Talk:Maokai/@comment-8780096-20130812042219/@comment-8506165-20130813050049

In my experience you want the tankiness early - your MPen and Liandry's passive will be far more use in late anyway and you'll be a bit squishy with just Ancient Golem, Liandry's and Abyssal.

You'll work as an off-tank with that build but don't go thinking you're a full tank. With only 1250 health from Golem, Liandry's and Sunfire you'll only have about as much bonus health as anyone who picked up a Warmog's. Your total bonus armor will be nice at 140 - Maokai's base armor is 90 already, so you'll go over 200 without even needing runes or masteries - but armor shred is easy to itemise at present, with most offensive AD characters starting with 8% from masteries and Black Cleavers and Last Whispers being thrown around everywhere. You'll not even hit 100 MR so a fed AP can easily be your Achilles' heel.

If you're getting Sorcs anyway consider swapping Abyssal for a Spirit Visage - less damage, yes, but in exchange for more MR, improved passive heals (and thus more effective health), CDR (enough to hit the cap with Frozen Heart, although 10% is technically wasted if you're going Ancient Golem) and some nice health regen. Plus there's a fair chance your own APC will grab Abyssal and the auras don't stack. Sunfire Cape is another potential swap - you can trade the burn aura for more armor and the passive from a Randuin's if they're a heavy AD team. But I see the wisdom in Sunfire as a defensive option in an MPen build anyway.

Other potential options would include going Randuin's over Sunfire and swapping Frozen Heart for a Warmog's for more health, which benefits more from your passive. I'm assuming you want Liandry's and Sorcs left in, so I'm not touching those.

But yeah, it seems a good build - I'm just offering suggestions based on the fact you said you wanted to serve as a tank, rather than an offtank.