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It's time for Poacher's Knife to shine

FluorescentBulb·3/31/2015, 2:15:32 AM·1 votes·559 views

It's no secret that is by far the most looked down upon jungle item by the community. I've probably only seen this item at the beginning of the season on a Nunu or Cho'Gath craze before the meta and new jungle became stale. However, with the recent changes and the reemergence of tank junglers, there is now an opportunity to counter jungle the hard campers and the roaming gankers. This change in meta will create much more opportunity with less risk of running into someone that can kill you instantly from the brush.

Has anyone tried item recently? My last few games of have each gained me over 1000 poached gold before selling it. This is gold that you deny the enemy jungler, not just gold gained. And with the new smite effects in play it becomes much more devastating when you take 3 prime buffs faster than your opponent takes 2 lesser ones.

Maybe I'm too optimistic but if all my opponents want to camp again then I think its time to help myself. Try a game with this and tell me how it goes, I want to see if a larger sample size is enjoying the new meta and it's new place for

3 Comments

kcStranger3/31/2015, 2:31:24 AM1 votes

So I haven't tried the item (at all, actually), but I've put a lot of thought into it, and here's why I think the item isn't popular: It's a little win-more. If you successfully counter-jungle, that's good in and of itself. Poacher's makes that good thing that you can do even better by giving you a little extra gold, and enables that sort of play a little bit with the movement speed bonus and recharge timer reduction, but you can also get yourself into trouble by "forcing" a counter-jungling strategy when your opponents are actively working to deny it. Meanwhile, if you go with Ranger's or a combat smite, you get a more reliable upgrade while still leaving yourself the option to counter-jungle (and counter-jungling will still be good, just not quite as good).

Clearly, there's a point at which Poacher's becomes good enough that it's worth forcing the strategy. If it gave 500 bonus gold on large monster kills, people would buy it all the time. The question is just whether it gives you enough upside in the cases where it does work to justify the risk of it doing nothing when your counter-jungling is shut down in some way (not to mention it telegraphs the strategy if your opponents see you've bought it). So far, most people's answer seems to be "no."

FluorescentBulb3/31/2015, 3:10:41 AM1 votes

The gold is not the benefit of this item. I think we can all admit that 20 gold a minute is not that good, right item 3093 ? The benefit is the cooldown reset. With one smite you can get both buffs on the enemy jungle, with 2 smites you can take one of your own or the scuttlecrab as well. Increasing your smites greatly increases your survivability per camp, your overall clear time, and your level up rate. You are right, counterjungling successfully is its own reward, but getting to do it twice as often is amazing.

Also, with the chickens its easier and safer than ever before. If the enemy jungle ganks anywhere, go to the other side. You will get 2 camps, or 1 if they have a ward by going around it. Its all about putting yourself further ahead of the enemy jungler just a bit and making sure that the global gold is swayed enormously in your favor (especially if you trust your team enough not to die to sloppy ganks).

Ruudi3/31/2015, 5:01:20 AM1 votes

Gangplank item 3711 item 3092 item 3093 item 3078 item 3022 item 3031 The damage. The gold. You can't stop it.