So Skirmisher's Sabre finally sees play in the LCS...

Partholonian·4/12/2015, 6:22:44 PM·8 votes·3,166 views

Like the title said, has seen play in the LCS after several patches when it seemed like was pretty much mandatory except for a few people taking instead. However... it was a top lane tank taking . Apparently when you give one of the jungle items a smite upgrade that's really good for fighting champions 1v1, people who are going to fight champions 1v1 want it... and they want it bad enough to go . Is this just an artifact of a patch where Cinderhulk itself is, well, pretty OP? Or is it going to stick around? Should it stick around? It does create some interesting situations in the jungle and laneswap situations (like a top laner being able to steal buffs and even objective monsters). And how big a deal is it that one of the machete upgrades appeals to laners more than it appeals to junglers? (Meanwhile appeals to nobody.)

40 Comments

ScreamPaste4/12/2015, 6:37:39 PM12 votes

Unicorns are making it very clear that Flashless Shyvana is not a problem for them, lol. This fucking game. I love UoL so much.

IllusoryLumines4/12/2015, 7:29:50 PM9 votes

Honestly, the problem is both that skirmisher's sabre is somewhat useless on junglers, and that cinderhulk is only usable if you have smite. Change skirmisher's to be a useful jungle item and make a laning cinderhulk item/make an item built into cinderhulk and nobody would buy skirmishing smite over it.

IcyPepper4/12/2015, 7:20:51 PM5 votes

Meh, I don't think cinderhulk is OP unless you'd consider item 3035 item 3153 item 3089 item 3135 item 3031 equally so I:

Renaille4/12/2015, 6:34:39 PM4 votes

just because people take it does not mean it is op. Flash is a lot more common than smite so I don't see a problem.

Dreadlocks4/12/2015, 6:31:24 PM4 votes

It is a balance problem, no matter how you look at it. It doesn't have to be directly aimed at Cinderhulk being OP, but rather Riot lacks item diversity in general. What I mean by that is, tanks want this item, to an extent "need" this item. A champion should not be forced into the jungle just to get the 25% increase in health, but rather riot should make a balanced item that gives this to champions in lanes if they so desire it.

Durzaka4/12/2015, 6:51:05 PM3 votes

Until i see some better exmaples, i say no.

Shyvana is a very very small factor in this game. Almost nonexistent in my opinion.

Raptamei4/12/2015, 11:23:44 PM3 votes

{quoted}

Like the title said, has seen play in the LCS after several patches when it seemed like was pretty much mandatory except for a few people taking instead. However... it was a top lane tank taking . Apparently when you give one of the jungle items a smite upgrade that's really good for fighting champions 1v1, people who are going to fight champions 1v1 want it... and they want it bad enough to go . Is this just an artifact of a patch where Cinderhulk itself is, well, pretty OP? Or is it going to stick around? Should it stick around? It does create some interesting situations in the jungle and laneswap situations (like a top laner being able to steal buffs and even objective monsters). And how big a deal is it that one of the machete upgrades appeals to laners more than it appeals to junglers? (Meanwhile appeals to nobody.)

Let's not enforce the meta. If people want to do this, LET THEM.

Does Icefrog forbid squishies from buying BKB? NO.

It Hertz When IP4/13/2015, 12:40:39 AM3 votes

There's no rule that ONLY the jungler can take Smite... if it works, it's not crazy.

Nameless Voice4/12/2015, 9:50:41 PM2 votes

I think that it's not a problem so long as it has clear strengths and weaknesses. In this case, you have to give up another summoner spell for it, which is huge, and you also get little use out of your summoner spell until you are able to buy the item that goes with it (which costs 850 gold for no useful laning stats.) Yes, Cinerhulk is great, but it takes a long time to get there and makes you much weaker until that point than taking a more useful summoner spell.

ScreamPaste4/12/2015, 6:33:01 PM2 votes

Kikis took Skirmishers on Shaco to make himself a better duelist while split pushing, this is not the 'first' use of Skirmisher's.

junglerboy164/12/2015, 7:11:08 PM2 votes

they're going after the Cinderhulk (because it outclasses sunfire pretty handily) mostly. Skirmishers is a really strong item on a tank, because if you smite a carry with it you receive 20% less damage from them and burn them for a flat amount of true damage over 3 seconds, making it extremely effective on low AS, champions attacking low base health squishies (who feel the burn most).

ModKnightsKemplar4/12/2015, 7:22:04 PM2 votes

Cinderhulk got nerfed. Just as you said, it might be an artifact, and we should wait to find out before starting in depth discussions about it.

ScreamPaste4/12/2015, 8:26:00 PM2 votes

So they tried it again, this time UoL didn't care at all about Flashless Shyvana.

aaronconlin4/12/2015, 9:47:01 PM2 votes

I took smite in lane a few times before Cinderhulk, and I use Skirmisher's pretty much any time I play a tank, the 20% damage reduction is really helpful for someone soaking up damage.

If this is a problem in Riot's eyes, either because of a balance issue or something they just don't want to see (Jungle items being used outside the Jungle) then they should make a % health item for lane tanks, and make Skirmisher's sabre better for fighters (since fighters are the ones that should be skirmishing).

Teridax684/12/2015, 11:20:08 PM2 votes

I'm not sure how to react to this. On one hand, as a jungler main I'm not entirely comfortable with the idea of laners running around with summoner 11 , which in the short-term has led to a lot of camp poaching, and in the long-term might lead to unwanted nerfs, but at the same time the strat seems pretty interesting, with the lack of summoner 4 and early game power creating pretty significant tradeoffs. This is also a fairly recent development, so I'd give it some time to see whether or not it stays (quad top used to be popular in the LCS for a couple of weeks before it died down), but things might also change when item 3715 gets redone.

Jungle Lux God4/12/2015, 7:48:34 PM1 votes

I think the games where TP/Smite was used were the games where Fnatic ran that double jungle comp against H2K, and in that case it fit perfectly with Fnatic's comp idea- they wanted to control the entirety of the jungle early and snowball it into the mid-late game. In that case, it's more of a team strategy and less of an individual balance problem with top lane Lee Sin running TP/Smite.

HeWolf4/13/2015, 1:04:09 AM1 votes

In my opinion, Jungle Items are called that because they are meant to be used by junglers.

I think that it's a balance problem 100%. I'd restrict the damage reduction in some way. For example, you have to kill X number of big monsters to get that damage reduction. Or directly remove that effect from the Skirmisher's upgrade and adding another cool offensive effect instead (an isolation one could be interesting), so it would be used precisely to duel people, which was the initial purpose of that upgrade.

Stacona4/13/2015, 1:10:30 AM1 votes

white smite is flawed by design on many accounts; first off hardcore counter jungling is a very toxic playstyle and second off getting white smite should just be typing in /all chat that you are going into the enemy jungle and for the enemy team to get ready to kill you --- white smite should be removed ASAP it is only a noob bait and nothing else

also if Riot likes the smite top lane option they will keep red smite; if they do not like it then remove red smite entirely there is no balancing to this item - either keep it or remove it, white smite needs removal however

kDrakari4/13/2015, 2:25:17 AM1 votes

I don't think it's necessarily a problem that some laners are sometimes taking smite. Dropping flash or teleport for smite is a huge deal, and it's not common that taking smite is enough for that regardless of how potent 25% bonus HP and 20% damage reduction is for tanks. Regardless, I don't think that the smite builds are OP or anything, just viable for the same reasons that tank junglers have become viable. Maybe cinderhulk is overtuned, maybe Sabre is overtuned in the damage reduction (maybe they could put more power back in the offensive part in exchange?), but I think they just need basic number changes at most rather than anything special to specifically discourage top laners.

Though I'd say they're just fine where they are. What's needed is buffs to tanks who DON'T take smite, not nerfs to ones who do... Though honestly Sion and Maokai are fine so maybe targeted champion buffs rather than itemization changes.

Spacesuit Spiff4/13/2015, 3:02:59 AM1 votes

I can't see this being left in the game for too long, but it is pretty interesting at the moment.

AMYS GRAVE4/13/2015, 3:29:55 AM1 votes

I've been waiting for the pros to do it for a while now. The double smite meta will have some really interesting applications and i think it can add interesting diversity to the game.

top laners with challenging smite, supports with chilling smite, jungler with rangers, and nobody with that counter-jungling item...

Glitter Spitter4/13/2015, 4:40:08 AM1 votes

its not op for one main reason... smite replaces a summoner in tops lanes case would be summoner 12 summoner 4 or summoner 14

the key note here is summoner 4

if people are going summoner 12 summoner 11 you lose one of the most versatile and powerful spells in the game. also smite does nothing until you upgrade machete, and machete gives you nothing too. IMO i think this is just a phase tbh. sure cinderhulk is strong but i think losing out on these core things make it a fair trade

it also spices up champion diversity and all that so i like it

Sinlaire4/13/2015, 5:28:20 AM1 votes

I once had a blitzcrank support run flash and smite while i was an adc and then on the very next game another blitz that went flash smite while i was jungle. both of them built it into Stalkers - Magus.

It allowed them to help my team secure dragon several times, double smite baron, he would smite enemy gromp and blue golem to use during bot lane phase, and the stalkers smite bonus to grab, and slow enemies to keep them from getting away.

it was actually both impressive and effective. we won both game with those two and they were both randoms i just found in normal blind pick. i personally kinda liked seeing an off meta pick like this being worked into a feasible strategy.

i also like the idea of slow wave clear champs being able to take smite into lane to help them secure CS to make their laning phase a little more secure. it makes them less likely to get shoved into towers and suffering from potentially immense wave clear pressure and in need of jungler assistance all game just to manage waves against a minion farmer.

Miku Lv994/13/2015, 6:17:00 AM1 votes

I think it is a balance problem. Not only is the the obvious, but also it does indirectly nerf/buff some champions in bad ways. Like consider someone like Heimer. You can smite his turrets so his ability to play top is nerfed because of this. And tank champions that need a second non-smite summoner are just worse tanks since they have a lot less health. This doesn't seem like a good thing.

Auryiel4/13/2015, 8:59:44 PM1 votes

It's not a problem that laners want Smite + Skirmisher

But it IS a problem that they want it more than junglers