Out of the myriad of jungle items in League of Legends, the Poacher’s Dirk is by far the least bought item. That may be changing soon, though, because it’s getting some pretty big buffs in the next patch, according to the latest update on the PBE.
The biggest reason for avoiding the Dirk so far has been its effectiveness when weighed against the other AD jungle items. Why waste gold on the Dirk when that hinders your progress towards the Warrior enchantment? The Warrior item is very cost efficient, with high AD and CDR, and it simply doesn’t make sense to interrupt that build on an AD jungler for the Poacher’s Dirk. To make the Dirk more worthwhile, it needs to offer more, and that’s exactly what it’s getting.
For starters, it’s getting the same new passive as the Serrated Dirk, another AD item getting some big changes next patch. This means it will deal 50 bonus damage on the next attack after taking down an enemy with a short 30 second cooldown. Combining the 10 AD with 50 bonus damage for only 600 gold makes the Poacher’s Dirk a solid buy, but it does rely on you taking down enemies. As a high-AD burst jungler, though, that’s not exactly a problem.
On top of that, the item upgrades to a Serrated Dirk after stealing three camps from your enemy jungler, which is a huge power spike still for only 600 gold. Three camps isn’t that hard to get, but that passive has always been on the item. It’s so important now for two reasons. Firstly, there is a cooldown on gaining stacks towards the Serrated Dirk that prohibits you from gaining a poach stack for 50 seconds after getting one. That’s getting lowered to 40 seconds, which means you’ll be able to get the upgrade faster. Secondly, all the Lethality items in the game are being reworked, and some of them will be far stronger in the next patch. Getting a Serrated Dirk, which is a component of Lethality items, for only 600 gold means you’re closer to a huge power spike.
Overall, this is a huge buff for the item itself, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see the item purchased a lot more when the next patch hits.
