Boards›Gameplay

The real problem with Poachers Knife

DrCyanide··23 votes·4,649 views

To start with, lets look at the other Jungle Items.

item 3715 - Smite can be cast on enemy champions, anywhere enemy champions are found.

item 3706 - Smite can be cast on enemy champions, anywhere enemy champions are found

item 3713 - AOE stun/damage to monsters, available in any jungle. Using it instantlyheals 15% missing Health and Mana, available in any jungle.

item 3711 - Cooldown of smite is halved when used in the enemy jungle. Grants aditional Gold and movement speed only when you kill the enemy jungle moster.

The problem with Poachers Knife is all of the restrictions on it. You can't get the speed boost early if things go bad. You can't get the gold instantly and get out if things go bad. You can't use the perks at all if the enemy team pushes your team back, even just holding at the river. What's more, the while the other three smite options have a variety of use cases (smite a champion or camp, who to smite, how fast to clear in your jungle, how fast to clear the enemy jungle), Poachers Knife only has one use case. It is 100% useless out side of the enemy jungle, and you can bet your opponents know it and will ward against it.

To fix the Poachers Knife, it needs another use case. It needs to be useable for something that doesn't rely on the user being in the enemy jungle, or needs more usefullness in the enemy jungle (such as it not being wasted if you smite a camp but can't kill it).

I won't pretend that I have a perfect answer for what to change without being able to test the changes, but I do think if you critique something you should propose some possible changes. Here are some ideas I brainstormed:

  • Reduce the cooldown slightly if used in your own jungle. This is tricky, because it starts to get into the "faster clear" territory that belongs to Ranger's Trailblazer. Maybe that's a good thing considering how dominant Trailblazer has been though.
  • Have it store a ward. This has been done on jungle items before, and would make the counter jungling a little safer.
  • Movespeed buff when used on any camp. How long and how strong such a move speed boost should be depends on the ballance team, but this could be a great use for slow junglers who want to get to a lane fast in order to gank it, as well as being an escape mechanic.

Edit: The only other item in the game that is only useful in certain areas of the enemy side of the map is item 3056 , and I think we all know how often that has been picked up.

50 Comments

coppinslinger16 votes

I completely agree with the OP here! The Poacher's Knife funnels you into one play style to get benefits out of it, which leads to snowballing either direction - generally un-fun to play with or against.

I like some of the OP ideas, but let me try to address the issue a bit more analytically.

item 3715 - Meant for dueling item 3706 - Meant for ganking item 3713 - Meant for farming item 3711 - Meant for counter-jungling

Basically, each item is meant to cover a different aspect of jungling. However, the problem with the 4th item isn't really in its focus on counter-jungling, but rather in Riot's conception of "counter-jungling" when they made the item.

Why Counter-jungling is Really Bad Right Now

Counter-jungling, in my opinion, is a really BAD way to solidify an advantage over your opponent. If you are even against the enemy jungler, and your lanes are also even, counter-jungling is EXTREMELY RISKY. If you walk over a ward, or are collapsed upon by the enemy laners, then not only do you not gain anything from the invade, but you also give away gold and experience (and possibly buffs) to the enemy laners. You also give the enemy's free lanes for the next few minutes as you are set back in gold and experience (you weren't farming during that grey screen) and need to retreat to you own jungle to farm back up. Basically, the potential loss is MUCH higher than the potential reward.

Conversely, many of the disadvantages of counter-jungling disappear when you are already ahead. You don't need to be afraid of the enemy jungler, and often your laners are helping you bully your way in. In general, counter-jungling is an activity dealt by the strong, and suffered by the weak.

Why Riot has No Idea WTF They are Doing When Designing Counter-Jungling Mechanics

For some reason, Riot has enacted contradictory policies in regards to this snowbally definition of counter-jungling.

  1. Monsters offer bonus experience when you are lower in level then them. This means that those who fall behind due to counter-jungling have a relatively easy method to catch-up.
  2. Riot makes this item 3711. An item that is supposed to "enhance" your jungling potential and control by incentivising you to go into the enemy jungle. A jungle that is extremely forgiving to being counter-jungled.

Basically Riot made an item that is focused on an activity that they intentionally designed to be forgiving in their jungle design. If losing camps were more punishing, then item 3711 would be more useful, but I don't think anybody wants this snowball mechanic in their jungle. Remember 3.8 Nunu boys?

So if Riot wants to continue to follow their "anti-snowball" policy, there is no place for counter-jungling in LoL. Thus item 3711 will always be weak if its focus is solely on stealing camps from the enemy jungle.

Map Presence/Control/Pressure (Whatever you want to call it) - The True 4th Aspect of Jungling

I argue that the true 4th aspect of jungling isn't "counter-jungling" but instead is Map Presence. Let's look at some classic counter-jungling champs:

Udyr Nunu Shyvana

All of these champions have high mobility (due to spammable move-speed boosts), and fast clear-speeds These champions win games by being everywhere at once. They always one-step ahead of you, pushing waves, taking dragons, stealing camps, and destroying towers. They succeed in being where you aren't - by picking the easy fights and by taking the easy money. Rarely do these champs actually achieve victory simply by taking your raptor camp over and over again (Although there is the odd game where you jungler gets counter-jungled to oblivion by Nunu). Map Presence - like farming, ganking, and dueling - is actually a viable way to gain gold and experience advantages over your opponents and thus win games. Counter-jungling is not.

The true focus of item 3711 should be on Map Presence, not counter-jungling.

In fact, counter-jungling is just one small facet of Map Presence and often can't snowball a victory in and of itself.

The Aspects of Map-Presence Here is what I think composes map presence:

  1. Vision Control - Knowing where the enemy is allows you to assess what objectives are easy to take and which fights are favorable to your team.
  2. High Mobility - Being able to move across the map quickly allows you to outpace the enemy and lets you pick fights and take objectives before the enemy can arrive
  3. Fast Objective-Taking Power - Whether its destroying towers, killing dragon, or clearing camps, if you can't grab the gold quick, you won't be able to move onto the next pressure point fast enough to be useful.

If item 3711 is going to be a successful item, it needs to be refocused around this goal instead of around "counter-jungling."

Sorry for the rant, and thanks for the read. This isn't really an answer to the problem, but I think It gives us a better idea of what our answers should be.

crippler381 votes

{quoted}

Udyr Nunu Shyvana

you forgot someone Shaco

coppinslinger2 votes

The reason I didn't include other strong counter-junglers like LeeSin and Shaco is because the reason they invade usually isn't to take your camps, its to kill the enemy jungler. This fits more under dueling than counter-jungling. However, both of those champions are still valid counter-junglers, just perhaps not as map-presence focused as the three I gave.

crippler381 votes

true, but poachers could help shaco by say, he kills a mini raptor and deceives over the wall, he now has a speed boost to gank with, eh it's not the best thing but it has a niche, I bet it'll be better with the half cd when there are smite charges implemented since then you can smite a lot more which gives you more bonus gold, or you could just double burn down a single jungle monster, or have smite up for baron sooner than before (but that was normal) so I dunno, it still looks like the worst one I'm stuck theory crafting for a few more days, what do you think about that?

coppinslinger1 votes

Yeah, I'm don't disagree that item 3711 has its uses. It definitely can help in some niche cases like you said. With the nerfs to item 3713 it is definitely comparatively better now. However, like I mentioned, counter-jungling is a really risky activity at the moment and doesn't have much potential to establish significant advantages for your team. As long as the item is purely focused on counter-jungling, it will never move out of the niche category and into a more useful purchase.

crippler381 votes

this is true, hmm, to be honest I view most items as situational, the smites being a prime example, does your character need more clear? if so take trailblazer, need more cc? take chilling, need to kill one person? take challenging, personally I like the niche poachers presents to my favorite character shaco, see what it does is it increases his mobility, he's never been that farm heavy for me and he deals enough damage to not really NEED challenger or chilling (although true those could help for extreme true damage cheese) and poachers lets him gank and move in the enemy jungle much more easily, as well as take buffs, which is something shaco loves to do, as I already said, we'll see if/when they add the charge system

KenpachiKenshin3 votes

Pretty well written post.

I do like that it's counter-jungling focused but I think it should have a passive component besides an active one. (like enemy jungle monsteres receive extra damage, blah blah blah)

coppinslinger1 votes

Something like this would help push it out of the niche-snowball category, and more into a useful and strategic buy. It would still be good for counter-jungling and would provide more utility overall though in terms of Map-Presence and Pressure.

However, like I said, if Riot is set on keeping item 3711 as purely a counter-jungling item, they'll never take this route. Riot seriously needs to reanalyze the purpose of this item.

Arveanor5 votes

New UNIQUE PASSIVE: When smiting an enemy camp, Poacher's Knife leaves behind a bone ward that lasts for 30 seconds. When the bone ward spots an enemy champion, it expires, but gives sight of that champion for 6 seconds.

Just something off the top of my head. OP I realize it still has the stated problems, but I think this would allow counterjunglers to help keep tabs on the enemy jungler (rather valuable in the counterjungling game) so, not only do you shut down his gold and experience flow, but you can help make sure your lanes always know where he's at to play safe and make his ganks useless.

masterdragon4813 votes

Right but your buff isn't addressing what the OP has stated the problems with the item are. And frankly, I agree with the OP. The idea shouldn't be to load the smite with MORE stuff conditionally, where it can only be useful in the early game (before sightstones) or if you are already ahead (when you don't necessarily need it).

DrCyanide1 votes

Bingo.

The answer isn't going to be giving Poachers Knife more stuff that's only useful on the enemy side of the map, it's going to be giving it stuff that it can do in other places.

Arveanor2 votes

Well, I did point out that this doesn't directly fix the problems OP pointed out, but it was something that came to mind, and I think it can be useful to toss around a lot of ideas (even if they are obviously flawed) just to help trigger more ideas and concepts.

Also, unless you are on Lee Sin, its not super likely that as a jungler you have a sightstone, which would give poacher's knife a secondary niche role for helping keep your enemy starved lategame when ahead (extra free vision in their jungle makes it hard for them to get much done).

Then again, having an alternate lategame niche for the item is probably bad, since we'd ideally have each item having one major role it fulfills.

Oh well, just interesting to think about, do you happen to have any suggestions for changing poacher's knife? I'd love to chat about idea changes.

masterdragon4812 votes

I'm not trying to come across rude, but you are kinda missing the point. ANY buffs to this item should be usable at ANY point in the game, whether you are ahead or behind.

You could make the poacher's buff "if you smite-kill 50 big monsters from the enemy jungle, their nexus automatically explodes" and you wouldn't be addressing the topic of this post. If you made the buff "get 50 big monster smite kills and the enemy nexus explodes" then at least you would be on topic, but of course this would be an obviously flawed idea

No, most junglers won't take sight stone. But the support will. and come mid game, when the support starts roaming, let alone scuttle crabs, wards from other players (god forbid) vision is going to increase on BOTH teams. That's why poachers would be good in the early game before sight stones; there is simply less vision on the map in general. I didn't explicitly mean that the jungler would buy it.

I think a ward would be a neat idea, it would give a little more map control, but it wouldn't really affect the jungler all that much. As of now, I don't have a really good idea that wouldn't intrude on trailblazer's clearing role. Perhaps poachers could offer MORE gold at every camp. This way, one could trade off the sustain that trailblazers gives for more gold.

Arveanor2 votes

I can see where there would be some confusion here.

I g et the point, but I presently don't have any suggestions to give Poacher's Knife a way to be s imultaneously "Jungle Item focused on Counter Jungling" and "Item that doesn't immediately tell your opponents you are counterjungling, allowing them to get lane support and ruin your game".

So, instead, I just thought I'd comment on other ideas, with the hopes that, even though those ideas don't solve the basic issue of Poacher's Knife, they might lead to other ideas that do solve the Poacher's Knife dillema.

Also, just curious, is it your hope to see PK lose it's counterjungling focus (since that telegraphs your strategy) or are you hoping its useful for counterjungling but also is valuable to have if you aren't counterjungling (so, somehow viable for both counterjungling and some other, related strategy)?

Also, I kinda like the idea of increased gold at all camps (hey, flat gold per camp means its valuable to get a higher number of camps, right?) but I'm somewhat hesitant about the idea of one of the jungle items offering better goldflow given how goldstarved the jungle is right now.

Another fun thought: Poacher's Knife increases the range of Smite

not enough to justify PK over other upgrades, perhaps, but a cool thought (and really OP if it had enough range to smite dragon/baron from behind pit xD)

DrCyanide1 votes

Cool name for the concept, but as you pointed out, not a good fix for Poacher's Knife.

Arveanor1 votes

Thanks, I was kinda happy with my name haha. I just can't figure out a good way to make Poacher's Knife have strengths outside of the enemy jungle, without turning it into an item that's just all around good at farming.

I guess it's possible Poacher's Knife just isn't a workable concept, idk.

Tis a nice day5 votes

Someone once suggested that you could smite yourself for the same movespeed buff when you smite a camp. Makes poacher's knife usable in many more situations.

General Keith1 votes

Interesting, I think it would be better if you could Smite ALL allies though.

Cindikle4 votes

Only change I think it needs is to passively grant vision on nearby monsters.

This gives it a safety net for counter jungling and add in a niche of granting vision. This vision wont work on Baron/Dragon.

Since this would be a strong buff, this vision will put an icon over any monster's head that you see. Giving the enemy a warning window that you are there. But since you can also see them you know they know type thing.

In short it gives vision assistance in the jungle with it's current setup. I don't really thing this would make it all too strong. What's more likely to happen is it'll be picked up for scouting and the occasional jungle steal. It gives it a very unique niche.

This also can make it a counter to counterjungling. If you get it you can see someone on your own jungle monsters and be able to react to it.

Raptamei4 votes

The other problem with Poacher's is that you get no benefit for clearing your own jungle, so there's no point in being in your jungle... so guess where the enemy jungler is going. Even if you waste time warding your own jungle, you're not going to actually stop him when you're not even in the same jungle as him.

Velasan3 votes

I like the movement speed from any camp because then I can for example smite raptors and go straight into mid lane with a move speed buff.

I suppose it could also give regular bonus gold on any monster, but that's a much more tough balance issue because then you have to ask how much and on how many monsters.

Anyways, yeah in essence the poachers knife does one thing and not very well. The trailblazer is much better for taking away monsters in the enemy jungle because it smites them faster allowing you to run in, make the kill, and escape.

On the champions that are good at counter jungling poachers knife doesn't add much to their arsenal. They already excelled at getting in and out without being caught. In fact it's the center of nunu's play. Even though I don't like nunu. Crazy snow ball throwing kids and their yetis. > : (

Earl Eulrich3 votes

I agree, the problem is that it has absolutely no fall-back-pattern. If you cannot constantly invade your oppoentns jungle it´s useless - and if you can actually constantly farm your opponents jungle you can probably jungle ap-riven and still win the game with the amount of control/pressure your laners must bring to achieve that.

youngjake932 votes

Yea it is kind of weird that the item is only really good if you are winning. Maybe if it had bonuses for every outer turret(maybe middle turret being worth more) the enemy still had it would be better at the risk of being more complicated? That way you are rewarded for taking the risk of going into enemy territory and make it worthwhile early game compared to late-game where you can easily go through the enemy's jungle.

Spacesuit Spiff2 votes

Thing is in soloq, seeing an enemy pick up poacher's usually leads to this:

Vi : Their jungler has a poachers. Can you guys each toss a pink in my jungle so we can milk him? Viktor : ... Nasus : ... Kalista : ... Nami : ... 5 minutes later Vi : Ok I've got 3 wards out and he's in here, let's collapse. Viktor : ... Nasus : ... Kalista : ... Nami : ... Vi : Mkay I'll just go 1v1 this Udyr... yeah... enjoy your farm...

Anyway, I like the idea of the smite bonuses still working if you don't kill the camp. It's basically saying "well you CAN chase me if you want, but there's a low hp monster for you to farm too."

Angry Monster2 votes

I think you are on the wrong page with this. Your supposed to wreck the enemy jungler day and make him have no little to no impact through gold. Your whole purpose is to screw over the other jungler and make his yours.

It is a high risk reward system. Plus when the 2 charge smite comes out next patch you will be able wreck one whole side the jungle very quickly leaving up 1 minion at each spot to slow down the enemy jungler.

I think it is to early to say that it is not usefull at this point. Its has not been 24 hours since the last patch and trail blazer was nerfed hard.

DrCyanide1 votes

OK, lets look at the other "high risk, high reward items" and compare them:

  • item 3041 /item 3141 - The risk is that when you die, the item becomes 1/2 as effective as it was before hand. The reward is that it gets stronger the better you play. High reward is the bonus stat. Your play style can be kill oriented or assist oriented, but you play relatively safe with it for fear of loosing the reward.
  • item 3711 - The risk is you being on the enemies side of the map. How large or small that risk is varies greatly on your/your opponents skill level and if you're winning. The reward is 20 gold and a speed boost to aid in your escape. Denying the other jungler gold is not part of the reward, because that can occur regardless of the type of smite upgrade. The two-charge system further emphisizes this, as every jungle item will be able allow someone to bring two smites into the enemy jungle, which was the one advantage that Poachers Knife had.

I don't know that the Poachers Knife is any more "high reward" than counter jungling in general. I suspect that you could pick a different Jungle upgrade and the Avarice Blade and get equal or greater gold return, and shut the enemy jungler out just as much.

kijik2 votes

Having it store a ward(to make counter jungling safer, novel idea, that) would be perfect, and having the movespeed buff be on cast as a "osh- GTFO" button would also solve a lot of issues imo. I'd say throw both of them on there and if it becomes dominant take one of them out. It is preseason after all.

RottedApples2 votes

i like the idea of giving it a ward

Pollyanna Wright2 votes

I think it should be high risk high reward.

Not enough reward right now.

SmokingPuffin1 votes

I like the idea of Poacher's having some contribution to the vision game. Counterjungling is often a battle over vision, and buying Poacher's tips your hand as to your game plan. Either placing a short duration ward, or detecting whether you've been spotted, or revealing a nearby area all sound like interesting potential capabilities.

That said, I'd like to play with Poacher's some more now that Ranger's isn't just obviously better and see if I can make it work without changes.

Steelflame1 votes

I think a good "boost" mechanic to it might be it being able to extend/enhance any jungle monster buffs stolen from the enemy jungle. This would leave it having a very solid boost to it's power without making it too strong in combat. Perhaps even something like +25% smite damage in enemy jungle to make the steal of the big one easier, or to stronger contest the enemy jungle, without boosting the ability to contest Drag/Baron.

TheI3igDaddy1 votes

I was thinking about it possibly doing like 150% Smite damage to enemy camps only (not Dragon or Baron); hell it could even be 200%, but I understand that if the Poaching jungler's team got ahead, the other couldn't even get camps if he's around.

So perhaps we can remove, say, the extra gold or MS bonus and replace it with bonus Smite damage.

Lord Dusteon1 votes

I was thinking about it possibly doing like 150% Smite damage to enemy camps only (not Dragon or Baron); hell it could even be 200%, but I understand that if the Poaching jungler's team got ahead, the other couldn't even get camps if he's around.

So perhaps we can remove, say, the extra gold or MS bonus and replace it with bonus Smite damage.

I think it could work as a you deal % increased damage to smited camp/minion.

DrCyanide1 votes

Extra Smite Damage against enemy camps doesn't fix the problem, it just makes the item even more snowbally. More people might pick it up, but it still doesn't become an acceptable choice.

Teridax681 votes

I don't think Poacher's Knife really needs to do much more than it already does. If both the gold generation and on-kill restriction were removed (so smiting any enemy jungle monster will immediately halve the cooldown and give you a movespeed boost, regardless of whether or not you killed the monster in question), the item would work really well as a dedicated buff-stealer, and would allow for more reliable and less binary counterjungling (you still get rewarded for smiting an enemy minion even if you don't kill it).

Thighlander1 votes

The half cooldown is applied the moment you smite.

crippler381 votes

[{quoted}](name=Fade Into Memory,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=GvId3Fps,comment-id=00030000,timestamp=2014-12-11T16:21:30.073+0000) The half cooldown is applied the moment you smite.

I wonder how the half cd would work with the two charge system

Duke Anax1 votes

item 3711 is for counter jungling, meaning slowing down the enemy jungler specifically.

So how about giving it the abbility to smite only the enemy jungler? (enemy jungler being anyone with Smite)

That way if they manage to cut you off from their camps, you can still stop him directly, but it doesn't give you advatage against the lanes like item 3706 and item 3715 do.

Kingsgrave1 votes

The problem with Poachers is that jungle respawns are way too long.

junglerboy161 votes

Maybe give it something where it increases the power of the smite bonuses from ANY camp, but keeps the existing bonus in addition to that? something like: all smite bonuses are increased by 20% (Random number) and smiting and killing a large monster gives bonus gold, increased MS, and reduces smite's base cool down by 50%. Having an extra long lasting wolf ward would be great, or getting 20% increased damage from Gromp poison for dueling, or getting a bigger heal from red in a clutch fight. Any thoughts?

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted} Maybe give it something where it increases the power of the smite bonuses from ANY camp, but keeps the existing bonus in addition to that? something like: all smite bonuses are increased by 20% (Random number) and smiting and killing a large monster gives bonus gold, increased MS, and reduces smite's base cool down by 50%. Having an extra long lasting wolf ward would be great, or getting 20% increased damage from Gromp poison for dueling, or getting a bigger heal from red in a clutch fight. Any thoughts?

If it did like 3x more damage to dragon and even instant killing scuttle, it could be really useful.

TheKingDodo1 votes

Maybe instead of nerfing the other jungle items, riot should try buffing poachers instead? (except devourer and skirmisher's cos their nerfs are justified) inb4 OP makes riot nerf the entire jungle to oblivion. rip.

Ruzhy61 votes

Why not just have it give half the bonus if its used on a friendly jungle camp? Still gives incentive to invade enemy jungle, but isn't completely useless in your own.

DrCyanide1 votes

The bonus gold could be an issue, but it certainly could be looked at and tested on Riot's end.

There are many good answers to the problem, and the sky's the limit. It just needs something.

aperson11 votes

My idea would be

  • Remove the Gold and XP boost
  • Lengthen but lower the speedboost on camp kill, make it side-agnostic, and interruptible by champion damage.
  • Grant vision of the smited camp in a large radius (think clairvoyance) for 30 seconds. Maybe attach that vision to a destructible ward if need be.
  • CDR is still only if you steal enemy camps.

This makes it so you're not completely screwed if you can't find an opportunity to invade the enemy jungle, while lowering the potential for extreme snowballing, but still rewarding you for taking risks and going into the enemy jungle (in the form of useful vision and a reduced CD).

crippler381 votes

what if it made it so that damage from enemy jungle monsters is lowered while you have poachers? by like 5-10%? this would make smite stealing the big one more worth it since the little ones can't just murder your face

B1naryB0t1 votes

Actually, the Ohmwrecker got a buff to make it being used on allied towers buffs them, in an effort for people to buy it lol

DrCyanide1 votes

That never left the PBE. The Ohmwrecker in game does provide a movement speed boost near any tower/destroyed tower, but that's being carried over from the Raptor Cloak.

Acidic Puddle1 votes

See here is your main issue. You are completly forgetting the major point of the Poacher's Knife. It isn't that they are loosing camps or buffs or experience, but simply that they are getting poached. Poaching is a very important mechanic in the game and needs to be nerfed to the abusive power of poaching junglers.

DrCyanide1 votes

In order for it to be nerfed via the Poachers Knife, Poachers Knife needs to make sense as a purchase first. Otherwise the go-to "dial" on counter jungling is just for show, which results in Riot having to nerf counter-junglers individually.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by DrCyanide

The joke that is the "Clarity" design value
Gameplay162 comments
257
votes
@Riot: After you've fixed the Xerath exploit, could you do one more thing?
Gameplay36 comments
184
votes
So Skarner gets a rock...
Gameplay135 comments
173
votes
Why are AP Mages being turned into the only class that needs to recall late game?
Gameplay238 comments
170
votes
Wow! That jungle mob took 95% of my junglers health! Wait...
Report a Bug41 comments
139
votes
FINALLY!!! Yasuo rework confirmed!
Gameplay74 comments
124
votes