Alright, I've been trying to figure out how I can get the most out of this hero for a little while now and it seems to me like the best build would be

Warmogs : Great regen and Health and it scales extremely well with you passive (healed or 7% of health) also combines quite nicely with FoN.

AA Staff: Extreme mana boost for keeping your ult up and also adds a little extra damage to your saplings so that farming is made easier.

Merc Treds/ Ninja Tabi: You are a tank, your primary role is t help your team survive and so damage mitigation/. reduction should be a priority. Also backs up the health you gained from Warmogs.

Force of Nature: Great magic resist, improves speed because lets face it you move like a tree... slowly. and it increases your health regen based on a % of max health +40 so it synergizes with warmogs extremely well.

Banshees Veil: There should be almost no reason why you wouldn't want the boost to MP/HP (adds more AP due to AA Staff), as well as the magic resists, and you block one spell every 30 seconds! thats at least one block a team fight.

Frozen Heart: 99 armor and 500 mana, sold not only does it increase your durability to physical carries it increases your mana pool to keep your ult up and also feeds your AA staff. a must have item for this mana hungry giant. and it gives CDR and slows the attack rate of Auto attackers.

Now there has been a bit of speculation as to witch is better a RoA or an AA staff, I feel that the staff helps more in the long run, gives more mana, better ap, and mana regen. but the RoA gives health and AP and mana, no regen, but mana none the less. so my question is which is better for the charred giant?

Discussion about build begins now.

I've noticed that with mana regain yellows I really don't need an AA staff. I rush a Rod of Aegis first, starting with catalyst, then boots1, then finish the rod, then mercs/ionian depending on team comp. Gives me all the mana I need. Then the rest just depends. I usually go support/tanky though.

I found Boots of Mobility help him A LOT!

With enough Armor/MR I don't even notice CC's since I just shrug them off with my ult.

I really like having a mix of BV/Frozen Heart on him. I think he is better played as an Aura Tank, with Warmog's or FoN xD

Also a tip for all, Initiate!! DO IT! W > R > Q > E as far as you can. It nets profit, if your team is smart enough to follow you in.

I'd just get a chalice on him. His ult costs 30 per second, but it has no increasing value like Taric's. You can keep his ult up permanently with a chalice and some mana regen runes.

Honestly, he's terrible as a tank. Terrible awful awful. If you build him as a tank I applaud you, but you'd be better off as Blitzcrank or Malphite or anyone else, really. With such low HP and low base resists, that horrifyingly slow walk speed and the inability to Nova in a fight (IE, throw down all his stuff like Annie and explode someone) he's not a tank. He's a worthy second target. His ult is nice but if you kill him it goes away and does barely any damage. So just blow him up the moment he comes in to init, since he has such poor defenses.

Or if he builds defense, ignore him because not only will his ult do zero damage, he's doing zero damage. Know what that means? Any teamfight with Maokai is like a 4v5 in their favor. The 20% damage resists provided by his ult seems ironic. It makes it a fair fight. They do 20% less damage because of his ult, and your team does 20% less damage as a group because you picked a Maokai.

Nothing's wrong with the statement, it just depends on the build. If you build purely tanky with lots of resists, your W>R>Q>E nova will do all of, like, 500 damage after resistances. Which is less than I'll do in one swing with Nasus' big stick (not really, unless I crit, in which case yes really).

To make Maokai's nova highly damaging you need to go AP. Which is alright, but why would you do that? When you have Kassadin or Malzahar or Annie to choose from?

Basically, the way I approach this is as a player with 20+ heroes in my roster, who do I fling out into combat for me? Do I pick the guy who is not as good for the job but who I think is really cool (Maokai) or the one who is really effective at his job and still pretty fun (Nasus)? It's not that Maokai is so bad he can't possibly be used.

But he's actually a worse tank than nearly any other character in my roster. Let's look at Kassadin. His base resists are lower than Kassadin's, so Kass gets the win for defensiveness. Sad but true, Tree! In fact, aside from Maokai's ult, nothing about the tree is good for tanking. Yes, I do love his W soooo much, but I have to admit that Malphite and Amumu and Rammus and even Shen have similar kinds of abilities that are better. I'd rather have a 2 second AoE taunt on Shen than a 2 second single target Root. Even his ult is somewhat debatable. Maokai is certainly not a 'tank' to me, but a support caster like Soraka. A damage reducer ult, some bonus damage attacks, and a ranged support ability.

So I'd never build him as a tank, but I'd hesitate to field him at all if my team needed some AP burst damage. He doesn't do any role well enough to beat out the competition. He can't tank better than Shen, Rammus, Malphite, Amumu, Udyr, Nasus... etc. And he's no Annie, Kassadin, Malzahar, Morgana... etc. So what's he do that makes him worth picking in a serious game? I think that's what he needs.

I plan to continue playing him, I just don't want to lie to my team and say it's the best choice I could make.

Maokai can be a terror if you build him right. The games I've played him, I would toss a sapling and hit everyone for 1/4th their health.. best kills I've seen are E, then W to root them in place so they take the blast from E, then Q and they are hurt then your group hits them and they are dead. His ult is really good for champs who have ults like Nunu who can not move during their ult. You put your ult over his ult and he'll kill himself and you are still alive. Also Blitz is a great player to have on your team as he can pull and then you root and they aren't going anywhere but waiting for death timer.

if you cant build maokai as a tank then just quit the game...