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@Meddler, Can we talk about Cinderhulk?

Asyde·4/20/2016, 11:19:09 PM·7 votes·2,666 views

**Enchantment: **Cinderhulk Unique Passive - Immolate damage changed to [7 + 2 per level] from [15 + 0.6 per level]

Help me understand why RIOT decided that Cinderhulk needs to be nerfed. It is already vastly inferior to Sunfire Cape, or any other tank item for that matter in just about every way.

Let's talk about the damage: Increasing the base damage but lowering the scaling was obviously intended to buff early game clears while reducing it's late game damage. Thanks, i guess... But you've actually lowered the mid/late game damage by 40%! WHAT?!

You've gone from 43 damage per second (matching sunfire cape @ lvl 18) to 25.8 damage per second @ lvl 18. Do you feel the late game damage was oppressive? any more so than Sunfire Cape? If so, why not target Sunfire Cape as well?

**EDIT: WHELP! This is embarassing, I read the changes to the damage backwards. RIOT is increasing the damage from 25.8/sec to 43/sec to match sunfire. Thank you RIOT! **

Let's talk about the health: Currently the health is 400 +15% bonus HP. 400 is an acceptable amount of health if the scaling was larger, but while 15% sounds like a lot, it literally provides LESS effective health, in a 5 HP item build, than a SINGLE HP/Armor item. Yes you heard me correctly. While part of the tradeoff for this item is that it provides jungle benefits, even at a level 18 HEAVY hp build, its less effective than any other tank item.

The math (please correct me if i'm wrong): item 3068 500hp + 50 Armor (500 x 1.5) = 750 Effective HP (against ad) with 43/second aura. item 3742 500hp + 50 Armor (500 x 1.5) = 750 Effective HP (against ad) with movespeed / stacking charge. item 3143 500hp + 60 Armor (500 x 1.6) = 800 Effective HP (against ad) with 10% reduction from crits, active movespeed slow, and passive attack speed slow. item 3083 850 Effective HP + hp regen & passive health regen above 3k HP.

item 3102 500hp + 70 MR (500 x 1.7) = 850 Effective HP (against magic) w/ HP regen and passive spell shield. item 3065 500hp + 70MR (500 x 1.7) = 850 Effective HP (against magic) w/ HP regen, 10% CDR, and 20% increase to healing received.

NON-SCALED: ITEM ONLY item 1401 400 hp + 15% bonus hp (400 + (400 x .15)) = 460 Effective HP (against all types) w/ no armor or MR, w/ 25.8/second aura, smite, and jungle benefits.

SCALED Let's look at a typical cinderhulk tank build (Volibear): item 3009 item 1401 item 3742 item 3065 item 3053 item 3075

The total base/bonus hp of this build is 1900. with the 15% increase from cinderhulk (285hp), that brings the effective HP cinderhulk provides in this build to 685 without any armor or MR. Notice it does NOT outscale any of the effective hp stats of the tank items listed above in terms of HP.

How much bonus HP would it take to actually make the effective health of cinderhulk equal (but not better) than sunfire/deadmans? (lowest effective hp of tank items). 2333.33 bonus HP. You would literally have to have 4x 500+HP items plus cinderhulk in order to BARELY make cinderhulk as tanky as any other tank item in the game.

I know most people don't do the math like this, but this boils down to the item feeling very underwhelming as a good choice for the jungle. So I'm perplexed as to why RIOT feels it needs to be toned down even further when it is already an underpowered item.

Does anyone else feel the same? Why does this need to be nerfed out of existence?

21 Comments

RiotRiot Sotere4/20/2016, 11:31:50 PM12 votes

You've gone from 43 damage per second (matching sunfire cape @ lvl 18) to 25.8 damage per second @ lvl 18. Do you feel the late game damage was oppressive? any more so than Sunfire Cape? If so, why not target Sunfire Cape as well?

I think you're reading these changes backwards.

TheLastBaron884/21/2016, 12:16:07 AM1 votes

I do feel like OP is right about the HP scaling on cinderhulk though. In fact, it kinda bugs me that most of the jungle items are just a weaker version of another existing item one might build on a laner. I mean, as a jungler, even with all the crap you're expected to do to have an impact on the game, and serious shortage of consistent gold income (a jungler that isn't snowballing off of kills has to fight to farm enough camps to stay ahead of a Support's gold income), resulting in junglers completing their build later than any laner, which is all fair, mind you... but considering all of that, shouldn't it feel like your jungle item isn't just filling in a slot while you complete the rest of your build, only to be sold for its better version later?

In regards to Cinderhulk specifically, having a tank jungler means several things. If they're your only major tank, this means that while their early and mid game significance is derived from solid gank pressure, their objective control and ability to farm vs more aggressive jungles is a given compromise. Cinderhulk's damage serves to allow them to farm at a reasonable speed once they have it, but the actual stats otherwise fail to really make up for what you are missing by not putting your tank in top lane to get all that juicy minion gold. So maybe in the past Cinderhulk has made for some overwhelming mid game tanks, but maybe it could be allowed to grant the powerspike of faster clearing early, and tankier tanks in the late game?

Venowolf4/21/2016, 3:08:31 AM1 votes

Maybe something like 350 hp and 20% extra hp could be a good solution!