Talk:Maokai/@comment-5077844-20141110223656/@comment-15244341-20141119195714

Most important Maokai tip: you can't be all-inned by melee champions (except Irelia jumping to creep for a Q reset) as long as you have Arcane Smash off cooldown. Knock them up with the AoE around yourself and just walk away.

Also, try to start with a Doran's ring and only poke while getting far away CS. He plays like Gragas early in lane, just CSing and going ocassionaly for sure poke. Try not to trade if possible pre-catalyst since, as you know, you will run out of mana pretty fast if you do.

Glacial Shroud CAN be rushed if there is any AD-heavy matchup that has an advantage over you. Just wait for level 6 to play aggresive and focus on TP ganks and roaming to help your jungler. Mao's kill potential is actually low-ish, so don't just go to lane looking for kills.

Also, yeah. As uncommon as he is, Aatrox uses so little spells and has such good sustained damage and health recovery that he is pretty much a lost lane for Mao. Just focus on farming, TBH, and you should be ok.