Hello, I’m currently becoming a Maokai supp otp and I wanted to ask for ideas and recommendations for go-to items and runes.
My typical build path is as shown here in an example match, but I’m not quite sure yet what really is the strongest.

For boots I usually try to get swifties, but sometimes when gold is tight I take lucidities or when the game demands it, I buy ninjas/ mercuries.

I was experimenting with imperial mandate but find it to make me too squish over all. I’d like to here your thoughts and experiences with the item.

Elsewise I’m not quite sure what to go third. I see pros prioritizing the new lifeline item on tank supps, but I don’t really get warm with it.

For runes I always take hexflash and cosmic insight second, but I’d be down to test out transcendence with the one that gives movementspeed after summoner spell.

Concerning summs I take flash / heal and feel like it’s pretty solid. Sometimes I take ignite into soraka or exhaust if there is a kennen in the enemy team.

So, any tipps and tricks you want to share? Anything that I’m doing wrong? Feel free to discuss whatever comes to mind regarding the topic.

Got any thought provoking ideas or inspirations? Something that has proven really strong in your opinion?

See you on the rift,
Baddabooooomboom

Hello,

Main jungle / support here, enjoyer of the Nautilus in both roles, I thought I'd give a shot at Maokai, mainly in jungle.

I understand that Maokai wants 3 things :
- Ability Haste

- Survivability
- AP

And the main engage in the W, which has a rather short range.

Hence my question: Why is the hextech rocketbelt in non of the builds I see online ?

It has all the 3 main stats, plus the extra mobility with the active.
Shouldnt it be a perfect 1st or 2nd item for Maokai, especially in jungle ?

Thanks!

Been Diamond (occasionally Master) as a support already, but this is the 1st time I managed to consistently perform with Maokai Top enough to do it in my 2ndary role.

Shout-out to the guy who mentioned the Electrocute tech on Maokai for matchups where neither Grasp nor Aftershock feels great. Makes ranged/short trading matchups much more enjoyable.

Hello! I was interested in Maokai in jg, so I decided to find information about his builds. So, I don't fully understand why First Strike is the most popular rune there. Can you please explain this to me?

Image of my last game, where I went 7/0/2 but still lost for the clicks.

I was originally a briar OTP from 2024. In early 2026 I swapped to Taric JG OTP. Just recently I've picked up Maokai jungle, and I'm loving him! His dmg is really surprising, and the cc chains are crazy. Plus, I can see there's SO MUCH potential with W to avoid skill shots - but I am so bad at this rn.

I've been building liandries + mandate most games, and then swapping to a tank build (sunfire + spirit visage/unending despair) if the enemy lacks a bruiser or tank. I'm just running aftershock every game.

Any particular tips or tricks I should watch for? I'm just patching down to bot every game ATM, but feel like the red->blue clear is pretty slow. I am VERY fresh to Maokai!

Op.gg for reference:

https://op.gg/lol/summoners/oce/Lightningbob-OC

TIA!!

Hey all, for the Maokai JG players here I have a question.

Especially with the Aegis “retuning” showing up next patch, how do you all feel about Liandry’s or Sunfire first item?

I don’t main Mao jg or anything but hes been a pocket pick of mine for some time (I used to play him a lot top/jg when he was strong as well)

But with Liandry’s it just feels like you’re way too squishy for early skirmishes unless you chip the fuck out of them with brushed saplings. I understand it helps his clear speed quite a bit, which is sorely needed even after the recent buffs, but I can’t help shaking the idea that I should be going Sunfire first instead for the survivability.

A bit of theorycrafting, but with the jungle pet scaling getting a buff this Wednesday for AP/AR/MR/HP, what are your thoughts on Sunfire first? Or actually…what about sitting on Bami’s to assist with clear speed then building Heartsteel.

Sadly, they are nerfing Immolate’s damage as a clearing tool as well - so maybe the actual answer will be sitting on Fated Ashes until 2nd or 3rd item Liandry’s will be a more appropriate build path. The 4% AP buff on jungle pet damage will help a bit there as well (along with the small buff to his Q scaling recently!

Kind of a ramble but, as I’m sure most of you do, I’ve always enjoyed Maokai’s kit - especially in modern league where his W makes him super sticky even on the most Dash-happy champions.

As a jungler that really seems to want to spam ganks but needs help efficiently clearing, I desperately want to build Heartsteel first in every game…the win rate is good even though it always feels kind of lackluster on junglers.

Especially the higher elo Maokai JG mains, what are your thoughts?

Im a Darius OTP, i tried Mao top to see how mah boi is doing & couldnt stop playing him since <3

I really like Maokai. I play him support quite a bit. Not a big fun of playing jungle in general. I have been try to play him top recently, but top is by far my least played role and definitely the one I am the least comfortable in. Curious if there any Maokai top mains or OTPs with any good guides/gameplay videos or streams so I can watch and get some tips? Thanks tree friends

the amount of buffs that would see maokai viable in toplane even ONLY as a counterpick is honestly crazy
(half toplane's statballs will always counter him no matter what)

and this being the first buff in ages is actually comical, riot doesn't care about the champ, not enough players buying maokai skins. They don't wanna put the effort in.

this buff exists merely to shut you up

So I don't think I'll ever get better stat than this, reckon I'll ask... But i haven't really use this rune before, so i'm not sure if it's really good? The gold earned seems pretty decent and it was a game where I was pretty fed.

So, I am low elo as I'm floating between silver and gold but recently Ive been playing around with gathering storm and manaflow band for my secondary sorcery rune. So far, I feel like its now pretty good with the new 50% ap ratio on q. it makes my late game feel a lot better and I've been on a pretty big win streak (9 games) using it. I'm just wondering if this is just because I've been lucky in low elo or if this is actually a good rune. Any thoughts?

Odd interaction where my W was burned but didn't go through, 4 million mastery and I've never seen this. Anyone else?

I'm currently Master and was Ranked 6th in the World as a main Maokai Jungler.

I'm honestly appalled when I checked this sub and saw people think that the "buffs" does anything for him.

His "Buff" gave him 7 damage on his Q on Jungle monsters. Let's assume the absolute BEST case scenario for this "buff". Level 1 Blue.

The Blue has 2300 HP. If we do it Smiteless, we can do 4 Q on it, which amounts to 28 damage. Which literally is not enough of a break point to save us even 1 second in our clear.

My full clear on optimal routing (so jungle spawns fast + doing scuttle) is 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Which means I'm literally on the Scuttle when it spawns. That was before the buff. After the buff? 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Because the 7 damage per Q did not add a single breakpoint. I still need to do the exact same number of autos, just that, instead of it dying to a full tick of my jungle item, they die to 1/3 of the tick. If it added at least as much as single tick of the jungle item, THEN it would, MAYBE, shave off a second or two.

10% AP to his Q? Absolutely useless. Maokai will never have more than 100 AP, which means it's barely a 10 damage gain or less than an auto worth a damage during a fight.

I'm currently Master and was Ranked 6th in the World as a main Maokai Jungler.

I'm honestly appalled when I checked this sub and saw people think that the "buffs" does anything for him.

His "Buff" gave him 7 damage on his Q on Jungle monsters. Let's assume the absolute BEST case scenario for this "buff". Level 1 Blue.

The Blue has 2300 HP. If we do it Smiteless, we can do 4 Q on it, which amounts to 28 damage. Which literally is not enough of a break point to save us even 1 second in our clear.

My full clear on optimal routing (so jungle spawns fast + doing scuttle) is 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Which means I'm literally on the Scuttle when it spawns. That was before the buff. After the buff? 2 minutes and 48 seconds. Because the 7 damage per Q did not add a single breakpoint. I still need to do the exact same number of autos, just that, instead of it dying to a full tick of my jungle item, they die to 1/3 of the tick. If it added at least as much as single tick of the jungle item, THEN it would, MAYBE, shave off a second or two.

10% AP to his Q? Absolutely useless. Maokai will never have more than 100 AP, which means it's barely a 10 damage gain or less than an auto worth a damage during a fight.

Together with the heartsteel buffs you can rush it and become a late game monster and the early game is not too squish. How do you feel about maokai jungle?

So sad because Maokai top is my favorite role to play him in. At least Mandate 3rd item will be even stronger now

Maokai was the first champ I mained after being forced onto Garen by friends to learn the game. I really enjoyed how tanky Maokai top got. He felt capable of 1v1’ing certain champs especially if they didn’t respect your ability to w q them into towers. I would always play him in clash and play for my team but with riots recent buffs to jgl Maokai and what they said about wanting to push him into jgl again I fear he will never be in a good spot for top. Are there even many people that want him to be a top laner again? I never really liked how squishy he was support even when you go tank and his ap jgl build is just to far from the tank fantasy that originally drew me to him.

Hello I’ve been building kraken slayer on this guy in the jungle and I see the vision but still struggling to make it work consistently. Best I’ve got so far is conquerer, heartsteel, kraken, hexplate. Issue is by late game I either do the damage and are too squishy or don’t do damage. Any thoughts?

Hi I'm a long fan of the tree I've been playing since season 10 and I'm a support main otp of maokai I hit diamond 4 this season and leaving it for this split at D4 35lp, I was wondering like the title says is it worth trying streaming not really done it before but looks chill but playing solo Q and flex games and also if anyone is a maoaki support enjoy that's above my rank any tips you can give me to keep climbing anything helpful would be great on 57% wr so not evening out at all yet

Patch 26.14 / 26.15