The change Feral Flare Needs and Deserves

NA Darklarik·Apr 10, 2014·8 votes·2,530 views

So ive been messing with the new FF A lot, ill cut to the chase though.

The 2 main problems ive seen with this new item are the following:"

It Promotes AFK farming
It has a huge powercurve on activation that makes it somewhat OP given how ridicoulously cost effective it is.

Riot has a "Solution" in the PBE, which is to increase the activation cap to 30. While this MIGHT fix Problem number 2 (or it might not), it will most definitely make problem number 1, WORSE. It will just promote junglers to AFK farm even longer.

My Proposal

**1. *Make Kills and assists count toards the activation, specifically make a kill worth 3 stacks.

Why: This promotes Play making, as oppose to afk farming. If a kill is the equivalent of clearing 3 camps, trust me, its worth the hastle. I think most of us have gotten one of those junglers who just afk farms, not helping a single lane in need or that is being camped, dosent even bother with dragon, all because they want to stack. Increasing the cap would make it worse.

Feral Flare is meant to be a pick up for AA reliant champs like AMONG OTHERS of course, its not meant to be a AFK farm and remove interacting with the enemy team.** Play making should be rewarded, not punished.** A jungler shouldent think "If i go help a lane, i wont get my Flare quick enough, do i help a lane or stack my Flare?"

2. My solution for Issue number 2, is tone down some of numbers slightly.

Why: The sudden curve of power this item grants is too strong. The Points per Kill, Big Camp, and Assist should be reduced from 3 to 2, and the % damage dealt to champs reduced to 30 from 33. This will help tone down some of Feral Flare huge Power curve, its only a small damage reduction, given that this item's base stats are already cost effective, not counting the free ward, the Gold income increase, and the passive heal and on hit damage, its not really a huge nerf.

Aditional Q&A fix up: Right now, the tooltip of this item read 33% Damage to champions, i would like if the tooltip actually listed the exact numbers dealt.

Discuss. Riot Plz respondas.

37 Comments

RiotJagApr 11, 20149 votes

The purpose of Feral Flare is to offer an item choice optimized for junglers intending to farm early game, and have more carry potential later game. As it stands, the type of carry junglers whose jungle itemization options were lacking are auto-attack centric, so this item fills that niche. But the core intent of the item is to trade away some early game influence on the rest of the map and commit to your own jungle, with the reward being a powerful mid/late-game power spike when Feral Flare transforms. The problem with it on live is that the early-game trade off is low (Wriggle's has solid combat stats for fairly low cost), and the power spike (when the item finishes stacking) happens too quickly. Increasing Wriggle's cost and increasing the required amount of stacks addresses both of these issues.

As to your suggestion, kills and assists cannot aid in stacking the item when it is still in Wriggle's form because that would defeat the core purpose of the tradeoff (i.e. you're required to farm your jungle instead of interacting with lanes). They do contribute to increasing the damage of Feral Flare after it's completed because you've already made sufficient investment into your jungle at that point.

Angry MonsterApr 11, 20141 votes

why arent you on the red tracker? HAXS

I plus one u

RiotJagApr 11, 20143 votes

Should be tagged soon...they're fixing it. :)

NA DarklarikApr 11, 20141 votes

Really hope you havent left this thread. I really would like to go into discussion about Feral Flare, right now i think its a good idea headed in the wrong direction.

If im an AA reliant champ and i want an item that gives similar stats as wriggles but allows me to gank (Lizard dosent fill this role, its more for casters like Khazix or Wukong). If you DONT want Wriggles to fill this role, please make a new Spirit Line item that does.

Angry MonsterApr 11, 20142 votes

AA champs that do not care about CDR are supposed to build item 3160 .

AA champs that care about CDR and or mana returns get item 3209 .

And you can gank. and get rewards with item 3160 . When its wriggles u do not get rewards. And when its wriggles in theory you are to weak to actually gank anyways.

Wu is not a AA champ. So i think your example is a little off. While he does trade a little and have a AS boaster he is more of a burst champ. HE sneaks in unloads everything and gets them or does not. So the upfront damage helps

While champs like Xin and Yi tend to chase a bit more with slow downs or speed ups. So then need more swings as they move.

NA DarklarikApr 11, 20146 votes

So the problem is that I view wriggles as an itemisation option for Junglers who are more auto attack reliant, i never wished Wriggles to be an item that makes the Jungle game stale,* if i decide i want to go help a lane i shouldent feel PUNISHED * for it, especially if the gank goes bad, im making a tradeoff of going to gank and potentially getting the equivalent of 3 camps (if it gave 2 to 3 stacks for a assist/kill) or wasting time i could have used farming.

If this item is meant to have a different intent, *it would be nice if you could release an item *(Say like Spirit of the Rabid Wolf), which has similar stats to wriggles but being a Spirit line item is made for AA reliant champs who also want to gank and not have to make that ridicolous tradeoff.

I WANT TO BUILD WRIGGLES, i dont want to AFK farm for 10-14 minutes to get the flare, i want to help lanes. Games can be decided in that time, not to mention you get no small amount of rage from allies for not helping any lane. There needs to be an itemasation option for AA reliant champions who DONT have to afk farm to get a decent power spike.

Like i said, Reward playmaking, not a farm fest.

EDIT: as an intermidiate point, you could raise the Stacks to 30 if you at least add this change of making Kills and assists count toards the flare activation, Please PLease consider this, im tired of AFK junglers and tired of having to do it myself if i decide to itemise Wriggles.

SnailedApr 15, 20142 votes

as an intermidiate point, you could raise the Stacks to 30 if you at least add this change of making Kills and assists count toards the flare activation, Please PLease consider this, im tired of AFK junglers and tired of having to do it myself if i decide to itemise Wriggles.

This for sure..Making ganks with kills add to feral flare introduces interaction with lanes, which is a must for all junglers.

Angry MonsterApr 11, 20147 votes

I like the idea of the stacks for kills. At the 30 stack requirement, but i would say 3 is to high.

But i am not a fan of nerfing the stats. The base stats are not that great. A new item 3160 only does 33 magic damage to champs. It is supposed to be the farm weapon and u need to farm to make it good.

I feel people in lanes are not adapting to non gank junglers. Which is funny cause people were bitching that they had to much influence in s3.

With carry junglers Nocturne , MasterYi , ect coming back people need to adapt. You are asking for more ganks but the junglers are not going to want to give u the kills when they do.

So user beware of this request.

ProfDrDeathApr 11, 20145 votes

One stat of item 3160 that could use a bit of careful nerfing is the HP-on-hit. Basically, it works similar to Lifesteal - but, unlike Lifesteal, it only scales with AS and your own tankiness. LS, on the other hand, scales with your AD, ArPen, AS, Crit, your own tankiness and even the enemy's tankiness, as it only applies to the amount of damage you deal.

Three ways to do it would be to nerf the stack conversion rate (2-3 stack = 1 bonus HP/hit), to soft-cap it (stack conversion rate nerfed after a certain number of stacks), or even to put a complete hard cap there.

Angry MonsterApr 11, 20142 votes

I disagree here, Its 1 per stack gotten. This is not very high. U say that this only scales with AS and not damage while true, misses the fact the more AS they build they tend to do less damage.

Most carry junglers can easily be focused down. Also the counter play is extra agressesion in the lanes to force teh jungler into lanes and help.

I feel alot of people are not forcing this counter play option. I still see people bitch when there lane tower gets taken down pre 15 minutes. IF people would push more objectives with there jungler mid game invades into teh enemy jungle would be easier and shut down the stacking of item 3160

ProfDrDeathApr 11, 20144 votes

1st, there and their. Please learn the difference.

Second, 1 hp per stack is rather high. Especially if you compare it to Lifesteal, where one NEEDS to build further damage to get more healing. Flat Health on hit allows any champion to build tanky after obtaining the Flare. My prediction is, the most abusive champions for FF are going to be those that build it into tankiness, like XinZhao or Aatrox .

Angry MonsterApr 11, 20141 votes

please learn what short hand is and form type is? If your so bad at discussions that u need to try to defend your self with stupid comment well then GG. U R winner

At 50 stacks it doesnt even = what item 3072 or item 3074 give. People get it for the AS and quick clear times. Does the magic damage and and on hit health return help? Yes. But almost everyone builds a 2nd life steal item usually item 3153 .

Most people are trying to over whelm single targets with high AS and no D stats. And since they did not gank for 15 minutes you should not of lost your lane. You should have enough stats to work with 1 other person and blow them up.

ProfDrDeathApr 12, 20143 votes

Not knowing/using the difference between there and their (and they're, for that matter) has nothing to do with short hand or form type. It is simply bad English.

The thing is, without a build dedicated to attaining high damage, a 50 stack item 3160 gives you way more HP back than a item 3072 or item 3074 or item 3153 . Just do the numbers:
FF is a 60 HP heal, simply for hitting the enemy. From a single slot. With only one of BT/RH/BotRK for , you'd need to do 333/500/400 damage AFTER RESISTANCES to get the same heal.

Angry MonsterApr 12, 20141 votes

ADC tend to do that much with this item 3035 so does Yasuo MasterYi Tryndamere and if u got a LW on a few others like Trundle they would also. So your point doesn't make sense

NO ONE GETS 50 STACKS. well maybe bronze players do but the game is not balanced at that low level.

Again everyone gets addtional lifesteal when building item 3160 . SO the problem isnt just

OnegarionApr 13, 20142 votes

Have to agree here. At my highest i think i've hit 42 stacks and that was a long game and one that i had about 20 stacks from camps and the rest from kills and assists (a good game for me.) In reality a game that isn't a bronze lvl noob match wouldn't get that many stacks int he first place.

Remlap1223Apr 11, 20142 votes

As long as you kill somebody or drive them out of the lane, I really don't care who gets the kill. I'm not one of those asshole junglers who won't gank a lane just because that lane didn't leash when I had 3 other guys helping already, but if bot lane has their lane pushed, and they keep getting ganked and failing to make plays when I help them, I'm not going to be inclined to help them. Sorry soapbox rant over. As for your change to Feral Flare, the problem also arises that they gutted Spirit of the Elder Lizard. In fact, I'd say that they need to buff both Ancient Golem and Elder Lizard, to make them more viable late game thanks to Feral Flare, and that would help. As of right now, Feral Flare is my go to jungle choice for bruiser junglers (must have on Jax , , Tryndamere , and LeeSin ). I the biggest problem is the conservation passive on the spirit items. You can get huge gold bonuses off of a single large monster kill, but lord have mercy if you want to get some value out of it in jungle. If they increased the conservation stacks to 120, you could take out all 3 jungle camps on a side and earn a decent amount gold, because it stacks up better on flare than on spirit stone, and spirit stones I tend to get rid of after I finish my build, and it should scale or be upgraded into something better, like item 3093 is upgraded to either item 3005 , item 3142 , or item 3087 .

Cosmic WarperApr 11, 20145 votes

I agree with both points. Having an item for afk farming is ridiculous since nearly every game i go to either my jungler or the enemy jungler is missing until the 20 minute mark, and nothing gets done because of it. Junglers are supposed to create pressure around the map and create opportunities for advantage, something that the feral flare denies when someone builds it. It's not worth the power curve, no matter how ridiculous it is. Definitely +1 ing this and riot should really see this post and consider reverting the 30 monster kill requirement nerf.

NA DarklarikApr 11, 20143 votes

If Kills gave 3 stacks and Assists gave 2 stacks you would see way less AFK farmers. A kill = clearing 3 camps is totally gonna incetivice people to gank.

Tyliear DeprawApr 11, 20142 votes

i'd love this, as a jungler, i love the new item but farming constantly sucks, i can have flare at lvl 7 or i can have it at 14 while helping my lanes. i feel like helping my lanes should let me get it faster

TulareApr 11, 20142 votes

Between the response from Riot Jag and my own experience, I think it's fair to say that creating pressure and opportunities are NOT necessarily what junglers are supposed to do. Those are metagame conventions - products of the environment. If Feral Flare creates new incentives for junglers and provides them with new avenues to succeed, then the conventions must change to accommodate the environment, not the other way around.

Cosmic WarperApr 11, 20145 votes

However afk farming for 15 minutes doesn't do anything for the game. It's a selfish playstyle to achieve a strong, yet niche item with great gold value. Considering this is a team game, afk farming shouldn't be an aspect of it. It's basically adding a PvE mode where you stay in the jungle far longer than the laning duration while the enemy jungler ( if they aren't farming with wriggle's) can completely dominate all three lanes, while you're the only one that isn't put behind. That selfish way of thinking is what many MMO's encompass, not MOBAs. It just doesn't fit the game, riot's previous philosophy of creating a teamwork environment, and makes it difficult on your team until you're out of the jungle (can be anywhere from 12-17 minutes), especially with the feral flare changes on the PBE.

RiotJagApr 11, 20146 votes

To some extent that's true; however, on live there already exist many champions that prefer to opt into "AFK farming" in lanes besides jungle (e.g. Nasus, late-game AD Carries, etc.).

There are always tradeoffs that teams can make during champion selection in terms of lane strength/pressure. For example, if the enemy mid lane has a Zed and your mid laner picks Vladimir, the Zed's team will probably have a lot more roaming potential and mid-game pressure, which has the ability to affect other lanes. If Feral Flare enables teams to give their jungler the option to farm, and they pick strong lanes so they don't have to rely on him ganking for them early, I think that's actually reinforcing a sense of teamwork. The problem is that when the item is too strong, the team is forced to watch their jungler farm all day. It should be appropriate for certain games/team compositions and not appropriate for others, instead of always being the correct way to play.

hashinshinApr 12, 20145 votes

Except all it does [the nerf] is force your team to be MORE reliant on safe laning and letting people farm. Once you get feral flare I don't think there are any champions that can 1v1 it anymore. Even as Jax I struggle to even match evenly with people who have a feral flare. It's insanely powerful at the cost of forcing your team in to a bad position.

The entire concept of feral flare as it stands is just asking for low ELO to abuse it since they don't have the game prowess to end it before FF starts wrecking everyone.

Samflash3Apr 12, 20141 votes

I feel that the damage it does to minions shouldn't be 100%. Also probably reduce the damage it does to baron at 40 stacks.

ThaddeusMikeApr 13, 20143 votes

Champions who afk farm are relatively rare and more importantly don't usually go in the jungle for it (jungle nasus was picked for his ability to waveclear, not afk farm). The jungle isn't for afk farming. Maybe having that as an option is viable for competitive play, but for solo queue it invites toxicity. Having a role that can be either about helping the team or can be about ignoring the team is a great way to build resentment. Even something like splitpushing still helps the team by applying pressure. Farming the jungle can provide that only through counter-jungling, and except for buffs that is very low visibility. Frankly, if you want this item in the game it needs to crowd all other options out. Having two viable alternatives one of which is team-focused and one of which isn't is asking for trouble in solo queue.

AzlagorApr 13, 20142 votes

Just that a champ splitpushing on lane creats map-presure, and if the other team doesn't deal with the splitpush u will get towers wich leads to more mapcontroll.

If u afk farm lanes, u help ur team by applying presure, eventually gaining mapcontroll and get farmed up.

If u afk farm the jungle, u just get farmed but don't apply any presure.

Also, toplane and adc rarly have impact outside their lane in the first 15 imn of the game regardless of the champ or playstyle, besides some early dragonfights in wich a good toplaner or adc would be involved regardless of champ/playstyle(unless ur not in a good spot to contest it)

In the early game, it's the jungler who applys presure and makes plays, and if that guy disapears for afk-farming, nothing will realy happen for u in the early.

I'm all for an jungleitem that fits carryjunglers and scales well into late, but it should have weak early stats as tradeoff rather than requiering afk-farming, makeing ganks more difficult and faceing an spiritestone jungler more dangerous, but still rewarding. With the current Wriggles, u feel like u get punished for every sec u don't farm ur jungle till it finally becomes Feral Flare.

I'd rather see the values of wriggles geting lowered, like 75 instead of 100dmg on the proc(25 instead of 33 vs champs), and maybe 5 ad less, but granting stacks also on kills and assists, so u still get a great reward for ganks without feeling punished for not farming, but thx to the lower stats ganking becomes more risky, especially if the enemy jungler shows up with a spirit-item.
It also would delay the lategame power a bit

BastileanApr 13, 20141 votes

How about improving the Blade Armor mastery? Instead of 1% of the enemies max health, you could make it 20% of your current armor per second. Since tank jungles should be buying armor this would help with their clear and would scale with their equipment.

Alternatively you could base it on 2% of the jungler's health so that Spirit of the Ancient Golem is more relevant.

Right now Blade Armor mastery doesn't actually synergize with tankiness. It instead synergizes with sustain which tanks may not have.

NA DarklarikApr 24, 20141 votes

So. Having watched the latest 4.7 Patch Broadcasts. I assume your opinion has now changed on this regard.

Doctor EggmanApr 11, 20143 votes

I feel like the pre-transform stats are underwhelming for ganking. You almost have to farm it hard to be effective with that item. While getting 3 stacks on kills/assist would be nice, someone like Master Yi is going to need A LOT of help to still make that worth coming out of the jungle. I feel like only FF-Junglers with strong ganking potential and decent CC(looking at you nocturne) are going to be able to really take advantage of kill/assist stacks. In my opinion, stacks should be lowered and in exchange for lower base damage on passive. This gets you out of jungle faster and allows you to confidently gank sooner.

For example. 20 stack transform but it starts off with 80 bonus damage. This way by the time you have 5 stacks you're back to being close to normal FF damage at 25 stacks. So you slightly nerf it(less damage at 25 overall stacks) but make it more useful early on.

Sire HippingtonApr 11, 20142 votes

I totally agree that kills and assists should already grant stacks for Wrigles, and i think the stack gain should be changed, 4stacks for kills, baron and dragon, 3 stacks for assists, 2 stacks for big creeps and 25% of that for the heal. (with stacks i mean dmg vs creeps, still 33% of that vs champs, currently FF grants 3 for kills/assists/creeps)

ChaosThiefApr 11, 20142 votes

It seems like a nice idea, but you forgot that flare gets stacks from champions once earned. And by then, you have plenty of items.

The jungler will wait a bit for massive power ganks. I think it's worth.

ILoveTiramisuApr 11, 20141 votes

I dont think it need nerfs. That item is OP but you need so much time for make it strong. So maybe a total change but no need nerf.

ThetaBarrierApr 11, 20141 votes

That is exactly what i was thinking of!

If you AFK farm for a fast feral flare, you would hit 25 big minion stacks at 12 to 17 minutes, That is about 15 minutes of absolute zero jungle presence/support for laners which really sucks.

Making assists/kills count as X amount of stacks would fix that problem completely by encouraging players to create a healthy mix of farming and ganking (considering that the X amount of stacks gained by assists would make ganking here and there more efficient than afk farming to get feral flare)

TerchioApr 16, 20141 votes

Didn't anybody notice that its on-hit proc is less than Wit's End, which isn't all that useful for power? I mean, with a slight increase on cost, you get basically MR instead of AD, don't need to charge it a bit, and it drops enemy MR as you attack, while beefing that MR even more. And I'd hardly call Wit's End OP... The Feral Flare proc needs 25 large monster kills to obtain, plus another 9. That's almost 6 full jungle clears, Ancient Golem and Lizard included, and all after first chucking out 1650 gold for the initial Wriggle's in the first place... that's also right around 100 monster kills, without including any of the monster kills required to obtain Wriggle's, and if you haven't counted your endgame scores, 100 monster kills isn't a number you reach every game. It's simply not that bad, especially since your team should be farming off of this guy's team, since he's so focused in his own woods.

And about this heal... That might be the only OP part of this item if you really farm the crap outta it, as you may just obtain crazy heal off of it. However, the solitude and game-length required to pull that off is OP as well, so I think it balances pretty good. If you are facing a jungler with a faceroll value on his Feral Flare, you probably made this game last way too long by not finishing them off. If you are in a stalemate that late in the game, that means that if the jungler who got the Feral Flare had instead gotten one of the early-game power jungle items, he would have simply facerolled you early in the match, methinks. Feral Flare is just way too long a charge to validate this even matchup not having a negative early-game effect on the holder.

NA DarklarikApr 24, 20141 votes

LOL the irony. Latest Patch Forecast says: "League of Legends team dynamics in general lead to this item having distinctly anti-teamwork and anti-play patterns, as junglers will feel compelled to ignore their lanes for 10-15 minutes so they can farm up their stacks, while their laners will pay the price for his less team-oriented choices. While we created Feral Flare to be a more 'selfish' jungle item, its current optimal use is to be completely noninteractive on the map. The future of this item may reduce some of the combat stats it gives or reduce the value of the Maim proc at all evolutions. In exchange, we're hoping to buff teamfight-oriented stacks that contribute to the progress of Feral Flare" - http://community.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/live-gameplay/POLbQ0Nl-47-patch-forecast

Called it. Riot anything to say?