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Poacher's Knife Suggestion

Orders·4/13/2015, 5:13:52 AM·6 votes·923 views

As a jungle main, the Poacher's Knife is quite the underwhelming item when compared to the other three smite enchantments.

Like Riot has stated before, nobody actively counter-jungles to the point that they are always in the enemy jungle. It is usually an opportunistic tactic above all else and junglers, like myself, do it from time-to-time when given the opportunity.

If you ask me, counter-jungling is not just about denying the enemy of their camps and then running away. Counter-jungling is also knowing where the enemy jungler is and using that information to avoid potential ganks from the enemy. When I counter-jungle, I always have some spare wards with me so I can place them in the enemy jungle for this exact reason. Spotting out the enemy jungler does wonders for your team and it allows your team to instantly adjust their playstyle, thus avoiding unnecessary deaths due to overextension.

My proposal: What if Scavenging Smite gave you a free stealth ward when used on a camp in the enemy jungle? Much like the old Quill Coat, the extra wards will greatly help denying successful ganks from the enemy jungler because of the deep wards. Like the Quill Coat, there should be a cap of 2 wards that you can have from Poacher's Knife. The number of wards will be stored onto Poacher's Knife itself so you will not need to sacrifice an extra item slot for this benefit. Obviously, these wards can be destroyed via Sweeping Lens or a Vision Ward, like any other stealth ward.

This way, even if you leave a small monster behind, you can still keep track of jungle timers because of this free ward watching over the camp. It would be much more rewarding than just simply taking their camps and running away because, with this extra ward, you will eventually be able to spot the enemy jungler before he is aware of your ward.

10 Comments

zions eyebrows4/13/2015, 5:23:18 AM4 votes

my issue with it is that it's useless when your team is behind and overpowered when your team is ahead

DrathTurtle3144/13/2015, 6:53:08 PM2 votes

So, I heard a similar suggestion a while back. I'm paraphrasing what I remember, but I thought it was a really good idea:

add a unique passive to poacher's knife so that when you smite a camp it spawns a ward in the center of that camp. After 60 seconds the ward becomes visible and lasts another 60 seconds(total 120).

junglerboy164/13/2015, 5:04:23 PM2 votes

the thing that they need to do to make Poacher's viable is make it so that it isn't only useful in the enemy jungle. It has a decent reward, but so does every other smite upgrade, and none of those have the downside of saying straight up "I'm counterjungling you now". As a Poacher, you would be "stealing" animals from controlled land, but also getting improved benefits from anything else you expertly snatch. They should still have the bonus gold and smite charge CD reduction on it, but additionally, smiting any camp makes the smite bonus 50% more effective (Smiting red/blue heals/replenishes 50% more health/mana, all other buffs last twice as long). The smite bonus increase would be universal, so that it doesn't pigeon hole you into only counterjungling, just makes you exceptionally better at it.

CloaknDagger2224/13/2015, 2:08:35 PM1 votes

Yeah it might be imbalanced, maybe just one ward on cooldown would be sufficient.

SnazzyTheMister4/13/2015, 4:34:47 PM1 votes

something like what red smite does to champions but to monsters is an interesting idea. what if instead of giving you a ward which might be hard to integrate is some way (would it just dump into your inventory? what if you have a full 6 slots?) if makes the camp respawns with a debuff that lights up the camp as if it were warded (but its just the camp) and that debuff would last for 3 minutes or something. this could also create a niche spot where you take poachers vs junglers like eve that you want to keep track of more.

i dont feel like hiding that you want to counter jungle is the problem. i feel like counter jungling is something you do optimistically not constantly so if you plan to take the poachers and look for those optimistic opening you want to be rewarded for it more. unlike the other smites where you are getting regular value from them (at one point in the game or another).

CloaknDagger2224/13/2015, 1:40:33 PM1 votes

I literally just had this same idea yesterday. The only thing that prevents me from living in the enemy's jungle is having to buy wards to do so. I do love this.

Another option to spice things up would be for it to spawn something like the Wolf spirit you get from smiting your wolves (maybe with a smaller patrol radius), or something like Kalista's sentries.

Or, just plain wards. Any sort of vision is key to making this item any good. Good post! Cuz duh I thought of it first :P

Tentacle Love4/13/2015, 5:17:13 PM1 votes

I think the biggest problem for Poacher's knife is that it's all "win more." When you steal a camp you get a buff, but it doesn't provide anything to make the experience any easier. It doesn't enable counterjungling, it just rewards you for doing it.

If you intend to counter jungle, the trailblazer is still infinitely better for doing it because it gives you sustain, it stuns targets, it lets you farm faster... There's really no contest. Poaching knife needs to provide bonuses that enable counterjungling, not a carrot on a stick that rewards you after you've already gotten something cool. The smite bonuses are almost always better than the poaching bonus. You steal camps for the buff, not for the poach.

djjomon4/13/2015, 1:49:07 PM1 votes

You definitely have a good idea here. It would make counter-jungling much more rewarding. The problem is, on junglers like Lee Sin or Nunu especially, it may be too rewarding. A Nunu would walk into the enemy jungle, clear one half of the map, have vision EVERYWHERE, and then walk away like nothing happened.