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Why on earth do people ever buy Feral Flare?

Enigma Requiem··4 votes·2,114 views

Hello. This season I sat for most of the year in B3. I'm a jungle main who mostly plays normal que. my main champs are Warwick, Xin Zhao, Amumu, and Zac. As it should be obvious, two of these are "Feral Flare Junglers".

I'm currently in S3 and I'm earning 30 LP per game. I've almost always played Xin Zhao or Amumu Jungle in every game this season on my way to gold, and I've -always- built a Golem Spirit. Not once have I ever won a game in Normal que using Feral Flare, especially not on someone like Warwick- and why would I? Its not a good item on him. It never has been and it never will be- Warwick didn't buy a Wriggles back in S3, and he wont in s5.

It blows my mind that people would ever build FF on Xin Zhao. His strength is his early ganks with on-target gapclosing CC! Why would you waste time farming when you have ganks to make! It'd be like actually building S4 wriggles on Shaco- he doesn't farm, he ganks. When you reach end game you're a tank, not an assassin or a melee carry.

Someone help me understand this madness, please.

EDIT: forgot to mention, there ARE some people who REALLY use Wriggles well, such as Yi. I personally haven't seen afk farming like these people often do -work- ever, but its still the best choice for them. The problem I have here is people getting Wriggles when Golem or Lizard are much, much better choices.

EDIT 2: What do you know, I actually got really good advice from this thread. Thanks guys! :D

22 Comments

redniwediS6 votes

In my opinion there are two reasons to get a Feral Flare. The first is if you are a champion who greatly benefits from gold and attack speed, and the other is if you simply benefit greatly from attack speed.

Will you get the most out of your gold if you treat it as an attack speed item instead of heavily farming for it's stacks? No, but it's not particularly inefficient to do so. If you do get it as an attack speed item however it is best to sit on it while it is still Madred's Razors and build an item that benefits your ganking before finishing it into a Flare.

It's possible I've got it wrong too, but this is my understanding of it.

12tales7 votes

This man gets it.

Feral Flare doesn't have to be a farm item - any jungler that has synergy with on hits/attack speed can use it more effectively than Lizard. If you're just chain ganking lanes with Xin Zhao, you're still gonna get your flare by 19 or 20 minutes, and it's still gonna do a lot more for you than Lizard. You'll heal more form your W, you'll get you Q more quickly, and you'll just do more damage in general.

Warwick's a level 6 ganker whose ultimate applies on hit effects six times. Not only does his playstyle stay the same when he uses Feral Flare - he's farming his ass off pre-6 anyways - the item makes his ultimate deal nearly half again damage, from the proc alone.

Virtually every auto attack reliant or semi auto attack reliant jungler should go Feral Flare every game. Vi is the only at all significant exception that I can think of. Nocturne, Rengar, Shaco, Jax, Kayle, Yi, Shyvana, Trundle... doesn't really matter, FF is the way to go.

Enigma Requiem1 votes

The problem I have with this is, WW is a -tank-. I've NEVER seen a Feral Flare Warwick do NEARLY as well as the good-old Golem Spirit>Wits End build. And that build shreds the enemy's MR! + you're 10* as tanky.

SO many of those junglers do MUCH better with a spirit item than Wriggles. Yi is the only exception- he absolutely should get Wriggles. Some of them -can- but it shouldn't be your default assumption: its not nearly as strong as people treat it as being.

Honestly tho, Shaco shouldn't even GET a jungle item. He's better off with an early Btork than he is with Wriggles. Playing Nocturne as an assassin is suicide unless you're in a very specific setup, he's a much better off-tank jungler. He doesnt have the damage or chase to play melee carry in the way Yi does. Trundle... eh, golem>Bork is better IMO, but I could see either working. Rengar clears sorta terribly, but he also doesn't use mana, so Wriggles makes sense in that case just because the alternative is a lot of dead gold.

12tales4 votes

Which of those junglers do you think should ever build something besides feral?

The problem I have with this is, WW is a -tank-.

Warwick is a drain tank. Like Aatrox, his ability to eat damage is directly correlated to how often he's auto attacking. If you're not building attack speed/life steal/on-hits on him, you're wasting his Passive/W and the incredibly longevity they can give him.

Look at probuilds.net if you don't trust my opinion - in the past 3 months, there has been exactly one pro to build anything other than FF on jungle Warwick, and he lost that game.

Enigma Requiem1 votes

Which is why you get some tank items and a Wits End: it procs for 42 magic damage on-hit 6 times with his ult, and those 42 damage procs are considered part of the ult itself's damage so he heals off them. Then you get a Frozen Mallet because the mid-game Giants Belt helps him considerably.

People who get Wriggles and Btork are trying to make Warwick something he is not: an assassin. I could be wrong, but I'd like to imagine I know a thing or two about Warwick after three seasons of playing.

12tales3 votes

People who get Wriggles and Btork are trying to make Warwick something he is not: an assassin. I could be wrong, but I'd like to imagine I know a thing or two about Warwick after three seasons of playing.

And yet, if you were to ask Dan Dinh, Mancloud, Jree, Svenskeren, TheOddOne, Moopz, Froggen, Gleeb, IWillDominate or Kerp, they would all tell you that they build Wriggle's and/or BotRK every game.

redniwediS6 votes

You're talking as if there is only one build for each champion...

Every item has it's place, and yes sometimes Feral Flare is not the best pick. That said you should not discount it's usefulness so easily. Warwick is a solid jungle pick, but if he is not required to build tank he can do massive damage with Feral Flare, Wit's End, and whatever other on hit items you feel like.

If that didn't convince you then how about this, there is a reason DFG sometimes works on Garen, and it's not because it's a good item for him.

You have to look at both your team and the enemy team before setting any build ideas in stone.

Enigma Requiem1 votes

You're talking as if there is only one build for each champion...

Every item has it's place, and yes sometimes Feral Flare is not the best pick. That said you should not discount it's usefulness so easily. Warwick is a solid jungle pick, but if he is not required to build tank he can do massive damage with Feral Flare, Wit's End, and whatever other on hit items you feel like.

If that didn't convince you then how about this, there is a reason DFG sometimes works on Garen, and it's not because it's a good item for him.

You have to look at both your team and the enemy team before setting any build ideas in stone.

I supose part of it may simply be that Feral Flare has never worked for -me-. Even on Yi I just cant deal with the mindset of "AFK farm and get stacks." Golem has always done better by me, so I may be biased by that experience.

redniwediS6 votes

That's why you treat it as an attack speed item =P

I'll restate what I said above in a simpler form. There's two ways to use Feral Flare.

  1. Farm heavily, end up with an attack speed item with a large on hit bonus.
  2. Gank heavily, end up with an attack speed item with a small on hit bonus and allies who get the ganks they need/want.

It's basically the jungle specific version of Wit's End, and it even stacks well with it too!

Enigma Requiem2 votes

That's why you treat it as an attack speed item =P

I'll restate what I said above in a simpler form. There's two ways to use Feral Flare.

  1. Farm heavily, end up with an attack speed item with a large on hit bonus.
  2. Gank heavily, end up with an attack speed item with a small on hit bonus and allies who get the ganks they need/want.

It's basically the jungle specific version of Wit's End, and it even stacks well with it too!

Arrite, I feel like I really have a better understanding of Feral Flare now.

Thank you so much, I really didn't expect constructive advise from a thread like this.

ChaosThief2 votes

Many people are more constructive than you may think. I could learn a lesson or two from here as well. I enjoy running skarner with FF and it works pretty well with what I built for him, but my ganks were always meager/weak with just the flare.

Everyone has a lesson to learn, including some of the best players.

Worgslarg2 votes

I would argue that rengar scales with AD enough that lizard is better for him, but you make a lot of good points.

12tales1 votes

Eh? His only significant AD scaling is on an auto attack reset, and even a 0 stack Feral Flare is going to add more damage to that ability than an Elder Lizard. And then there's the fact that he has 50%+ Attack Speed steroid on his empowered Q - Feral does way more for him than Lizard. There's a reason that literally every professional jungler was rushing Madred's back when Rengar was a meta pick.

A Superb Villain3 votes

Coffee Ray Gun2 votes

I'll tell you why I buy it... because it's on the recommended items. :3

Enigma Requiem1 votes

This is part of the problem: it seems like a lot of people with recomended Wriggles dont actually get that much from Wriggles post-nerfs. Used to absolutely, but its been nerfed pretty hard.

MrBuffington1 votes

Of your jungler, only WW is really a FF jungler; Xin Zhao is pretty flexible. Yes, he can build FF, but he doesn't really have early game pressure with the item. WW builds FF since he's very AA reliant, and he doesn't really have gank pressure before lvl 6, so he's likely to be farming a lot early game. Most other FF junglers are like this; Yi doesn't really have early gank pressure (a lot of people go elder lizard on Yi anyways), Shyvana is the same story. Plus the latter two have really great clear speed.

Another consideration is that Madreds actually gives you combat stats, where Spirit Stone doesn't, it just gives you jungle sustain. This is why you see competitive Rengar players just build Madreds and go into their other items; in solo-q they usually finish Wriggles.

Finally, Wriggles is cheaper than a Spirit item, a minor consideration, but it does let you hit your other items earlier. I'll build FF on Olaf and go full tank from there, since I don't think I need tankiness from Golem immediately, or I can just buy a early Kindlegem for SV later if I need the health and CDR. Olaf also has amazing clear speed, which allows you to stack rather quickly.

Linna Excel1 votes

Not all junglers are gankers, some are power-farmers. However riot doesn't want those champs to just power-farm it seems. So Feral Flare was made to make another type of jungler viable, riot screwed it up, now they have no plans to fix it or the role.

I think it's currently a win-more item, which is the core problem. If you can get it stacked up, that means your lanes aren't constantly behind so they are doing something right. If they are doing things right, you don't need to gank them so much and you can farm more. So it means that by finishing it, you are probably going to win the game more (bigger/easier) than if you went another item. However I'm not sure right now for most junglers it'll let you win the game by picking it up and stacking it.

Phife1 votes

Look at my match history with shaco.

http://matchhistory.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-history/NA/37417737

LAAATE game it ads 80 magic damage to each auto and with 1.8 atk speed, thats alot of damage going out regaurdless of what build path you go (tank / assasin)

Downfall1 votes

You like to build ww Tank, thats fine. I like to rush flare on him AND wits end so when its mid-game and i get both flare and wits end you can do insane amounts of damage to the enemy adc or mid laner when ganking in that small amount of time before lane phase ends. But if lane phase ends early i might not get the wit's end, i might go for a tankier pick. If my team doesnt seem very team-fight orientated i may go for a more offensive build with flare and wits end or botrk, sometimes all three before i start getting some tank items, and anyway can work extremely well, it just depends on how you want to play the game with your team. Solo queueing as ww, yeah, tanky is probly going to be a better idea. But the last time i played ww, i was 8/0/5 because I went on the offensive route and got all three, Botrk, Wits end, And flare, and about a minute before we won, I killed the Adc with my ult alone. Its fun, and when you're playing a normal or in a low-rank like silver you can pretty much do whatever you want with your build and still win, just depends upon the way you're playing. If you like to teamfight with ww, you build tanky, and you go at it. Personally I dont like teamfighting that much with ww because you know what he is after he ults? A meat shield. You may as well be a less effective mundo if your ult is on CD, because if you build all out tank you're gonna do less damage, have less cc, and be less tanky. I think theres a happy medium in-between damage and tank that will work for most situations, and that's the "one way to build" that you seem to be thinking of. Depending on your items after your jungle item, Flare may or may not be the best pick for the situation.

acepil0t1 votes

Umm, guys, you don't buy Feral Flare. You buy Wriggle's Lantern. It transforms into Feral Flare.

Essilyn1 votes

After the hard nerf thanks to Meteos, the item was nerfed into the ground to require quite a bit of power-farming to be reach the god-like levels. With the Golem and Elder Lizard buffs, you can see immediate results upon upgrading to those in stark contrast.

Conclusion: Some people haven't gotten the memo is what I think.

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