Now I know you are asking yourself, “Why am I looking at this troll guide? Maokai is a tank not a damage dealer.” Let me reassure you that AP Maokai Support does work when played correctly. Let's go over the pros and cons of a glass cannon Maokai.

Pros:

Safe poke damage
Lots of CC and Peel
Huge burst
Sustained damage on tanks (with bushes)
Free wards with Saplings

Cons:

Squishy
Have to understand Macro
Has to plan out fights
Has to play around bushes
Does not work in High ELO
Terrible wave clear early

Summoner Spells

Flash:

You will want to take Flash due to the versatility of the spell. It allows you to escape from ganks over walls and allows you to make a fast initiation with a Flash>W. Maokai has such low base movement speed with 335 that the mobility on Flash is necessary.

Ignite:

Ignite is required when going for kills bot lane. The 50% healing reduction in combination with its true damage will help secure kills. You are trying to snowball the game off of kills, Ignite is a must!

Masteries

Cunning:

Tier 1: Wanderer: The 3% out of combat movement speed allows you to move around the map easier and set up trap bushes with your Saplings.

Tier 2: Secret Stash: Gives your potions 10% increased effectiveness. This combined with Maokai's passive gives you an insane amount of sustain in the lane.

Tier 3: Meditation: The increased mana regen from this mastery combined with the mana regeneration built into Spellthief's allows you to use your spells more frequently without fear of being completely useless.

Tier 4: Bandit: It is imperative to have as much passive gold income as you can as a Support. The extra gold from this mastery allows you to not rely on killing creeps and enemy champions to get gold.

Tier 5: Precision: The extra magic penetration with the mastery will help you deal more damage to enemies throughout the game.

Ferocity:

Tier 1: Sorcery: 2% increased ability damage works on all of your damage sources as AP Maokai. You will not be relying on your auto attacks for damage.

Tier 2: Expose Weakness: Your allies do 3% increased damage to champions you have damaged. Almost all of Maokai's abilities are AoE, so giving 3% increased damage on multiple targets will help your team snowball off your burst damage.

Tier 3: Natural Talent: More ability power never hurts when you are trying to get as much burst as possible up front with this build.

Tier 4: Battle Trance: You gain 3% increased damage after staying in combat with an enemy champion over 3 seconds. This works well with Maokai's Saplings. The Saplings do damage over 2 seconds, so Battle Trance will increase its damage dealt by 1% per tick of damage.

Keystone:

Thunderlord's synergizes extremely well with Maokai's E. One Sapling Toss in a bush will get two of the three hits necessary to proc Thunderlord's. More than one Sapling will guarantee a Thunderlord's proc. Setting up Saplings in bushes and procing Thunderlord's will be your primary way of winning lane. Thunderlord's is so important to AP Maokai Support that you should not use any other Keystone.

Even with the recent nerfs to Maokai, he can still pull off some insane damage in game.

Let's take a look at the Twisted Treant's abilities:

Passive: Sap Magic (Cooldown: 30/25/20 Seconds)

On his auto-attack, Maokai heals himself for 5-65 (based on level) health plus an additional 6%-13% (based on level) of his max health. Every time Maokai is struck by an ability or casts an ability, the cooldown on Sap Magic is reduced by 4 seconds. This skill is amazing for sustain in the botlane. It lets you build a little greedier due to the built-in sustain saving you from needing to spend gold on potions. As a Support, this skill allows you to trade frequently, as there are few Supports who have built-in sustain.

Q: Bramble Smash (Cooldown: 8/7.25/6.75/5.75/5 Seconds)

Maokai releases a burst of arcane energy, dealing (70/115/160/205/250 base damage + .4 AP scaling) damage, as well as slowing them by 99% for .25 seconds and knocking back enemies up to 300 units based on their proximity to Maokai. This move scales well and will catch your opponent's off-guard with the amount of burst it can provide. It is also Maokai's main skill for clearing a wave if the situation arises. During teamfights, utilize a W>Q combo to knock enemies away from your carries. This move is going to be what you max third, but you should take the first point in it at level 3.

W: Twisted Advance (Cooldown: 13/12/11/10/9 Seconds)

Maokai dashes forward, becoming untargetable, dealing (50/75/100/125/150 + .4% AP) damage, and rooting the target for (1/1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4) seconds. This skill's damage was gutted during the rework. It is primarily used to get a quick initiation with a Flash>W>Q on a carry. Another useful trick with this spell is to trap people near Sapling bushes and knock them towards their death with Q's knockback. This skill is a low priority for AP Maokai, so you'll max it last, but you should take the first point in it at level 2.

E: Sapling Toss (Cooldown: 11 Seconds)

Maokai throws a Sapling that gives vision around it and attempt to latch onto enemy champions that walk into range. Outside of a bush, your Saplings do (25/50/75/100/125) + 8% (+1% per 100 AP) of the victim's maximum health. Inside a bush, the Saplings do double damage. That means with 100 AP, 3 Saplings in a bush do 54% of the maximum health of all enemy champions in the explosion radius. This skill makes or breaks AP Maokai Support. You have to correctly set up traps and zone with this ability so that you can snowball the game. You will rank up this skill first, taking ranks in it at levels 1/4/5/7/9.

The key to getting to this build is playing around key strategic points on the map. It takes around three Saplings to almost one-shot someone. So always try to set up traps in advance! The Saplings will last around 30 seconds with a full damage build and have a 10-11 second cooldown depending on your CDR. The following is a map that indicates good trap bushes. Red circles are for when playing on the red side and blue circles are for when playing on the blue side.

R: Nature's Grasp (Cooldown: 120/100/80 Seconds)

Maokai unleashes a large wave of 5 roots that slowly advance forward dealing damage and rooting enemies for .6-2.4 seconds based on distance the roots traveled. After colliding with an enemy champion, the bramble disappears. Maokai's ultimate scales insanely well with AP. It has 150/225/300 base damage with .75 AP scaling. This combined with Q will do a lot of burst damage in the mid to late game. It can even help you steal objectives. You will rank up this skill at levels 6/11/16.

Key Point! The most important thing to remember about AP Maokai is that you are a Support! You want to use your abilities and CC to get your ADC fed, not to take every single kill! Your Ultimate has a root, your W has a root, your Q has a knockback and slow, and your E has a slow. Use them to peel for your team! If you do not use these abilities to help your team, then you're setting yourself up to fail.

Items

Starting Items:

Spellthief's Edge and 3 Health potions:

Spellthief's gives you early game AP and mana regeneration. Maokai Saplings in a bush are an easy way to proc all three charges of Spellthief's, thus allowing you to farm gold efficiently with your poke.

Core Items:

Eye of the Watchers:

Eye of the Watchers is imperative as an AP Support player. It is your main objective to use your damage and lane control to set up vision for your team. The 50% increase in mana regen also helps you keep putting pressure on the enemy botlane.

Boots of Mobility:

The extra movement speed allows you set up vision control and death bushes. Throwing a Sapling will not cause the boots to lose their bonus movement speed, so you can quickly scout bushes with the increased E range.

Luden's Echo:

The burst on Luden's allows you to deal some insane burst with bush Saplings. Support Maokai is all about burst and the extra bonus damage on Luden's will only make your poke and burst deadlier.

Liandry's Torment:

Spell penetration is really important for Maokai. You want to get the most damage that you can out of each bush Sapling and ult burst. The goal of this build is to catch your opponent off-guard. All of Maokai's damaging spells have a movement impairing effect, so Liandry's will always deal double damage.

Control Wards:

You are playing Support, so having Control Wards on the map is imperative to give your team control. Having Sapling vision, 3 Sightstone ward charges, and Control Ward coverage will give your team insane map control. Plus, it makes your death bush so much more effective when you can make sure that there are no wards in it to alert your opponents to the trap!

Situational Items

Rabadon's Deathcap:

If you find yourself snowballing hard, an early Rabadon's will allow you to deal enough damage to carry teamfights.

Void Staff:

The extra spell penetration from Void Staff will help you get the most out of a full AP build. It will make it to where you deal true damage on targets that have not stacked magic resist.

Sorcerer's Shoes:

Only pick up Sorcerer's Shoes if your team has good map control. The extra mobility from mobility boots will outweigh the spell penetration if you do not have control over the map.

Laning:

Your goal when playing AP Maokai is to dominate your lane and snowball that lead to other lanes. You will want to use your Saplings to help your ADC push out the waves. One early Sapling will lower the caster minion wave enough so that your ADC only needs one or two auto-attacks to take them down. You will want to use your W>Q to disengage from the enemy all-in pre-6. At level 6, you will use your ultimate to disengage. At early levels, you will have some surprising burst with an all-in on a tethered sapling, so try to plan all your early game all-ins around when your Saplings get onto an enemy.

At level 6, you will have a surprising amount of damage with your ultimate and your ADC’s ultimate.

Always try to protect your ADC if they get caught. You have enough burst to either turn around the fight or give them enough time with your CC to let them get away!

Team Fighting:

Try to dive onto the enemy team backline to lock up their carries with W>R>Q combo or just use your ultimate to peel away the enemy or use it to lock them in place so that your team can get a winning team fight!

Trap Bushes:

Always try to think ahead before you push for an objective. In this clip, I knew that I was going to push down the Mid Inhibitor tower with Miss Fortune. Before I went into lane to help her push, I placed three Saplings in a bush for my escape route.

Good Champions to Combo with:

Ivern: Ivern’s W allows you to set up bush Saplings in any location. This will allow you to damage Baron and Dragon. It is definitely the best addition for Maokai when it comes to the end of laning phase.

Miss Fortune: Miss Fortune's high burst damage and ultimate combo well with Maokai's damage. Teams will melt if they are caught in both Maokai and Miss Fortune's ultimates.

Draven: Draven’s strong burst and damage early game comboed with Maokai’s damage and CC make it really easy for him to snowball.

Varus: Varus and Maokai have some insane poke and peeling with both their ultimates. It is almost impossible to die in this lane!

Any burst/snowball jungler: Any burst jungler like Elise, Rengar, Kha'zix, or Shaco allows you to finish off opponents and set up bush Saplings in the opponent’s jungle for easy jungle invades/steals.

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