450g for 100g+300g and then sells for 180g grants a grand total of 130g... The item has insane risk for no combat stats and extremely little reward. Either make it build into something (won't happen) or just straight up buff it across the board, obviously not Doran's Blade status, but needs some big buffs to it (big for a starting item).
DREADN0UGHT15 votesI don't see what it is that people hate about cull. I like the item...
Same price as dblade, same sell price as dblade.
3 life on hit is meh, 400 extra gold at 100 cs. For a safe adc like cait or ashe its not that horrible.
I mean u end up selling Dblade so why not go for cull and make a little extra on the side? It would be unfair to give cull combat stats imo. It would overkill Dblade.
I find that harrassing and zoning with your supports help and creating a 20 - 30 cs gap is a fine way of using the items passive to create a decent gold advantage.
Then again im a scrub.
Stacona5 votesits only 130gold which is why Doran's Blade is a vastly superior in all aspects is because Cull's reward is just not there; if the reward was greater than it would pay off better giving up early game power Doran's Blade
Myozthirirn11 votesCULL +130 gold
VS
DBLADE -270 gold
PBnJelly3 votesIf you're willing to sacrifice your early game for +130g like 15 minutes into the game then go ahead and buy Cull. Although Longsword is better early and accomplishes being a starting item that focuses on past laning phase better than Cull.
RisenDarkKnight2 votesIt's not +130 gold it's net + 400 gold more than if you would have bot d blade. And it still gives you almost the same stats as Doran's (except for the 70 hp which is really minor after lvl 1). + 3 life on hit is more than you get from the doran's blade until after your first recall. Sure, long sword and 3 health potions is good too, but the 3 life on hit really adds up.
ZephyrDrake1 votesIt's not +130 gold it's net + 400 gold more than if you would have bot d blade. And it still gives you almost the same stats as Doran's (except for the 70 hp which is really minor after lvl 1). + 3 life on hit is more than you get from the doran's blade until after your first recall. Sure, long sword and 3 health potions is good too, but the 3 life on hit really adds up.
what 400 gold? you need to buy the item and sell it, you get 400 gold from the item, then you have no other option but to sell it since it does nothing for you once you reach the cap. The 3 life on hit get more irrelevant the more lvls you gain while the 3% lifesteal gets more useful. You can sit on doran's until you absolutely need the slot and even buy multiples when you are behind, cull? it does nothing when you get behind for you. 5 AD is doing nothing for you and trades are in favor of the doran user thanks to the extra health and like you said the 3% lifesteal even at early lvls do stack up. You will get more in general for the first 3 lvls but after that? low usefulness of cull starts going down the drain since the 3% lifesteal starts getting better and better. You are severely underestimating how big the extra 80 HP is and how useful it is to have an item that you can just buy, sit on it until you absolutely need to sell it instead of worrying about selling it since it's just a wasted slot the instant the stacks are gone
RisenDarkKnight3 votesYou lose 270 gold when you sell doran's blade and you gain 130 (accounting for the 400 you earn) when you sell cull. Therefore you have 400 more gold when you sell cull then when you sell doran's all other things being equal. 80 health does not help you with trades in any way, just with an all in. You don't do more damage or lose less health because you have 80 more max health therefore it doesn't help you trade.
ZephyrDrake2 votesYou lose 270 gold when you sell doran's blade and you gain 130 when you sell cull. Therefore you have 400 more gold when you sell cull then when you sell doran's all other things being equal. 70 health does not help you with trades in any way, just with an all in. You don't do more damage or lose less health because you have 80 more max health
go ahead and buy cull every single time then, i'll laugh when you die and the enemy survives with less than 80 HP. Go buy your noob trap item
RisenDarkKnight1 votesIf it's such a noob trap why do LCS/Challenger players frequently buy the item? Sure they try new things and aren't perfect, but they all seem to think it's a solid choice based on the streams I've watched. They still sometimes buy doran's on certain champions. I think it's a legitimate choice between the two items and buffing cull would make it just better than doran's because both items offer such similar combat stats. They could buff the gold generation if they made it less similar to dblade.
ZephyrDrake1 votesIf it's such a noob trap why do LCS/Challenger players frequently buy the item? Sure they try new things and aren't perfect, but they all seem to think it's a solid choice based on the streams I've watched. They still sometimes buy doran's on certain champions. I think it's a legitimate choice between the two items and buffing cull would make it just better than doran's because both items offer such similar combat stats. They could buff the gold generation if they made it less similar to dblade.
i have yet see anyone start cull at all, it's at most an item they get on their first back if they were forced to back early. Cull as it stands right now is a terrible starting item since DBlade's stats are way much more useful at the start and if you backed at an actual good time then there's no reason whatsoever to pick Cull since you can just get an actual item... not to mention that if you are actually behind buying cull will only set you even further back since the stats it provides are laughable (5 AD) and do nothing for you when behind for such a pitiful reward while DBlade gives you plenty of stats that are actually useful for you in combat. Cull is a noob trap of an item that is best bought when you are forced back early and buying it won't set you further behind
RisenDarkKnight1 votesNo one builds as a second item lol it's a starting item.
peachplumpear4 votes70 health does not help you with trades in any way
If you both take 300 damage during a trade then the person who had the 80 HP starting item is probably going to have more HP left than you. 80 HP is a huge difference early game. 80 HP is more than 10% of your max HP at level one. You also lose 3 damage.
Zair Umbras3 votesIf you're last hitting and playing passively or you've got a good early game so that THREE AD and some health aren't as needed, then you can easily get the Cull and do incredibly well. Given the fact AP supports can now carry a lane while supports like Soraka, Taric, and Nami can stale-mate a lane and turn it into a farm fest, it's not hard to get a Cull over a Doran's and do perfectly fine, which in turn makes you do better than your enemy since they'll likely have a Doran's.
Llanite7 votesNO, you sacrifice 400g in exchange for 80 HP and 3 AD during the first 15 minutes of the game.
For Doran, you lose 270g when you sell the thing. leaving net loss of 270g.
Doran: 80 HP, 8 AD, 3% life steal, -270g when you sell it Cull: 5 AD, 3 health on hit, +130g when you sell it.
The difference is 80 HP, 3 AD vs 400g.
LynXerf3 votesits only 130gold which is why Doran's Blade is a vastly superior in all aspects is because Cull's reward is just not there; if the reward was greater than it would pay off better giving up early game power Doran's Blade
Not really, here's the real math:
Doran's blade upon sell: 180-450 = 270 gold paid for the early game stats. Cull upon sell: (400+180)-450 = 130 gold GAINED along with the slight damage and sustain stats.
Obviously its a net advantage of 400 gold over Doran's Blade.
So the math makes sense that it's a good buy in a passive lane, but I agree that it feels a little underwhelming. Personally I think it should be tweaked to give 2 gold per kill and gain 250 gold upon completion. This way, it's a small buff of 50 gold of course, and if you are forced out of lane early or on your first back, you have a little more gold to play with.
Dominick Destine14 votes{quoted} The item has insane risk for no combat stats and extremely little reward.
No combat stats? you mean damage and HP regen are not combat stats?
I understand if you mean worse combat stats than Doran's Blade, but that's the very point of Cull.... inferior early game for a superior pay-off mid game. Get Cull when you are paired with a passive support like Soraka or Janna, get a lead against the aggressive engage enemies and win mid/late. It is perfectly balanced.
Stacona6 votesIt can be weaker than Doran's Blade, but if it is drastically weaker with no real reward then its a noob trap to buy the item
delonix4 votesThe reward can be found by directly comparing Doran's Blade and Cull.
Doran's Blade: 8 AD, 80 health, 3% Lifesteal, 450g cost
Cull: 5 AD, 3 life on hit, 400g over 100 cs, 450g cost
Instead of thinking of Cull as having a tiny 130 gold payoff, you should think about how it compares to Doran's Blade. Yes, it has 3 less AD, it has no health, and the on hit healing doesn't scale as well as lifesteal. On the other hand, you get 400 gold that you wouldn't get if you bought Doran's Blade. If you can keep up in farm and not die a bunch with Cull, you should take Cull. The on-hit healing is actually better than the lifesteal at early levels.
Hinagiku334 votesBut you get that extra gold after quite a long time and then are stuck with a worthless item taking up a slot. And the whole time you are down stats compared to what you could have. Is that little bit of gold worth it if you are weaker in lane and give up First Blood?
The problem is opportunity cost - if the benefits don't out-way the downsides (if the risk pays off at all) then it's always a bad item to buy.
EcchiOtakuTM1 votesIt needs to not disable the passive, however take note it's not for when you're trying to farm champions (Win your lane) however it's for when you know you might lose lane so you want to play it safe and farm
PrinceOfStorms1 votesIt's weaker than Doran's Blade once you get 100 AD.
Scrambled Anivia7 votesyou guys prolly forgot. so lets give an example.
enemy start: dorans blade you start: cull
100cs later. lets say every minion was 20g
enemy: 2000+180 dblade resold.
you:2000+300+100+180 cull resold.
then you factor in recall timing and out csing.
it sounded like you guys were saying the one who went dblade could build an item out of it.
Stacona3 votesthe one with doran's blade has kill potential, which a kill in a duo lane is guaranteed 450 gold, Cull only has 400 gold - but you can only make 130g, its stats are not even half its gold value at 450g - so you lose gold with cull no matter what
RisenDarkKnight6 votesThe 2 extra AD and 70 extra health does not give kill potential on its own. Champion choice by both support and ad, jungler ganks, mechanical plays/player skill, and other factors make way, way more of a difference in who has kill potential. You definitely give up the 400 gold for getting doran's blade instead of cull to bank on a small chance that the extra combat stats get you a kill you otherwise wouldn't have gotten.
Example: One team has a soraka support, the other a janna support. The chance of either team getting a kill in lane are low, so cull is probably the superior choice for both adcs. With more aggresive supports vs weak early game adcs and supports with low peel/sustain doran's blade is a solid start, but cull really doesn't need buffs. It would be too OP at high elo where players reach 100 cs very quickly ( and die/fight less frequently).
Sasogwa5 votesIt should be sellable for the same price than what it costed if you collected all the stacks. (huge buff, so possibly nerf the 300g reward) Or just let it be able to farm gold indefinitely. 1 gold per creep isn't huge anyway, especially since it works only on creeps.
Stacona4 votesHonestly 100% sell value and +2 gold per minion kill would be better and remove the 300 gold at 100 (still grant the same 400 gold maximum); but uncapping it is bad as I am pretty sure Riot doesn't want eternal farming on the item- or just make it 100% sell value so the 400 bonus gold is actually 400 bonus gold
willuwontu5 votesGonna Copy pasta from another thread that I've said this on already. Note that I am not quoting this thread's OP but this thread's
The potential gold you can get from Cull is 100+300+180= 580 - 450 = 150 G. So you get 150 G if you cs perfectly at 11 minutes and if you forsake the extra stats of the a Doran's Blade. 150 G. That's practically nothing, but that's your **potential **gain.
The potential gain you get from a doran's blades is 450 - 180 = -270. Meaning you take a gold loss. Also learn math 580 - 450 = 130. meaning using only what's listed only the item's, you are up 400g from your opponent by taking cull and finishing it.
On the other hand, if you opt to start a Doran's blade instead, you get 80 HP and +3 AD and 3% lifesteal that greatly compliments the new mastery changes and can scale. These small stats that you gain by choosing Doran's Blade instead of Cull are vastly, immensely, and exponentially more valuable than the measly 150 G.
Cull gives 5 AD and 3 life on hit. Now early game 3 life on hit is more effective than 3% lifesteal as you need 100 AD to break even (if they have 0 armor) for lifesteal compared to life on hit. In addition cull gives you money to set you up for the late game. Now in the bot lane it's more efficient to take doran's blade as you remain in lane longer (and thus have more gold and time to reach that 100 AD). However cull is aimed more at top and mid laner's who tend to have more farming efficiency and tend to back earlier to buy. The HP of doran's in nice, but with the fact that cull has superior early sustain, on top of the sustain that top laners normally have this makes it a better item for most ad top laners and a decent item for certain AD mid matchups.
Most people hang on to their Doran's for a long time. That's how valuable and gold efficient it is. The lane phase power that Doran's Blade offers is too much to ignore. Why would anyone want a potential +150 G when they might lose just as much or even more gold because they were denied CS in lane as a result of Cull being weaker than Doran's Blade?
Another big reason most people hold on to Doran's Blade for a long time because if they sell it, they are taking a loss in money value of items. So even though they may be up by 300 gold on the other laner in terms of gold they've made, if they sell doran's blade to buy something they're just putting their actual item value at the same level as their opponents. Also they hold onto it because they tend to have room for it in their inventories and it doesn't make sense to get rid of it when it doesn't cost them anything to do so. (Same reason people hold on to cull after it's passive has finished, except you don't feel bad for selling it, unlike doran's blade)
If cull could upgrade, however, then it might actually be worth while. It makes sense for it to upgrade into Vampiric Sceptre both stat wise and visually even. So, why doesn't it?
Riot's done plenty of posts of this (you can check old forums for them), the reason starting items don't build into anything is because they are extremely stat efficient at the cost of losing gold when you sell them later. Cull merely provides it's stat efficiency in the form of giving you gold.
LatetotheRace4 votesI'm not sure what real "risk" it has. It's just a starter item similar to doran's blade, but just a different option. Also the difference isn't all that noticeable if really at all.
LVL 5 PORO3 votesIts fine. You just don't understand how to use it.
SrirachaLimes2 votesI disagree. Doran's Blade has better stats, but the advantage of Cull is that it gives you weak stats with an actual profit. Doran's doesn't pay itself off in terms of gold, but Cull does. It nets a profit in terms of gold. When you sell Doran's, however, you still haven't paid off the cost you bought it for. Yeah you get the stats instead, but it's just whatever you prefer.
Yaksha2 votesNot every lane has early game kill pressure It's an item for people who want to play safe and slow build an advantage
Kaeblen2 votesI already use 
.
If I were to change something on it, I would start with +2 gold on CS, and only 200 bonus gold on completion. (net 0 change in income)
Make that change and then we'll talk about stat adjustments.
Sword of Silence1 votesI think they should just make it cost less to make up for he lack of sustain and combat stats. This will leave room for more potions so people can make use of its farming passive for a longer amount of time in lane.
Kaipop1 votesriot already responded saying they are going to buff it in the preseason q and a
Omiwom1 votesCull is not exactly a healthy item. It can't become top-tier. Games will be farm fests and harass will be ignored with the sustain it provides if it does. However it should be an option for those who have a preferred playstyle or want to change things up. It's tricky to balance but I'd rather have it below viable than a top-tier item.
Bârd1 votesLook at it this way
Dorans blade costs 450, and sells for 180: a net loss of 270 gold Cull, as you mentioned, grants a profit of 130 gold
Buy purchasing Cull instead of Dorans, you save 400 gold, the same amount of gold that First Blood gives.
On a side note, Cull grants more sustain than Dorans until you have 100 AD (unless you have an ability that procs lifesteal).
RyzeRework1 votesCull is actually getting a buff. I think it should be like the old blades with 5 hp on hit
C9 Scott Free 1 votesNot to mention Doran's blade actually scales into mid game with the vamp mastery so you get 5% life steal.
Miku Lv991 votesLong Sword is a better start seeing that it gives a good bit more attack and lets you start with 2 more biscuits and more damage, plus it builds into things. And yet there doesn't seem to any significant disadvantage to the Long Sword start, except a tiny bit of gold but it doesn't really seem worth it.
Llanite1 votesCull if you want to farm. Doran if you want to fight.
Everything has its place and the difference isn't even that big, 80 health + 3 AD vs 400g. If they buff Cull, even just mere 3 AD or 30 HP, it will become obvious winner and Doran goes to dust.
If Cull is unappealing to you, buy Doran, that's how choice works.
The Rewritten1 votesCull is REALLY good on Graves.
He heals for 3 PER bullet. So 12 per hit (and 24 per crit). Insaaane
Kouga1 votesHistorically speaking, gold generation items have almost always been among the strongest choices. Whether its the days of Heart of Gold, stacking Avarice Blades, or any Champion that generates their own gold, they are almost always nerfed heavily or removed due to the strength they give. It is one of the reason that Draven has such high snowballing potential; although his ability to "lose" his stacks (compared to static gold gen items) tempers that somewhat. Typically though, those items saw play because if you can stay alive and farm competitively with your opponent you simply come out ahead in terms of gold. More gold early = bigger items faster. Bankplank, Avarice Ashe, etc. They all saw moments of popularity or power because they let you outscale your opponents.
Cull seems to be their attempt at finding a middleground. Because the gold has a hard limit, its less game-tilting than the previous iterations. I see it being most popular with top-lane farmers; Nasus, GP, top tanks. Anyone who isn't interested in killing or pushing the lane but instead just wants to bunker down and farm their way past 6. Bot lane it still has a place. I've used it a few times, but I've had it backfire. Some lanes my support ended up playing more aggressively than I anticipated, and between our junglers ganking and support starting fights I didn't really get a good chance to farm out the gold. However I could see it being a good pick if you have a sustain support like Soraka, who you know isn't going to be rushing face first into fights.
Should it always be your first item? No. If you're against a kill lane or an aggressive support pick, the meager stats it provides leaves you more vulnerable. But I would hardly call it a "noob trap", considering how powerful gold itself is. And especially with the higher amount of gold in general - more starting gold, etc - I noticed that I'm getting my first big purchases significantly sooner. Which makes those Champs with an early power spike even more threatening.
Mcprowlington1 votesIn the Q&A a few days back Rito acknowledged it was shit.
Weathered1 votesAs for the new item Cull and how it is turning out, Meddler noted: "Quote: Any thoughts on Buffing Cull? that item is so lackluster. i think if fully used it should sell back for 100% of its inital buy cost It's looking like it'll probably need some form of buff yeah."
http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/11/red-post-collection-november-17th.html
Actually xPeke1 votesThey should give it a buff like this:
Cull Extra gold per minion kill: 1 > 1.5
That would make it pay back it's price and a bit more when you sell it. seems fair to me IMO
Penta Penguin1 votesI think it's basically how you rush items that don't build out of a longsword. Like instead of buying the longsword start and rushing vamp scepter or cutlass you can buy Cull and rush a pickaxe or BF sword
Stacona1 votesCull is intended to be a Doran's type of item - and it would make more sense to build into Vampiric Scepter since it gives AD and life sustain- but I prefer for it to stay as a Doran's Blade, but it does need buffs to be a viable starting option
Penta Penguin1 votesYou get a bit of AD to help with last hitting and some sustain for essentially nothing, so you 'keep' your starting gold. If you're on a champion that wants to play passive until they hit a power spike it will probably work out
ShakySurgeon1 votesThe item first pick is garbage. Start like normal, and if you have to back with not enough gold for anything else? Sure pick it up. Otherwise, avoid it at all costs. You'll just get booty spanked for it.