Talk:Maokai/@comment-26128186-20170209011055/@comment-24496127-20170217030059

I understand that, but I think it's better if the threat of his dive be in the sustained damage of his Q, and the fact that's he's difficult to kill, rather than frontloaded onto his initial burst taking half of a squishies health, and then him still having the said sustained damage and sustain.

Part of why he's performing well is that he can out sustain a lot of damage if the adc is dead, and he's really good at setting them up to die. The only thing really stopping him is the range limitation on his w. I actually consider him more of a juggernaut than a vangaurd, because his dive is almost as much about damage as disruption, and he can fight other tanks well once he has the mana and cdr to spam his w and q. However, if Riot wants him to ever be a vanguard, then taking away damage gives them some room to experiment later on.

They could probably give him a different ultimate later down the line to better focus him. His is extremely effective for how visibly unimpressive it is, and it's also a pretty binary ability for current ultimate standards.