Talk:Maokai/@comment-1663379-20110217183923/@comment-3213322-20110217185524

I think that's a fairly good comparison. Did a couple of quick practice matches with him, building only a rod of ages and boots throughout the game to allow at least a slight degree of objectivity.

My first impressions are that he actually seems much more useful in a divide and conquer type of strategy than straight up team fighting, counter-intuitive considering his ultimate. Unfortunately for a melee character who is supposed to be tanky, I think he doesn't seem good enough at soaking up focus fire.

He certainly seems to shine in the laning stage. He is about equal with Gragas in terms of harassment ability, his passive is not negligible in terms of boosting staying power but at the same time takes more though to benefit from compared to other regen characters. Mana cost of the Sapling makes me unlikely to want to level it too much to begin with though.

If what you are looking for is a terrific damage soak, you may be disappointed. In terms of disruption capability, I think you're looking at a character who stands about par with Singed. Possibly better since you can't stop him with a Banshee's Veil. Arcane Smash is an incredibly useful ability for containing an enemy. I'm going to try a max CDR build on him soon to see if having a 2 second 48% aoe slow ready every 4 seconds seems like a really awesome thing. Combined with Twisted Advance you make for a ridiculous ambusher.

Still, more playtesting needed before I'm comfortable making a final judgment. I don't really want to subject anyone to my amateur play with him, so I'll have to wait until I can get a few custom games in with friends.