Dealing with Devourer and its (ab)Users in one elegant swoop.

Dessem··14 votes·1,044 views

Sated Devourer Passive now procs on every third hit instead of every second hit.

This accomplishes a number of things. One, we achieve glorious Three-Hit-Combo parity. Praise be to our Three-Hit-Overlords. (You think I didn't notice Aurelion Sol has THREE stars orbiting him, Riot?)

Two, Devourer retains its strength of doubling down on on-hit effects and attack speed, but is immediately less overbearing on those champions who build it. Let's face it: with the exception of Ranged champions, nearly every jungler with Devourer is considered aggravating to deal with at best, and psychotically insane at its worst.

Three, there's no need to hit the Devourer champions with nerfs, except if they remain to be problematic after the Devourer nerf.

Before Devourer, Yi wasn't extremely problematic in high elo. Shyvana wasn't considered that problematic. Yet, ever since its introduction, Shyvana and Yi have traded spotlights on being annoying Devourers, and the only time Devourer wasn't in the spotlight was when Udyr burst forth with the speed of a wayward comet, leaving naught but salty waters in its wake.

When Kindred was released, Devourer was pre-emptively nerfed to ensure it wasn't a suitable choice for Kindred to pick up. A moment, as we pray for our fallen Kayle, casualty of collateral damage. Four hits has thusly ensured that no ranged jungler ever picks up Devourer outside of the occasional Kindred (and let's face it, Kindred often opts for Warrior anyway), but this is also partially because Devourer's synergy with ranged junglers is poor anyway.

So changing it to a universal three-hit passive will make ranged junglers look hopefully in Devourer's direction again, while making melee junglers reconsider their life choices and evaluate their current choices when pursuing gains in LP. Then, from that position of understanding, jungle diversity opens up a little again, Devourer+Guinsoo becomes less "haha, I win" for those who use it, and Shyvana can prance about without her W needing nerfs.

15 Comments

legionnaire993 votes

3 hit passive univere what about jhin

Dessem8 votes

A tragic and terrible oversight. We mourn the existence of this travesty even as we wonder how Devourer would stack with Jhin's 4th shot. Does it deal the %missing HP twice? Does it do nothing for him at all?

The only certainty is that Devourer Jhin is a terrible idea.

Yaskamasandwich3 votes

Gladly dancing on Devourer Vayne's grave. I think she was the primary reason it was nerfed though.

Edit: Nerfed for ranged auto-attackers that is.

Only Play Darius2 votes

I don't shed a single tear for the loss of devourer on ranged champions. Screw Vayne

Slamurai Jack2 votes

Instantly not used on anyone. I'd rather have the old infinitely stacking Devourer back over Sated if it's going to be that garbage.

Frius2 votes

why is second hit on melee but 4th hit ranged:./ rip kayle dps

Dessem1 votes

We blame the Kindred. Then we realise we're blaming the very incarnation of death itself, and shake a fist at the unfairness of the world. The only recourse is despair. RIP Kayle, sweet queen. May your reign of terror, brief though it has been, be forever fondly remembered in the hearts of those you terrorised.

AlwaysByMySide1 votes

{quoted}

why is second hit on melee but 4th hit ranged:./ rip kayle dps

Because Kayle was the strongest jungler in the game at that time and was its most severe abuser.

Masala Chai1 votes

Goodnight item 3930 off-tank Diana

Long live item 1402 Assassin Diana and item 1401 tank Diana

DarkRitual1 votes

Solve two problems with one change: Change thornmail to also reflect damage from on-hit effects from auto attacks.

TallyZrg1 votes

Upvote because this is well thought out and would fix a lot of Devourer problems that are going on right now.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

{quoted}

Upvote because this is well thought out and would fix a lot of Devourer problems that are going on right now.

No. Devourer NEEDS to be strong to keep early game gankers in line. The only issue now is how fast people get sated. The insane unfair damage and tankiness is necessary for it to do its job, same as Nasus.

Reducing stacks from Rift Herald, but increasing on hit damage against it specifically so you can take it faster, would go a long way to extending the farming time.

Meep Man1 votes

And then increase the attack speed by about 10% for slight compensation for the champions who use it and aren't actually hated or OP with it. That's the golden rule here right?

Or buff the champions who are affected the most. Of course, there might also be a reason Devourer is never picked in higher ELOs. Why is that?

Dessem1 votes

Of course, there might also be a reason Devourer is never picked in higher ELOs. Why is that?

That's an interesting question, and one that should definitely be explored! However, it's notable that the most popular Devourer build, which is blue smite sated devourer, is picked in ~1.6% of games at the Diamond elo across all regions, and achieves a ~65% winrate that sometimes goes higher, sometimes goes lower, but never dips below 60%.

It's not picked as often as in lower elo (at Bronze it's in ~4% of games with a ~70% winrate), but it does still show that more often than not, a champion with a Sated Devourer wins their games!

There are similar charts for the other sated devourers, and generally champions who do not finish devourer lose nearly all their games (about a ~20% winrate for just a devourer). Specific regions don't have a tremendous influence on the worrying trend of Sated Devourer = high win%.

Master Yi, for example, is still picked in ~10.5% of games at the Diamond elo on the North American and European servers, and Master Yi builds Sated Devourer more often than not. He also manages ~51.5% winrate or so, but who's counting? (Master Yi's with a Sated Devourer win 70% of games, but that chart doesn't include elo I think)

Source: lolking charts

"Hang on, Elphege," I hear you say (I have excellent hearing), "that just means the counter-play is to prevent them from finishing Sated!"

That's a good argument, but we see that in less than 0.3% of games at the Diamond elo, there is just a Devourer in play. 1.6% have a Sated Devourer. The amount of players who do finish Devourers are more than those who don't, and while I agree a good reward is necessary for building Devourer and finishing it, it's simply too overbearing when they do finish.

So going back to the question, "Why is Devourer never picked in higher elos?", we see that about ~2% of games (adding 1.6 of sated and 0.3 of un-sated, then sneaking in 0.1 for Round numbers) builds Blue Smite Devourer. An overwhelming amount manages to finish the Devourer, and an overwhelming amount of those proceed to win the game.

We can only speculate that in Diamond elo, players don't necessarily need to rely on the jungler to carry the damage for them. When the jungler does, however, they are generally successful and win the game.

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