Maokai is a champion that is traditionally played in the toplane as a full-tank frontliner. Though he is intended to be played as a tank, Maokai has Ability Power (AP) scaling on every single ability in his kit. This allows Maokai to take a more "off-meta" build and build mostly AP items to help him deal ridiculous amounts of damage. This switch from tank to mage also managed to find Maokai a new home in the bottom lane, where he can be played as a support with surprisingly good results.

Abilities

Passive: Sap Magic - Periodically, Maokai’s next basic attack will be empowered, healing him for a percentage of his maximum health. This passive’s cooldown is reduced every time Maokai casts an ability or is hit by an enemy ability.

Q Ability: Bramble Smash - Maokai sends a wave of magic forward, dealing magic damage and slowing the target. Enemies around Maokai (not in the Bramble Smash damage) are stunned shortly and knocked away from Maokai a short distance.

W Ability: Twisted Advance - Maokai dashes underground towards a target, rooting them and dealing magic damage upon arrival.

E Ability: Sapling Toss - Maokai tosses a sapling. Saplings stay in place until they die, or until an enemy walks into their radius. If an enemy walks into a sapling, the sapling will wake up and begin to chase them. The sapling explodes after a few seconds of chasing, dealing magic damage. Saplings that are placed in a bush have a longer duration and when they explode, deal extra damage over the next two seconds in addition to the instant damage from regular saplings.

R Ability: Nature's Grasp - Maokai summons a wave of thorny roots towards the enemy team. The wave starts out slow but becomes faster as the ability continues to move. The wave deals magic damage and roots any enemy hit by it.

Skill Order

When levelling abilities on Maokai you want to focus on this priority, R -> E -> Q -> W. As with almost every champion in the game, you will want to max out your R as soon as possible since it has the highest impact. After that, you want to focus on the bread and butter of AP Maokai Support. Your E, Sapling Toss, is your best ability and what you will be spamming in and out of lane. Your E also has the highest AP scaling out of all your other abilities. The cooldown of your E does not go down whenever you put a point into it. The next ability you want to max is your Q. Both your Q and W abilities share the same AP scaling, but we opt to go for the Q max here because it reduces the cooldown of the ability to 5 seconds. Lastly you want to upgrade your W. You can max W instead of Q if you need an extra .3 seconds of root on an enemy, but I recommend just maxing your W last.

Runes

Rather than taking a tank rune like Aftershock, Maokai support opts to go for Arcane Comet. Taking Arcane Comet as your keystone allows you to take runes like Manaflow Band and Scorch, which both help Maokai sustain himself during lane. Manaflow Band helps Maokai build up his mana reserves while also allowing him to stay in lane longer. Transcendence is nice for Maokai because it allows you to be slightly faster in your spellcasts. Scorch helps Maokai be even more annoying in lane, giving his saplings and other spells more damage. The secondary rune tree we take is Inspiration. The Inspiration tree gives a lot of unique and strong effects to Maokai. Biscuit Delivery is like Manaflow Band where it helps Maokai stay in lane after he eats up all of his mana casting spells. Cosmic Insight helps similarly to Transcendence but gives Summoner Spell and Item Haste instead of Spell Haste.

Item Build

Maokai Support was given all of the tools he needed with the introduction of the new item system this pre-season. As Maokai Support you will almost always want to start Relic Shield and two Health Potions. Relic Shield is picked since it gives both AP and Health, which helps Maokai assert dominance early in the laning phase, along with the passive gold income that comes with every support item.

Your core items build will be as follows – Imperial Mandate/Liandry’s Anguish, Sorcerer’s Shoes, Demonic Embrace. During the end of Season 10 and into the beginning of the Preseason, Liandry’s Anguish was considered the only item you could build first as AP Maokai Support. That was until Imperial Mandate started being built. Liandry’s is still a fine purchase, but Imperial Mandate synergizes with every single spell in his kit. Imperial Mandate also works well in tandem with any ADC you may be laning with, since all they have to do is Auto Attack someone you have marked. Sorcerer’s Shoes allow you to burn through Magic Resist, but if you are having trouble staying alive during fights you can opt to go for Plated Steelcaps or Mercury's Treads. Demonic Embrace is an item made for Maokai, it’s basically a Liandry’s Anguish but for tankier AP champions like the tree man himself. This core build leaves you with tons of damage, along with survivability that lets you stay alive during fights.

You can finish off your build by going one of two ways. The first way is to continue with your AP build, usually building a Morellonomicon or Zhonya’s Hourglass to help you stay tanky while still outputting damage. The other way is to build full tank afterwards, items like Warmog’s Armor or Randuin’s Omen help turn Maokai into an unkillable spellcaster.

Early Game

AP Maokai support may take a few games to get used to, especially if you have only ever played him as a tank. Going down the AP build path leaves you more vulnerable in lane, but the tradeoff is that you can deal ridiculous amounts of damage with your saplings. During laning phase, you want to make sure that you are consistently poking down enemy laners with your saplings. This involves putting saplings in bushes in order to force enemy bot lanes into awkward positions or throwing saplings right on top of them to force a reaction. It’s crucial to not be afraid of enemy lanes as Maokai support. For example, if your ADC gets hooked by an enemy Nautilus, you should use your W to root the enemy ADC and disrupt the fight. Your W is also amazing for setting up ganks, since you can root an enemy and then use your Q to knock them back towards your team. You’re not going to be as tanky as an aftershock Maokai, but you can still play with confidence in lane.

Mid-to-Late Game

Maokai shines outside of laning phase. Your saplings, especially when placed in bushes, are like walking Teemo shrooms. You can use your saplings to control objectives, push into enemy jungles for vision, setting up a traps, and more. If your team wants to start an objective, you can walk up and throw saplings into river bushes or enemy jungle bushes in order to scout out enemies and gain control. The same can be done if you are pushing into enemy towers. Place saplings in the enemy jungle in order to stop/slow down an enemy flanking. If the enemies are pushing into you, you can place saplings in your own jungle bushes to try and deal some %HP damage to an unsuspecting opponent. Most of AP Maokai’s Mid-Late game strategy is thoughtfully placing saplings to deal the maximum amount of damage. This doesn’t mean you can’t engage though, you still have your R and W. Both of these abilities can be used to lock down enemy threats with ease.

Tips & Tricks

Here is a list of some tips and tricks that will help you instantly see improvement as Maokai support.

Guaranteed Double Root: If you need to lock down an enemy for 2 or more seconds, use this trick. Maokai’s R starts behind him and slowly crawls forward. So if you W onto an enemy carry you can instantly R towards your team. Since your R starts behind you, it is guaranteed to hit the enemy since it will be behind them too.

Tree Sin: Maokai’s Q ability has a small knockback attached to it. You can W onto and enemy and then Q them in the direction of a nearby sapling in order to do crazy amounts of damage.

Speedy Saplings: Maokai’s Saplings gain bonus movement speed based off the tier of Maokai’s boots. Saplings have 400 base movement speed, 425 movement speed for Boots of Speed, 445 movement speed for most boot upgrades, and 460 movement speed for Boots of Swiftness or Mobility Boots.

Slow but Steady: Maokai’s R ability starts out extremely slowly. You’ll want to use this ability early into a fight in order to give it time to speed up and reach your enemies.

Saplings See: Your Saplings give a small amount of “vision” that can help you fight off ganks and other unwanted enemies. While the saplings themselves don’t give off vision, they can still be used as a “heat sensor” for enemy junglers.

Closing Thoughts

I hope this guide was helpful to you all, I’ve been playing AP Maokai support now for about a season and I love it. He’s viable in both Solo Queue and organized play, and is an overall breath of fresh air in the bot lane. As patches and other seasonal changes bring new variety and balance to the game, changes can also be made to Maokai support. Though he has been having a good run for about a season now, there is always room for Riot Games to shake things up. I'll make sure to keep this guide updated so that we can all enjoy tossing saplings and winning games!