ryze so he can’t scale
4. Early laning is very easy since he doesn’t do very much damage, and you can free farm
5. Around level 6-7 the matchup will get harder as Ryze will start doing a lot more damage
6. You want to try to shut him down during this period by either calling for ganks or forcing TP plays since you’ll tend to do more in a skirmish
7. Ryze usually ends up outscaling Maokai, so you want to keep a solid lead on him if you want to be able to fight him

1. The hardest point against Gragas is levels 1-3, where he will outtrade and outsustain you
2. You want to play really passive at this point
3. You start winning once you’ve built your Spectre’s Cowl
4. You’ll stop taking as much damage from him, and you’ll be able to start doing a lot of damage
5. You don’t have to worry about his ult too much, because if he ults to engage on you, you can W right back onto him
6. Ganking Gragas is really hard since he can ult you and whoever’s ganking him away from him
7. In teamfights you can be more effective as Gragas has cooldowns he has to wait for, whereas Maokai can just sit on the enemy backline and soak up damage

Easy:

1. His early game is stronger than Maokai
2. Stay safe levels 1-3
3. Similar to the Gragas matchup
4. He’s very easy to gank, just make sure you block his Q if he uses it to escape
5. Even though it’s an easy matchup, if Nautilus gets red buff in any circumstance, you will be forced to play safely
6. You can dodge Nautilus’ ult using W just as the ult pops from underneath you
7. Nautilus’ greatest weakness is his immobility
8. You can clear the waves equally, and you will start winning trades each time after you get your Spirit Visage and Sunfire Cape

General Laning Tips

Maokai is weakest at levels 1-3. If you haven’t noticed from the matchup rundown, you will be trying your best to play safe and farm up a couple of items. If your enemy laner doesn’t build any MR items, you will actually end up doing quite a bit of damage to them.

The most important key is constantly looking for good TP plays, and a lot of them revolve around teleporting to a ward behind your kill target and using your W to snare the target. You will normally have the most impact on the game by having multiple successful teleport plays, so make sure you are able to do so by surviving the early game.

General Teamfighting Tips

A lot of the time, you normally want to find your way into the enemy backline and tank as much damage while hurting the enemy carries. It’s pretty easy to 1v1 an enemy carry if they don’t have sustain or MR. However, if someone’s out of position, it’s a good decision to just target them instead and have them blown up instantly.

Look for  -> Homeguard Flanks if you can. The success of these flanks is dependant on having people who can follow up on the play. It’s very hard to give a general guideline on what that actually means, but for the most part, make sure your team knows you’re looking for an engage through pings so that they’re ready to follow up. At the same time, don’t bait your team by pinging and starting the teleport channel only to cancel it/have it cancelled. It requires a good amount of coordination, which is something that will have to be learned.