When is devourer the enchantment to go for?

Sadistic Cheese·12/28/2015, 3:52:52 AM·1 votes·540 views

I know I'm down here in the pits of bronze/silver, but I see so many people going devourer that I just wonder. It always feels like it's...it feels like it's the enchant for the jungler whose team doesn't need a jungler. Which usually doesn't happen. Am I just dealing with particularly bad junglers down here or what's the deal?

If only for my own knowledge, if I'm playing jungle when SHOULD I be going devourer? I don't normally get it because it seems like kind of a waste even on champions that could use it. Why should I be farming when my team is getting pushed back to their towers and need ganks? I know keeping up is important, but it seems like so many other junglers just decide that devourer is the ONLY way to go, they ignore lanes because 'muh late-game' or something. Am I missing some piece of knowledge here? Do they know something I don't?

9 Comments

Changsty12/28/2015, 4:22:59 AM3 votes

When a jungler ganks, they are losing out on gold and exp from farming the jungle. Farming 2 camps gives 200+ gold. A successful gank gives 450 gold, while a failed gank gives 0 and pushes the lane, resulting in decreased safety for the laner. The reason why devourer junglers should prioritise farming isn't only to get sated ASAP, it's also because their weak early game leads to low success rates for ganks. Low level games fail to understand these powerspikes and to play around them, expecting a Yi to have the same level of impact as a Lee Sin or Shaco early game, hence leading to much frustration. This applies to both sides however, as the enemy team usually fails to shut down a devourer jungler before they get sated.

I did a quick check on lolking and it might be interesting to note that in Bronze, about 35% of players fail to get sated before the game ends, decreasing to about 15% in Plat/Diamond.

xShiNjiNx12/28/2015, 4:09:44 AM1 votes

Id say devourer is more viable at lower elo in general because games tend to last longer due to their inability to capitalize on the enemy's mistakes. This preseason however, devourer is probably a huge risk even at silver elo.

MorganFreemanBot12/28/2015, 4:01:14 AM1 votes

There are three things at play here.

1: Low level lanes are supremely bloody, people are overly aggressive and not terribly aware so there's a ton of fights and people pushing to be left open for easy ganks.

2: Low level laners do not know how to maintain a lead on their lane enemy and properly abuse it, so it's all too easy for their enemy laner to take advantage of the cockiness they feel and snowball the lane back in their favor. If that's not the case, they don't know how to watch for ganks (with wards or their enemy telegraphing), so find their lead easily thrown via that.

3: Low level junglers don't grasp that power-farming is not the proper way to play with devourer. It's true that you should get as much gold and xp as possible from the jungle, absolutely. The issue comes into play when they actively ignore lanes in order to do this. Often times you will catch lower level junglers (especially with devourer) in the wrong place at the wrong time, ignoring lanes / fights which they should be participating in. They will literally make a choice which hurts everyone involved (ally dies in what was an easily turnable gank because Jungler wanted to finish taking raptors; enemy team gets gold, your team doesn't, your team loses out on xp / farm) without realizing it. Worse still, if called on this behavior, they're far more likely to get salty and "punish" the laner by never coming to the lane.. Which in turn, again, will usually hurt the entire team.

It's basically a combination of low player skill. Devourer is great in low levels because you can usually farm it up on champions, leading to a positively massive snowballl.. But low players can't be relied upon, be they jungler or laner, to get to that point. So it's touch and go.

FlyingInca12/28/2015, 8:45:20 AM1 votes

AA heavy AD champs with lots of onhit synergy

Uiraya12/28/2015, 9:00:10 AM1 votes

In what tier are allies getting pushed to tower?

My jungle experience (low gold) has been that your allies will hard push every lane every game, so you might as well devourer because your other choices are to sit in a bush and hope for the countergank or just go get dragon by yourself.

Maximum Morde12/28/2015, 2:36:49 PM1 votes

Devourer is the go to enchant when your champion uses auto attacks as a large portion of their damage cause it's broken as fk. Every stacking jungle item has been.

MunchCrunchLunch12/28/2015, 6:36:50 AM1 votes

only if your champion has some sort of on hit passive. you're not gonna buy devoure on a jungle rengar or anything. you have to pay attention to see if they have on hits. and obviously just because they have some sort of on hit doesn't mean you should buy devoure. for example diana. she does a lot of damage with her AOE cleave and you'd be proccing it every 2nd auto but its not recommended to go for devoure. devoure goes well with, jax, yi, xin zhao , warwick, shyvana. and a few others but these are the top. honestly i would never not buy devoure on a champ that goes well with it even if my team is not doing well. cuz its the ultimate come back item when you complete it. i always go devoure on yi jax, and xin zhao. and i complete it most of the time. pretty much 90% of the time. if not more but thats just normal mode. i usually gank if we're doing well and not gank if lanes fed because usually there isn't much i can do.

you get devoure. first thing. you get river scutles. dragons. and clear camps. invade and just get the large monsters. i finish devoure very often under 20 minutes.