In another thread, RiotRepertoir said that they'd probably nerf the 'problematic' champs individually rather than the item. Now why nerf all of
and 
instead of just one item??? Even after these are nerfed, the next best will just rize. These champions have to be completely gutted in all builds that don't include devourer for them to be balanced with this item. That's just absurd.
if 7 of the top 10 junglers are devourer junglers, I suppose it would ring a bell. Sadly, Devourer remains broken for a 3rd patch in a row. By just looking at the statistics, it's undeniable that this item is broken.
- The best junglers currently (winrate and general performance) are all devourer junglers (elise is in top 5 too, but she's getting nerfed).
- On top of being a stacking item with a godly lategame power, Devourer is extremely cost-efficient on purchase. At 150% cost efficiency, it's THE MOST cost-efficient item, far more efficient than Warrior, which only has flat stats and is supposed to be an early game power item that falls of lategame (and boy does it fall off!) Compared to other AS items, this one is just absurd. I know it has to be really strong to make devourer junglers viable. Building an AS item early is counter-intuitive as it requires damage to be effective. However, with all devourer junglers sitting on top of the food chain, they may have overdone it, don't you think?
There are 2 options. Either nerf Sated Devourer or nerf Devourer before it becomes Sated.
A godly lategame is only justifiable by a weak early game. The initial Devourer stats were intended to be very strong because Devourer didn't have the godly lategame that Feral Flare had. However, with Sated, it currently does. Devourer was initially designed to keep AS junglers on par with other junglers throughout early and mid game. Since they currently rise far above them, they have to be weaker at some point. Currently, they're only weaker than Runeglaive junglers midgame, as this item is also broken to make mage junglers viable. Cinderhulk and especially Warrior pale in comparison to these 2 overlord items, just because more of the champs using these are more fit for the jungle, by design. Funny how these champs that are intended for the jungle are only just on par with "non-meta" junglers that use Devourer or Runeglaive.
In another thread I suggested 2 reasonable nerfs. One out of two would probably be enough.
- Reduce initial on-hit damage from 30 to 25 and increase the stacks required for sated from 30 to 35.
This will keep sated devourer exactly the same, but it will make the path towards it harder and longer. Currently, devourer junglers reach sated between 17-22 minutes. This is a very short time for non-devourer junglers to compete. Riot claimed that no other jungle item can compare to sated devourer in the lategame (when talking about cinderhulk). But is 18 minutes really lategame? All inner turrets are usually still alive when devourer gets sated. 5 less damage in the early-mid game will allow counterjungling (seriously, currently I don't even dare to enter Udyr or Shyvana's jungle because they screw me over when I see them) and make their early ganks less devastating.
OR
- Change the sated effect so it procs once every 3 hits instead of every 2 hits.
This mainly addresses the abusive cases who have multiple abilities and passives that proc on-hit while keeping the more balanced/off-meta (like Irelia) junglers who prefer high base stats of devourer over the sated passive viable. Nerfing the early game, like in the previous suggestion would probably hit these guys harder than the big 7 as they'll still have an uncompetable lategame. This change, however, will keep the essence of Devourer (softening the early-mid game for AS junglers, which was previously a very rough moment for them) while reducing some of the Feral Flare-ish lategame. I'm personally more of a fan of this one. Every 3 hits seems very reasonable to me, considering that Devourer is meant to be built with other AS items. If you want to argue here that some just don't survive for 3 hits long and need to burst the enemy in 2 hits, then I think the whole concept is a disaster since devourer is a DPS tool. Combining DPS with burst and you get
who got gutted for it.
tl;dr Devourer can't stay the way it currently is. Please don't nerf the champions because of it. One day you'll realize that the only option is to nerf the item and then all nerfed champions will have been for nothing and they'll probably be left as trash for atleast another season. It looks so much like the Kassadin rework where you first nerfed everything other than his mobility, then ended up nerfing the mobility anyways and leaving the guy crippled, instead of just nerfing the mobility first.
