Talk:Maokai/@comment-4638923-20120625060013/@comment-77.236.25.91-20120625111800

Hmm.. how do you do your ganks with him ? Mao is not really about burst/sustained dmg, he is about early CC and keeping people stand still while your laner is destroying them.

My typical gank way: walk in, W at the enemy, after about 1.5 seconds Q them out of their turret. Meanwhile do a few autoattacks and throw sapling if needed. This combo doesnt bring a lot of dmg (although it is still noticeable in early stages), but it does give your laner about 3-4 seconds of free attacking / spell casting, which should generally be enough (at least it is enough in about 80% of my games :P). And it is manageable to do at lvl 3, which should mean to you a lot.

Remember also that Maokai doesnt really need a lot of farm, as his late game will probably suck anyway. After getting lvl 3-4 I usually barely care about jungle camps (ok, I still have an eye on blues and reds, but thats all), I just wander from lane to lane and spamgank my enemies. He is suited to do this, he has good sustain and nice clearing times so he can save a lot of time for ganks.

Tl,dr: Maybe try playing him more like early roamer ? I havent tried jungle Naut so far, so I cant really compare them.