Talk:Maokai/@comment-93.143.25.53-20110726164452/@comment-3532889-20110729195350

The effectiveness of his ult weighs on the same factors as the effectiveness of Pantheon's ult. Instead of throwing his ult down and hoping they stay, you "trap" someone inside of it. Tanking with Maokai requires a good deal of communication, but generally, teams with high CC thrive on it. Alistar in particular has absurd synergy with Maokai as either of you you can play tank, and the other offtank, and play off of each others strengths.

A good rule of thumb is, throw down your ult when the opponent loses something by leaving it. For example, if they are ganking a brand or something, throw the ult on top of them to reduce the damage and to secure enhanced punishment for his gank attempt. Also, using the ult right after you use the root is a good way to secure a kill. If their teammates rush to save the victim, then the ult is being used to full effect. if they abandon him in fear of the ult, then a gank is still achieved. Either way, it's a win-win situation. When I solo queue, I generally make it a point to make sure my teammates know what the ult does. Them making full use of it can mean the difference between a win or a loss.

Finally, the ult has a few built in buffers for additional effect when people begin to leave. The most obvious one, is that you can set it off for some damage. Depending on how effectively you used the ult, this can be a juicy bit of damage. The second bit, is that while it is sometimes difficult to keep people inside of it, at level 3, the CD is 20 seconds. With 40% CDR (which I always build Frozen Heart and CRD glyphs, and try to get golem), you are capable of resetting your ult 12 seconds after you start it. That means with proper execution, your ult will be on and off as the teamfight moves from place to place. Also, you have to consider champs with that style of ult generally have some serious drawback attached. Taric for example, has to deal with increasing mana costs. Fiddle's ult has a ridiculous CD, as does kennen's. So yeah, in short, I like the way it is now. It's not the easiest thing on the face of the planet, but hey, it's very fun once you get the hang of it.