Something needs to be done about 2 of the new jungle items

LupusNox··8 votes·1,663 views

Right now, out of the 4 new jungle items, there is almost no reason to get Poachers Knife or Stalkers Blade when you compare them to their counter parts.

Poachers knife is meant for counter jungling, but counter jungling only lasts for the first half of the game at max before it really doesn't start to matter at all. And besides this, the buff it gives to smite isn't really that good. It ONLY effects the creeps in enemy jungle for the bonus, and it gives a measly 20 extra gold, a reduced CD (the really only good part) and a short MS increase. Compare it to Rangers Trailblazer, which shortens smite always by 15 seconds, hits the whole camp and stuns them and gives back 15% of your missing health/mana, poachers seems lackluster even for strong counter junglers. I suggest buffing it so that it seems like an equal alternative to trailblazer.

Here's my idea: New Poachers Knife: when Scavening Smite is used on a creep in the enemy jungle (does not work on epic monsters), it deals 100 bonus true damage, gives 20 extra gold, decreases smites CD by 30 seconds, and adds a stack of Stolen Glory. Stolen Glory stacks indefinitely and each stack adds 5 bonus gold for each enemy jungle creep taken and adds 5 maximum health to the holder.

Poachers Knife is for junglers who want to counter jungler and secure buffs. Gives them an advantage in smite wars for stealing buffs and increases gold the more they counterjungle.

Now, as for stalkers blade, I haven't really seen anyone get this, as it gives the worst smite imo. tiny amounts of true damage and a slow, which might help secure a kill but most junglers aren't going to get this when they can get skirmishers sabre and do true damage on hit for more damage in 2 hits + reduced damage from target + sight. Its not even a comparison for what to get, unless your facing tryn to abuse the smite bug that kills him during his ult. Right now, instead of opting to get this, most single target gnak favoring junglers are getting skirmishers, whereas tanks are getting rangers since they need the sustain and clear time it offers. So buff stalkers to make it worthwhile

heres my idea chilling smite can be cast on enemy champs to deal 80+10 per champ level true damage and snare them for 0.5 seconds. after the snare ends, the target is slowed by 25% for 1.5 seconds. A kill or assist on the target within 10 seconds of using chilling smite will reduce its CD by 20 seconds.

Suddenly, its a viable alternative to the other forms of machetes upgrades and might get purchased by champs looking to constantly gank. Right now it is just far too meh to get when your passing up on the other options of jungle items and their smite buffs

Also, reduce the Devourer magic damage of hit to 25. Right now, its far too strong considering you get 40 and can immediately start stacking. I know that I personally have had 132 bonus magic damage on hit by the end of one game.

5 Comments

bunglyfe2 votes

i dont even consider buying any item but rangers

having to save smite to use in lane ganks is too taxing on my jungle clear

if the gank is unsuccessful, it puts you behind big time

SIayton2 votes

Jungle just doesn't have enough sustain to justify getting anything but rangers on most junglers. Its only the few champions who were SPECIFICALLY designed to jungle that I feel like can really use the other smites. And when you get a champion smite, you basically give up using the jungle buffs, which IMO are more useful than the very small damage + slow you get from chilling smite.

As for the challenging smite, really only the junglers that have built in sustain and that rely on auto attacks really put it to use, so basically just warwick and maybe yi / lee. I feel like the new jungle items are poorly designed in that the already strong junglers have pretty much free choice of smite while most are forced to get rangers to make up for lack of sustain.

LupusNox1 votes

the biggest problem is that skirmishers and rangers scale, (20% reduced damage, true damage on hit, sight / 15% missing health/mana regen) so that they are relevant all game. By comparison, stalkers deals a meager 160 true damage at level 18 to champs, and poachers stops being useful around the 16 minute mark altogether.

Ad Astra per Asp1 votes

The biggest problem with poachers is that counterjungling is doable but the respawn timers are so long that having a smite that only does something in the enemies jungle means you are most of the time wasting your smite because there are champs that can completely clear their jungle and if you are also in their jungle, there's going to be huge 100 second time periods you can't even effectively use your smite. Poachers needs to be useful outside of their jungle for this reason. Or it will never be that viable. It should have some sort of sustain in your own jungle, nothing to match rangers, but something. That would open it up to a lot more champs.

Chilling smite is an ok thing but the fact is, your smite timer is so long, you have no sustain, and your are using your creep clearing and jungle smite buff getting spell on a gank... you are not going to have good jungling speed at all and always be low hp because it has no sustain. That means only sustain junglers can grab it and even they are at a huge disadvantage over other items. You need some sort of either A) sustain or B) situational cooldown reduction on smite. or both.

The thing is, removing sustain makes the jungle harder that is true. But it also means that Rangers is almost a must buy for 90% of the champions out there and that isn't so great. Instead of creating diversity it in effect stifles it. Don't get me wrong I love rangers but it does feel bad to have 3 items that are hardly ever used. I do think devourer is strong atm but I think it's pretty balanced to be honest because you have to farm for it right away and during that time a lee sin with rangers can be ganking like mad and controlling vision etc. If he plays that part right, devourers isn't enough to keep up with him getting all those other lanes ahead and getting so much gold. In a game where all his ganks etc fail it's a good item but that's a tough gambit no matter how you phrase it.

LupusNox1 votes

eh, skirmishers is really good on a ton of AS/duelist junglers, like warwick, voli, shaco, udyr, even shyv. 20% reduced damage, sight and true damage on hit for 6 seconds is freaking amazing. Thats the reason that ww is permabanned right now, he can get about 165 true damage and 200 magic damage added to his ult from just one item at level 6, and it only scales from there when he levels up and gets more stacks on devourers.

at lvl 18, if he has skirmishers with devourers (say 30 stacks) and wits end and then he smites and ults someone, he would deal (612+210+350 magic damage +345 true damage) 1172 magic damage and 345 true damage to a single target all while taking 25 MR so that it deals closer to that number since most squishes are only going to have 35-40 MR. Thats about 60% of a squishes health just from 2 damage items at level 18.

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