The Quill Coat, and why it should replace Bami's Cinder and Cinderhulk

Note: this is jungle tanks as a whole, so while sej is decent atm, that don't mean every tank is

While there’s consistently been a half decent tank to pick in the jungle... be it Zac, Gragas or sejuani… tanks have been struggling to be relevant in the jungle for a long time now and half decent just doesn't cut it when the gap between strong and OP is so vast.

In saying that, tanks did get some time in the spotlight in season 5, during everyone’s favorite “Cinderhulk Meta” where we saw Sejuani rule the rift and the weaker tanks actually became valuable as junglers for the first time since pre-pre-season 2015. Despite that entire meta revolving around my favourite class in my favourite position, I don’t want that situation. It wasn’t an enjoyable time period for assassin players or any champion who couldn’t act as a tank buster. Surprisingly it wasn’t that enjoyable for me either. Instead of seeing different tanks, it felt like I was seeing the Lee Sin of tanks (sej)… over and over and over again. This game doesn’t revolve around me, and having been through the times where picking a tank in the jungle was as stupid as picking Zed vs cinderhulk Sejunai, I don’t want anything like the cinderhulk meta to return. But I also don’t want my favorite champions to sit in the swamp until the right champions/items are nerfed and the jungle adjusted just right for my picks to not be a handicap to my team mates.

When I started in season 3, tanks weren’t too different to what they are now in the jungle, albeit their stats had more impact than they do now. Back then divers and assassins were the go to champions. Nocturne, lee sin, vi, Xin zhao, the infamous AP Yi, Kha zix and elise sat at the top of the jungle’s food chain. As a level 16 pleb, I vsed a shaco who 1v5’ed our team. He got so fed from the jungle that no one could stop him. And from then on I was hooked. I HAD! To jungle, it was merely a matter of picking a champion I liked. And this stupid pleb picked Nautilus. While it was hell for a while, my persistence payed off when patch 4.11 arrived.

In patch 4.11, Riot set out to help the utility tank junglers who’d been struggling to perform against their still dominant diver and assassin competition. And their solution was an item that worked wonders and made not only the 2 champions riot targeted viable (naut and mao), but also every other utility tank in the game. This item, was the Quill coat. To save you searching, the quill coat was a 700-gold item, built from hunters machete and a cloth armor. It only offered one stat, +20 armor and its active provided a ward to help spot invading enemies which were common. But it’s passive was the star of the show. Sapping Barbs: Attacking monsters lose 5% of their max health over 3 seconds (up to 150). Owner gains +40 HP regen/5 and +30 mana regen/5 while in combat with monsters.

This item solved the horrid jungle clear plaguing tanks and its build path meant that all tanks would clear monsters at a certain rate, which was only assisted using their kits (eg all champs with a quill coat cleared the 6 camps in Xmin-time saved through using kit). It offered absolutely NOTHING to other classes. There was no build half and then turn it into something else (titanic build path into ravenous on fiora). Because quill coat built only into one thing, Spirit of the ancient golem. While Spirit of the ancient golem granted 200 less health, that was the only downside when you compare it to the current cinderhulk. It granted 10% more bonus HP, 20 armour, 10% CDR, A GOLD INCOME PASSIVE! And a jungle clearing passive that could be STACKED WITH SUNFIRE CAPE! This patch was like the morning of Christmas, a present that did everything I ever wanted it to do in this game….. an item that allowed tanks to be on even footing with the rest of the competition.

But, come pre season 2015… Quill coat disappears from the game as riot implements their new smite system into league of legends. They gave NO reason for this, they gave tanks NO compensation and the result was easily the most pathetic jungle item ever to have existed in league of legends (this is pre cinderhulk). It granted health, that was it. Until cinderhulk and trackers knife tanks lost sapping barbs, a ward, 25% bonus HP, 10% CDR and their gold income bonus.

Riot removed it, the only logical reason being out of laziness because it didn’t suit the structure for jungle items they’d planned. Well, it’s been over 2 years, how about we give it another try?

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My proposal: Returning item and bami's cinder replacement: Quill coat. The item remains mostly unchanged but mana regen and hp regen has been removed (due to them being on standard smites). And the recipe has been changed. It is now a jungle enchant to replace cinderhulk. Quill coat costs 1000 gold Item recipe: Cloth armor (300)+ruby crystal (400)+300 gold. Active: Place one sight ward that lasts 90 seconds, take downs and returning to base re fill this ward. Grants: 20 armor, 150 HP and sapping barbs as mentioned above.

THIS ITEM REQUIRES SMITE!

Then, it’s stats when upgraded with a smite: Total cost, 2625 which is the same as current cinderhulk. Jungle smite (1000)+quill coat (1000)+ruby crystal (400)+ 225 gap Grants: 300 HP (could be reduced to 200, but tanks have already lost 850 through item nerfs so this health isn't going anywhere) +20% bonus HP+20 armor+10% CDR (2 ruby crystals make a kindlegem gold wise, but having it in quill coat recipe made the component too $$) +sapping barbs passive (it deals the same damage as quill coat, it DOES NOT get stronger with the upgrade). Then it gets the usual stats from whatever smite you have bought.

This is an overall buff to the tank item late-game. It can be argued that the CDR is unnecessary due to the abundance of CDR items (spirit+warmog+FH=40% but that isn’t always optimal) however I kept it there for consistency with the original items. If it was removed, I’d leave the cost alone, add another cloth armor to the recipe and increase the armor value to 40. I did increase the health boost ratio because I'm hoping it's a happy medium between 25% which was broken and 15% which seems underwhelming. It won't come into play until lategame and will help make up for the 850 health tanks have lost mentioned above

Some may be thinking "this will be busted in lane". But remember, sapping barbs only ever works on monsters. NEVER ON CHAMPIONS! It is impossible to use this item effectively in lane.

This is the solution that will bring the rest of the tank class up to speed without indirectly buffing ANYONE ELSE. This item will only be used as a jungle component and won’t be abusable in lane as monsters need to hit you for the passive to work. To boot, if a tank falls behind they can build sunfire cape again to bolster their jungle clear to help em catch up. I don't want to turn nautilus or any tank into cinderhulk sejuani. But I'm tired of jungle tanks being as useless as the towers that are supposedly meant to protect us.

It worked once, it can work again. And it could very well solve the tank jungler problem without buffing them into a broken mess