Talk:Maokai/@comment-220.255.2.156-20111019144631/@comment-3486816-20111021030204

Level saplings IF harassment is a priority (it honestly isn't always) or if you're getting zoned and need them to farm. Otherwise I'd say leave them at rank 1-2 and use them primarily to control the bushes and act as free wards, because if you rank up saplings and use them often, you'll quickly become a manaless Mao, and a manaless Mao is a useless Mao. Rank up W as needed for your jungler's ganks, absolutely, but honestly in 90% of situations I'd recommend maxing Q first. If you're not using your lane, it's better (or at least, more reliable) farming and harassment than Saplings, costs less mana, and provides good CC at the same time.

If you ARE getting zoned, like many other champs that heal to autoattack, it's often not worth it to move into range to heal off your passive. Try to get under your tower to do so instead, once you do you're near unkillable and your opponent is an easy gank.

As for builds, many builds can work for Maokai. I jungle with him and haven't laned with him for a while, but I'd imagine my multiple Doran's rings to Spirit Visage (having early cdr and hp is great for his passive and utility) approach would work fairly well on a laning Maokai as well. Going GoT is good and bad with Maokai since he can be an excellent farmer even while zoned, yet he does benefit pretty well from Philo and HoG, and I used to have a GoT build for him myself. It's perfectly viable, but I feel like you should often have a more aggressive early game than they'll really allow you to have.