How to fix laners taking jungle items

Ideally, the jungle items would be strong tools for junglers to use so that they could keep up with the pace of the game that, ideally, laners would not have access to, and therefore would not be able to abuse. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to be the case.

We've seen it with the top lane Smite meta with . We've also seen it with popping up in the mid lane. In both cases **these jungle items got nerfed **( already got nerfed, and is getting harsh nerfs on the PBE).

And we are going to see it with the new enchantment on the PBE, where:

-Armor penetration replaced with a true damage DoT on dealing physical damage -build path chance to

Considering Spirit of the Elder Lizard was largely the only jungle item that was widely abused by laners in seasons 3 and 4, laners are willing enough to run Smite to access the jungle items this season, and the new Warrior enchant doesn't offer anything that inherently favors the junglers that build it like Cinderhulk and Runeglaive do, this item is definitely going to be abused on laners.

This is a major problem that needs to be fixed so that junglers can have their big item powerspike off their jungle item without having to worry about laners taking these items for the same kinds of powerspikes themselves.

How do we fix this problem?

My suggestion is to **add a stacking "buff" **(it's more like a debuff) onto Machete and the jungle items. It starts at 10 stacks when you buy a jungle item (Machete or it's upgrades) and gets reduced by killing large monsters.

-Kill a large monster with , and** it reduces the stacks by 2**. -Kill a large monster with , and it only reduces the stacks by 1. -You cannot buy a jungle enchantment until the stacks are reduced to 0.

What does this do?

For junglers, this literally does nothing. On your first clear, you are going to kill at least 3 large monsters on your first clear. If you kill the minimum of 3 large monsters before backing for your jungle item, you still need only 4 camps after that to get your item. Clear more camps, and you can easily remove the buff before backing for your jungle item.

Even if you only clear 3 large monsters before your first back, the only ways you can possibly not get your jungle item when you back later is if your either get counterjungled hard enough that you cannot take any camps at all (which is a sign of good counterjungling from the opponent, and should be supported, but isn't possible to do to the degree that would prevent a jungler from getting their jungle enchant for this reason) or you decide to chain-gank the lanes without taking camps after you get your jungle item (which is a strategy that isn't currently supported and shouldn't be supported).

Laners, however, have a much harder time getting the jungle items now. They can't afford to get Hunter's Machete early because their lane opponent will abuse the fact that they don't have real combat stats, nor do they have a jungle to clear early on because the jungler is clearing it. If they buy their jungle item later on, they still need to take 10 camps in order to get their jungle enchant, and that still isn't likely because the jungler is still clearing. At best, it renders laners physically unable to use jungle items. At worst, laners will still be able to buy the jungle items, but they need to wait too long in order to be able to use them.

In other words, the jungle items can be strong on junglers without being abused by laners, which is exactly how the items need to be tuned. Junglers can't afford to have bad jungle enchants because laners can take them and use them better by buying Smite and getting the item earlier with their better gold income. Junglers need those power spikes so that they can scale well into the mid-game (or late-game for Cinderhulk) despite their reduced gold income, and cost-efficient items are how junglers need to do that.