The changes on Enchantment - Devourer are going in the wrong direction

Ale non è male··2 votes·2,404 views

In the patch notes explanation about item 3710 changes, you textually wrote

Kind of reminds us of launch Feral Flare. And nobody wants that

We all agree about your intentions. But the problem is that, with thie 4.21 change, instead of addressing the power balance concern of the item and improving both on jungle item balance and FF-like mechanic, you make the latest problem even worse and Devourer mechanic even more similar to the old FF, without neither solving Devourer power problem

I think that the way to solve both balance and mechanics concerns on the item is to hit hard AS and revert the nerf on base damage

item 3710 20 or 25% AS(which can be later tweaked if the power turns out be too low - 20% - /too high - 25% -) 40 magic damage on hit

These would be the appropriate changes to this enchantment, in my opinion

Here is the reasoning behind my suggestion

Old Feral Flare mechanic leaded to toxic interations both for the ally team(because the champs that picked it had to remain in the jungle for long time to stack it and so they wouldn't help their mates) and for the enemy team(because they suddenly saw an enemy coming out from the jungle with a huge amount of power once FF was stacked). When you gave to Enchantment - Devourer 40 magic damage on-hit, you did it to avoid that junglers could remain too long in the jungle to stack the item, so that they could start using its damage to gank in lane and help mates right off the bat once you upgraded the tier 2 jungle item to it. Reducing the starting magic damage on-hit, just bring back the mechanic of the junglers that must remain in the jungle to stack the item to meaningful level of on-hit damage, exactly the thing you tried to avoid at first stance

And, as said above, the power unbalance of the item hasn't been solved - not even with the very harsh Warwick nerfs - , because the item gives too high AS to the AA based junglers like the Udyrs, Yis, the same Warwick(even after the nerfs), giving them too high DPS with 1 item thanks to the very high AS, and reducing the niche for currently existing items tems that provide similar stats in the game ( item 3091 got completely outclassed on the offensive part, for example)

EDIT: Edited to facilitate the reading

9 Comments

The Whamboozler2 votes

I actually like the idea of more strong on-hit items. It lets champs build in interesting ways to do mixed damage and make it difficult to build defenses against them, but they rarely reach the sheer uber-rape damage of the champs that specialize in one kind of damage with full pen items and the like. Old devourer was FINE it was just it's absurd synergy with WW's ult that made it bananas. Maybe raise the starting magic damage on-hit to 30 and change WW's ult to do more damage and only proc on-hits once or twice and BAM. Problem solved. Now his skirmishers and Devourer still help his ult, but he's no longer one-shotting everyone with a point and click ability that there's no way to play around other than "don't be near him.".

Give devourer some damage back. Keep the stacking ability. Just rework Warwick's ult a bit so it doesn't proc it as often or he has to land a skillshot or have you at low health or something first. SOMETHING to make it less idiot proof. Maybe he can only ult champs at half health or less... fits his hunter theme. Or maybe it's a straight-line dash forward like Grag's belly flop. Now you can dodge it, but in tradeoff, now WW can jump walls if he's willing to blow his ult. CONGRATS! WW now takes some skill to play and he can keep his crazy damage/CC ult. Everyone wins.

Ale non è male1 votes

Nah, the problem wasn't only Warwick. Warwick was the peak of the iceberg because he also was one of the few champs could keep doing the old jungle routes cause of his passive sustain, so he went on the spotlight with the overall jungle changes But Udyr, Yi, Xin are not less of a problem than Warwick with Devourer Also, I find a bit ridicoulous to point out at devourer like items to give "interesting ways to do mixed damage". If Riot want to enforce mixed damage, they can just work on different kind of items to work along item 3146 and item 3124

Stacking ability remained the same in the original suggestion

Ale non è male1 votes

A thing to reflect upon: a champ with any jungle item with Devourer enchantment + a item 3153, can deal 8% of the target's current health as physical damage and 25 + stacks (after 4.21 patch) magic damage on every autoattack, all of this attacking almost twice as faster than their base attack speed (the two item combined give + 90% AS) The interaction between them is way too powerful even for its original purposes.

Ale non è male1 votes

Another piece of food for thought: the very strong AS buffs given by devourer give to these junglers relying on autoattacking a kinda easy time in clearing jungle camps, and looking at the clearing aspect the AS is far more important for them than the on-hit magic damage. While it's not bad per se to have very strong farming junglers , we have seen yet with old Feral Flare and now with d Devourer how this mechanism favor much more these champs vs other kind of junglers(for example, tanky junglers that are yet inherently slower in clearing camps) Hit AS instead of the base magic damage on-hit would actually make a bit more difficult to clear camps until the item start to get some stacks, slowing a bit these champs curve and closing a bit the gap between AA junglers and, for example, tanky junglers, while not discouraging ganking because the amount of base on-hit magic damage(back to 40) would still be meaningful

Ale non è male1 votes

The problem that affected launch Feral Flare, and is still affect item 3710 , is that they both provided not just 1, but 2 sources of power for AA champs, and the problem is that both were/ are too strong. On FF it was magic damage on hit and the heal building upon the stacks, on Devourer it is the very high AS and the magic damage on-hit

Launch FF needed to be nerfed by removing the stacking on heal, and Devourer will need to be nerfed/changed, because the 4.21 changes didn't accomplish the goal of reducing at least 1 of the sources of power to an acceptable level Even with a lower baseline, Devourer magic damage can still stack a lot (even if the power spike is slightly delayed), and AS is still ihgh, so the new Devourer still has the 2 very strong powerful sources of power

On an item based upon stacking the magic damage on it, you can't really hit that aspect enough to make that source of power irrelevant(or if you do it, you hit it the base damage so high to force junglers to farm forever creating FF toxic mechanics again), but you can hit the power coming from AS, and reduce it to acceptable level to make the item balanced

Anomander1 votes

Just make the magic damage scale with lvl instead of farm and I think it would be a fine item.

Ale non è male2 votes

{quoted} Just make the magic damage scale with lvl instead of farm and I think it would be a fine item.

Something similar to item 3068 mechanism?

Anomander1 votes

Yeah. It is a solid mechanic that adds value throughout the game. item 3027 Is also another mechanic that could work as it has a intrinsic base value that builds over time. However it caps so it is a lot easier to balance.

Ale non è male1 votes

{quoted} Yeah. It is a solid mechanic that adds value throughout the game. item 3027 Is also another mechanic that could work as it has a intrinsic base value that builds over time. However it caps so it is a lot easier to balance.

It is a good solution, but I think they should go that way only after trying to do the change I proposed, if the situation still remains unbalanced. After all, FF and Devourer have been both thinked specifically to boost heavy farmers-AA based jungler that fell ebhind ganking junglers and junglers with AoE spells that could clear jungle faster than them, so they should first to make the item work to reward farming. This way instead the item would be good in the same way for everyon,e and would probably prize the champs that can both clear through AoE and through AA (thinking about Lee SIn, for example) If they fail even after those changes, of course your proposed solution is good to be applied

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