First and foremost, let me start off by saying excellent guide. I love the way it is structured and the points you make are all valid. I just have a few minor disagreements. But that will not stop me from giving you an upvote as I do see credibility in this guide and helping people play Maokai.

I main Maokai, I play him top, support, and jungle. I even play him AD top for fun, and you should too if you haven't tried it, his base AD is one of the highest in the game for a tank.

My first thoughts, you should never revert to going deeper in the tank tree than 9 points, unless you are laning against someone with heavy poke, e.g. Lulu/Ez or cait. You get much more out of going full utility, and I will list a few reasons why.

First, you get 5% move speed, which allows you to clear up your quints for some more armor, you get more armor than if you went with your hybrid build, and almost as much as if you went full tank.

Two, as Maokai support, I used to play the hybrid build all the time, but I felt underleveled if the game was going in the wrong direction, and that is something you simply can never foresee before entering a match. Going full 21 utility, allows you to gain exp as long as you stay near someone higher level. And this brings you to my next point.

Roaming, as support, if you do truly main support, you recognize opportunities to roam mid, or even top for ganks. Not only do you get that .5% more move speed from going utility rather than hybrid and going move speed quints, you will gain some bonus xp while you are ganking lanes, and standing around in a stand off in mid lane team fights, which usually happens, you won't feel completely useless and underleveled in some cases. Also, most standard support starts are 2 buscuits and a ward. Your build only allows for 2 buscuits and no ward.

Also, the standard rune pages are health seals, as from a gold perspective, they are worth more gold for health over armor, and the mana regen is not really that important as you do gain some max mana from the utility tree. So mana regen seals vs armor or health should not be in question. Also, as you are inately tanky, you should have enough armor from just your quints, this allows you to free up your marks to go more aggressive. As stated before, Maokai has one of the highest base AD for a tank in the game, also, he is auto attack reliant due to him having to get close and personal. If you take hybrid penetration marks, you will find you do tons of damage after you do your w q combo, from both the magic damage and the auto attacks. But, that is a preference, also situational depending on if you think you will be able to crush lane or not, given adc counters. And to bring me to my last point with runes, it may not seem like it, but taking 6 glyphs away from magic resist can really hurt, it is situational, due to the fact that some of the popular adcs are hybrid, between magic and physical damage, also you have to take into account what support you are going against. I would not take 6 mr glyphs away laning against say Morgana. What was mentioned earlier in the comment section by divic, 3 scaling cdr glyphs allows you to have more mr. While you are going to be supporting an attack damage carry and vice versa for the other team, there is quite a bit of magic damage that you will experience in lane that you would not suspect having those runes will do for you.

My arguments are completely my opinion, I am just advising that with the correct use of runes and mastery combination with the utility tree, you can get the same amount, if not more from switching the stuff around. Again, I used to play only hybrid builds, thinking "I'm Leona, or Thresh! I need to be tanky, that is my job!" and after reading some guides from pros like LemonNation, the use in the utility tree and builds really do make a difference. Great guide, I really like how detailed it is.

Thanks for the feedback. I will look into putting my favorite rune and mastery pages up at the top of the page, but I don't want people to think that my way is the only way to build this. For example, I always run mana/5 seals but that doesn't mean that armor seals and Frozen Heart is a bad build.

On the rune cooldown question, that is a legitimate alternative which is worth people considering. Like I say in my guide, my personal focus here is making sure that Maokai is has a strong early lane presence and I like to lane with ADCs who can take advantage of that. That said, if I knew I was going into a farming lane, then using runes that maximized by late game would definitely be more valuable.

What nine offense masteries would you get? I could see going 21 defense with 4 CDR from offense, 3 Speed and 2 Mana/5 from support. He doesn't need attack speed, doesn't benefit from a negligible bit of damage or AP. The 5% CDR is the only thing he wants from offense, and yes, that is probably a good thing to grab for someone who isn't going deep into the support tree anyway.

Lastly, marks - a big reason I go for armor marks is because I run with mana/5 seals so that I don't have to itemize for mana. If someone were planning to play more conservatively and pick up Frozen Heart as a 4th item, then a different mix of runes is totally viable. Magic pen marks would be viable (90% of his damage is magic). I would probably still stick with defensive runes, but that would just be based on personal preference for early lane presence.

I will do a few things: I will look into finding safe beginner rune and mastery pages that can be included in the top without much explanation. I will look into expanding the rune and masteries section to explain how the different options interact with each other and with items and how they emphasize different part of Maokai's game.

Again, thanks for the feedback. If anybody has more thoughts, please toss them at me. It really does help me clarify things for myself and for all of you.

I would love seeing runes and masteries right at top of the page. Common mastery-pages are also easier to read than your style. Sure it's great addition to list those also in text.

I do not agree with your marks. Not sure which ones I would pick though. Probably hybrid-penetration.

Consider going 9/21/0 and getting 3 scaling cdr glyphs and 6 scaling mr / flat mr -glyphs. With those items you would get full cdr. There is kind of common phrase that "either maximize cdr or don't take it at all".

Thank you man! I will try this right now :)

Change Log

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2/9/15 - Reworked and expanded discussion of skill orders.

2/28/15 - Added discussion to the Summoner Spells section.

3/7/15 - Added more tips to the Sapling Toss section.

4/19/15 - Updated to Patch 5.7 (passive nerf); added sample runes and mastery pages to the top.