How to fix the smite top meta

I already know this is going to be downvoted by sheep who just follow that smite top crap, but whatever.

Just go back to the old jungle item system. Or something similar. If it isn't broken, don't try to fix it and risk breaking it.

We didn't need these jungler items (except Trailblazer since jungle creeps are tougher). We didn't need 2 smites. Most junglers didn't need the slow, because most junglers have their own CC. Most junglers didn't need the damage reduction, because most of the time you fight it's a gank or team fight where it isn't 1v1. In the old jungle, nobody need the AoE sustain smite, because spirit visage game mana sustain, and smite healed already. Additionally, jungle creeps didn't do nearly as much damage and for clearing most champions have AoE since clears are another thing that makes a jungler good.

I knew it would happen eventually. Whether it took a full season or just a month, I knew it would happen. Riot messed with a system that worked. We saw it kill plenty of champions in the jungle . The ones that lived got nerfed . Riot took a summoner spell designed to kill MONSTERS, and made it more used against champions.

The summoner spell page even still reads Smite: "Deals 390-1000 true damage (depending on champion level) to target epic or large monster or enemy minion."

They still haven't even changed that. And it's not like they haven't made other changes because Revive is gone and Mark is on the page.

Season 4 had a system of simple items. Madred's for attack speed, built into Feral Flare eventually for farm junglers. It gave additional % Gold on killing creeps. Tanks would build Quill Coat into Spirit of the Ancient Golem. This gave %HP and thornmail like affect towards jungle camps. AD and AP gank heavy champions would build spirit stone, which converted Damage to monsters into some HP and Mana so you had sustain, even in the form of mana (a change in season 5 which hurt many mana hungry junglers such as and . Spirit Stone built into Spirit of the Elder Lizard and Spirit of the Spectral Wraith, giving AD, 10% CDR, and burn (Lizard) and AP, cdr (can't remember if 10 or 20%) and a passive that stacked AP as you killed jungle monsters (maxed at 30 AP for a total of 80 after the 50 you got from base stats). Golem, Lizard, and Wraith all had a passive which stacked gold up over time (max 80 gold), and upon killing a large jungle monster granted the stacks as gold, but a maximum of 40 gold per monster kill. This was to show it was primarily for gank heavy junglers who would be able to let it stack up.

Aside from the enchantments and the gold/XP/respawn timers of current jungle creeps, Season 4 had a superior item system. This is mainly because smite was only used on minions and monsters, and had a lower cooldown (40 seconds), this meant that since there were no smite upgrades, smite upgrades couldn't be abused (IE, Skirmisher's in lane for a free exhaust).

Most importantly Smite was minions and monsters, not champions. This is the biggest issue in all of Season 5 as a whole. Why was Warwick top popular and resulted in Warwick being gutted? Skirmishers did true damage on every tick of damage (whereas now it is on auto attacks). Why were supports starting to take smite in soloQ? 50% slow on chilling smite. Why is smite top so popular now? 25% HP (although that could be fixed by just having a separate item for that that wasn't jungle specific), and you can make your lane opponent do 20% decreased damage to you for 6 seconds.

Can Riot just admit that making a monster specific summoner spell not monster specific was just a bad idea. There's a reason you can't use Teleport on allied champions, it'd be broken as fuck to TP onto an ally, whether you go the tower route (target is NOT immune, but still can damage) or the minion/ward route (cannot damage or move, however is immune to damage). Although there is one loopwhole, Zac's blobs being able to be TP'd on. You might as well be allowed to Ignite towers if you can smite champions. On ARAM you might as well be allow to hit Towers with mark. You might as well have Cleanse also apply to allies, even though it's supposed be just for you, might as well have Barrier shield be their until you the shield is gone, even though it's supposed to be a temporary shield. Might as well have TP upgrades so you get less cooldown when used on allies, or be able to use it on enemies.

FFS it just doesn't make sense. Why the fuck would you have smite be used on things other than minions and monsters. And while I'm at it might as well point out that it also makes no sense that little monsters can't be smote. That change literally did nothing. Literally nothing at all. The only change it had was if someone countered a camp I couldn't just smite the remained small one while I walk past instead of walking into the camp and killing it.

Seriously Riot, Season 4 Smite was great. Sure, jungle itemization wasn't that great. Just take the current enchantments (and put the bonus gold on enchant instead of smite upgrade) and turn them into their own items, and remove the smite upgrades, then reduce cooldown on smite back to 40 seconds. Literally half the balance changes this season wouldn't have been needed if you couldn't smite champions. Warwick would actually be in a really good spot. Devourer probably never would've gotten nerfed (or at least not as hard) since it was only problematic when Skirmisher also multiplied your damage output while Skirmisher reduced the opponent's damage. In actuality the only changes I could see being necessary would be adding Cinderhulk instead of Juggernaut and the Pantheon passive change so it couldn't block Dragon hits, or else we'd still still see him getting level 2 dragons. Those two and maybe the Dragon changes with the 8% going to 6% and bonus damage to monster being put at 4th buff instead of 2nd.

TL;DR: Season 5 does have better itemization, but smiting champions is fucking stupid and has only been problematic. Season 4 smite and Season 5 enchants would probably make a much more balanced system. To replace the tier 2 jungle items, a spirit stone like item could be added, or perhaps even keep the blasting smite to be the only way you upgrade smite, this way champions like still get that sustain but there's no abuse from the Challenging and Chilling Smites.