User blog comment:Lokiwg/The spirit items(Jungle)/@comment-24464243-20140508190101

I think there's some misunderstanding of purposes.

The Spirit line - what I'd call the original modern jungle items as the Wriggle's line was basically dead until recently - is basically made to get the jungler out of the jungle sooner. So, they're relatively cheap, come with decent stats and passives, make jungle clear and sustain better for everyone, and comes with gold generation that isn't lost when you don't take advantage of it, except after a long period of time.

Feral Flare is the opposite; it's for junglers who want to stay in the jungle and get as much out of it as possible. Sure, now you can get closer to a Feral Flare by ganking, but that's more to allow ganking period rather than shun it entirely like the previous version. It's still far more effecient to stay in the jungle as long as possible, hitting things with autoattacks over and over. Autoattacks being the keyword, here; there is very much as reason why it grants both attack damage and attack speed, and that's because it's not for farming junglers specifically, but autoattack junglers. The two categories almost always overlap - though some autoattacks do fine without rampant farming - so Feral Flare's design kills two birds with one stone. You can use it with someone who just wants to farm a lot, but it loses a lot of bite when used on someone like Kha'Zix and is best for Master Yi, Jax, Udyr, etc.

Neither are meant to replace bigger items, though. While the Feral Flare's potential damage output is huge, it's also completely unreliable since its vulnerable to counter jungling and unsuccessful ganks. In effect, there Spirit items are akin to Ghostblade or Sunfire, items you pick up early due to their cheapness and early- / mid-game effectiveness, while Feral Flare is like the Tear line, a none-to-powerful item that turns into an effective one that grows stronger with other items if you get the chance to build it up.

I'm not going to deny that maybe Lizard and / or Golem could use some buffs, but they're not really meant to be kept in games that go on for an hour where you can replace it for a stronger sixth item. They'll never be good end-game items, because that goes against their design.