Let's Talk Devourer and Magus

This season, we've seen the jungle go through so much fluctuation, more than any season I can think of in recent memory. All of the changes to the various smites early, the instant dominance of Warrior, the advent of Nidalee's rise, and the release of Cinderhulk... All of these phases (if you can call 1 champion a phase) offered completely different playstyles to junglers. You could be a bruiser. You could be a tank. You could be an assassin. It's been a very interesting year, even if learning a new playstyle every couple of weeks could be a little frustrating. Despite all that, there are two enchants that aren't quite up to par with their counterparts, and I think it should really be addressed, so I wanted to take a moment to break down my thoughts on the matter.

Magus Magus is an interesting choice for jungle items. It's so versatile at the moment, which may be a detriment. You can buy it on Diana and feel good, but also on tanks like Amumu. To that end, I'm simply going to say that while it's nice to have options, tanks should primarily want Cinderhulk, not Magus, and limit the focus of the item to champions who should want it: mages. And even that is difficult to quantify. How to you put together an item that can be used on champions like Diana and Elise alike? That is part of what makes Magus difficult to itemize

Now, I actually think that the stats on Magus are pretty good. You're essentially getting Morellonomicon... but without the mana regen and the passive. Frankly, the passive is kind of a nice bonus on Morellonomicon, but it's not the end of the world that it's missing. I think that a much larger issue is the missing mana regen, and for several reasons. In order to combat the mana issue, one of the easiest things you can do is buy Ranger's Trailblazer. Getting back 15% of your missing health and mana... that's just good no matter what your jungle role is. And while I don't want to trivialize the smite choice, other roles are less dependent on their mana (except for perhaps Elise and Diana), making Trailblazer less of a necessity. Therefore, one option to buff up Magus is to give it some way to restore mana to the jungler, introducing flexibility to the jungler. It frees up the jungler to trade off blues without feeling hampered, clear camps faster (which means more higher health out of the jungle) and allows you a way to restore your mana pool beyond simply returning to base. And of course, you can pick up one of the other smites, if you wish. Frankly, I'm partial to the old Spirit Stone passive myself, because it introduces more choice between faster clearing and more mana return instead of just free power. And perhaps most importantly, it really gives the item parity with Morellonomicon, which along with Tear of the Goddess, Athene's Unholy Grail and Rod of Ages, really are defacto first buys for almost every mage and they all provide some form of mana sustenance.

There's other options as well though. For instance, Elise would love some magic penetration on the item, in line with many of the other bruisers. Or simply giving it an offensive based passive would certainly bump it up a little. Introducing some defensive strength as well would work too, but that may encroach upon Cinderhulk's territory. It's hard to find a core item to go with that is acceptable across all mages, but I believe this is close and ultimately providing power in an area beyond offensive capabilities is probably the best option.

Devourer Before we get into Devourer's changes, a long hard look needs to be taken at what the purpose behind the item should be. Frankly, I think the only reason Devourer exists at all is because it is a hold over from the evolution of a once great relic: Wriggle's Lantern, or as most people think of it now Feral Flare. This used to be the jungling item. It gave you damage, sustain, armor, and vision all in one nice package. Now it's a strange item to say the least. The whole premise behind Devourer is that you sacrifice some power early to gain scaling potential later on. It's supposedly geared toward hard farming, auto-attack focused carry junglers. But I'm simply going to state the obvious here: it falls flat on almost all fronts.

Devourer is a failed item. The notion that you sacrifice your early power spike to be stronger later simply doesn't jive with a jungler's role, as a jungler is strongest early in the game when they can make the most impact. It's much harder to make an impact as a jungler later in the game (but not impossible). Not only that, the champions it's meant for (like Master Yi and Tryndamere) are more likely buy Warrior's Enchant because the item is so weak. And the premise of the item is faulty at best because if you want to hard farm the jungle to carry the game later, you don't need to mortgage your early power to do so. End rant. Let's get on to making Devourer more useable, which is a lot easier than it may seem.

If you look at the champions that want Devourer, there's almost always one item that unites them. Think about it, what item does Jax, Trundle, Master Yi, Shyvana, and even Twitch all share? Blade of the Ruined King. And Devourer is already a close match for BotRK. But while it has 10% more attack speed, the lack of in-combat sustain is devastating. To kill two birds with one stone, replace Devourer's scaling passive with one that actually works. On release, Blade of the Ruined King didn't have life steal. It was all bound up in the passive that stole a percentage of health from its target on hit. Give that to Devourer, and your problems are solved. It would scale over time, becoming more valuable as players have gain more health and it has the added bonus of being a strong answer to Cinderhulk from the jungle. Can it be as strong as Blade? No, it costs a whole 1000 gold less. But it can be awfully close. (And the passives would need to be unique, obviously).