Tanks buy Runic Echo's Because Cinderhulk Sucks

I PREACHER I·3/22/2016, 9:36:22 PM·95 votes·4,028 views

Runic Echo's could have, or could not have been too strong this patch, but dont nerf it just because tanks are buying it over cinderhulk, Tanks are buying it because everything cinderhulk does, it does better; it provides better jungle clear, combat stats, and the passive is much more noticeable than the extra 15% bonus health on cinderhulk, if you want to see people actually buy cinderhulk, return the health bonus to 25%

Edit: It's nice to see people discussing this, thanks for participating in this guys, I'd really love to see cinderhulk return as a competitive jungle item!

68 Comments

magee1013/23/2016, 12:18:01 AM12 votes

Ap tanks buy it because it's a damage item they can pick up that gives them movement speed (which most tanks desperately need) which means they can instead get more tank items rather than a damage item in their other slots. Cinderhulk is great still, though I would suggest a midway point of 20% because that 15% barely does anything to be honest. I think I notice about a 300 health difference between my lane tanks and my jungle tanks and that's a single auto attack, not really much.

Spoofghoul3/23/2016, 10:10:20 AM5 votes

its true cinderhulk needs better scaling can think of tons of shit that would work

but for starters the damage should be equal to sunfire

The thing is cinderhulk only helps with clearing and its not even very strong at that. the extra health is nice but also doesnt scale very well. Ludens on the other hand give movespeed which is always usefull also very usefull in ganks The upfront burst is also much more usefull in ganks. And most ap tanks need to spam their abilities if they want to clear quickly ludens gives them mnana back stacks faster for the nuke when they spam and increases the damage on their abilities aswell.

It simply outclasses cinderhulk in every way untill you get to your 6 item build. But games are over before you get there 90% of the time anyway.

Cinderhulk could get 25% extra health would give it more risk vs reward imho Or it could get an extra passive similar to devourer which stacks health regen something like 10% bonus regen per stack and at 300% it would transform into sated hulk and give an extra 1% missing health regen per second.

ModWulf Helhammer3/22/2016, 9:57:11 PM4 votes

So, which tanks are you seeing buy runic Echos? Gragas? The guy who was originally played as a mid laner?

LadyRenly3/23/2016, 2:18:54 AM3 votes

Been buying Runic on Rammus and Amumu, can confirm it's great.

alfavhunter3/24/2016, 5:54:16 PM2 votes

How to remake cinderhulk

Remove the bonus HP

Cinderhulk now reduces your damage taken from all sources by 5% per enemy champion or large monster that you hard CC for 3 seconds and is refreshed on reapplication, this effect stacks up to 5 times

CCing large monsters gives two stacks if they are immune to CC

This makes CC tank junglers love this item for the effective ho it can give of -25% damage if you can CC the entire enemy team

This focuses cinderhulk on CC heavy junglers (which is the intent of a tank)

Also the burn effect should scale with the tanks max HP instead of just a flat value

2.5% max HP would be a good starting point

Khell DarkWolf3/23/2016, 9:26:07 AM2 votes

Don't forget, Runic Echoes has CDR and gives mana back since there are no more mana pots or other means early to float the mana bars for clears.

Honestly, Cinderhulk needs CDR and possibly even some armor. I actually miss the Quill coat and hate the rendition of bami's cinder

notmebuthim3/23/2016, 2:05:40 PM2 votes

Anything>cinderhulk

NazZomLord3/23/2016, 4:15:08 PM2 votes

Sion still loves item 1401

FistOfSharkiesha3/24/2016, 1:01:34 AM2 votes

The big issue is that there's 0 incentive to rush it and still almost no incentive to buy it very late. It's not slot efficient and rushing it is very weak. A tiny bit of health but with no sustain. Most champions leave the jungle healthier with echoes than cinderhulk because they clear twice as fast and therefor take less damage.

It needs more early power or to have the nerf reverted so it goes back to 25% health.

Profirix3/24/2016, 6:10:46 AM2 votes

I think what it boils down to is how the choice of items affects early game. If you go Runic Echos, you trade tankiness (not as impactful early game) for extra damage (very impactful early game) and sustain. Cinderhulk, on the other hand, offers very little in terms of effective power until additional health items are purchased. It has a decent impact late game by multiplying against resists, but when games rarely reach 5 and 6 completed items because of the meta shift, Cinderhulk is considered a very weak pick. I agree with some of the ideas mentioned in this topic - Cinderhulk should provide a bit more offensive power than it currently does. Other than clearing jungle, there are very few useful stats to help tank junglers in the early-mid game.

LordOfTheLeague3/23/2016, 7:48:36 PM1 votes

I'm pretty sure the only thing that is better is the mobility. It just show how mobility is strong in this item and in the game in general.

Dunkrius2g3/23/2016, 9:28:53 PM1 votes

It's sad but its not just those things they are buying it for. It provides mobility too. All of these things are no doubt pretty darn good, but the movement speed is another big plus.

MegaManYYZ3/23/2016, 9:31:43 PM1 votes

RE is a better path for early game combat stats, besides on Volibear.

Late game RE is very easily replaceable for any other item because it doesn't offer enough stats in a team fight for tanks.

The Yetii Rider3/23/2016, 10:14:26 PM1 votes

People build Runic because MS is OP. That's it. Cinderhulk isn't bad. It's just that you can get health on any item, but ms on Runic is amazing.

Vellich0r3/23/2016, 10:38:57 PM1 votes

Full AD shaco even buys runic (though to be fair, that's because all the other jungle items kinda suck on him, and his E LOVES the runic echoes stats)

Rain NT3/24/2016, 12:45:24 AM1 votes

25 % made it hell for bruiser top lane, since they arent as tanky as them but doesnt have enough damage to kill carries if they have peel since bruisers have no good burst. Top lane bruisers are basically weaker version of cinderhulk junglers because they cant build cinderhulk.

I say have it bonus 18-20% HP and give tenacity.

ArlanKels3/24/2016, 12:52:12 AM1 votes

I take Cinderhulk on Rammus because HP + burning AoE + Jungle item means I don't have to then spend all my money on another item to get basically the same thing.

Though I often wonder if going Echoes + burning cloak armor would be better...

Celeste Benal3/24/2016, 3:57:56 PM1 votes

I think the last nerf to Cinderhulk was unnecessary. However, I did buy it yesterday as Amumu.

Dealth3/24/2016, 2:55:45 AM1 votes

I'd say bring the health from 400 to 500 and call it good.

Variks the Loyal3/23/2016, 12:17:50 AM1 votes

I got it on Zac a couple games ago. Did great. Was a little squishy early one, but then I build Visage and Sunfire and I was fine.

I realized that Sunfire Cape dealing 50% bonus damage to minions and monsters only makes the choice even better. With Runic Echos and Sunfire, you have a much faster clear than Cinderhulk alone can provide. I don't want the bonus damage taken away from Sunfire, but I do want Cinderhulk to be buffed.

Lissandroid3/24/2016, 8:11:16 AM1 votes

Cinderhulk is in need of some love. 75.5% cost efficient and there is no way the immolate passive is worth the missing 643gp. Junglers need to influence the lanes early and Cinderhulk just doesn't enable that. Faster games means the scaling doesn't matter. If you pressure early with an offensive item, steal camps, get SOA stacks the cinder junglers will simply have their influence on the game suppressed since their trying to catch up on camps while their laners suffer and you get further ahead off of ganks. The state of the game doesn't support going tank early. Bottom line - the item costs more than its worth, buying it sets you behind, the job it does isn't optimal in the current state of the jungle, and if you did want early HP SOA has got you covered. Play aggressive, scale hard, and punish people building cinder until it gets addressed IMO.

Sire Hippington3/23/2016, 2:20:45 PM1 votes

Give cinderhulk 5%ms and some aditional mana-sustain and no tank would really bother with runic echo. The thing is that echo is simply a better item to rush, as it gives all a jungler would want early on, and since junglers have their biggest impact on the game early on, they naturaly go with what boost that early the most. It gives a better clearspeed with the ap and the proc, it increases map-mobillity via ms, it makes ganks more dangerous due to more ms and burst, and it solves the god damn mana issues that many junglers have, and more mana means more everything, faster clears, more ganking opportunites, allows to use mobillity tools for efficient pathing in the jungle, increases sustain if you have a shield/heal...beeing able to actually make full use of your kit at all times is a huge advantage. i already used runglaive on main junglers like nauti due to the way faster clears and mostly the mana, and that didn't have the sweet ms on it...

However, saying runic provides better combat stats is simply wrong, it gives about the same goldvalue of hp as runic gives ap, just that hp is a prime stat for tanks and ap is secundary at best. For lategame scaleing and especially mid game teamfights, cinderhulk is superior to runic on any tank.

I think jungle items need to provide better manasustain across the board, there is a reason that most top tier competetive junglers are manaless, or in case of elise and nida have most of their needed tools for clearing without mana... Aditionally, cinderhulks burn needs to be buffed a bit so the clearspeed discrepancy isn't as big compared to other jungle items.

Yaskamasandwich3/24/2016, 3:12:07 PM1 votes

Cinderhulk's other problem is that it has no place. Echo beats it early and mid game, and late game tanks are weaker. Sure you got a better late game items with 6 item tank build, but that ADC is just going to fart with a 100% crit and you'll die even with that Cinderhulk build. It was nerfed to 15% because 25% made tanks viable late game, and they shifted cinderhulk to bruisers who built it for synergy mid game like Rek'sai.

If you want a late game jungler then go Devourer. Want a very powerful early game jungler? Warrior. Early and mid game? Echo. Cinderhulk just doesn't fit in.

Troll for Trump3/23/2016, 4:53:57 PM1 votes

Remember when we complained that RIot was nerfing champions instead of the items, and then leaving those champs in the dust with the nerfs, even after nerfing the items. Basically, cinderhulk.

So Riot decided to get to the source, and just nerf Runic instead of the champs.