League of Legends Throwback Thursday: Feral Flare

It’s interesting to remember Feral Flare in context with the current game. The era of Feral Flare and its subsequent evolution Sated Devourer brought tons of complaints about jungle as an uninteractive role. Now, though, the balance has swung completely the opposite.

In Seasons 8 and 9, the biggest complaints from League of Legends players is regarding how influential jungle can be in lanes. Complaints of “better jungler wins” aren’t just a meme but a legitimate feeling by many players that the over-influence of junglers in the early games can be game breaking.

Riot has attempted to rectify these complaints by toning down the jungle influence via decreased XP gains, making early ganks riskier. However, this action has caused issues for junglers, who feel that they are now the ones who are too dependent on laners. But there was another path that Riot could have considered.

Rather than just directly nerfing junglers XP gains, Riot could have added back in the option of this Feral Flare-like stacking mechanic. With the jungle having been reworked multiple times since its elimination in Season 6 – camps are harder to take early and respawn less often – there is a decent argument that an item like Feral Flare wouldn’t be nearly as overpowered as it was in seasons past.

Riot has said in the past that they wanted the jungle to feel like a role with a lot of diversity and choice. However, their decision to gut XP gains has narrowed, rather than opened up, the ways junglers can outplay each other. Rather, it’s more the case of which jungler can successfully contest Scuttle Crabs and ganks early to get their snowball going faster.

Adding an item that allows junglers to capitalize off the lost tempo by the opponents by poor ganking, prioritizes counter-jungling and efficient pathing, should at least be considered as an option to help open up the jungle meta. At the very least, laners won’t have to complain about those blasted level two ganks anymore.

Do you miss Feral Flare or are you glad this item was cast to the depths of Hell? Let us know in the comments!