Let's rework Poacher's Knife

A bit of a philosophical question: what does counter-jungling really mean?

To me it means map control, specifically jungle control. Poacher's was made to be a designated strategy as far as smites; Ranger's is a default that improves your clear and sustain; Stalker's is very powerful in ganks; Skirmisher's is a bit more niche, but can be very powerful in trades and skirmishes. There is opportunistic counter jungling, which any smite can do pretty much just as well (Ranger's probably has a bit of an edge over Stalker's and Skirmisher's), but the space where I see a place where Poacher's could excel is in really controlling the jungle, dictating how the enemy jungler has to play around them instead of just reactively counter-jungling.

I think the issue with Poacher's Knife is that it's realization is too literal, at the moment; it gives a bit of CDR on smite, MS to get out of the enemy jungle, and a bit of bonus gold. Most of the champions who would be aggressively counterjungling (Nunu, Lee Sin, Rek'Sai, Nidalee, Shaco, Shyvana, Udyr, etc) already have similar tools that Poacher's offers, or better. The bonus gold is supposed to act as an incentive to counter jungle, but counter jungling as a strategy should be it's own reward. If you look back at the initial reasoning for offering different smites, it was about giving junglers a way to adapt their playstyle to fit the game, but the fact is, reactive counterjungling is already an adaptation that works just fine with the other smites, so there's no reason to switch your champion's playstyle to a dedicated counterjungling style unless your champion already excels at it, in which case, your champion already has better tools than Poacher's offers. Instead, what the different smites have turned into is enhancing or complimenting the strengths of champions (stalker's helps strong gankers gank, and so on).

So back to the original question, I think there are many different ways to realize "jungle control". Sure, you can slap a couple wards or a sweeper on Poacher's to provide vision control, but there are already plenty of strong tools to provide this traditional vision (upgraded trinkets, sightstone, champion abilities, monster buffs, good ol' fashion wards, etc). I think there are some more creative ways to provide vision, as well as objective and map control.

Here's the part where I list off ideas that could work their way into Poacher's (note: probably shouldn't include all of these in poacher's but some combination might be balancable and/or give Riot some ideas on directions to take Poacher's). Sound off your ideas in the comments below, I'll add them to the list here:

• Increased smite range, especially so you can smite over walls; gives a jungler a powerful way to maintain threat to the other team when securing objectives or just stealing camps. If you're facing a jungler with this smite, you're going to want to ward over the wall
• Smiting the enemy jungler (or whoever has smite) disables their smite for a medium cooldown; this could be a powerful way of denying steals or stealing objectives especially if your champion already has a method of securing it (ie. Nunu's consume). Moreover, it can prevent the enemy jungler from using a combat smite during a fight.
• Vision over jungle camps specifically; I'm thinking a Rengar ult style of limited vision on jungle monsters only, which would help the jungler save time by not checking dead camps, but also helps them track the enemy jungler. Maybe this could be activatable instead of just passive, as well, so you have to utilize it in windows.
• Getting vision (actual vision, not the limited type of vision above) of a monster grants them vision for a couple seconds, which gives a bit more of a window for smite steals. You can pop a ward over a wall, and even if the enemy sweeps it, you'll still have vision of the monster for a few seconds. This might also work as an activatable effect.

Comments? Suggestions? Criticism? Let me know, thanks for reading!