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The Problem with Poacher's Knife/Scavenger's Smite

Limitless RX·3/30/2015, 2:01:40 AM·12 votes·5,680 views

When was the last time you've ever seen the poacher's knife in a serious game? 10 games ago? 20 games ago? Don't know what I'm talking about? Does that item even exist?

Ever since patch 4.20 blazed into Summoner's Rift a lot of changes has been made both aesthetically and gameplay wise, the focus in particular is the jungle interaction and its many revamped denizens.

As many of you know, the poacher's knife does everything else a tier 2 jungle machete upgrade does PLUS 20 extra gold if you smite the captain of each jungle camp from the enemy's side including dragon and scuttler near dragon if smiting blue side camps, baron and scuttler near baron if red side camps. As well as giving you a 175% MS boost decaying over 2 secs.

You might say, "Wow that sounds great! If I farm efficiently the enemy side jungle I can surely benefit from all those extra stuff!" Well, that's the theory anyway but a long, long, time since patch 4.20 introduced this item I have not seen it being picked up while it's fellow jungle tier 2 items have received changes, nerfs, and balances all throughout.

Despite its amazing bonuses, however, the problem with the "gray smite" is that it is inherently a gamble with indirect payoffs whereas all the other smites have a direct payoff in terms of combat and gold gain.

To further elaborate let's see how each smite performs in a gank or in a fight in general. *I will be calling all the smites in their unofficial terms as to make things simpler and easier to identify.

  • **Purple Smite **- While giving you sustain during a clear with an aoe damage and stun on camps it also heals you for 15% of your health and mana. Fights in the jungle gives you a "combative edge" if you smite camps because it gives a pseudo summoner heal that cools down for 15 secs if you have two smite charges. basically a double heal within an extended teamfight. This also works in river fights if you smite the scuttler.
  • Red Smite - While initially being grossly overpowered upon release, despite nerfs this smite still sees uses within the fighter roster of junglers basically allowing for a mini exhaust with ignite vision or a modified version of Poppy's ultimate, a jungler that is even or slightly ahead can easily 1 v 1 a solo laner essentially making the jungler another power source for assassinations for the enemy carry.
  • Blue Smite - Easily the most popular smite used because of the added CC and true damage it provides. Stealing your target's movespeed by 20% making for easier ganks or easier to land skill shots for securing ganks.

The fact that Gray Smite doesnt give a direct payoff when it comes to fighting or ganking makes it the least popular form of smite. Furthermore, the moment you buy the Poacher's Knife you are essentially telegraphing to the enemy team that, "Hey, I'll be in your jungle a couple of times to make this jungle item work so watch out for me there! xoxo." In a game where information is key that bit of data tells a whole lot. Instead stealing enemy camps you might find yourself baited into multiple ganks and ultimately end up farming your own jungle without the benefits of the other smites unless you invest in another 255 gold or a whole lot more if you upgraded too early.

From my perspective, I think the way to make Poacher's Knife viable or at least make it a choice that isn't so much of a losing gamble would be to give it more utility. Give poacher's knife a reloading single ward similar to the Greater Totem upgrade since thematically a poacher or a natural scavenger would always "scout out" the area before entering it. Since the Poacher's Knife's niche is indirect combat the ward would allow it to branch out in various ways and give the jungler using it more utility aside from the invasion of jungle that the item was meant to be used for.

Anyway, post your thoughts on how the Poacher's Knife can be used more properly or maybe perhaps it's already in a healthy spot and I just don't know what I'm talking about feel free to post your ideas below and hopefully if something great comes off it Riot takes notice.

30 Comments

LankPants3/30/2015, 8:59:41 AM7 votes

If I plan on counterjungling I don't want the enemy team to know about it. Why would I buy an item that says "hey I'm going to be in your jungle, a lot"

NorthernDruid3/30/2015, 2:58:50 AM7 votes

I think that some of it's properties should be made to apply to all jungle creeps and not just the enemy jungle ones.

In particular, the gold and movespeed boost makes smiting scuttler viable (especially if you get the shrine speed boost as well).

With the smite chargeup being the real carrot for counterjungling, add true vision when smiting in the enemy jungle for good measure.

While Trailblazer is there to help you powerfarm faster and longer, Poacher's should help you do short dips into the jungle in-between ganks, letting you spend less time in the jungle overall with some extra gold helping you need fewer camps and movespeed boost letting you charge back out of it.

kDrakari3/30/2015, 11:47:50 AM4 votes

Off the top of my head, I'd say a better counterjungling item would emphasize tracking the enemy and denying their farm. For example, when you kill an enemy jungle camp (large objectives and crabs completely excluded) you leave a special visible ward with 1 health (like the blue trinket one) which prevents that camp's respawn timer from starting. Doing this would accomplish both goals: an enemy coming along 100 seconds after your invade would currently just get the camp no problem, with this it would be a further 100 second delay; and if the enemy jungler stops to clear the ward then you get to learn his position. There are plenty of changes which can balance this, such as giving the ward a maximum duration, making the camp come back faster than 100 seconds after the ward is destroyed (maybe the longer the ward was up, the faster the camp comes back after it's gone), giving the ward no actual vision so an enemy jungler has the option to give up getting that camp back sooner if revealing his position right then wasn't advisable, making the ward only appear if smite actually got the finishing blow as opposed to only if the smite was used as opposed to even without smite as long as you have the item. There are a bunch of small variations to make it interesting and balanced. Straight-up buffs to the current design wouldn't help at all until it became massively overpowered.

Malgana3/30/2015, 7:44:06 AM2 votes

The only reason champs have to go into the enemy jungle is to either steal a camp since the enemy showed up far away, or they're going there to kill the enemy champ.

Trailblazer works better for both of these, since the AoE smite will insta-kill the little dudes and make your clear time MUCH faster while also being a clutch heal if you're dueling an opponent near a camp that's still alive. The gold bonus is the only thing I see that would make me even want to pick this smite, and it just isn't worth it in the long run.

Yuki Akuma3/30/2015, 4:52:49 AM2 votes

I was thinking about a buff for it today. What if, when you killed a champion, it gave additional gold on the kill or something of that nature.

Jungle Lux God3/30/2015, 6:17:52 PM2 votes

I think the best way to see how bad Poacher's Knife is right now is to look at the LCS. All three of the other smites are picked up in at least some fashion, and Poacher's Knife got absolutely no play, even in cases where it would definitely have been useful. I remember a Cloud 9 game where Meteos was counterjungling like crazy in the early game - which is the ideal situation to use Poacher's Knife - and still didn't buy it at all.

The problem with Poacher's Knife is that it has a narrow focus that supports a playstyle that should never be supported as a playstyle and instead should be taken as an action that you do the entire game. Couterjungling by itself is taken as an opportunity, such as if the enemy jungler shows himself on the map or you see him via a ward. You cannot base your entire gameplay around counterjungling in the same way you can base it around farming your jungle. Likewise, its narrow focus doesn't let it scale into the lategame like Stalker's Blade and Skirmisher's Sabre do, and Poacher's Knife is straight-up useless compared to the other upgrades if your team falls behind in objectives because it becomes hard to go into your own jungle, let alone the enemy team's jungle.

captainkaiger3/30/2015, 3:47:00 AM2 votes

You're absolutely right, the Poacher's Knife needs a buff, and the recharging ward seems like a good start, but I wouldn't know how else to make it a more lucrative buy since the risk is nowhere near the proposed reward as of yet. To me it seems, the gold increase should either dramatically increase, or it should be given an entirely new effect such as stealing the buff before you ever get there.

More often than not however, I see an enemy jungler invading and countering with the Ranger's Trailblazer, waiting at red till I'm low then hopping in and getting a 30% health boost and sometimes a first blood. Personal view on that aside (fight me like a man ya wimps) it's a decent strategy and it pays. If somebody were to try that with the Poacher's Knife, you'll be lucky to get out of there with the extra gold.

Ctrl Alt08/4/2015, 10:37:42 AM1 votes

It's hard to take your word for when you're silver 3....look at my match history and it'll prove you otherwise.

tfw low elo scrubs try to explain aspects of league in a convoluted way

Decrit8/4/2015, 10:47:00 AM1 votes

My vision on that does not apply to none of your suggested aswers, so let me answer here:

The poacher knife does not need to be buffed, but neither is fine as it is. It has an impact on the game, where falls a bit off really really late when you are full build.: he needs to be reworked and reconceptualized.

The main reason is almost never seen is because is predictable: you get that, everyone knows you are going to counterjungle. Problem is, even item 3713 and item 3715 ( in a lesser extend item 3706 ) are good counterjungling items, because the first allows faster and safer clearing in enemy territory and the latter two allow more duel power; probably not as much as the poacher, but that is something they are able to do beyond their main power. And no, they don' t need to be nerfed becauyse is fine that way, but the poacher that needs to be revisioned, and most probably reworked.

Probably we don' t need a counterjungling item, at this point - rather we need an item that enhances jungling, among that counterjungling. It' s even more fun and less straightforward that way.

EDIT: i made a post about a proposal a while ago, if you are intrested let me share it here. Yeah, i had not much luck xP http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/qtLF0InN-game-design-a-comprensive-iteration-on-poachers-knife

sedocoi9/3/2015, 4:50:47 AM1 votes

By letting the enemies know im poaching their shit, the laners usually come in an attempt to get an easy collapse kill. Sooooo my laners usually get a tier 1 turret while i troll around their jungle with someone like shaco gettin move speed and bonus gold. The only problem is i fall behind in XP and thats really my reasoning for avoiding it, otherwise its a load of fun.

RogueWill9/3/2015, 4:57:53 AM1 votes

I would be happy if lowered the CD on smite by 25% if done in own jungle and 50% if done in enemy jungle. That way it will become an item focused on fast clearing but no utility besides the early game on the jungle.

Squidblimp3/30/2015, 10:51:06 AM1 votes

Riot's already announced that it's a bad item and they're working on changing it.

junglerboy163/30/2015, 1:51:35 PM1 votes

I saw it 1 time the first day preseason came out and never since.

My idea for a buff would be to make it so that you don't only get a benefit in the enemy jungle, to avoid the issue it has of giving away your tactics. It should certainly give additional reward for counterjungling, but it should not just be limited to that. In addition to the reward for smiting and getting extra gold from enemy camps, smiting any camp's large monster should give you a smite buff that is 50% stronger (Red buff heals 50% more, blue buff gives 50% more mana, all other buffs have 50% increased duration). A simple way to enhance the poaching aspect of it even more would be to make enemy side smite buffs be increased by 100% instead of 50%.

That makes it still a counterjungling oriented Smite upgrade, but you aren't entirely hung out to dry if they direct resources to stoping you from doing so.

TenSlashTen3/30/2015, 4:03:14 PM1 votes

saw it once since its release.

Worthless item. And why is that? Because jungle gets no exp. 1 wave of minions = 4 camps.

mkman20083/30/2015, 4:12:29 PM1 votes

"Since patch 4.20 blazed into summoners rift"

BeerOfRoot48433/30/2015, 4:28:19 PM1 votes

I fought a Nasus jungler with poacher's knife in ranked, but I think the jungle item was the least of his worries.

Handsome Knob3/30/2015, 4:57:25 PM1 votes

It's more situational and, even in the right situation, requires more precision than the other smites. And that's the problem. It's one thing to invade a jungle and steal something when no one was looking, which they will once they know you have the poacher's knife (and ranger's is arguably better at this), but it's another thing entirely to steal a camp while they're clearing it. Poacher's has no edge in that scenario. It's all up to the player. Their smite, in combat range, is automatically better than yours. So, currently, there's no reason not to take one of the other options.

And I feel like the solution is clear: poacher's needs significantly higher smite damage than the other options. Only then would it truly be able to do what it's supposed to do. You invade, you see their jungle clearing red/blue/dragon/whatever unaware and saving smite to finish, and you steal it before they have the chance. Then you dipset. Right now, they've only got the dipset part right.

And somehow I feel like this is intentional. It's too obvious, maybe they want something else because "too much objective control" or some such.