Bar devourer, with the new Patience change I think the jungle will be nearly perfect
Good on you, Riot. This is definitely a step in the right direction for the jungle. Outside of the Ranged Devourer nerf (wtf?), this patch means a lot of good things for the jungle. The patience system is a lot more clear than leashes. No more will I have to worry about accidentally resetting aggro when trying to mess finish the large krug when we're both at 50 hp. And now Fizz can E without the monsters getting that one tick of heal. And now I can run away from gromp and not get executed by it when I'm already halfway to my inhib tower!
The only thing I could see needing a change now is devourer. Honestly, Sated is still gonna be too much. I'd really like to see something that, instead of AFK farming for bullshit damage is just like the other items and provides the damage upfront. If you want to keep magic damage you could always make it kind of like Wit's End, or if you wan't to keep in the theme of more damage for more autos, especially on higher hp targets, you could always make it kind of like BotRK.
Think about, every jungle item has or had it's mirror non-jungle item. Warrior is a better Brutalizer or even a weak Last Whisper. Runeglaive is a toned down Lichbane that gives more mana and AoE damage to monsters. Cinderhulk sacrifices early stat efficiency for you gold (notice how the aforementioned items are pretty gold efficient), but is a slightly better Sunfire Cape and also offers bonus HP and scales better into late game. Then we have Devourer, with is basically injecting steroids into BotRK, which you're of course going to buy so you can kill a 3k hp target in 2 seconds. There is in no way a lane equivalent. No laner can just AFK farm their creeps and magically appear at level 18 0/0/0 ready to 1v5. That's just boring Riot. The last week or so without devourer was great. I've seen literally every jungler you can imagine, and more. Amumu, Nidalee, Kha'Zix, Pantheon, Olaf, Fiddlesticks, AD MALZAHAR, Gnar, Karthus, Jarvan, Tahm Kench, Sejuani, Gragas, Fizz, Hecarim.
And the best part, is no jungler every seemed to be absurdly stronger for no reason. I could snowball as Hecarim w/ Smite/TP in the jungle, and I didn't even finish my jungle item, I went directly from Chilling into working on TriForce. You know god damn well if there was a Shyvana that game that would not have happened. I got to play Rammus and actually be tanky without a Master Yi melting my 4k hp with 300 armor and thornmail + my W and taunt in half of a nano-second.
And I even played devourer champions like Jax, Xin, and Yi. And you know what? Warrior ain't that bad on them. It's sad when my teammates literally were asking me "Yi, you know Devourer is disabled, right?" And fuck yeah I knew! And it was great! I had so much fun, I got to play a champion I honestly find fun to play and not be called a Freelo abuser in normals because of it.
As a jungle main, I honestly would not even be mad if Devourer was completely just removed. Hell, even if no item replaced it I'd be fine without an AS item. Literally every Devour champion has some fall back plan. The only one who I think can't just go warrior instead is Warwick, who can just go Cinderhulk and Wit's End/BotRK and be relatively fine. Honestly, and I don't think too many people will disagree, I think we should just get rid of a farm-promoting AS jungle item. When I jungle, I don't do it because I want to PvE, I want to just PvE a bit and then sway the lanes and mess with enemies. A jungler should be thinking "Oh you're winning that 2v2 bot, nah, Olaf says hello" and not "Oh boy got me Wulfz." You shouldn't be fearing the enemy Nocturne farming like a god damn Nasus in top lane, you should be worried that that mother fucker is gonna turn off your lights and have you panicking wondering who he's going for.
Leave the farming to Nasus and Veigar, guys, junglers need to be their to help their team, not be PETA's #1 enemy. A jungler should be more worried about stopping the enemy midlaner from pushing down your mid and not be worried about clearing his entire jungle and then just piddling around waiting for it to respawn.
