What happened to Feral Flare?

I remember when Feral Flare came out that everyone used to build it in certain junglers.

Then it got some nerfs and everyone stopped building it. Even pro-players. I never thought it was a huge nerf. I still think it is a good item.

Lately I've jungling more (I main Xin Zhao jungle) and I noticed even with other xin zhao junglers that they don't build Feral Flare. My build path with Xin Zhao normally goes:

Wriggles-Lantern -> Simple Boots -> Blade of the Ruined King -> Youmoos -> (tank items)

I have a pretty sick record with this build. I rarely lose with this. And as soon as Wriggles Lantern turns into Feral Flare the power spike really turns up a lot. I understand that if the game isn't going well it might not be good but I don't understand why people don't give it a chance.

Is there something I'm missing? Why the hate on Feral Flare? Why are the other items better for pros and people in general to build and in what situations?

league-of-legends

Best Answer

Because it's not very gold-efficient, and its not really that good in most builds, its very specialized.

That said, it's still broken on some junglers imo. Warwick and Xin come immediately to mind- BotRK, Feral Flare, and they're already virtually unkillable (At least before you die, in Xin's case. He doesn't have that much sustain.), never mind before tank items.

So really it's not hated in most cases, people don't use it because it's a very specialized build for it to be worthwhile.

You can't. It's simply not viable now. You need at least two items (generally feral+BoTRK) to be effective. If you just go feral then full tank, you're not taking advantage of the item at all, and you're trading your first 15+ minutes to do it.

A good discussion can be found here.