User blog comment:Johannah14/Maxing some Abilities/@comment-4022742-20130529083509

All maxing of skills are to be done according to the situation of the game, this is not unlike item purchases. For example:
 * As against an  +  lane with a  jungle, it might be more efficient to max silver bolts. True damage  shoots right trough Alistar's ult and doesn't get reduced by Graves's passive, it also kicks health stacking Mundo's butt.
 * As against any lane without a gap-closer, you don't really need to use your skills to get away, you can just trade with  and count on the last hit knock-back to keep the distance as you walk away, waiting for the shield to come off cool down.
 * For you already noted "(considering that your enemy is a skill-shot champion)" <- when facing something like  it doesn't really hold bars to stick to that routine.
 * As it might be more beneficial to max  first when in lane against champions with a blink or dash like  or  just to keep them from using their dashes while YOU engage, or  to heavily punish them while they engage. And ye, sadly there is only AP scaling on the shield, if it gave more cool down or longer duration, maxing it would be viable, but alas, doomed to max last.