Runic Echoes is a toxic item

IF YOU DISLIKE MY REASONING, OR DISAGREE WITH ME IN SOME POINT, PLEASE START A DISCUSSION

Preamble: So, I have been thinking about this for a while now, but especially since i read patch 6.7 notes, and a saw a lot of changes regarding the early and mid game, espacially considering the mid game death timers and the early game junglers. SInce I enjoyed playing and quite a lot even before Runic Echoes became popular, I kinda saw how this item affected the meta quite heavily. Not that this is a bad thing per se, but it becomes frustrating after a while, so Rito decided to changed things up a little bit by nerfing the champions that benefited just too much from this item. In my opinion, this is the WRONG WAY to balance the game, especially considering that this nerf to Udyr basically GUTTED the devourer build. But this discussion should not be me whining about the Udyr nerf, but rather making constructive suggestions about how to balance the game towards a mid- to lategame oriented Meta, just as Rito is planning (at leas that's what i suppose).

Back to the original topic: Runic Echoes grants AP junglers, especially the ones going tanky later on, a HUGE powerspike, since they already have pretty over-the-top AP scalings (looking at you ) and they highly profit from the additional mobility and the additional burst to their early game combos. Those champs, especally Nidalee, Gragas and Udyr, were in a fairly balanced state to begin with, the problem is Runic Echoes is still this "jack of all trades" item, especially since Maw of Malmortius got nerfed, you'll have a harder time to stop those AP junglers from snowballing as a squishy champ. Thus I had a few ideas regarding AP jungle items. I will list them below, with some thoughts on them, starting with the probably worst option going down towards my favourites.

Enchantment: Strident Eyes Tier 2 Junlge Item + Haunting Guise + 200 Gold (2800 total) 40 AP 200 HP Unique Passive - Eyes of Pain: 20 Magic Penetration Unique Passive - Runic: Damaging a Neutral Monster with an abiltiy restores 10%-20% (based on champion level) of the ability's mana cost over 5 seconds.

This first one is directed towards junglers with good base stats, lowering their burst combo's damage, but increasing their overall damage due to the magic pen. Champions that would make great use of this are:

Enchantment: Runic Death Tier 2 Jungle Item + Needlessly Large Rod + Amplifying Tome + 165 Gold (2800 total) 80 AP Unique Passive - Archmage: +20% Abiltiy Power from Items (would require to re-name Deathcap's passive) Unique Passive - Runic: Damaging a Neutral Monster with an abiltiy restores 10%-20% (based on champion level) of the ability's mana cost over 5 seconds.

Okay, this one is obviously for lategame-scaling AP junglers who often want to build a Deathcap but just can't due to the lack of gold income. Here's to you:

Enchantment: Wisdom of Ages Tier 2 Jungle Item + Catalyst of the Protector + Aplifynng Tome + 165 Gold (2800 Total) 250 HP 300 Mana 20 AP Passive: Grants 1 Stack of Wisdom upon killing a big Neutral Monster, 2 on Epic Neutral Monsters. Wisdom - Grants 5 HP, 10 Mana and 2.5 AP. Caps at 30 stacks. Upon reaching 30 stacks, restores 50 HP and 100 Mana when killing a large Neutral Monster. Unique Passive - Valor's Reward - (...) read RoA, Catalyst

This is a jungle item design focused on sustaining and getting tanky over time, no early power spike when getting it, so this should also promote late-game oriented AP junglers, while giving them safety against invaded due to picking up a Catalyst early. I didn't have any specific champs in mind here, well maybe Maokai, just thought it would be cool to have RoA in the jungle since it is a core item on NIdalee anyways at least imo.

Enchantment: Rylai's Blessing Tier 2 Jungle Item + Blasting Wand + Ruby Crystal + Ruby Crystal + 150 Gold (2800 total) 60 AP 300 HP Unique Passive - Blessing of the Crystal Maiden: read Rylai's Crystal Scepter

Nope, no runic passive here, it would just be too powerful, having mana sustain AND permantent slows when ganking.

And last but not least, my personal favourite

Enchantment: Runic Protector Tier 2 Jungle Item + Seeker's Armguard + 600 gold (2800 total) 50 AP 35 Armor Unique Passive: Grants 1 stack upon killing a large Neutral Monster, 2 upon killing (or assisting) an Epic Neutral Monster. Grants 1 AP and 0.5 Armor per stack, caps at 20 stacks. Unique Passive - Stasis: read Hourglass Unique Passive - Runic: Damaging a Neutral Monster with an abiltiy restores 10%-20% (based on champion level) of the ability's mana cost over 5 seconds.

Okay, this one might have some needs to be toned down on the stats because the active is very powerful, but my idea was to create a jungler item, which promotes agressive gameplay without giving this huge early powerspike in the damage-department, but rather making you survive risky plays while still putting some focus on objecitves/farming to stack up your item and make you more powerful, also getting some levels. And before you start yelling "OH NO FIDDLE OP WTF NAH STAAAAHP": Fiddle has the same counter mechanics as usual: get down some vision and spot him while he is charing his ult. Yes it WILL make him powerful, but he hasn't received any love recently, so why not. Here are the champs that will hugely benefit from this:

As you can see, those are just AP casters put into the jungle, and yes, with this item Kennen jungle might just become a thing. I am well aware of the shift in Meta that this item will definetly cause, since you don't want to go into stasis as Gragas or Udyr. It will promote agressive towerdives in the midgame with champs like Diana, Fizz, Elise or Fiddle, since they will have Runic Protector as backup, but are also punishable by counterganks since once they use it, they will stay in that spot for 2 seconds. It is a more balanced take on the high risk - high reward theme, while beeing a bit less risky due to the armor, but also less rewarding due to no movement speed in the item stats and no additional burst.