A suggestion to make Poacher's Knife viable while not making it OP

gaby1best··6 votes·509 views

I've seen a red post these days about Poacher's knife and how it's difficult to buff it while not making it op(or something that would influence the game in a negative way). So I come up with an idea that might work:

item 3711 >UNIQUE – SCAVENGING SMITE: Upgrades Smite to Scavenging Smite. When Scavenging Smite is used on a large monster in the enemy jungle, the recharge timer will be halved and the monster will be marked. Upon killing the marked monster, you gain +20 Gold and 175% movement speed that decays over 2 seconds and a Hunter's Ward. Unique - Hunter's ward: Places a Stealth Ward that lasts 60(lvl 1) / 120(lvl 9) / 180(lvl 13) seconds. Can only hold one charge(lvl 1) and upgrades at lvl 9 for 2 charges.

Why? Well Poacher's Knife would become a tool used to control enemy's movement while helping you counter jungle and it rewards you gold for it. It will help reduce gold spent for sight wards to counter jungle and would allow an early Sweeping Lens.

The numbers are of course just for reference and they're subject to change.

6 Comments

Blue Socialist1 votes

That idea's actually pretty cool and it would encourage playing the vision game a bit more. How it'd be balance-wise in competitive is debatable, but for those of us on the pleb level, this might make it a bit more interesting.

XLC1 votes

I actually like this change. It might be a tad bit overbearing on some champs that can reliably steal a camp (Nunu) but eh, I don't think it'd be too OP. I might make the 120 duration upgrade come earlier/180 one come later, but beyond that it's fine.

Narasimha1 votes

Still doesn't solve the primary problem. Which is that buying poacher's knife is literally telling the enemy team "Hey, I'm going to be in your jungle." And unless you're someone like Nunu who can make it work, it's not worth the trouble.

Erockandroll1 votes

{quoted}

Still doesn't solve the primary problem. Which is that buying poacher's knife is literally telling the enemy team "Hey, I'm going to be in your jungle." And unless you're someone like Nunu who can make it work, it's not worth the trouble.

There's not enough reward on poacher's knife to make the risk worth while. When you can just as easily counter Jungle with any other smite, and not be locked into that particular strategy. And you can't put enough reward on it, without it becoming OP.

Really the best thing to do would be to mod it so that it isn't totally reliant on Counter Jungling, and yet, still be the Premier counter Jungling item. I would argue that it should have reduced recharge time, regardless of Monster used. Not just on enemy Camps. But still give the bonus gold only on Said Jungle camps.

Daxterr1 votes

I think that's a pretty great idea but most junglers would rather get a sightstone instead. What if poaching smite placed a vision thingy (think the scuttle crab) near the camp for 45 seconds. Would that be too op?

gaby1best2 votes

most junglers would rather get a sightstone instead

Not all junglers can afford buying a SIghtstone, not even the tanks if the enemy team's fed.

What if poaching smite placed a vision thingy

That would actually be awesome. But I was thinking of this: after you get the ward, Smite turns into the ward so you can't use smite until you place the ward. This would teach players that you must place wards all the time. Also I forgot to add a cooldown for the ward(you can't just spam smite and get free wards).

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