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Pathfinder's knife isn't healthy for the game

Shnabbydoodle·2/8/2018, 12:01:07 AM·9 votes·3,157 views
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/366198179894394880/410941234614501387/league-of-legends-pathfinders-knife-1081024.png

When it comes to game design, I personally feel that diversity is good. With the new AP item changes coming out, I feel like that was a step in the right direction since Morellos was dominating the midlane when it came to most of the mages. With the new item changes, there is DIVERSITY in the midlane, and different champions can choose what they want and adapt to the game, for example going with the new Luden's if the matchup is rather stale and more about poke. However: The new smite REMOVES diversity. Sure there were flaws like how Skirmisher's (item 3715) basically let you win most duels and how Tracker's (item 3711) dominated pro play, but most of the players aren't pros. Sure trickle down balancing works for most balance changes, completely removing an item isn't the way to do it. Going back to the Morellos example, the League team removed the item and made it so that there are more choices to replace it, and kept the core of the old item as another, different item. This promotes both diversity and balances the game. With the suggested changes to the jungle items, it gets rid of diversity and decision making in place of purely balance, not to mention that some picks (COUGH MASTER YI AND LEE SIN) are nerfed, some more than others.

My personal take on balancing the Jungle items: Make Skirmisher's (item 3715) numbers lower, and make Tracker's (item 3711) wards last for a shorter duration. This would make dueling against people with red smite less obnoxious and allow more balance to the Tracker's wards and vision control. This leaves more room for Chilling smite (item 3706) to shine and fixes some of the balancing issues the other Jungle item options currently have.

To sum it up, I feel like the Pathfinder's knife isn't the way to fix the current balancing issues and hurts the game if anything. Yes- changes can and should be made to balance items, but forcing the community to adapt in an unhealthy way isn't how to do it. An approach more similar to the recent changes to Sighstone and the upcoming changes to AP items would be much better for the balance of Jungle items.

On a side note, Sightstone got removed to promote diversity when it came to a support's first item. And it was healthily replaced by putting the warding passive onto support items.

13 Comments

PhantomGG2/8/2018, 12:40:14 AM7 votes

My only question is who on earth was even complaining about it to prompt it?

Moonfall Saber2/8/2018, 2:59:32 AM2 votes

I like this change as a jungler main. Now I get the best of each world with this. I mean really Id rather just have the control ward part but hey if i can smite enemies thats cool too.

The Yetii Rider2/8/2018, 5:29:40 AM2 votes

Ayyyy! Just a few days ago, I was saying "there's no way you can buff the mana regen in the jungle even more. Dudes are already getting 225%. At this rate, they might as well bring back a flat mana regen per 5 to help out the early game."

Dunno if I put that on this forum or it was in Discord, but...good job, Riot! You figured it out! [sg-kiko]

Now, as for the item: Diversity in itemization is not good, nor is it realistic. We have three types of smites now, and we used to have four. Was that really diversity? Not at all. People picked a single Smite for their champion, the one that was best on it, and used that. That's all they ever bought. I personally know just how good Tracker's Knife is in theory but I prefer Chilling Smite to increase my range and kill people if they flash away from me at a sliver of heatlh, so I never build anything but Stalker's Blade. Before the changes, I never built anything but Poacher's Knife, because it was strictly the best item in the game and easily got me over 3000 gold ahead of my opponents.

Item diversity is a myth. They are numbers with cute little passives and at the end of the day the only thing that matters is the numbers. Look at all the mage players who bitch and moan. They've wanted item choice and diversity for over a year now and now that Riot's actually offering it to them? They care more about the 20 AP they're losing than the choices they get to make. Because they KNOW that they don't really have a choice, they just wanted different passives for their 100 AP items because they feel like they HAVE to build 100 AP.

Same thing here. You can claim that having different Smite options is good but it probably only matters to about 10% of the jungle playerbase, at best. Most of us buy the same knife each game and move on.

xelaker2/8/2018, 6:00:36 AM2 votes

more of riots patented too much stuff on one item.

Pika Fox2/8/2018, 9:57:49 AM2 votes

The change was likely because there was really zero diversity. You have no reason to pick anything but the free ward item in high/pro level play, as vision is almost always the best choice.

Riot also stated this was a test anyway to see what would happen.

Papa Andrei2/8/2018, 10:40:55 AM2 votes

They removed Jungle buffs, made spawn timers, made multiple RNG dragons, and now took away different smites. Itd almost like they want jungle to be designed for 8 year olds

Sun Wu Ryuumoku2/8/2018, 5:45:53 PM1 votes

Pathfinder's knife isn't healthy for the game

its totaly healthier than current skirmishers. Most high elo players are glad with theses changes and thinks its better.

Personnaly i hate skirmisher smite, it dosn't provide dual power in bad match up as u seems to say. To begin if the matchup is negative u dosn't need to fight. And as Wukong otp, if u go skirmisher smite against a shyvana skirmishers smite won't change the balance of power (and its same for many champ).

After;.. yeah some champ will be nerfed due to this (lee is the first in my mind). But most are already bad regardless of this change (yi in my mind).

The role of the jungler, is to provide vision and steal ressources (yeah gank too). I think u should stop complain at each change, mainly when u don't really understand the role.

LuthianDelphi2/9/2018, 1:52:01 AM1 votes

its actually really nice to be able to build trackers knife if your an easily invade able jungler or if the enemy jungler is fed, it gives you a chance to continue playing w/ out having to int to the fed khazixs / rengar while helping out your team while you try to farm. Without an item like it its just gonna make junglers like rengar/evelyn/kha/ and warwick alot stronger as people like amumu with low dueling power will continue to struggle.

NochnoyRitzar2/11/2018, 9:53:45 AM1 votes

I'm okay with this item, but god damn it pink background is so out of place

Lolids2/21/2018, 2:15:18 PM1 votes

I think that they should add Pathfinder's Knife to the game but as they said if it's only it there is no diversity so it would be better if they added it along with the Skirmisher's Sabreitem 3715 and Tracker'sitem 3711 but remove Stalker's Bladeitem 3706 .Also for some reason there is no Tracker'sitem 3711 on the PBE