Poacher's Knife Discussion

Sincarnation · 2015-02-09T01:59:20.286Z

I'm hoping there is a red or someone willing to talk about this, because I have to ask if anything is being done to Poacher's to make it more viable. When I heard there was going to be a jungle item for counter-jungling I was super hyped, but then Poacher's came out and it was just underwhelming. I'm a Gold III (yay placements) jungle main with a secondary focus on mid lane, and the primary counter jungler I would/do play is Shyvana. http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-history/NA1/43063556?champion=102 So far it seems like every new jungle item except Poachers has had its time to shine, Stalker when it had 50% slow, Skirmisher on Warwick, and Rangers with the smite CDR. I would imagine this is due to the nature of the unique smites each one gives. Rangers - There is never a bad time for blasting smite, you can smite your own camps or lane minions and it is still good. Gives sustain and clear speed to anyone who needs it. Stalkers - There is rarely a bad time for chilling smite, it helps your ganks and can add some much needed utility to some champions. Rarely a time when you can't use chilling smite optimally which is simply aiding in a fight. Skirmishers - Largely the same as stalkers when it comes to useage, but this one has also seen a bit of a drop off since the changes. It is very strong in the 1 v 1 dueling situations it was intended to be used in, but it suffers from what I think is the same problem as poacher's except to a far lesser extent. Poachers - There is rarely a GOOD time for scavenging smite, and when you do get to counter jungle the punishment/reward isnt really there. This is a problem considering how much harder counter jungling is compared to the other smites, there are more situations where you can't counter-jungle. That seems to be the similar issue with skirmishers. There are times when the enemy team members are too strong to 1 v 1 and in that case your most of your jungle purchase basically was invalidated. With poachers the problem is the risk of encountering the other jungle, the chances of being collapsed on, and the chances of their camps being down aren't worth the reward/punishment when stacked with the fact that Poachers is the only smite that you can be completely shut out of using the effect other that it being smite. At least with skirmishers you can smite them for the damage reduction. Now I understand not decreasing jungle timers so as to keep counter jungling rewarding, but what about instead of making it more accessible making it more rewarding? Typically when I counter jungle the scavenging smite rewards are largely non-factors, I think most people counter-jungle when they know the position of the enemy jungler so the speed boost for the escape is rarely necessary. The +20 gold is nice, but unless you completely control their jungle and lanes to the point you can free farm their jungle, I would be surprised if someone got more than 200 gold from that part of the smite. Plus I feel counter jungling is more about denial than it is your own advancement even though it does both, but that might just be a personal feeling. The smite CD reduction is a step in the right direction. and it is something I think could be expanded. At that point if you arent worrying about the rewards why are you using Poacher's smite over Rangers? Here are my proposals for Scavenging Smite buffs, these are individual not both. Slash and Burn - Smiting an enemy jungle camp visibly scars the land, marking it, after the camp is fully cleared the spawn is delayed X amount of seconds. It could make it more difficult for you to use their jungle as a source of income, but it can be really punishing if the enemy jungler spends too much time out of his jungle. Famine - Killing an enemy jungle monster you smited refunds the smite charge (might consume the monster buff though) The idea here again is to really punish the enemy jungler for showing on the opposite side of the map without clearing their jungle. You could see their J4 top and just take their entire bot side jungle (assuming dragon is down or risky). The idea is to actually make junglers actually be leery of ganking while they have camps up. *If you don't want to go the more rewarding/punishing route maybe give Poacher's Smite ward charges. Vision helps the team and makes counter-jungling safer and more reliable while not making it assured. * Thats my 2 cents on the jungle items, and a bit on why Stalkers and Rangers are the main ones seeing use. Why don't you guys use Poacher's Knife? Do you want it to be viable why or why not? What are your ideas for buffs? Hopefully someone from Riot can give some insight. tl;dr- Poacher's smite risk vs reward isn't balanced by the difficulty of counter jungling and the possibility of shut out from their jungle. edit 10/13/15: Pre-Season is coming, maybe we can get some more discussion? edit 10/30/15: We did it? Tracker's Knife is the new Poacher's Knife edit 10/30/15: Bolded Ward Part

freeformlineFeb 9, 20152 votes

I think some element of vision control would be quite helpful. I really liked having the ward on the old Ancient Golem, so it would be cool to see something like that again, or perhaps a tool to counter vision, like a built-in sweeping lens. In any case, it's nice to see a Rioter contributing to boards discussions!

SincarnationFeb 9, 20156 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-02-09T03:57:41.093+0000)

I agree with a lot of what you've said here - I think Poacher's and Skirmisher's both suffer from the problem of being too narrow. I'd like to solve both as soon as possible (BIG WARNING: SIGNIFICANT ITEM CHANGES CAN TAKE TIME TO DELIVER!).

The hardest thing for Poacher's is that it's not clear what the payoff for counterjungling is supposed to be - we do see counterjungling happening this season, but it's opportunistically taking a camp here or there rather than a dedicated strategy, which is rather different from counterjungling strategies we've seen in the past (e.g. Season 2 Mundo/Shyvana). It's really cool, but not something I personally saw coming.

Assuming we embrace that direction for counterjungling, information control in some form makes a lot of sense for this item. Letting you know with better clarity when there are opportunities to invade is probably the single best thing we could give you in that world. There are some good suggestions in this thread - some others would include things like flat out giving the item a ward (recharge on smiting an enemy jungle monster?), ways to update minimap icons for camps you haven't seen (smite Scuttler, update all the jungle icons on that side of the map?), and a bunch of other stuff. Not sure exactly what the details will look like, of course.

Oh hey a wild red appeared, probably gonna get more views and hopefully more discussion now, thanks

Sadly I came in towards the end of season 2 and was too nooby to truly grasp what was going on, and it has always seemed strange to hear of counter jungling strategies. Though when i tried to relate that to the current jungle it seemed too unrealistic an idea for the non-professional scene, because you aren't in constant communication with your team I dont see how often/if ever that would work. It sounds like a strategy that either worked flawlessly, completely starving the enemy jungler when you were ahead or failed miserably resulting in numerous collapses and you getting starved. But those are just my thoughts from hearing about it.

Personally I'm really liking the information shift, and the idea someone added about the smite warding the camps with a 5 hit trinket ward sounded neat.

RiotRiot AxesFeb 9, 201510 votes

I'd caution that there are still some larger discussions about the role of counterjungling that really have to be settled before deciding on something like making Poacher's Knife grant vision - it's a promising direction that I'm starting to investigate but it's something that could easily turn out badly.

Glad to see discussion like this about it, though.

NarasimhaFeb 9, 20154 votes

If possible, I'd like to comment on what I think the biggest flaw with Poacher's is. Its a giant marker. It is literally saying to the enemy jungler "Hey. I'm going to live in your jungle, k?" The very fact that you get Poacher's to counterjungle hurts your ability to counterjungle because now, the enemy team knows your intentions. So my query is, would there be a way to rectify this situation? Some way of 'disguising' Poacher's, so that its not so painfully obvious?

Kowe The EwokFeb 9, 20152 votes

Maybe Poachers could increase the duration of non-red/blue buffs by 40%. And 65% it when used on an enemy camp.

This could be a great advantage for staying in the (enemy) jungle, but wouldn't be too obvious.

Cenobite AzazielFeb 9, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2015-02-09T04:38:56.484+0000)

I'd caution that there are still some larger discussions about the role of counterjungling that really have to be settled before deciding on something like making Poacher's Knife grant vision - it's a promising direction that I'm starting to investigate but it's something that could easily turn out badly.

Glad to see discussion like this about it, though.

In a map that everyone get a free trinket, don't you think that counter jungling is a bit risky? Since you can't use your smite on your raptors to clear the enemy jungle defensive wards (only if you have 2 smites saved, wich that means that you aren't farming, especially in early game where smite is amust have)?

Counter jungle won't leave the enemy jungler behind.He will catch up to you really fast with the whole jungle exp. Counter jungle used to work because EVEN if you didn't get a kill you would deny a lot of XP to the enemy jungle and you would get a lvl lead.

Another point is that buying the item is screaming out loud that you pretend to make ends meet in the enemy jungle, since you gave up on a free slow or a AOE clear that works better than poachers for clearing camps.

You should integrate poacher in skirmishers, nerf them a little bit, since you can counter jungle, choose to use the smite on the enemy jungle for a kill or just steal de buff (that isn't so worth it now days), or he can gank the lanes. It gives option to the junger.

Giving vision or a ward isn't a really good option, since there is already a PBE upgrade that giver a charges to the upgraded yellow trinket and a temporary ward for the blue trinket. More vision makes the game stale and rewards low awareness players.

If the design team still think that vision is a must, maybe give it a passive like warwick E or rengar ! sign ult. You can sense a machete when near your.

Keep up the good work.

AnOstrichWithPMSFeb 9, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2015-02-09T04:38:56.484+0000)

I'd caution that there are still some larger discussions about the role of counterjungling that really have to be settled before deciding on something like making Poacher's Knife grant vision - it's a promising direction that I'm starting to investigate but it's something that could easily turn out badly.

Glad to see discussion like this about it, though.

is there any chance that sightstone will eventually get enchantments similar to jungle items? nobody buys ruby sightstone

Duke AnaxFeb 9, 20151 votes

Personally I think all jungle items could benefit from an active. I explored some options for differentvision actives before, but didn't get much response : http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/wVksjuIn-jungle-items-could-use-an-active-how-about-vision

SinlaireFeb 9, 20154 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=000400010000,timestamp=2015-02-09T04:38:56.484+0000)

I'd caution that there are still some larger discussions about the role of counter jungling that really have to be settled before deciding on something like making Poacher's Knife grant vision - it's a promising direction that I'm starting to investigate but it's something that could easily turn out badly.

Glad to see discussion like this about it, though.

What if smiting smiting lower river crab updated the status of the mini map on which buffs are open for that area? smite dragon crab and it shows Gromp is up but blue and wolves are down but only at the time of the smiting. Smiting an enemy jungle monster could also set your min map for all of the jungle monsters in the area. you missed blue but killed the Gromp and now your Tab Timer and mini map know when it comes up like the enemy jungler, but only lasting until the next respawn. You would have to poach on red side in order to get the timers on that side as well.

This would allow an active counter jungler to be as aware of the respawn rotation as the enemy jungler is but they only get it if they're actively poaching. This prevents giving them too much free information as it only allows access to knowledge of 1 spawn rotation from the last poach on the side you poached.

This would also allow the poacher to be more aware of what they'll find in the jungle instead of running blind and allow them to more consistently and quickly poach.

That could also lead to an entirely different jungle play style if the poacher is actively keeping tabs on both sides of the jungle and consciously weighing benefits of which side to poach, when, and where, if what routes they'll need to run if they need to support or gank a lane along the way.

This could essentially allow a poacher to be an entirely different play style from a typical jungler and open up a different aspect of jungle diversity by actually promoting tactical counter jungling instead of just promoting camp stealing.

Spacesuit SpiffFeb 9, 20151 votes

I love this. Maybe even put the timers in the scoreboard overlay, two little ones below each buff.

GuardmanFeb 9, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-02-09T03:57:41.093+0000)

I agree with a lot of what you've said here - I think Poacher's and Skirmisher's both suffer from the problem of being too narrow. I'd like to solve both as soon as possible (BIG WARNING: SIGNIFICANT ITEM CHANGES CAN TAKE TIME TO DELIVER!).

The hardest thing for Poacher's is that it's not clear what the payoff for counterjungling is supposed to be - we do see counterjungling happening this season, but it's opportunistically taking a camp here or there rather than a dedicated strategy, which is rather different from counterjungling strategies we've seen in the past (e.g. Season 2 Mundo/Shyvana). It's really cool, but not something I personally saw coming.

Assuming we embrace that direction for counterjungling, information control in some form makes a lot of sense for this item. Letting you know with better clarity when there are opportunities to invade is probably the single best thing we could give you in that world. There are some good suggestions in this thread - some others would include things like flat out giving the item a ward (recharge on smiting an enemy jungle monster?), ways to update minimap icons for camps you haven't seen (smite Scuttler, update all the jungle icons on that side of the map?), and a bunch of other stuff. Not sure exactly what the details will look like, of course.

My suggestion is to combine Skirmishers and Poachers into one item somehow (probably with a slight rework of each). It would solve both of their problems, and it makes intuitive sense. If you are counterjungling you are more likely to be in a position to skirmish since you are in the enemy jungle.

TheFrozenIslesFeb 9, 20152 votes

I really like this idea. If i where the one to do it. It be called Challenging smite(as you are challenging the enemy for their land.) The smite will only work on people with smite or enemy side monster. It will still do mostly the same as challenging smite but in stead of revealed enemy's it give you the bonus movement.

So more or less it let you have a easier time farming monster(as you will take less damage and kill them faster) but you be doing it in the enemy side.

DrCyanideFeb 9, 20152 votes

I don't know if this has come up in your discussions at all, but I think the problem with item 3711 is similar to the problem with item 3056 .

Both items offer cool active stuff, but are limited geographically. The smite upgrade won't help you if you're on the defensive, and neither will disabling an enemy tower if you can't get close to it. Contrast this to other items which can be used anywhere on the map at any time.

A vision element to item 3711 would be useful at any point in the game, regardless of geography.

One potentially cool idea: rather than just handing out another ward to place on the map, what if Poacher's Knife let you see through the eyes of the re-spawned jungle camp you killed for X amount of seconds? This gives you a "deep ward" in the enemy jungle after you ventured there earlier, and can potentially open up opportunities to invade again later.

GixiaFeb 9, 20152 votes

Not sure whether this post would get more general exposure replying to you or the OP. Tough decision is tough!

So, I main jungle Shyvana, and ever since pre-season started, I have exclusively used poaching smite on her (with a very small handful of exceptions when my opponent is like, an Udyr or somebody similarly uncounter-junglable). These are my general thoughts and experiences using it.

The extra gold you gain from poaching an enemy camp is both very strong, and very hard to appreciate. Similar to auras actually. When it's happening, it doesn't feel like it's really having much of an impact, but at the end of the game I will consistently have the most gold overall of both teams, or very close to it, even when my score isn't especially great. If you can really get in there and take control of the enemy jungle, the gold gain is actually a HUGE benefit, but it doesn't feel as good or exciting as it actually should.

With the new smite charge system recently introduced, my early game invades allow me to take an entire section of the enemy jungle very quickly while being able to smite both (or even all 3 if blue/red is up) camps. Accumulating multiple jungle camp buffs is very easy this way, and on some rare occasions I've even managed having all jungle camp buffs simultaneously with it. And, as mentioned before, this can actually lead to huge gold gains. That said, this advantage tends to fall off as the game progresses.

My absolute favourite part of this smite though is the move speed buff. Holy hell is it fun. I love zooming around the enemy jungle with it, getting in and out faster than they know what happened. But the best is when they actually catch me in their jungle, and I kill the camp and race off too quick to be caught. Or even better, absolutely nothing is more satisfying than walking into the enemy jungle, walking right up to a camp while they're fighting it, stealing it with smite and running off in the blink of an eye. It is just so fun. More than anything else, I just love this huge move speed buff. It's incredibly satisfying and allows for some hilarious troll plays.

Those are all my positive experiences, now for the negative, and what I feel are the two biggest flaws of the poaching smite.

First, more than any other smite, scavenging smite has a tendency to fall off really hard late game. As the game goes on and my character becomes stronger, I can clear camps more easily and quickly. It reaches the point where earlier in the game I clear camps so quickly that I can't use smite on all of them anymore. This forces me to either deliberately slow down my clears (not a good idea when I'm in the enemy territory) or just accept that I actually get less of my smite's benefit later in the game. This is in contrast to the other smite's which generally still serve some use later on, whether it be to regen some hp/mana off of camps, or small form of CC or damage reduction in a fight. The poaching smite really only has value in the early game and very little late. Unfortunately, many junglers who wouldn't mind poaching smite are also the kind of junglers who want Devourer as their enchant, which means rushing the enchant as their first big item. Since a smite can't be exchanged for another one once it's enchanted, this means having to commit hard to it. Non-Devourer using junglers would at least have the option of saving their jungle enchant for a later item and swapping their smite out later, but they're also less likely to want to use scavenging smite in the first place. Simply being able to swap the poaching smite out for a different one even after it's been enchanted could go a long way towards helping its usability.

Which ties into the second big flaw with it, and that's that the poaching smite has no fallback pattern. Ranger's is always going to be efficient for farming, Stalker's and Skirmisher's will always have some sort of combat value, but if you or your team fall too far behind such that invading the enemy jungle becomes too great of a risk to afford, then Poacher's literally just does nothing at all. In that respect, it relies way too much on snowballing. You take it and you have to either go in there and dominate the enemy jungle, or it's just gonna get more and more useless.

All that said, while Poacher's does have some pretty serious flaws that need addressing, I'm gonna keep using it. Handled well and with a strong focus on warding, invading, and controlling the enemy jungle, it has the potential to be quite strong. Plus, seriously, that zoom zoom zoom move speed buff... Just so goddamned fun.

SincarnationFeb 9, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Not sure whether this post would get more general exposure replying to you or the OP. Tough decision is tough!

So, I main jungle Shyvana, and ever since pre-season started, I have exclusively used poaching smite on her (with a very small handful of exceptions when my opponent is like, an Udyr or somebody similarly uncounter-junglable). These are my general thoughts and experiences using it.

The extra gold you gain from poaching an enemy camp is both very strong, and very hard to appreciate. Similar to auras actually. When it's happening, it doesn't feel like it's really having much of an impact, but at the end of the game I will consistently have the most gold overall of both teams, or very close to it, even when my score isn't especially great. If you can really get in there and take control of the enemy jungle, the gold gain is actually a HUGE benefit, but it doesn't feel as good or exciting as it actually should.

With the new smite charge system recently introduced, my early game invades allow me to take an entire section of the enemy jungle very quickly while being able to smite both (or even all 3 if blue/red is up) camps. Accumulating multiple jungle camp buffs is very easy this way, and on some rare occasions I've even managed having all jungle camp buffs simultaneously with it. And, as mentioned before, this can actually lead to huge gold gains. That said, this advantage tends to fall off as the game progresses.

My absolute favourite part of this smite though is the move speed buff. Holy hell is it fun. I love zooming around the enemy jungle with it, getting in and out faster than they know what happened. But the best is when they actually catch me in their jungle, and I kill the camp and race off too quick to be caught. Or even better, absolutely nothing is more satisfying than walking into the enemy jungle, walking right up to a camp while they're fighting it, stealing it with smite and running off in the blink of an eye. It is just so fun. More than anything else, I just love this huge move speed buff. It's incredibly satisfying and allows for some hilarious troll plays.

Those are all my positive experiences, now for the negative, and what I feel are the two biggest flaws of the poaching smite.

First, more than any other smite, scavenging smite has a tendency to fall off really hard late game. As the game goes on and my character becomes stronger, I can clear camps more easily and quickly. It reaches the point where earlier in the game I clear camps so quickly that I can't use smite on all of them anymore. This forces me to either deliberately slow down my clears (not a good idea when I'm in the enemy territory) or just accept that I actually get less of my smite's benefit later in the game. This is in contrast to the other smite's which generally still serve some use later on, whether it be to regen some hp/mana off of camps, or small form of CC or damage reduction in a fight. The poaching smite really only has value in the early game and very little late. Unfortunately, many junglers who wouldn't mind poaching smite are also the kind of junglers who want Devourer as their enchant, which means rushing the enchant as their first big item. Since a smite can't be exchanged for another one once it's enchanted, this means having to commit hard to it. Non-Devourer using junglers would at least have the option of saving their jungle enchant for a later item and swapping their smite out later, but they're also less likely to want to use scavenging smite in the first place. Simply being able to swap the poaching smite out for a different one even after it's been enchanted could go a long way towards helping its usability.

All that said, while Poacher's does have some pretty serious flaws that need addressing, I'm gonna keep using it. Handled well and with a strong focus on warding, invading, and controlling the enemy jungle, it has the potential to be quite strong. Plus, seriously, that zoom zoom zoom move speed buff... Just so goddamned fun.

Baller, a fello Shyv player

I'm fairly certain the increased gold is just from the nature of shyvana being a power farmer not from the poacher's smite. Pretty much every game I play I feel stupidly far ahead, regardless of jungle item, just because I lived in both jungles, and remember you only get the gold when you smite their camps and assuming you only smite their camps (unlikely but lets roll with it) thats about an extra 20 gold per minute past the 4 minute mark. an extra 320 gold at the 20 minute mark which basically gets you boots. Your abundance of gold is just from taking the extra camps, the bonus gold doesnt contribute that much.

2.) The movespeed is fun but how often did you really need it? Sure its nice to zoom out at high-speeds but I know I'd be more than happy to trade it out for something more useful/relevant.

3.) Have you tried Skirmisher's Sabre on Shyv? I've been meaning to get around to it but just havent.

4.) What's your build order? Lately when I play Shyv now I usually go for rangers early for the sustain then swap it was stalkers right before I get devourer. Usually the extra clear speed from the devastating smite is just just as useful when im invading for farm, and then later I have some cc for when I invade for kills.

GixiaFeb 9, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Baller, a fello Shyv player

I'm fairly certain the increased gold is just from the nature of shyvana being a power farmer not from the poacher's smite. Pretty much every game I play I feel stupidly far ahead, regardless of jungle item, just because I lived in both jungles, and remember you only get the gold when you smite their camps and assuming you only smite their camps (unlikely but lets roll with it) thats about an extra 20 gold per minute past the 4 minute mark. an extra 320 gold at the 20 minute mark which basically gets you boots. Your abundance of gold is just from taking the extra camps, the bonus gold doesnt contribute that much.

Again, thanks to the charge system on smite, I'm able to smite both camps and clear their whole jungle within 15-30 seconds. Depending on my vision of the map and my knowledge of the enemy jungler's location and health, I may then rush straight to the other half of the jungle to take it as well. Then if I've got the timers on their buffs and can get 3 camps instead of just 2, again smiting all of them, that ends up being closer to 40-60 gold a minute than just 20, at least in the early game. Late game it is definitely a lot less than that, but if I do well in the early game that extra gold can really start a snowball going considering Shyv is fairly item dependent.

2.) The movespeed is fun but how often did you really need it? Sure its nice to zoom out at high-speeds but I know I'd be more than happy to trade it out for something more useful/relevant.

It's not so much how often I need it so much as it is what it allows me to do. Having that huge rush of MS allows me to make riskier plays and invades, as the enemy frequently isn't expecting it. Combined with how many junglers will use smite early on in what they expect to be a safe camp, it frequently lets me walk right up to them and take their camps from them while they're fighting them and still get away too quickly for them to try and stop me, and definitely too quickly for the enemy team to come back them up.

It also has the benefit of doing (a little bit) to make up for one of counter jungling's flaws. If you really want to focus hard and commit to stealing the enemy's camps to really deprive them of gold and exp, the amount of time you have to spend travelling to the enemy jungle, due to it naturally being further away than your own, can deprive yourself of what should be some of the extra benefit of having extra camps. The move speed buff helps negate a little bit of this by getting you back to your own jungle faster afterwards.

It also helps when sneaking an extra enemy camp on your way to some other objective. Passing by on my way bot lane for a gank? Just gonna grab these wolves real quick, the MS from killing them will get me there about the same time as if I never bothered, but with an extra camp's worth of gold and xp and a devourer charge. Team's on its way to help me do dragon? I'll just grab this frog real quick and I'll still get there faster than they will. Etc.

In fact, going back to the trouble of having to travel further to reach the enemy's jungle, and how useful I really do find the MS boost, I'd say that I would gladly trade away the extra gold portion of the smite, strong but invisible and unsatisfying, in order to have the MS boost proc off of your own jungle camps as well. Turn poacher's smite into a sort of mobility smite that helps counterjungling by allowing you to outmaneuvre your opponent on the map and move through both jungles more quickly.

3.) Have you tried Skirmisher's Sabre on Shyv? I've been meaning to get around to it but just havent.

It's generally my go-to smite when my opponent is someone that's too difficult to counter jungle, like Udyr. It's... alright I guess? Admittedly my tests with it aren't exactly the most useful, since I generally rely on it when I've already been counter picked so I'm playing with it in a bad situation. My problem with it is that, while it certainly makes it so you can win a 1v1 with just about anybody, it doesn't really do anything to stop them from just running away from you until it wears off, which is usually what happens, at which point it's like... What're you gonna do? Keep chasing them and risk their team coming to back them up? Or just leave them be and pretty much have just wasted your smite? If anything I find it's more useful in teamfights for extra dps, where the chaos going around doesn't always even make them aware they've been smited, and the fight going on makes them less likely to want to bail on their team.

4.) What's your build order? Lately when I play Shyv now I usually go for rangers early for the sustain then swap it was stalkers right before I get devourer. Usually the extra clear speed from the devastating smite is just just as useful when im invading for farm, and then later I have some cc for when I invade for kills.

Full disclosure, I play Shyv a bit... oddly. For one thing, I bring exhaust instead of flash, generally relying on Burnout and Ult to escape and using exhaust for some built-in CC, which Shyv generally lacks more than good escape tools. I rush Devourer with poaching smite, making only a boots 1 purchase and some wards along the way. After that I rush Randuin's Omen so that I can engage/aoe slow in teamfights and have a good survivability item early. If I haven't done it already, I'll make sure to get Mercury Treads next, getting ninja tabi only against teams that are both AD heavy AND CC light. Then Wit's End because it's cheaper than BotRK and it synergizes well with Devourer (and just Shyv's kit in general, since people underestimate that the majority of her damage is actually magic damage), unless the opposing team is really AD heavy, in which case I'll get BotRK instead since the MR of Wit's End becomes less relevant. Somewhere along the way, if I've got some extra gold to spend, I'll upgrade my boots with Alacrity since I put a lot of priority into being able to just maneuvre around the map as quickly as possible to both prioritize jungle camps for Devourer stacks while also being able to be there for teamfights (I generally only get Homeguard if my team is doing poorly and forced heavily onto defense), and I'll upgrade my ward trinket to drop pinks, so that I can use them to check for enemy wards while doubling as vision to know where the enemy team is later. Then Sunfire Cape, and my last item generally depends on how the game is going, how I'm doing, and how the enemy team is going. If I or my team is doing well, I'll typically get BotRK for overkill and to chase people down. If things are more even or we're doing poorly, I'll get a Banshee's Veil. Thornmail if the enemy team is very auto or AD centric or just has a super fed ADC. Frozen Mallet is a thing I used to buy a long ass time ago and I keep wanting to try again, but haven't really found a situation where I've needed it. I know a lot of Shyvs build Spirit Visage, but I never do. I generally get enough MR from Wit's End, and I'm not a big fan of the item on champs with no built-in sustain to better capitalize on the passive.

Drunk RummateFeb 9, 20152 votes

[{quoted}](name=Riot Axes,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=K9iPZAb7,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-02-09T03:57:41.093+0000)

I agree with a lot of what you've said here - I think Poacher's and Skirmisher's both suffer from the problem of being too narrow. I'd like to solve both as soon as possible (BIG WARNING: SIGNIFICANT ITEM CHANGES CAN TAKE TIME TO DELIVER!).

The hardest thing for Poacher's is that it's not clear what the payoff for counterjungling is supposed to be - we do see counterjungling happening this season, but it's opportunistically taking a camp here or there rather than a dedicated strategy, which is rather different from counterjungling strategies we've seen in the past (e.g. Season 2 Mundo/Shyvana). It's really cool, but not something I personally saw coming.

Assuming we embrace that direction for counterjungling, information control in some form makes a lot of sense for this item. Letting you know with better clarity when there are opportunities to invade is probably the single best thing we could give you in that world. There are some good suggestions in this thread - some others would include things like flat out giving the item a ward (recharge on smiting an enemy jungle monster?), ways to update minimap icons for camps you haven't seen (smite Scuttler, update all the jungle icons on that side of the map?), and a bunch of other stuff. Not sure exactly what the details will look like, of course.

Have you guys considered using it as a punishing your opponent style? EX: increase the spawn timer on camps taken by poachers rather than giving gold rewards to limit the gold income of the enemy jungler? Seems like that would be an awesome counter strategy to farm junglers like Yi or Udyr.

EstebanElGuapoFeb 19, 20151 votes

Another idea similar to this, would be added effect above what poacher's knife currently does could be:

That Poacher's Knife disables the Smite Buff of a smited large camp upon respawn.

Example: You smite enemies Big Raptor and get the (Razor Sharp / True Site) buff you normally get from it. You clear the remaining small raptors or the enemy does. Later he comes by and it has respawned he smites it and the smite buff doesn't work. You had disabled it on respawn from your having poached it the prior time. Though once cleared, the followup respawn it works as normal, It is not permanently disabled, that would be rough.

Another Example, enemy is a type of champion that is often having trouble sustaining when clearing, and relies on the Red BrambleBack smite buff of 20% of max health to help clear the camp, yet you had counter poached it on the prior spawn so nothing happens for him on this respawn and he ends up potentially having trouble making it through the clear, having to back out and recall or dieing, etcetera.

I notice at a site that talks about these smite buffs it seems there are some visual effects that give away whether a smite buff is available or not. So I guess it won't be a surprise unless they leave the visual effect intact to surprise the enemy when the smite buff fails to occur or he just gets to notice that it is missing and knows he won't get it but needs to clear his jungle anyway. I also guess you would need a 'poached' sound effect or visual effect on failure to illustrate that it wasn't a random game bug, but that he had been poached.

I know under normal circumstances, if one jungler smites a camp but doesn't clear it, the smite buff will be inaccessible to the other jungler, but i'm extending it via poacher's knife to the next respawn as well. Also so as not to punish the poacher, the next buff's smite buff is always accessible regardless of whether poached and potentially even when smited by enemy to someone possessing a poacher's knife but only when used in opposing camps.

One other idea unrelated and separate to the above and similar to the idea of having a ward like the old spirit of the ancient golem jungle item:

Instead of any of the above, the poacher's knife could have an active ability on high cooldown to set and lay a trap which becomes invisible after 1 second. The trap gives vision if it is stepped on, and applies a short duration slow. Similar to laying a teemo shroom. The goal is just to cover one point of entry or exit of a jungle to make it safer for yourself to enter and counterjungle and exit safely, incase there is a chance it is warded or occupied.

Two separate ideas. Not cumulative.

The EllimiistFeb 9, 20151 votes

Don't forget that they were buffs indirectly early. I tend to grab poachers early and switch it for free later. Ofc that doesn't really help Skirmisher's which is bad only because the champions it's good on are weak in the jungle (that is sustained dps dealers who would use Skirmisher's)

I think the best option would be to allow switching jungle items even after the entire item is complete. Cuz lets face it, poachers is never going to be better than an alternative that actually helps in ganks/fights past the early game.

(My kinda lame idea for poacher information giving would be a sort of tremor sense for jungle mobs but that would make counter jungling maybe too effective as you notice a creep dieing = enemy jungler position)

AesheronFeb 10, 20151 votes

Personally, I think splitting the jungle roll into 3 categories is better than the 4 presented. In my mind, jungling is broken into killing laners, killing jungler, or killing neutrals. Diving neutrals into "yours" and "theirs" seems pointless to me. If I had my way, the killing neutral tree would give a higher damage smite, this let's farmers clear faster, gives reduces time vulnerable while counter jungling, and keeps the buff relevant in late game for objectives when the aoe stun on the trailblazer becomes useless.

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