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Note to mods: Blog policy doesn't specify that custom patch notes (i.e. jungle discussion, as in here) aren't blog posts. If I'm wrong and this should fall into "custom champions" category, please consider updating the blog policy.

Welcome back to the item overhaul series! In previous episodes, I've talked about problems with support items, which Riot has adressed by introducing Forbidden Idol Forbidden Idol and Aether Wisp Aether Wisp, almost identical to my concepts (price off by 100 gold, really). They went for a different approach with Aegis of the Legion Aegis of the Legion, but the problem of 4 item recipe has disappeared anyway.

In the last episode, I've promised my take on how the AD itemization should look like, but let's admit that the fighter project turned out to be much larger than I'd expect... I'm still not finished with assessing the problems and finding reasonable solutions. Anyway, Riot themselves have stated that they're unhappy with the current state of jungle items, so I figured this could be a good opportunity for my take at the problem.

Defining the Problems[]

  • Tank champions like Nautilus Nautilus and Sejuani Sejuani still don't take much from the jungle items, since the Butcher passive merely amplifies the damage to monsters by a fixed percentage
  • Furthermore, the damage amplification helps mostly jungler who use Spirit of the Elder Lizard Spirit of the Elder Lizard, like Kha'Zix Kha'Zix and Pantheon Pantheon
  • Feral Flare Feral Flare is far from balanced, either too strong or too weak depending on how Riot hits the numbers

The Basics[]

Let's start with saying that Hunter's Machete Hunter's Machete isn't good enough in its current form.

At the moment, the Butcher passive scales with nothing but armor. Early in the game, there are very few champions with higher base armor than usual, and abundance of armor seals (since they're pretty much mandatory) makes the difference neglible. Maim, on the other hand, requires pretty much every jungler to get Attack Speed marks.

Having both Razors and Stone upgrade from Machete forces the two items to be quite similar in their mechanics, though. And damage scaling is what hinders Spirit Stone Spirit Stone from working on tanks.

What needs to happens is that Madred's Razors Madred's Razors and Spirit Stone Spirit Stone need to replace Machete as starting items with separate styles of jungling from the very beginning.

Suggested Changes to Jungle[]

As of now, any magic penetration in runebook is wasted in jungle, forcing AS marks and keeping down lategame power of some AP junglers. My approach, toned down with spell damage amplification on Spirit Stone Spirit Stone, now a starting item, is to change base MR of most monsters from 0 to 5. That includes:

Golem Golem and Big Golem Big Golem have their MR set at -10, so probably a tune up to -5 would be appropriate (even though magic penetration can't bring it further below 0).

This would bring hybrid penetration marks in line with the attack speed ones, especially for Spirit Stone Spirit Stone users - carry junglers will still prefer AS for on-hit value of Maim.

The Spirit Line[]

Spirit Stone Spirit Stone
  • +10 armor
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 20. Killing a large monster will consume up to 10 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

All those numbers can be fixed, most important here is the idea of what the item should be doing.

Damage amplification has been removed, but it reappears on damage-oriented Spirit items.

Armor bonus could open up other seal options, such as health or scaling armor. The number can be adjusted, but the main purpose, other than opening up rune choices, is increasing the safety in case of invades.

The most significant change here is the scaling regeneration triggered in monster fights. It should go in pair with defensive statistics and be just as effective (if not more) for tanky, slow clearing junglers as it is for strong, quick farmers. Basically if you're Sejuani, you'll still clear slower that the rest, but you'll regain more health over the duration of the fight and be less vulnerable to invades.

Keep in mind that the Butcher passive is transponded relatively unchanged to the item's upgrades, so any changes here apply directly there.

Early pickups[]

Those items have their own passives (besides Tenacity, which is shared with Mercury's Treads Mercury's Treads). They build form advanced items that consist of one ingredient and cost around 800g; total cost of those final upgrades to Spirit Stone is set at 1800g.

Kindlegem item
850 Gold 850 (450 Gold 450)
  • +250 health, +20 armor, +10% cooldown reduction
  • Passive: +20% bonus Health
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 2% of their maximum health per second and restore 2% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

Similar to the old one, but with armor, less base health, scaling bonus health and changed passive.

Vampiric Scepter item
800 Gold 800 (440 Gold 440)
  • +25 attack damage, +15 armor, +15% life steal
  • Passive - Incinerate: Deals an additional 14 + (2 × level) bonus true damage over 3 seconds upon dealing physical damage.
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

This item undertook the biggest change. Altered Butcher passive favours tanks, so to compensate it for AD champions, I gave the item noticeable lifesteal. Incinerate passive remains unchanged, but the item loses CDR - it should be possible to regain it with the new cheap Glacial Shroud Glacial Shroud or a Kindlegem Kindlegem upgrade.

Fiendish Codex item
820 Gold 820 (385 Gold 385)
  • +45 ability power, +15 armor, +10% cooldown reduction
  • Passive: Gain 2 ability power for every large monster kill (max 15 stacks)
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

Bigger builds[]

Those build from advanced items priced around 1400 gold and retain its ingredient's passive in unchanged form. Final cost of those three is set at 2200 gold.

  • +250 health, +25 attack damage, +15 armor
  • Passive – Rage: Basic attacks grant 20 movement speed for 2 seconds on hit. Minion, monster, and champion kills grant 60 movement speed for 2 seconds. The movement speed bonus is halved for ranged champions.
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

The "ganking item" that could prove useful on many champions - mostly all those who could already build Phage, and especially on those, who liked Phage, but didn't feel like investing into Trinity Force.

  • +250 health, +30 ability power, +15 armor
  • Passive - Eyes of Pain: +15 magic penetration
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

This could actually see some use on AP-scaling tanks like Amumu Amumu, but main targets are champions like Diana Diana and Elise Elise, who are rather supposed to be bruiser mages.

  • +30 attack damage, +40 ability power, +15 armor
  • Passive - Battlefury: Basic attacks reduce target's Magic Resistance by 5% for 5 seconds. Spell damage reduces target's Armor by 5% for 5 seconds. Those effects stack up to 3 times.
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.

This one, to be honest, was made rather to complete the set than to fill a needed niche, but I can alredy see its power on jungler with good hybrid scalings like Evelynn Evelynn.

The Razor Line[]

Madred's Razors Madred's Razors
  • +10% attack speed
  • Passive - Maim: Basic attacks against monsters deal 20 bonus magic damage and restore 5 health.
  • Passive: Gain 10% more gold from monsters.

Long story short, we split the old Wriggle's Lantern Wriggle's Lantern into two items:

Malady item
900 Gold 900 (450 Gold 450)
Dagger item
450 Gold 450
  • +40% attack speed
  • Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 15 (+ stacks) bonus magic damage (400% to monsters) and restore 10 (+ stacks) health on hit. You gain 1 stack for every and big monster kill and 2 stacks for every champion kill or assist.
  • Passive: Gain 30% more gold from monsters.

As for the Bloodrazor itself, it's pretty much what Flare does now, but without the flat AD and lower base Maim damage - in an exchange, the on-hit magic damage on champions is available right away.

Wriggle's Lantern item
1600 Gold 1600 (400 Gold 400)
Sightstone item
800 Gold 800 (400 Gold 400)
  • +200 health, +20% attack speed
  • Passive - Maim: Basic attacks against monsters deal 40 bonus magic damage and restore 10 health.
  • Passive - Ward Refresh: Holds 4 charges and refills upon visiting the shop.
  • Active - Ghost Ward: Consumes a charge to place a Stealth Ward that reveals the surrounding area for 3 minutes. A player may only have 3 Stealth Wards on the map at one time.
  • Passive: Gain 20% more gold from monsters.

New core on Lee Sin, probably. Emphasizes the control part of the current Wriggle's. Possible shenanigans with roaming support junglers. The more unconventional team comps it can start, the better.

Twisted Treeline[]

This gives an opportunity to clear up the TT equivalent of Lantern Lantern:

  • +20% attack speed, +30 armor
  • Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 20 bonus magic damage (80 against monsters) and restore 10 health.
  • Passive - Spirit Drain: While in combat against monsters, you drain 1% of their maximum health per second and restore 1% of your health and mana per second.
  • Passive - Conservation: You generate Conservation stacks every 1.5 seconds, up to 80. Killing a large monster will consume up to 40 stacks and grant 1 bonus gold per stack consumed.
  • Active: A stealth-detecting mist grants vision in the target area for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown. (800 Range)

Note: You can't have both Madred's Razors and Spirit Stone at the same time due to gold generation passives, but this way the carry jungler can start with Razors. For the purpose of TT, out of two jungle gold passives the Conservation one is preserved.

The problem here would be the Lightbringer, I suppose, because with Trap Detection that's 4 passives (and an active).

Summary[]

Even though this concept doubles the number of jungle items on SR (from 4 to 8), I believe that all of them can prove useful and convenient for many junglers. Since they're all gold generation items, there is really no problem with stacking those items, even at the basic level, so no more solo barons at the 15 minute mark.

This change would, I believe, effectively exhaust the demand for opening up new options in jungle, as well as make the life of a tank a little bit easier.

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