This is the maokai build I´m playing quite well on solotop, ap mao and jungle guides will come. I hope you like it and enjoy playing the best champion (tree) in the league, maokai.

Pros:

great tank
AoE less damage ult
amazing early damage
fun skills especially saplings
35 sec wards
he´s a fckin tree

Cons:

no damage reduc spell like rammus or malphite exept your ult
easy outplayed by jumping champ´s
if you stun someone flashing in his base, your screwed -.-

For runes I take standart tank runes with as marks for the great passive, which can not be used in fights because of the long attack animation, plus its great for laning and if you play well you´ll never miss one lasthit. Life quintessences give you an advantage on lane, because of your passive 7% life heal- means more life, more heal every 5 spells.

I play with standart tank masteries where I want to grab the cd´s which are also great for maokai.

Not much to say on that, maybe a explenation on shurelya´s, I take it because of the great escaping/cahsing opportunites it gives you, also as mentioned earlyer I like to get some cdr with mao because especielly his stun has a quite high cd. Other items are quite normal as tank and you could possibly grab a thornmail instead of force of nature if you are playing vs a heavy ad team.

I have to say, my skill order is quite risky and your laning really is dependent on how good you hit your enemy´s with your sapling, if you hit them with both damage outputs (hit+explosion) the effect is amazings and squishe targets wil die like they arent even there. If you want to win your lane you should propably try before they get lvl.6, because the ult isnt that strong in 1 v 1 fights as other ults and you cant really rely on it everytime, which brings me to the next point.

Maokai´s ult is really tricky to place somewhere useful and can be a ***** in teamfights. You have to know your role in fights

go in on their carry
place your ult on the main fight place
try to deny their carry´s damage output (stun and q combo help)
let your ult explode if you get under 50% mana or noone is near
use randuins and shurelya´s to flee/chase

It is really important, that you let your ult pop if you get near the half of your mana, because you need your spells to be useful, everytime I see a maokai lettig his ult up, while everyone is far away I nearly start to cry, it´s really the worst mistake you can do, so let it be.

For solotop I normally take ghost and teleport to not die and dont get underlevel´d
other choice´s would be:

exhaust: great spell against enemy´s like gp that need their aa, also great for chasing and escaping
heal: a lot of advantage in fights
flash: to get in stun range or go out of fights

In my opinion maokai is a quite good for escaping ganks or fights, if you have to do use your ghost and run, if someone gets near you and wants to hit you use your q for some distance.

All in all maokai is a great tank and by far my favourite champ, this guide is to be extendet and I hope you exuse me for my bad english( I´m german). Please give my guide a serious rating and hope you enjoy plaing.