What if Poacher's Knife

Provengreil·Jun 21, 2015·21 votes·1,642 views

added 20% to the duration of whatever minibuff you smited out of the enemy jungle?

18 Comments

Joe DreddJun 22, 20154 votes

i thought this post was just gonna say "was good"

PartholonianJun 21, 20153 votes

I think the biggest problem with it is that announcing that you're going to counterjungle (to anyone able to press tab) makes it much more dangerous to do, and poacher's improvement of the rewards isn't big enough to make up for that.

It already seems kind of weak in S5; there's enough monsters to keep people busy farming their own jungle so that stealing them isn't a big gain in the first place. Although with existing poacher's you already do get more gold for an enemy camp than for your own corresponding camp, the difference isn't big compared to the risk of death if you're found.

Perhaps most importantly, it doesn't help ganks; jungle items that make your ganks more likely to kill are overwhelmingly more popular than ones that don't, which is hardly surprising.

It might be worthwhile for Riot to send out a survey to pro junglers asking why they don't counterjungle or build poacher's, and what kind of buffs they think would make it worth building.

That would probably affect lower level play, even if lower level players actually have more difficulty pulling off counterjungling correctly. (Although for all I know, it could actually be the opposite -- lower level players could have more difficulty responding to counterjungling correctly, so it could actually be effective in average elo right now, even though pros don't want to risk it because a pro team could collapse on them).

ProvengreilJun 21, 20151 votes

Ironically, lower Elo has lower risk and reward to countering. In fact, the reward is so low the low risk is still not worth taking: they won't collapse even if they notice you, but in the unrefined chaos the rewards of counterjungling usually shrink to nothing unless it's the "kill the enemy jungler" type, in which case you want red smite anyway.

Meeks011Jun 21, 20151 votes

Then I might actually buy it for once.

SouL1essJun 22, 20151 votes

Still has all its problems.

Yes, we can keep buffing until its overloaded in order to keep it viable (like current Karma), but maybe we will want to rework it to be better.

AFK PushJun 22, 20151 votes

Counterjungling is more objective focused usually than other jungle strategies, perhaps item 3711 should make it easier to steal dragons or barons, or like the OP said have an interaction with enemies buffs and camps, because you want to control their jungle. Hell, a lot of counterjunglers are avid splitpushers why not make it tower focused. I'm just throwing ideas out there, because any of these would put it in a better spot.

Spacesuit SpiffJun 22, 20151 votes

How about the machete and all it's upgrades get some version of Poachers. Tiny incentives to push junglers into enemy territory for the whole game, but not screwing them over when the enemy team takes steps to stop them.

CindikleJun 22, 20151 votes

I think it needs a Nunu type setup. Gaining it's own buffs. Something to add to the strategy.

Feels like if they just gave it number changes it'd either become broken or remain useless.

SnakezzyJun 22, 20151 votes

Then i still wouldn' buy it because it says "I am going to counter jungle you" and it doesn't give me any gank presence or dueling power.

Mindworm JimJun 22, 20151 votes

Hmm. What do people think of Scavenging Smite doing something weird, like granting vision of the camp until it resets. Or stealing half of the target monster's XP (not for Baron or Dragon of course). Things that enhance counter-jungling, but don't actually require it.

ApplicativeJun 22, 20151 votes

My favorite idea is adding like 240 seconds to the respawn time on the camp (only on enemy camps). Something that makes being counterjungled actually hurt.

MeesterMooJun 22, 20151 votes

Owwwweeeee

The Yetii RiderJun 22, 20151 votes

{quoted}

My favorite idea is adding like 240 seconds to the respawn time on the camp (only on enemy camps). Something that makes being counterjungled actually hurt.

240 seconds? Really? That actually hurts a dedicated counter jungler more than it helps because the real benefit to counterjungling is the extra 30 gold you get from each camp (in addition to your own). Not only are you denying XP and gold but you're getting medium risk medium reward gold (as opposed to high risk high reward gold from ganking).

When I play Nunu and take Scavenging Smite (only in normals, obviously), I camp the enemy jungler all day. I actually just played a game today where the enemy Ekko was at 21 CS at 17 minutes because of how hard I camped him (He just spent all his time ganking and got fed that way, but I still had more gold than him).

The point is, Scavenging Smite is there to make you fed off their camps and yours.

MeesterMooJun 22, 20151 votes

Definitely on the right track but it could use more.