So, in case you haven't seen, patch 12.10 is going to be a massive overhaul of game durability.

All champions are getting bonus HP and Resists. All Healing and Shielding is nerfed 10%. Many items with vamp, pen, or DoT are being nerfed.

As we all are painfully aware Maokai is in a degraded state right now. I want to explore and theory craft what these changes mean for him.

1. Do these changes help Maokai overall?

Yes. Maokai is very likely going to be in a stronger state overall after these changes.

As a scaling tank, more durability is inherently good for him. But I want to go a bit deeper.

Some things for Maokai we're nerfed.

Sunfire and Demonic had a small damage nerf, but if fights are longer, they're both stronger. They were also stealth buffed for him because they scale with HP (Demonic scales with both your HP and the enemies).

Bramble vest had it's heal cut nerfed. But, Maokai heals a lot, so the nerf to Grevious is mixed.

Conditioning was slightly nerfed. But, it's a better rune in the new meta. Besides, Maokai always preferred Second Wind. And Second Wind is likely omega turbo broken because of the changes to the game.

Heal and Shield was nerfed 10% overall, which hits his passive. But his passive scales with HP, which is being buffed. What's more, longer fights mean more procs of his passive.

The meta changes are also mostly to his benefit.

Maokai has a notoriously garbage laning phase. So a metagame where early kills are less prevelant is to his benefit. Likewise, a shift towards more front to back teamfighting is good because he loves that style of fighting.

The big threat I see in the near term for Maokai is some of the potential meta shifts empowering his counters. For tank top Maokai in particular, a meta shift towards Skirmishers might be incredibly dangerous.

1. Is this the end of AP Maokai Support?

Maybe, but also probably not. Full AP is in a worse spot. But Hybrid should survive.

AP Maokai is better suited to surviving post 12.10 because he's a rare AP Poke Support with utility and scaling. His burst was always mediocre but he benefited heavily from a good mid-late objective game.

My suspicion is that Arcane Comet/Full AP Maokai is probably done. It's much harder to poke out enemies. But, Imperial Mandate will proc more and Lianddries will be stronger.

The big difference is that AP to Tank will be stronger. Mandate > Demonic > 2 Tank Items will give him a nice mix of early damage and mid-late utility and durability.

I would also theorize that First Strike will be an increasingly valuable rune. It will scale better then comet, and help his gold generation. It's already a viable alternative at all tiers, and it will come out stronger then Comet.

1. Can we go top again?

Also Maybe. This solves some of the issues with Maokai top, but not others.

Obviously, this will help his scaling, because he likes front to back fights and slower games. But his scaling was already decidedly not the problem.

The potential benefit this brings is that it will make him less paper in lane. He's fine with 0 to 0 lanes, but it's extremely difficult with the amount of damage.

His sustain might be slightly lower, but that's not an issue. His kill threat will also be lower, but Maokai was a bad pick for solo killing anyway. Plus, his main sustain sources (DShield, Passive, Second Wind, Grasp) were largely spared the worst heal nerfs.

The big problem is mana. Longer fights are Mana intensive. And he still doesn't have enough to clear waves AND trade with his laner. DRing and Spellthief had their mana buffed. But, neither Maokai nor his Runes did.

To me, the deciding question is probably this. Is the durability shift enough that he can go tear or DRing and not get destroyed by the enemy laner? If the answer is yes, I can see this opening the game space to more Maokai top. But, if he still underperforms with Tear start, then the mana problems are still going to plauge him.