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Cinderhulk does need nerfs, but maybe we should help the other enchantments

Desiderium··34 votes·1,804 views

I mean. It's a pretty obvious red flag when the enemy's Full AD Jungle Khazix is using Cinderhulk instead of Warrior, and still did half as much magic damage as his AP mid.

Seriously, something needs to be done not only about Cinder but the other enchantments need some help as well.

The way I see their design, they seem to be made to scale into the late game and help junglers stay relevant.

In lieu of giving jungle items level-scaling stats (which I think would be the best way to go) I'd suggest these buffs:

Warrior: 50 AD up from 40. 15 armor pen up from 10. Slightly more AD for early on, slightly more pen to stay slightly more relevant in the late game.

Magus: New unique passive: Refunds a percentage of mana from a percentage of damage you deal with your spells. Gives mages a version of Essence Reaver that is actually not underpowered.

Devourer: +8% lifesteal. Gives very slight jungle staying power in the early game, and stacks with other sources of lifesteal in the lategame. Note that the lifesteal doesn't work with the magic damage on auto attacks.

Cinderhulk: Reduced to 20% health bonus from 25%. Now gives 250 health instead of 300. Whenever you are hit by a single target spell or basic attack, gain a brief movement speed boost.

What do you guys think about these changes?

37 Comments

Partholonian7 votes

Warrior: 50 AD up from 40. 15 armor pen up from 10. Slightly more AD for early on, slightly more pen to stay slightly more relevant in the late game.

Flat pen is most effective early (and against squishies). That's why Brutalizer is a frequently rushed item (in general, not just as a component of Warrior).

Also, this buff is too big. 10 AD is not "slight", it's a long sword, which costs 360 gold. Counting the arpen, you're proposing ~500 gold worth of buffs to an item that was the dominant meta only a few patches ago.

For magus, I kind of like it, but maybe it should be vs. monsters only (and include smite damage). Less blue dependence is nice, but it shouldn't let you siege eternally.

Devourer, IDK what to do with. Is it just an accident that the autoattacker item is also the farming stacks item, or is that intentional based on something about certain champions?

Maybe the stack farming needs to go away in favor of a power spike that is similar to the other paths. "Hey guys, I finished my jungle item, now avoid fighting for 10 more min while I stack it" is not going to make a jungler popular with his team (this was one of the problems with feral flare and probably why devourer is so weak today).

Or maybe all jungle enchants should have some on-buy power and some stacking power -- e.g. Cinderhulk starting at 10% health and ramping up based on mob kills, Magus giving AP per mob kill on top of a baseline (I think it used to do this at one point) and Warrior, IDK, AD seems pretty OP considering the kind of AD casters that tend to build it, but maybe with the right amount of AD gained per camp relative to the others it could work.

Junglers get less gold than laners (except supports), so they're always going to struggle to stay competitive based on buying normal items with gold, but one thing they do get more of than anyone else is monster kills, so making all jungle-oriented items scale with monster kills could give them late-game relevance without making the items easily poachable (even a laner that takes Smite won't spend enough time farming monsters to get their item to high stacks, or they're not a laner anymore).

This system could make Poacher more attractive. If you know up front, as a basic fact of jungling, that both you and the enemy jungler are going to scale with large monsters killed in a way that is relevant to each of your respective classes, then taking his large monsters makes you stronger and him weaker in a way that goes beyond the gold lost.

On the downside, though, this would intensify the rage-inducing-ness of having your teammates counterjungle you.

Rinky Dinky4 votes

Cinderhulk is fine now

Devourer and Magus simply need buffs

Anonagon2 votes

I think I would like it better if Devourer healed based off its own damage, or the total damage you do with on-hits... of course, that's just my inner Shyvana player speaking, wishing that I could rush Devourer > Wits End and shrek people with my carry-level on-hit damage.

IAMS4T4N2 votes

I'd love for magus to be buffed Nidalee

BaronBargy1 votes

It gives 80 Ability power and 20% CDR for 2250 gold once all is said and done, plus the health and mana regen while fighting monsters. (As a comparison, item 3165 gives 80 AP, 20% CDR, 100% Mana Regen, and inflicts Grievous Wounds below 40% health for 2300 gold; they are very similar items, with very different purposes; Magus, for its cost, does not need to be buffed.)

That being said; by taking 4 points in the CDR mastery, and rushing item 3158 after her enchantment, Nidalee Jungle can reach 40% CDR by spending a mere 3250 gold on items, compared to tank junglers, who (assuming they complete Cinderhulk first) must spend at least 6600 gold to reach 40% CDR, unless they take runes for it. And that's assuming they can even build Frozen Heart (or for some people, Black Cleaver, which raises the price considerably) against the enemy team.

The point here? Items are not the problem with Nidalee jungle; it's the high skillcap that playing it requires, and the fact that she's an assassin, and thereby countered by a very high percentage of the champions played as junglers right now.

RavenMagus1 votes

Every team has an ADC. You can always build Frozen Heart.

It's my opinion that the Magus enchantment could definitely use a buff (especially in the area of mana management while jungling), along with possibly a nerf for Nidalee's jungle clearing. Nidalee probably WOULD be too good with a buffed Magus enchant - but I think there's something wrong when Nidalee's basically the only mage champ you ever see in the jungle (except for the rare Fiddlesticks). There's some mage champs that could be really cool played in the jungle (Cassi, Karthus, Zyra) - but the Magus enchantment is just too weak to support their role there.

Meep Man2 votes

What's up with the 9 deleted posts?

Lugg2 votes

I have been saying the same thing for a long time on Cinderhulk. 20% is PLENTY of health boost. Plus, by lowering it, it would nerf Sejuani which needs to happen like yesterday.

I also agree with slight buffs to the least used enchants.

Erockandroll2 votes

A couple of Counter offers.

Cinderhulk: is actually fine where it is. Particularly because they got rid of the offensive power that made it a step above everything else. If it'd defenses should be nerfed, it should be more so in the early game. Tank Junglers should have better late game scaling to make up for their weak early clears.

Warrior: I disagree with how much power you put on Warrior, That would make it more powerful than it was on release. Warrior should maintain it's power as an Early game item. Perhaps more Armor pen as use suggested, but not the AD boost. It should still clear camps faster still than Tank Junglers with CinderHulk.

Magus: I'm unsure about this one. Their are too few Mage Junglers, potentially with different styles of play, so I don't know what they really need. A lot of people say Mana Regen, Even though their a fair amount on the Jungler passive, and you still have blue buff as well as smite bonuses. I wouldn't give it a direct regen buff, however, think of the unholy grail passive "restores 30% mana on Kill or assist." This could reward AP Junglers as they could continue to Jungle as they pull off successful ganks.

Devourer: Even less sure about this one. It's obviously a late game item, but is meant for assassins, or AS Bruisers? can we balance around both? The one thing I would change however is making the stacking damage bonus less reliant on Power farming (which riot discourages) Perhaps basing the increase of bonus damage on a conservation stacks mechanic.

[{quoted}](name=Inept Maverick,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B5RcE0oA,comment-id=000c,timestamp=2015-05-18T23:53:16.675+0000)

What's up with the 9 deleted posts?

OP thinks he's shamelessly bumping his post to gain visibility. He really giving it a bump and Ugly.

Hard4Hamsters1 votes

Agree with you (Erockandroll) on all counts. To the OP, not all of the jungle enchantments are meant to help junglers scale into the lategame. Warrior is MEANT to be an item that gives a lot of early power, with the tradeoff being it (like the champions who make the most use out of it) falls off in power later in the game.

The way I see it, Cinderhulk and Devourer are scaling items that get stronger throughout the game. Whereas Magus and Warrior are huge powerspikes when they are purchased that help junglers snowball either themselves or their allies. Erockandroll made a good point here about Magus.

{quoted}

Magus: I'm unsure about this one. Their are too few Mage Junglers, potentially with different styles of play, so I don't know what they really need. A lot of people say Mana Regen, Even though their a fair amount on the Jungler passive, and you still have blue buff as well as smite bonuses. I wouldn't give it a direct regen buff, however, think of the unholy grail passive "restores 30% mana on Kill or assist." This could reward AP Junglers as they could continue to Jungle as they pull off successful ganks.

^This. Just think of the AP junglers that are out there Diana Elise Evelynn Nidalee Fiddlesticks Zac (potentially) and think of what each one needs as a jungler. It is really hard to come up with an item that would be as easy to balance around as say Warrior is for LeeSin Khazix Pantheon.

Extreme Troller1 votes

i think the 20% damage reduction make non sense. It does true damage AND 20% reduction ?????!!!

imo, if you want to deal true damage you must be weaker, and the targeted champ must amplify 20% damage to you. and not the opposite. i think riot totally didnt understood that.

Desiderium2 votes

[{quoted}](name=Extreme Troller,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B5RcE0oA,comment-id=0006,timestamp=2015-05-18T23:12:17.249+0000)

imo, if you want to deal true damage you must be weaker, and the targeted champ must amplify 20% damage to you. and not the opposite. i think riot totally didnt understood that.

Lol. I don't think you understand game design at all. Although reading your name I'm surprised I'm even taking you seriously.

ActualPain1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kinky Ninja Boy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B5RcE0oA,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2015-05-18T23:15:22.860+0000)

Lol. I don't think you understand game design at all. Although reading your name I'm surprised I'm even taking you seriously.

Yeah i dont think you understand game design either. 50 ad and 15 armpen on warrior? remember the lee j4 vi meta when warrior had 45 ad? we would just revert to a worse version of that. plus the cinderhulk nerfs you propose are massive to the point of nobody would buy it ever again. the problem is that the cinderhulk junglers fit into any teamcomp pretty much as the optimal choice, that is there is no other option more consistent and effective than cinderhulk. the other enchantments dont need buffs, cinderhulk needs a nerf or maybe some kind of small rework.

agbudar1 votes

first of kha is weak so him taking cinderhulk to stay relevant is not an issue with cinder but kha i still take warrior over cinder with someone like yi jungle and it doesnt make me feel like i gimp myself.

if a jungler did not do at least half "ap" damage as the midlaner with a cinderhulk then what was that jungler doing? dancing in river? i mean its a constant source of damage against all minions ofc the damage is gonna ramp up. jungler always does most or 2nd most damage due to the inherent role.

if cinderhulk is op and you still dont see half the junglers like shyvana or rammus show up but all the other ones like udyr and whatnot then maybe its time to face the fact that most of these tanky champs got overnerfed (and ofc im not talking about seji she is right where she should be atm just that as a tank she outshines every other tank with her awesome clears/CC/objective control)

Imotekh Kharn1 votes

I agree Cinderhulk fits the Tank niche way better then Warrior fits the assassin niche or magus in the Ap whatever niche.

Jungle Lux God1 votes

I can't really comment on Warrior changes since I don't really use Warrior junglers too much even when Warrior was really strong (although the changes you suggested seem pretty reasonable), but I'll provide my opinions on the other changes you suggested.

While I could be biased from using a lot of **Cinderhulk **junglers myself, I feel like the % bonus health is in a good spot at 25%, and I feel that if any part of the health portion should be nerfed, it should be the base health of the item, not the % bonus health. I feel like the flat health could go as low as 150-200 and the item would be pretty well balanced.

The movement speed bonus on getting hit by an auto attack or single target spell is bad game design for a tank. Tanks have the job to make the enemy team's carries focus them, and this change gives the enemy team's carries strong incentives to not attack them.

Cinderhulk would probably be balanced if it just gave less health than than it currently does, if it need nerfs at all. Which it probably does need.

I'm not sure if Lifesteal solves problems that **Devourer **has. Devourer has some big problems where:

  1. The jungler has to rush it over other items that may provide bigger powerspikes in the early-mid game
  2. The jungler is forced to powerfarm the jungle in order to get good results out of Devourer

Any changes to Devourer should be geared towards solving at least one of these two problems so that it can be utilized in the on-hit builds it was designed for.

Also, lifesteal doesn't solve sustain problems for every jungler that takes it because not every jungler buys AD. Some build tank after Devourer, other build AD, and some weird souls build Devourer into AP items (I don't blame them considering how bad Magus is), and lifesteal doesn't help all of their problems. It would probably be better to have a flat heal tacked onto their autos instead if the item got any sort of healing component, but lifesteal isn't really that important.

**Magus **is in a really bad spot, and if I hadn't done any experimenting of my own with AP junglers, I would say that this is a pretty good solution. However, I did some weird experimenting with the jungle in custom games with some of the AP champions that I owned that aren't really meta junglers. I hadn't tested every single AP champion in the entire game (I don't own all of the AP champions in the entire game, nor did I try any AP champions that would either be unable to clear the jungle without the items or that are already known for being meta AP junglers), but what I found would suggest that these changes wouldn't really help every single AP jungler the way we would need it to.

What I found is that junglers either had severe mana problems or had severe health problems. They might have minor problems with the other resource, but it's generally the severe resource problem that holds these junglers back.

Mana sustain on the mage jungle item really helps those with severe mana problems, but it doesn't do anything for those with severe health problems. Magus' CDR and AP might help those with severe health problems, as I didn't actually build it in my experiments, but I didn't really feel it was strong enough to actually be useful for that purpose on most of the junglers I experimented with, and would result in greater mana problems, although to be fair I should have tried it in my experiments anyways to see how it worked.

Mana sustain would, at the very least, be really useful on the item as a whole, but on spell damage might favor champions with lower cooldowns too much more than those with higher cooldowns would be. I'm thinking maybe something more like a burn effect that occurs on dealing spell damage that restores the users mana per tick? That would probably make it's mana restore a lot more equal for a larger variety of champions, especially for those that use burstier, higher-cooldown rotations or that stagger their spell usage a bit, and would overall offer a lot greater amount of mana restoration for a larger variety of champions.

Messaiga1 votes

Cinderhulk's problem is that of design. Cinderhulk not only provides a stronger early game for tanks (giving them better clear speeds, minor DPS and some HP on a low priced item) but also makes a Cinderhulk Tank's late game stronger than a non-Cinderhulk tank. Essentially it softens the weaknesses that tanks are intended to have (early game) and improves their strengths at the same time (soaking damage in the late game).

The solution would be either it gives a stronger early game and we move % Bonus HP to another item, or it gives the % bonus HP and we lower the base HP on it further. I believe the former is a better solution.

As for buffing the other enchants, I think Devourer and Magus could use some work. Warrior is in a good spot for the moment.

The Lexer1 votes

So one thing Cinderhulk did bring out was the smite top lane meta. This means more champions diversity and strategy. This is why I think they should not touch Cinderhulk. Instead, buff everything else a lot so that it is viable against a Cinderhulk jungler/top laner. Keep the Sej and the Gragas, but bring back the Rengar and the Vi and the Yi and the FIddlesticks. And once you get that fixed, item 3711 could use some a lot of help

JimmyNtheKudos1 votes

I'm all for buffing counters rather than nerfing what's op... I know that can easily get out of hand, but nerfing just isn't fun.

TheXtractor1 votes

The last thing we need is Warrior meta back right

Kingsgrave1 votes

Devourer honestly just needs double damage against Minions and Monsters. Possibly increased sustain with stacks but only against Monsters.

Silents4291 votes

Magus needs less power and more mana/mana regen instead.

Nahara1 votes

[{quoted}](name=Kinky Ninja Boy,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=B5RcE0oA,comment-id=,timestamp=2015-05-18T22:33:11.716+0000)

Magus: New unique passive: Refunds a percentage of mana from a percentage of damage you deal with your spells. Gives mages a version of Essence Reaver that is actually not underpowered.

Unfortunately, this is exactly why Essence Reaver kinda has to suck and why there's no mid-step for it's build path (that gives the MP recovery). If there was a way to get the mana recovery power of Essence Reaver early on, it's a huge overall power spike for champions like Jayce and Talon who probably wouldn't mind having to take Smite in order to get it.

Ryuku Cruxis1 votes

"Whenever you are hit by a single target spell or basic attack, gain a brief movement speed boost."

Frozen Mallet now core on adcs.

Honestly they should've just made the aura for cinder monster/minion only. Tanks needed to sustain a little better in fights and needed better jungle clear.

I dunno who the hell thought tanks needed more damage to champions when some could combo squishies with a single damage item already. Now that black cleaver has great hp to go with cinder, it plus cleaver or abysmal and the tank is lethal. They're even changing abysmal to make it a more efficient buy with cinder. Holy...

The Loveless1 votes

I think spell vamp is more helpful to ap junglers. Warrior definitely doesn't scale into late. 10 arpen is fine if we can up the ad to 55-60, or give it some kind of % boost ala cinder hulk.

The Yetii Rider1 votes

Warrior changes: Completely awful. 50 AD is a hell of a lot, especially for Pantheon and Kha'Zix, and giving it away so cheaply, along with CDR and armor pen, is not a good idea.

Magus changes: This happened with the original Spirit of the X line in Season 4. If Riot wanted this to be the norm they never would have changed the items in the first place. Not to mention, Nidalee and Fiddlesticks both have pretty good win rates and pick rates right now. If you want to buff Magus because you think Diana and Elise need the help, well...you kind of can't because Fiddle and Nidalee are oppressive.

Cinderhulk changes: You can't lower the flat health Cinderhulk gives. Bami's Cinder, which is a component that builds into Cinderhulk, gives 300 health. Upgrading an item and losing stats from the upgrade is something Riot has only done once (with some item they have since deleted from the game. I can't remember, I think it was a Philo's stone upgrade). Needless to say, it's not normal balancing style, so don't do it. Additionally, giving tanks free uncounterable move speed every time they're hit by an auto would be toxic. It would completely remove the ability of marksmen to kite. It's just like how Randuin's Omen used to slow ms if you attacked the wielder, only in reverse. There's no way these changes would be balanced.

Devourer: I agree entirely here. Some form of lifesteal on Devourer is really what it needs to help keep the auto based champs in their desired order.

So how would I fix them? Let's see here:

Warrior - No changes needed. Warrior is an early game item that is used by champions who have largely enough damage in their kits and rely on snowballing against champions who, thanks to their level, don't have a lot of health. It shouldn't scale well into late game because it helps you earn gold faster if you use it right.

Magus - Giving this item mana regen would make it more attractive on mid laners in the same way Cinderhulk spread to top lane. To avoid that, here's my solution: While in combat with large or epic monsters, you emit a pulse of energy that deals 15+2xlevel magic damage every 3 seconds. This deals 100% bonus damage to monsters. This way Magus champs can clear without using so much of their mana, and in a way that isn't reliant on their auto attack speed.

Cinderhulk - If this item continues to be a problem, I propose the following solution: Immolate Aura - Deals 40 magic damage per second to monsters only NEW - BATHE IN FLAMES - Active component: Create an aura that deals 1% of your total health as magic damage to all nearby enemies each second. The aura lasts 10 seconds. Cooldown: 120 seconds.

There, now the tanks can only do damage in short, very communicated bursts, and still get to keep their clear times.

BluePolarizer1 votes

lol what elo are you playing in? Cinderhulk is fking terrible outside the jungle, and is only good in the jungle because it provides cheap tankiness and speeds clears. If it was good outside the jungle, TP smite Shyvana would not have a 41% win rate, lower than Urgot, Poppy, Gangplank, Veigar and Ryze.

The only tank junglers that are actually good are Gragas and Sejuani, all other tank junglers are balanced or bad.

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