State of Poacher's Dirk

Wèaver·May 2, 2017·2 votes·987 views

I was looking at the item statistics for the current patch, and poacher's dirk is being purchased in only .08% of games, while Raise Morale the last of GP's three ult upgrades is purchased in .19% of games. When initially introduced Poacher's Dirk was a great concept because you were taking a gamble that you could counter jungle 3 camps. However with the state of lethality in the current meta, junglers like Lee Sin and Graves dont even consider it anymore, with the only viable champion to use PD being Kha'Zix . If the upgraded form was changed to a more versatile item such as Caufield's Warhammer, then it stands to reason it would jump up in purchase rate. This would allow you to get a cheaper warrior enchant on all ad junglers, not just lethality users, as well as allow people who normally wouldn't purchase warrior, (Like Olaf ) to get Poacher's Dirk with hopes of snowballing so that warrior was viable in the grand scheme of their build.

TLDR: Idea to change Poacher's Dirk upgrade from Serrated Dirk to Caufield's Warhammer to make it viable on a wider range of champions.

Just wondering what you guys thought about this idea. I think it would be great for tempo and help you feel more accomplished when counter jungling. Also considering the purchase rate it basically doesn't exist in the game currently.

5 Comments

RedesignatedMay 2, 20173 votes

I don't really understand why they bothered to add Poacher's Dirk in to begin with, it was never going to be popular unless the requirement to upgrade it was easy to abuse, or the cost difference between it and Serrated Dirk was massive. It's not even a matter of what it upgrades into — it's an unreliable investment that immediately gives away your game plan.

WèaverMay 2, 20172 votes

I think if you view it like a cull instead, that is to say, after counter jungling 3 camps you get 500 gold (the difference between PD and SD after 7.9 goes live) then it is certainly a worthwhile investment if you are an early game jungler like Lee Sin vs someone such as Amumu. It helps you push your early game power without needing gankable lanes. But as Lee Sin, if I am ahead I'm not going to build a lethality item in the current meta, I'm going to finish Warrior then go Black Cleaver. If that makes sense. But either way I agree with you that it is not good right now.

ErockandrollMay 2, 20171 votes

{quoted}

I don't really understand why they bothered to add Poacher's Dirk in to begin with, it was never going to be popular unless the requirement to upgrade it was easy to abuse, or the cost difference between it and Serrated Dirk was massive. It's not even a matter of what it upgrades into — it's an unreliable investment that immediately gives away your game plan.

That's not as bad as the original poacher's knife that we had in season 5.

With the original Poacher's item, your game plan was for the entire duration of the game. But with this transforming item revealing your game plan isn't going to mean much, after it transforms.

And really the reason was to experiment with the Poacher's mechanic. Getting Poacher's sated, is effectively a 350 gold difference, combined with the other benefits of counter jungling. The real issue was mainly the limited number of champions, who could make use of Dirk, because it's effectively tailored to assassins. There's no reason Riot couldn't have expanded the Poacher's items available.

That said, I don't agree with OP's suggestion. Mainly that such an item, shouldn't be tied to the component items of core Jungle items. If you did that, it would greatly favor champions who build that item. Now hypothetically, you could also do this with the other items as well to compensate, but that would put a whole lot more stake on counter jungling in the role.

WèaverMay 2, 20171 votes

I can see that perspective, and I only started playing in Season 6 so I wasn't aware of the poacher's knife in season 5. But the item has an abysmal purchase rate, and I would argue that Cull is essentially the lane variant of my proposition. You never see anyone build Cull on an AP champion do you? Riot has posted changes on the 7.9 pbe cycle making it 600 gold so there is a greater gain from it, so they are aware of its state. But do you propose then a universally beneficial passive such as you purchase a low stat item (such as cull) and it yields gold when camps are counterjungled?