Cinderhulk is dead and so are tanky fighter junglers.

BluePolarizer·Aug 20, 2015·40 votes·4,338 views

With the nerfs to cinderhulk there is absolutely no reason for fighters to go cinderhulk anymore. Those that scale with AD should go Warrior then full tank or get a purple smite then sell purple smite later for a real AD or tank item. Those that can autoattack well should go devourer then full tank. Those who scale with AP or scale poorly should buy either runeglaive or get purple smite, real tank items, then sell purple smite when they're fully slotted for a (now inferior) thornmail or something.

Sunfire Cape is superior to Cinderhulk at all points in the game. Only Warrior is inferior to Cinderhulk and that's debatable, since Warrior provides a better power spike and their scaling is both trashy anyhow.

86 Comments

LaceUp23Aug 20, 201528 votes

You know what jungle item is worse than Cinderhulk??

Not having a jungle item Fiddlesticks

But for real, all these tank nerfs are just so Zed and Lee can come back again. Rito had too long without their #LC$BIGPLAY$

l Main RenektonAug 20, 20154 votes

Or Lee was genuinely in a not good spot for once but people still always complained despite the fact that he was weak in comparison to devourer and cinderhulk junglers at one point.

LaceUp23Aug 20, 20158 votes

A huge portion of the champion pool unviable for multiple seasons? That's A-Ok.

Lee Sin not most picked jungler for one time since his release? Better buff Lee Sin, nerf cinderhulk, and nerf armor.

Ulquiorra995Aug 20, 20159 votes

"In a good spot" =/= "absolute top tier pick". Lee not completely dominating all the other picks does not mean he wasn't in a good spot.

stealthfox94Aug 20, 20158 votes

No sympathy. Fiddlestick is a stupid anti-fun champ that needs a rework.

YfrappefortAug 20, 20153 votes

{quoted}

You know what jungle item is worse than Cinderhulk??

Not having a jungle item

But for real, all these tank nerfs are just so Zed and Lee can come back again. Rito had too long without their #LC$BIGPLAY$

Riot Games, before patch 5.16 :

"Meh, tank junglers are quite boring to watch. How could we nerf them so we see them less often?"

"Well, just nerf Cinderhulk. It's their main item. That way they lose their "end game fantasy" with a bandage buff to mid game."

"Sounds good! But there is no Garen tee that they will stop playing them..."

"Mmm, how about we buff Lee Sin then? He's not played enough."

"Excellent idea! More flashy plays! But where should we buff him?"

"Just make his ultimate deal more damage when he kick tanks, that way, people will play them even less!"

"Sounds good!"

Guess 11 patches was all Riot could survive without too much instant-blowing.

MarshallBanannaAug 20, 201519 votes

Did you people even run the numbers?

Old: 300 HP + 25% Bonus New: 400 HP + 15% Bonus:

@no additional items Old: 375 bonus HP new: 460 bonus HP <-- (+85 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen (additional +500 bonus HP) old: 1000 bonus HP new: 1035 bonus HP <-- (+35 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage (additional +900 bonus HP) old: 1500 bonus HP new: 1495 bonus HP <-- (-5 HP Nerff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage + Deadman's plate (additional +1500 bonus HP) old: 2250 bonus HP new: 2185 bonus HP <-- (-65 HP Nerff)

People only see the -10% nerf, completely disregarding the +100 flat HP buff.

unless my math is terribly wrong, all it really does is buff it's early game and only slightly nerf it's late game.

Loken StoneheartAug 20, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Did you people even run the numbers?

Old: 300 HP + 25% Bonus New: 400 HP + 15% Bonus:

@no additional items Old: 375 bonus HP new: 460 bonus HP <-- (+85 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen (additional +500 bonus HP) old: 1000 bonus HP new: 1035 bonus HP <-- (+35 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage (additional +900 bonus HP) old: 1500 bonus HP new: 1495 bonus HP <-- (-5 HP Nerff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage + Deadman's plate (additional +1500 bonus HP) old: 2250 bonus HP new: 2185 bonus HP <-- (-65 HP Nerff)

People only see the -10% nerf, completely disregarding the +100 flat HP buff.

unless my math is terribly wrong, all it really does is buff it's early game and only slightly nerf it's late game.

Thing is, by about 1 1/2 other items (say, randuins and something around 800 gold worth of HP), from that point on it is worth less. Then, take into account that it loses its new 100 "bonus health" that it has over current cinderhulk like, 4-5x's over. Lets go ahead and pretend that 400-500 hp late game is a "slight" nerf. That is a full item worth of HP gone.

Couple this with all of the armor item nerfs, which are all losing fairly significant stats in several ways along with their cost going up, and you can damn well bet that the 5k hp 300+ armor tanks of nowadays that still melt in 2-3 seconds, will melt in 1-2 seconds with their 3500 HP pools, lesser armor, and taking even longer to reach end game due to cost increases across the board.

Actually, they won't melt at all. They won't be picked, so they can't even be killed. Assassin meta is back, baby. Tanks are too expensive and don't have enough slot OR cost efficiency to be worthwhile (y'know, since they nerfed both at once for whatever reason), and champions who historically bullied them out of the game entirely like Lee Sin are receiving significant buffs.

MarshallBanannaAug 20, 20158 votes

Numbers dude!

Don't kneejerk speculate and run the numbers.

Here, let's say you managed to build this absurdity:

item 3102 item 3709 item 3083 item 3143 item 3065 item 3742

Prior to the bonus % calculation, that's a flat 3150 bonus HP (new cinder) or 3050 bonus HP (old cinder).

With the bonus % health, the results are:

Old: 3812 HP

New: 3622 HP

That's only a 190 HP difference on an absurd uber late game build of 3600 bonus health (4.98 % less bonus HP with new cinder over the old one)

Loken StoneheartAug 20, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Numbers dude!

Don't kneejerk speculate and run the numbers.

Here, let's say you managed to build this absurdity:

Prior to the bonus % calculation, that's a flat 3150 bonus HP (new cinder) or 3050 bonus HP (old cinder).

With the bonus % health, the results are:

Old: 3812 HP

New: 3622 HP

That's only a 190 HP difference on an absurd uber late game build of 3600 bonus health (4.98 % less bonus HP with new cinder over the old one)

My bad. I guess I didn't math that it doesnt matter if you have cinderhulk or not now, you have 1k less HP in an end game build because they nerfed EVERYTHING, and even less effective health also because they nerfed everything.

Even without considering the reduced armor values, or the increased gold costs-- you do know that by end game, that 200 health loss is like a reduction of 1k effective hp, right? It's still a pretty big deal. With the loss of armor, you're losing even more, something on the scale of like 2.5k hp (this isn't accounting the loss of HP on several of the items since the patch, either. Just some of the armor loss). Its actually a huge deal, thats seconds off of your life in a team fight.

So, really, they're in a worse place than I thought but not because of cinderhulk entirely. Even more useless than I thought they were.

The FastAug 20, 201510 votes

He just clearly showed that it wasn't a 400-500HP nerf. He literally JUST showed it.

That build he posted would result in about 4000-5000HP, depending on champion.

chipndip1Aug 20, 20151 votes

[{quoted}](name=Loken Stoneheart,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=xzVHahxI,comment-id=00060000,timestamp=2015-08-20T13:41:42.732+0000)

Thing is, by about 1 1/2 other items (say, randuins and something around 800 gold worth of HP), from that point on it is worth less. Then, take into account that it loses its new 100 "bonus health" that it has over current cinderhulk like, 4-5x's over. Lets go ahead and pretend that 400-500 hp late game is a "slight" nerf. That is a full item worth of HP gone.

Couple this with all of the armor item nerfs, which are all losing fairly significant stats in several ways along with their cost going up, and you can damn well bet that the 5k hp 300+ armor tanks of nowadays that still melt in 2-3 seconds, will melt in 1-2 seconds with their 3500 HP pools, lesser armor, and taking even longer to reach end game due to cost increases across the board.

Actually, they won't melt at all. They won't be picked, so they can't even be killed. Assassin meta is back, baby. Tanks are too expensive and don't have enough slot OR cost efficiency to be worthwhile (y'know, since they nerfed both at once for whatever reason), and champions who historically bullied them out of the game entirely like Lee Sin are receiving significant buffs.

Unless Vayne, Devourer Yi, AND Annie are all hitting you with full force, no 5k health + 300 armor tank is going down in 2-3 seconds. You need some SERIOUS focus fire from some SERIOUS damage for that to happen...and where's your damn team?

Loken StoneheartAug 20, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Unless Vayne, Devourer Yi, AND Annie are all hitting you with full force, no 5k health + 300 armor tank is going down in 2-3 seconds. You need some SERIOUS focus fire from some SERIOUS damage for that to happen...and where's your damn team?

Team is behind me because I'm the tank? And yes. Yes you do die in 2-3 seconds. If you reached full build as the tank, the enemy ADC has been full build longer than you have-- they get waaaaaaaaaaaay more gold than you do. Full build ADCs punch through tanks like they're paper with IE crits and LW. Full build ADC does roughly 1k DPS (if not a tad more) to a tank after resistances and LW.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

Only the ADC is sufficient. My top 5 most played are all melee fighters or tanks, and in teamfights I have 0-5 seconds to do anything before dying to ADC crits, depending on if I get CCed or not. My record for survival was full tank Maokai dying in 5 seconds but I've also been the 4K HP Hecarim that dies in 3 seconds.

The Yetii RiderAug 20, 20154 votes

{quoted}

Did you people even run the numbers?

Old: 300 HP + 25% Bonus New: 400 HP + 15% Bonus:

@no additional items Old: 375 bonus HP new: 460 bonus HP <-- (+85 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen (additional +500 bonus HP) old: 1000 bonus HP new: 1035 bonus HP <-- (+35 HP buff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage (additional +900 bonus HP) old: 1500 bonus HP new: 1495 bonus HP <-- (-5 HP Nerff)

@+Randuin's Omen + Spirit Visage + Deadman's plate (additional +1500 bonus HP) old: 2250 bonus HP new: 2185 bonus HP <-- (-65 HP Nerff)

People only see the -10% nerf, completely disregarding the +100 flat HP buff.

unless my math is terribly wrong, all it really does is buff it's early game and only slightly nerf it's late game.

Your math is wrong. They nerfed Randuins, it only gives 400 Health now.

MarshallBanannaAug 20, 20152 votes

Yeah, sorry.

Regardless, that's an issue with Randuin, not cinderhulk.

Swap it for a ROA or whatever. the point still stands.

As far as raw bonus HP is concerned, the change is barely noticeable unless you have an absurd amount of HP, at which point a loss of less than 200 HP on a champ with upwards of 4000 HP is barely significant.

The Yetii RiderAug 20, 20153 votes

{quoted}

Yeah, sorry.

Regardless, that's an issue with Randuin, not cinderhulk.

Swap it for a ROA or whatever. the point still stands.

As far as raw bonus HP is concerned, the change is barely noticeable unless you have an absurd amount of HP, at which point a loss of less than 200 HP on a champ with upwards of 4000 HP is barely significant.

You might think a loss of less than 200 HP on a champion with upwards of 4000 HP is barely significant, and you'd be correct.

The reason people are upset is that this loss of HP is being coupled with hard nerfs to five popular tank jungler items (Aegis of the Legion, Randuin's Omen, Righteous Glory, Thornmail, and Frozen Heart), resulting in a lot less effective HP. If you nerf HP and you nerf resistances at the same time, it's going to hurt.

Not to mention Gragas, Nunu, Sejuani, Shyvana, and Nautilus were all nerfed previously because of their power with Cinderhulk, and then Riot still goes and nerfs the item that was making them strong? In Nunu's case they nerfed his Health per level because of the double stacking of Cinderhulk and Consume buff (which means it's just a flat hard nerf for lane Nunu who has access to neither) and then they go ahead and nerf Cinderhulk's bonus health (twice, it used to be 25%).

Riot has nerfed Cinderhulk so many times I've lost count, from its base health to its percent health to its damage to champions to its damage to minions and monsters...and yet they still nerfed all the champions that built it too.

Kuroi86Aug 20, 20151 votes

You're asking people on the boards to be logical, that's just not going to happen. People typically don't stop and think, they knee jerk. Tanks get nerfed, saw it coming, honestly expected them to get hit harder than they did. Lotta people on here, didn't see it coming, insist tanks just got gutted. About the only place where you're going to see a lack of tanks is LCS. Every other elo is still going to have a fairly strong tank/bruiser presence.

XonraAug 20, 20157 votes

Sadly I have a feeling that was the point. I think Riot just got tired of seeing Cinderhulk and decided to go ahead and kill it off for good. It really feels this patch is trying to dumb down tanks by nerfing just about every armor item (Even one just about a week old ). They want "juggernauts" now, which is going to be "fun" again.

Renekton is going to become flavor of the month in about a week from now I promise you this now. With the new items, and the focus on "juggernauts" Renekton is going to fit right in and his win rate is going to jump. I also see him become a jungler again, if not this patch, then at least the next one.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20155 votes

Renekton's kit is not gonna allow him to jungle. He just doesn't have the sustained damage or defense to do it. There's also no point in playing Renekton when you could have jungled Hecarim, Jax or Irelia who gank better and outscale him either due to kit or due to being able to take devourer.

What this patch change does is fk over tanky fighter junglers like Hecarim Skarner MonkeyKing who will now be forced to either go Warrior or Devourer, and full tank junglers who now have no itemization.

Death by KaynAug 20, 20151 votes

Hey. Skarner player here. Just wanted to let you know that after the release of Runeglaive Cinderhulk has been a reallly poor choice for Skarner and was outweighed by Runeglaive in almost every situation. I haven't played him yet after his juggernautation, but I'm pretty sure Runeglaive is still going to be the best purchase on the lonely bug. Also devourer is absolutely terrible on Hec, same with Warrior. Hec does not scale well with AD nor Attack speed. I foresee him still going the cinderhulk route, as it will speed up his clears the most significantly and hecarim just looooooves earlygame tankiness. I don't play enough Wukong to comment on him, but I trust you know what you're talking about there.

Jungle Lux GodAug 20, 20152 votes

You mention Magus, but I think you mean Runeglaive for Skarner.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

Exactly. Hecarim can't do shit with Devourer. He might be able to take Warrior if it gets reworked to be more like Spirit of the Elder Lizard from before when Hecarim was OP, but the current Warrior doesn't do much for him. The AD, Arpen and CDR are all good on him (since even though his Q doesn't scale that well, its on such a low CD that the sustained damage improvement from a Warrior is substantial), but the real problem is that Warrior -> Triforce means you're squishy as fk, but Cinderhulk->Triforce now means that you are less tanky than before the minute you buy anything with 500 HP on it which is pretty much every tank item in the game.

I have 250+ games as Hecarim this season. This cements the domination of Top Hecarim over Jungle Hecarim instead of having both be good.

MLDzXnRRRAug 20, 20157 votes

Cinder is great with all the new HP items...

Silents429Aug 20, 20154 votes

Shh they are going to downvote you, but you are right.

pripustasAug 20, 20154 votes

What are you talking about? Tanky junglers? If you go cinderhulk, you build tank. Not tanky, tank. U srsly think that building cinderhulk on Hecarim, Wukong is a good idea? WHY would you ruin a champion like that? Because pro's do it? You wanna tank? Go with a tank, not a fighter. I fully support Riot on this. I'm so sick and tired of cinderhulk here cinderhulk there. Riot did not intend on fighters(bruisers) being picked for their unique skillset utility, and built as tanks. I stopped watching LCS, because I main jungle, and watching noodle fights with cinderhulk on every champion is not entertaining at all.

Aboylova92Aug 20, 20157 votes

If you don't build Cinder on Hec, then you have zero idea how to play him. The whole point of Cinder is to go tri and get Sheen procs with your Q. You live WAY longer. As for Wu, if you've team has the damage, but needs a tank, it's a completely worthwhile item to get. If say you have a Yas top, ori mid, and a Thresh bot, you severely lack any tank.

This item now, along with the tank item nerfs, is going to put them in a bad spot. They were already getting pushed out by devour and runglaive junglers, now there's almost no point in using Cinder champions.

pripustasAug 20, 20153 votes

The point of cinder is to build triforce? Ok dude.

LadyRenlyAug 20, 20152 votes

triforce gives health too

Jungle Lux GodAug 20, 20152 votes

I don't play Hecarim, but I do play Skarner and the same principle applies.

The idea is that Trinity Force gives enough of a damage spike with their spammable abilities that they don't need another damage item, but they will die too quickly if they don't get tanky enough to survive.

Cinderhulk gives you the tank stats needed, and the other jungle items don't improve their damage capabilities significantly enough to offset the lack of those tank items, so Cinderhulk into Trinity Force is actually pretty good.

Aboylova92Aug 20, 20155 votes

The whole point is for champions like Hec that have free sheen procs every few seconds to stay alive as long as possible to proc them. You are extremely squishy with Warrior to the effect of getting blow up after your initial burst. Cinder let's you stick on their carries while bursting more often for longer with Tri. While the AD and Armor Pen is nice, it's useless when you're dead. It's the same idea to building mainly tank on Darius as he stays alive much longer and puts out more damage overall.

Loken StoneheartAug 20, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The whole point is for champions like Hec that have free sheen procs every few seconds to stay alive as long as possible to proc them. You are extremely squishy with Warrior to the effect of getting blow up after your initial burst. Cinder let's you stick on their carries while bursting more often for longer with Tri. While the AD and Armor Pen is nice, it's useless when you're dead. It's the same idea to building mainly tank on Darius as he stays alive much longer and puts out more damage overall.

Fun Fact: Full AD Darius pre-rework was terrifying. You could instantly kill any target that got in range (your ult had a base damage of like 800. Q, AA, W, Ult was a kill on anything but the tank), in my experience it actually worked better than tank Darius. That might just have been me though.

Aboylova92Aug 20, 20151 votes

It did work, problem was if there was any hard cc/kiting on the other team, you were more than dead, lol. Full damage does for sure work on bruisers like that, Wu being a prime example, but you have to play very carefully.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

I have 250+ ranked games alone on Hecarim in plat with rank 5 mastery on Hecarim and a Reaper Hecarim skin. You are unranked, playing in low silver elo and have a 4/6 record in ranked, having never won with Hecarim even once in ranked.

Why are you saying that I'm bad and ruined Hecarim lol?

pripustasAug 20, 20151 votes

Gz man, happy for you. I don't play soloq ranked, as I don't care for it. I'm really happy that you've achieved some kind of rank in a game. I don't mind people boasting about their ranks, as if they're gods, but emm.. what does Reaper Hecarim skin has to do anything?

Anyways, my point was that you people build 1 damage item, and then full tank, and you want to both do decent damage and be a tank. You have to choose. Either be tank, or do damage.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

I'm fully committed to this champion, enough to pay for a relatively expensive skin on him. I play a crap ton of him at an elo that Riot itself has said to look at when testing balance changes. You said I was bad. I'm just saying that you have no idea what bad even is, that's how bad you are.

Why choose? In every other MOBA game (and this one before the "balance" changes took place), tanks both deal high burst damage and are extremely tanky. Their weakness was always being kited if their initial burst didn't set up things correctly, and sustained damage, as it still is. In every other game, tanks can solo carry. In DOTA, about 1/3 of all hard carries are full tanks.

pripustasAug 20, 20152 votes

You should tone that down. I don't recall saying you're bad. Saying that your build path is bad is different. But why are you building cinderhulk and then tf? What's the point in this? Cinderhulk does almost nothing for your ganks, except makes you more tanky ( I guess if you love towerdiving..) Also cinderhulk is way inferior to tf in clearing speeds and early skirmishes and small confrontations.

If I choose not to play ranked that is my choice. You haven't seen me play, so how can you tell me that I'm inferior to you? Now I'd understand if you said that my builds are bad, because you can see those.

Now what you said about tanks in other MOBA's. You do understand, that Hecarim has everything that you mentioned, plus he is very mobile? You see a problem there?

BluePolarizerAug 21, 20151 votes

Hecarim used to be able to solo carry. Now he can't solo carry because he gets blown up easily by all the ADCs. If you have ever seen high elo players (Diamond 1's and challengers) they almost exclusively go cinderhulk on Hecarim.

Also, if you look at my build orders, I don't get Cinderhulk first if I get ahead. I get a Sheen and leave it at blue smite; then I finish the cinderhulk if I don't get enough gold for a Triforce directly on my next back. Now there's no point in getting Cinderhulk whatsoever. Probably just gonna keep it at blue smite and sell it for another tank item, Gage or LW late game.

pripustasAug 21, 20151 votes

Yeah, I love SickMotionlol he plays alot of Heca top, and some Jungle. And boy does he carry... He has a huge win rate on Heca. Saying that cinderhulk nerf immediately made him not able to carry is like saying that after the mr buffs AP champions are no longer viable.

SoMNiaAug 20, 20154 votes

What? The new Cinderhulk is BETTER for anyone with less than 900 additional bonus health. It's BETTER for tanky fighters, and worse for FULL tanks.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

You get less HP if you buy a Triforce + random tank item or cleaver + random tank item with it.

What kind of AD bruiser doesn't buy Triforce or Cleaver now?

SoMNiaAug 20, 20152 votes

Cinderhulk plus 900 MORE bonus health results in 5 less bonus health now.

item 3709 item 3071 item 3065 = 1380 bonus health. Before? 1375. A buff.

item 3717 item 3078 item 3742 = 1437.5 bonus health. Old Cinderhulk, exactly identical (1250 total bonus health is the break-even point). Yes, Dead Man's Plate was available before this patch.

So, um...not really? This change is a slight buff to no change for tanky fighters, even at their third item. I suppose if you have Cinderhulk, Cleaver, one armor+health item, and one MR+health item, it's a slight nerf, but at that point, you're more tank and less fighter, and even then, it's not much of a change. Randuin's Omen got its stats nerfed, but also has the anti-crit passive now, and Dead Man's Plate exists.

ULTRA RAMOOSEAug 20, 20151 votes

It's a straight 10% loss in HP, and for slow moving jungle/tanks this is horrible.

SoMNiaAug 20, 20152 votes

NO IT ISN'T. It's a 10% loss in final bonus health (actually, 0.1 is 8% of 1.25, so an 8% loss), coupled with 100 extra bonus health. It provides MORE health until you have Cinderhulk plus at least 850 additional bonus health. Please read the patch notes.

ULTRA RAMOOSEAug 20, 20151 votes

So when cinderhulk went from +25% to +15% hp it wasn't a 10% loss? do you work for the buma administration, because that's great 1984 math 2+2=5

KrinuAug 20, 20153 votes

{quoted}

So when cinderhulk went from +25% to +15% hp it wasn't a 10% loss? do you work for the buma administration, because that's great 1984 math 2+2=5

Not all health is bonus health.
Going from a 125% bonus to a 115% bonus isn't a 10% loss, it's an 8% loss.

People need to be careful with their terminology. Yes, the listed value of the bonus was reduced from 25% to 15%, which is a reduction of ten percentage points but is not the same thing as a reduction of ten percent.

DR N0PEAug 20, 20153 votes

i think cinderhulk is fine stop crying scrubs

RavenMagusAug 20, 20153 votes

...This makes zero sense at all.

The cinderhulk change is actually better for a fighter jungle who isn't planning to build 100% pure tank, or wants a bigger impact in the early/middle game while building Cinderhulk.

BluePolarizerAug 20, 20151 votes

A fighter jungler who buys more than Cleaver or Triforce + random defensive item is already at a disadvantage with this change.

RavenMagusAug 20, 20152 votes

You've seen the math posted in this thread, right? You have to go very deep into tankiness for this to become a nerf - and until then it's a buff. And those fighter junglers are usually at their best in the early game anyways.