Cinderhulk's "Early Power Spike" Is Less Powerful Then Devourer's "Early Weakness Period"

RocketRelm··18 votes·2,052 views

Cinderhulk Intended Changes: 300 --- 400 HP 25% HP scaling --- 15% HP scaling.

Riot's stated that they want to make Cinderhulk a mid game power item before devourer comes online. Let's actually do some math to see how true this is. Given that the component items are bought, paid, and valued for on their own, I will judge the enchantments based on their combine cost.

Cinderhulk 400 Combine cost, gains +200 HP (+100 from 300-400, +~100 from the bonus 15% HP). and upgrades Bami Passive. HP is valued at 400 gp per 150, for 532 gp total. Might be a bit more than this, so let's round up to 600 gold. Bami passive isn't defined in gold, but we can derive it's worth by stating that the HP it gives is 800 gp worth, and it costs 1000 gp, so the passive is worth 200 gp. Upgrading the passive certainly doesn't double the strength, and at lvl 18 both are almost the same raw damage, but let's be generous and value upgrading the bami passive also as 200 gp.

In sum, Cinderhulk costs 400 to combine, and gives you 800 gp worth.

Devourer 300 Combine Cost, +20% Attack Speed, +20 On-hit Damage On-hit damage is valued at 20 gp per 1, for 400. Attack speed is valued at 450 gp for 15%, for 600. Devourer combine (ignoring ALL stacking) gives you 1000 GP worth of stats.

Riot's changing Cinderhulk to be more "early game", but Devourer gets you more gold worth, both net and relative to cost. And I was being very generous with overpricing Cinderhulk's passives and HP.

Edit: Useful points about Cinderhulk and Devourer's Design

Cinderhulk: I think Cinderhulk could be changed to 20% Max HP scaling and 400 or 425 HP, and be fine. Or just 25% max hp scaling and 350 HP, like it was at creation.

Devourer: I feel like if Devourer 'needs' to be super inflated on gold efficiency because attack speed is a terrible stat to rush, I think you could just make the Attack Speed the stacking stat instead of on-hit damage the stacking stat.

TL:DR New Cinderhulk costs 400 to Combine and gets you 800 gp worth. Devourer costs 300 to combine and gets you 1000 gp worth. Devourer also scales better.

15 Comments

Erockandroll3 votes

Riot is probably not using gold effeciantcy as the only measurement of early game power. They mentioned that, while Devourer is actually pretty stat efficient from the get go, Doesn't actually help most champs as Attack speed is a poor stat to rush, over early damage. So the best champs who actually benefit from that gold effeciantcy, are champs with good damage steroids, Like shyvana with her burn out.

So in some ways, you could argue that those 1000 gold worth of AS doesn't really do anything until after you get fed. When Extra AD, AP, or HP, help other Junglers in a gank, or bursting out enemies, or help them tower dive. While they may have less Gold value, at the moment, it's a smarter investment.

But actual gold Effeciantcy is a good measurement of early and late game power.

RocketRelm2 votes

Gold Efficiency isn't the be-all-end-all to the balance curve, but it is a generally alright indicator most of the time. For things to be this far off, in the favor of the hyper scaling item, suggests that something is very wrong.

There is an argument to be made that champions that use Devourer very early have a hard time contributing because they tend to be 'farm up and get stats and win late game', and that these stats don't help as much, but the stats still mean 'something'. I certainly would at most call them in these states 'equal' at-buy, accounting for that. Also almost half the gold of the devourer upgrade is put into damage-on-hit, and not just attack speed, which is 'like' AD.

Sorioku3 votes

{quoted}

Riot is probably not using gold effeciantcy as the only measurement of early game power. They mentioned that, while Devourer is actually pretty stat efficient from the get go, Doesn't actually help most champs as Attack speed is a poor stat to rush, over early damage. So the best champs who actually benefit from that gold effeciantcy, are champs with good damage steroids, Like shyvana with her burn out.

So in some ways, you could argue that those 1000 gold worth of AS doesn't really do anything until after you get fed. When Extra AD, AP, or HP, help other Junglers in a gank, or bursting out enemies, or help them tower dive. While they may have less Gold value, at the moment, it's a smarter investment.

But actual gold Effeciantcy is a good measurement of early and late game power.

It doesn't only give attack speed though. It gives magic damage on hit that scales with how many stacks you have.

Count Buffon3 votes

It feels really wrong to get Cinderhulk when it shares a unique passive with another item that's 66% stronger. Like, damn, I wanted Sunfire! But now I'm pigeonholed out of it, because I HAVE to build jungle items because you made them OP for jungle clearing, but nothing else makes sense as an upgrade!

When you balance the whole jungle minigame around DRM-locking all the jungle items, it just puts the meta in a straightjacket. "Strategic diversity", my ass. More like, "I don't want the laners playing with my toys!"

Nekusen1 votes

we would have to see the champion context, having in mind tanks have to juggle with less stats (hp,armor,mr) than the other champions. besides that, the reasoning seems fine

Knight SoIaire 1 votes

thats one thing i hate about dewourer

it encourages you to farm but its a good item on its own for certain champions

and farming isnt the most effective strategy with it takedowns secure dragons ... making a good gank on botlane can yield up to 9 stacks and load of gold

and as you mentioned it scales into late by empowering champions kit so if a champion gets lucky or something and gets ahead in gold ... you wont catch up to him ... its an endles and brutal path to your demise becuase sated jungler got rolling

and there is no case where you win that ... in mid game he will deal the damage your carriess will deal in end game ... while his base stats will give him much tankyness

RocketRelm1 votes

My assumption overall is that riot's stance "tanks aren't allowed to scale great late game because unhealthy" means that lowering the X% Max HP isn't a discussion point and that literally no matter what, that is a thing they will do. Cinderhulk feels UP comparatively to Devourer though. Cinderhulk was originally 350 hp. It never needed to be cut to 300 at all. I think it can be brought back to 350 HP no problem with no other changes.

Since the X% HP reduction is going to happen almost no matter what though, I feel like my numbers at least suggest that they can keep the % at 20% instead of 15%, and maybe even up the HP to 425 as well. Both of these changes combined would up the gold value by about 150 at-buy, which is still less than devourer, while still being generous.

Devourer meanwhile… if Devourer's big issue is "attack speed isn't useful early when you first get it", and that's the biggest problem with it's design and why it needs to be overloaded with gold efficiency, then why not make the Attack Speed the stacking portion?

You can seriously just have it be like, 30% attack Speed, 45 damage on-hit, stacks 1% attack speed with every stack, transforms on 30 stacks to Sated-Devourer. (Numbers nerfed-buffed appropriately, this is just spitballing)

TL:DR Edited in a 2-sentence short-hand of this post at the bottom of the OP, at Edit: Useful points about Cinderhulk and Devourer's Design

AL0001 votes

cinderhulk is not good anymore... just get sunfire cape... better damage during teamfight..

dev is too strong when gank correct or farm quickly... sated is just almost unstoppable as fed adc...

RocketRelm1 votes

{quoted}

cinderhulk is not good anymore... just get sunfire cape... better damage during teamfight..

dev is too strong when gank correct or farm quickly... sated is just almost unstoppable as fed adc...

With this change Sunfire'll be more slot efficient than Cinderhulk at all stages of the game. If you have 2700 Bonus HP, this gives 805 HP total, and a weaker Sunfire. Sunfire gives 450 HP and 40 Armor, and a stronger Sunfire Generally, 355 HP < 40 Armor + stronger Sunfire

AL0001 votes

{quoted}

With this change Sunfire'll be more slot efficient than Cinderhulk at all stages of the game. If you have 2700 Bonus HP, this gives 805 HP total, and a weaker Sunfire. Sunfire gives 450 HP and 40 Armor, and a stronger Sunfire Generally, 355 HP < 40 Armor + stronger Sunfire

yes cinderhulk is not slot effective anymore... they will nerf it to 15% from 25%.... 15-25% is not much amount unless you stack hp item like crazy... not good ehp...

sunfire cape + randimum omen = lots of ehp and worth than cinderhulk + warmog (or rog)... well rog is good item tho...

cinderhulk is also hard coutner by vayne and dev jungler... fh + ruby / ro/ (thormail + bami ) counters dev jungler well

at this point... cinderhulk is existing item to clear the jungle faster... thats it... sunfire (bami) is good enough...

RocketRelm1 votes

{quoted}

sunfire cape + randimum omen = lots of ehp and worth than cinderhulk + warmog (or rog)... well rog is good item tho...

Do keep in mind that they're hitting Randuins Omen pretty hard with this new patch, as well.

AL0001 votes

{quoted}

Do keep in mind that they're hitting Randuins Omen pretty hard with this new patch, as well.

yes

Randuin's Omen Total Cost: 2850 --> 2700 Health: 500 --> 400 Armor: 70 --> 60 Cold Steel Passive: Unchanged Crit Damage Reduction: Now reduces critical strike damage taken by 10%. Slow Active: Duration no longer scales off Armor and Magic Resistance, instead it will always slow for a flat four seconds.

150g cheap 100 hp (not much) 10 ar (not much crit damage reducation = anti-IE but not much worth to note anyway... Cold Steel Passive: Unchanged is still good... awesome with defensive masteries...

it still has good ehp anyway...

ehp = ar ratio to hp OR mr ratio to hp... at low cost with good passive/active if possible...

CasterGilgamesh1 votes

but that's unfair tanks should scale well at all stages of the game it's what they do they take damage and cc they should be one of them most useful classes but riot just guts them and throws them away while they give champions more and more tools to kill them

RocketRelm2 votes

{quoted}

but that's unfair tanks should scale well at all stages of the game it's what they do they take damage and cc they should be one of them most useful classes but riot just guts them and throws them away while they give champions more and more tools to kill them

The major issue Riot has is "how do they make tanks scale". How does one scale 'cc' without making it permalock to doom? Innovative new ways to soak the damage for your allies? A purchasable Braum wall?

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