Maokai Champion Abilities - >
Q: Maokai’s arms resemble Hellboy’s: one average sized, one large enough to knock out an elephant. Maokai’s Q makes him slam his trunk-arm into the ground, sending a shockwave rippling through the earth towards the enemy. The shockwave acts as a line nuke, similar to Ezreal’s Essence Flux (W) ability. Originally, the wave resembled Kassadin’s Force Pulse (E) and granted Maokai bonus armor, but the result was a messy spell that just didn’t fit.
W: His bread-and-butter initiating move. Maokai explodes into a multitude of arcane splinters, phasing out of existence for a brief moment in order to reform at the feet of an enemy champon, growing out of the ground underneath them to damage and root them in place for a few seconds. This ability is single-target (imagine if Master Yi’s Alpha Strike (Q) stunned a champion instead of jumping between enemies) and is not channeled, as Maokai ceases to exist during the spell, similar to Alpha Strike.
E: Like the Vulture’s spider mines from Starcraft. Maokai plants an acorn into the ground, which lies in wait for a unfriendly passerby. Once it’s found a target, the acorn will pop out of the ground and run to the enemy champion, exploding for light AoE damage when it gets there. This is great for traps, keeping an eye on enemy movements in the jungle and useful in team fights due to its small AoE damage. It can also be used as a scouting tool, similar to Teemo’s Noxious Trap (R), but Maokai will be much more limited in the number that he can place.
R (ultimate): Maokai’s ultimate ability fits right into the current meta-game, where teamfights often decide who wins or loses a match. Think of it as the defensive version of Anivia’s Ultimate. Maokai creates a placeable AoE that drains mana per second while active. Allied champions standing in the area will receive more and more Magic Resist as the spell absorbs damage. It can be maintained as long as Maokai has enough mana, but it’s costly, so we never had it on for more than 6 or so seconds. When the ability is toggled off, Maokai’s cooldowns will be reduced according to how much damage was absorbed during the spell. If you soak up enough spell damage, you can reach a threshold that will, in essence, allow you to double-cast your other abilities as magic flows back into Maokai.
Passive: Maokai’s passive gives him some decent staying power early on in the laning phase, when champions are casting spells to ensure last-hits and harassment. He gains increased health regeneration when champions near him (enemy or ally) cast spells.
A possibility for Jarvan’s Q ability is a single-target nuke where Jarvan dashes towards and through an enemy, straight to the person behind the target, like the Demacian Goku. This would enable Jarvan to dash through tanks so he can get straight to cutting up the fragile DPS or support champions hanging out in the back during teamfights.
Another potential ability would have Jarvan hurling his lance like a giant spear, impaling an enemy champion. The throw is so powerful that the lance would plant in the ground behind them, where it would transform into a flag that buffs allies. Jarvan can pick the lance back up, ala Olaf’s axe throw, but enemy champions have an opportunity to burn the flag before he gets the chance to.
Epic. Jarvan’s ultimate has him leap into the air and slam down lance-first into an enemy champion within range. Upon impact, an arena springs up from the ground to create a one-on-one duel between Jarvan and his unfortunate nemesis. This sounds like a combination of Pantheon’s and Poppy’s ultimate abilities, although it was undecided if the ultimate will be global or how long the duel would last.
Jarvan’s passive is designed to support his playstyle: initiate fights with the enemy, run into the fray hitting everyone a little bit (rather than single-target DPS), and keep on going ‘til the opposing champions are wiped out. His passive lets him deal extra damage to champions with 70% or more of their maximum health, meaning Jarvan players have the incentive to change targets rapidly in a fight, softening them a bit and then moving on to the next and letting their teammates clean up the rest. The developers were also toying with the idea of giving him an innate slowing debuff on his auto-attacks, to encourage players to tag as many enemy champions as possible to maximize his effectiveness.
