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So why is Preseason 4 Feral Flare back? Have we learned nothing?

SporadicInanity·11/24/2014, 10:25:36 PM·1 votes·1,039 views

So we have this preseason 5 thing going on right now. For the most part its a mess. Yes, yes, its preseason and we're getting "used to it" but this one is so bad that i'm thinking i'll just skip out on LoL all together until the next patch or two. Thing is, old Feral Flare is back, except without the effort required to transform it and this baffles me at this point in LoL's lifespan. We have a PBE, right? These things get tested and there are folks trying to find all the exploits, right?

For anybody who's unfamiliar with what i'm raging about, Preseason 4 introduced the Feral Flare which unlocked at 25 stacks and started at 33 on hit damage. Games were being ruined by junglers who would afk farm through lane phase to get their lanterns transformed then showing up when nobody's ever seen them and instakilling ANYBODY on the map. Then they just go back to the jungle and get more gold than the carries and more experience than the mid laner. It was ridiculous so Riot nerfed the item several times to the point of practically cutting its effects in half.

Now its back, its cheap, and no stack farming required......wait what? Most champions can back early and straight buy this enchant for a 1500 premium price and power spike to a pre-pre-season 5 carry jungler who had a 15 stack feral flare (after the 30 stacks required to transform it) . Not only that but it gains more stacks even more quickly than the previously kind of sort of balanced Feral Flare because when you score a kill or assist you get not one, but TWO stacks. One successful teamfight? 6-10 extra on hit damage for you! Don't get me started on Warwick or anybody else who can easily exploit this...

I realize that so far this is just a straight up whiny rage thread, but i'm at least going to put it out there that i'm more angry at whoever greenlit all of this preseason stuff instead of let it cook on the PBE some more. It really makes me question whether people are even testing stuff in there anymore or whether Riot's listening to them before pushing all of the content to live. In particular, this Devourer enchantment really grinds my gears because it is a beefed up copy of another misstep they made a full year ago. Hopefully it either gets hotfixed or the next patch is filled with decent changes across the board.

11 Comments

WeihGuy11/24/2014, 10:49:04 PM2 votes

You have every right to throw your hands in the air on go WTF mode. Have you played vs an Udyr, Warwick or Yi lately? Especially Warwick who is perma banned no questions asked. Infinite scaling is a bad idea and to top it off, they made it start at a flat 40 magic damage.

Here's a post I made about tuning down Devourer while keeping it a mid to late game item. Give it a like and expose this abomination http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/Y33ZNv4L-devourer-scaling-over-time-like-roa

JadeKnightblazer11/25/2014, 2:51:50 AM2 votes

New on PBE: Enchantment: Devourer Magic damage on hit lowered to 25 from 40

/sigh, still not the fix needed for this item.

Lord Macaroni11/24/2014, 10:50:59 PM1 votes

Some of the jungle items are in line for a nerf because of early power spikes, Riot is aware and that's why they have a preseason to balance out items/champs that the patch made a must-pick/ban.

Kuroi8611/25/2014, 12:36:23 AM1 votes

The problem with FF wasn't the damage, it was the on hit healing and toxic choices that players made.

The Devourer is easily countered by an easily bought stat, MR. Even with the nerf to MR, it is still a massive counter to this. item 3710 1500 gold 40 magic damage at buy and 50% attack speed item 3091 2600 gold 42 magic damage 50% attack speed 30 mr and steals 5 mr on hit stacking up to 5 times.

By the time you get the additional 1100 gold, you can still out duel the champ building devourer (this is simply factoring the items, not other factors like smite or ignite). Null magic mantle and recurve bow would put you on pretty even footing.

If anything, Devourer may have too much damage on buy, may see that decrease, but over all I think it's not going to see much of a nerf. Just imo.

EndlessSorcerer11/25/2014, 2:15:53 AM1 votes

There were 3 main issues with Feral Flare that Devourer doesn't have.

The number of camps required to transform Wriggle's Lantern into Feral Flare meant that many champions had to powerfarm early to get the transformation at a reasonable time, meaning they wouldn't be ganking lanes.
The on-hit healing scaled with your stacks, so some champions could powerfarm a Feral Flare to 40 stacks and have 50 healing on-hit
The damage tripled against monster camps and minions, so Feral Flare junglers could clear Dragon and Baron very quickly

Devourer has fixed most of these issues: it doesn't need to transform, it doesn't have any healing, it doesn't deal extra damage to monster camps, and it gives 2 stacks for champion kills and assists which incentives junglers to gank and teamfight more than Feral Flare did. These changes, combined with the increase difficulty of the jungle, camp spawn times, and experience changes to jungle monsters, have greatly improved the item.