User blog:Lukeatlook/Pyro's Item Overhaul 4 - Welcome To The Jungle

''Note to mods: Blog policy doesn't specify that custom patch notes (i.e. jungle discussion, as in this post) aren't blog posts, so I took the liberty of categorizing this as such. Let me know if I'm wrong about this.''

Welcome back to the item overhaul series! In previous episodes, I've talked about problems with support items, which Riot has adressed by introducing and, almost identical to my concepts (price off by 100 gold, really). They went for a different approach with, 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 and  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, like and


 * is a little bit too strong in its current form, the abuse case being stacking it with to solo baron at 15 minute mark

The Basics
Let's start with saying that 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 from working on tanks.

What needs to happens is that and  need to replace Machete as starting items with separate styles of jungling from the start.

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, now a starting item, is to change base MR of most monsters from 0 to 5. That includes:


 * and
 * and
 * and
 * and

and 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 users - carry junglers will still prefer AS for on-hit value of Maim.

The Spirit Line

 * +10 armor
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 20% bonus damage.
 * 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 moved to spells only, but it's 20% now, as opposed to 10% on contemporary. This probably needs more insight, especially since even tank junglers like autoattack a lot.

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 items
Those items have their own passives (besides Tenacity, which is shared with ). 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.


 * +300 health, +15 armor, +10% cooldown reduction
 * Passive - Tenacity: The duration of stuns, slows, taunts, fears, silences, blinds, polymorphs, and immobilizes are reduced by 35%.
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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.

Pretty much the same as the old one, but with armor, less health and changed Butcher passive.


 * +25 attack damage, +10 armor, +15% lifesteal
 * Passive - Incinerate: Deals an additional 14 + (2 × level) bonus true damage over 3 seconds upon dealing physical damage.
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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 or a  upgrade.


 * +45 ability power, +10 armor, +10% cooldown reduction
 * Passive - Spirit Drain: Gain 2 ability power for every large monster kill (max 15 stacks)
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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.

Big items
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 - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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 - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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, but main targets are champions like and , 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 - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 30% bonus damage.
 * 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 or.

The Razor Line

 * +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 into two items:


 * +40% attack speed
 * Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 80 (+ 4*stacks) bonus magic damage (25% to champions) and restore 10 (+ stacks) health. 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.

This assumes changes to - in this version it has 30% AS and passive is changed from 10% CDR to 15 magic damage on-hit. Still builds into, but also into.

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.


 * +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 :


 * +20% attack speed, +30 armor
 * Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 20 bonus magic damage (80 against monsters) and restore 10 health.
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 20% bonus damage.
 * 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.


 * +50% attack speed, +40 armor
 * Passive - Maim: Basic attacks deal 30 bonus magic damage (100 against monsters) and restore 10 health.
 * Passive - Butcher: While in combat against monsters, you restore 1% of your health and mana per second and your spells deal 20% bonus damage.
 * 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.
 * Passive – Trap Detection: Nearby stealthed enemy traps are revealed.
 * Active: A stealth-detecting mist grants vision in the target area for 5 seconds. 60 second cooldown. (800 Range)

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.