So, Throwing Dagger, what an item.

Since the beginning of Season 3, HiRez have been trying to make Throwing Dagger and its tier 3, Golden Bow, more popular to gods other than Mercury, first with a cost decrease. That was not enough, though, and people still weren't buying it, so in patch 3.5, HiRez decided to change them both to have different passives:

"Throwing Dagger and Golden Bow have had an interesting life cycle, and with this change, we are moving the pair into a more defined role. By increasing the damage the passive does to minions and jungle monsters, these items are now increasingly defined by their ability to assist gods with clear."

Throwing Dagger

New PASSIVE – All basic attacks will also hit enemies within a 15 unit radius of the target for 25% of the damage to gods and 50% damage to Minions and Jungle Camps.

Golden Bow

New PASSIVE – All basic attacks will also hit enemies within a 15 unit radius of the target for 50% of the damage to gods and 75% to Minions and Jungle Camps.

Now, when it was announced, people were unsure about it. Most people assumed it wouldn't change anything and just ignored it. However, the real impact of the item wasn't felt on the PTS and when it moved to live client, many ADC (attack damage carry) players tested and found it to be an excellent item. Gods like Artemis saw increased play in Conquest and provided good results both in and out of ranked play, where previously the lack of clear on the god caused issues with their laning phase.

Then the SPL came...

In the first game of that week, Cringe Crew vs. Hungry for More, Throwing Dagger was seen built as a starter item on Hou Yi in both games. Hou Yi is not a god that struggled to clear a wave by any means but they built Throwing Dagger nonetheless. As the games progressed, Throwing Dagger was never upgraded into Golden Bow by either team, and instead it was sold late in the game to provide gold and space for their final items just like a normal starter item would be. As such, the item seemed to be working the way HiRez wanted it to.

Then came Leftovers vs. Torpedo Gaming, where we saw Anhur pick up Throwing Dagger. Anhur is also not a god that requires help clearing, as Impale does quite the job on its own. Then in game 2, we saw an Apollo pick Throwing Dagger up, but not as the ADC (attack damage carry) but as the solo laner. Apollo is a god who for a long time has had issues with clear. His wave clear ability, So Beautiful, cannot clear a full wave even at max rank, and as such he has always struggled. Throwing Dagger has helped him massively, and in the solo lane he proceeded to get first blood and play well.

Moving onwards during that week and Throwing Dagger made an appearance in almost every game, sometimes on multiple gods on the same team. It was everywhere. Hou Yi, Anhur, Ullr, Apollo, Rama and even Neith, who is the hunter who needs the least assistance with her wave clear. And it wasn't just the AD Carry role! Mid lane and solo lane hunters also showed up numerous times with Throwing Dagger.

So what's happened? Is Throwing Dagger really so powerful that every hunter should be picking it up!? Well, the consensus of the item wasn't truly revealed until this happened:

During Allegiance vs. EnVy, the ALG hunter Aleksandr "Oceans" Brudnyi got first blood onto the EnVy hunter, Jarod "CycloneSpin" Nguyen with 4 consecutive basics in a row with the 4th critting and going into an Impale (the clip itself can be found here)

The reaction:

That first blood prompted reactions across Twitter and Twitch alike, with the small 10% crit chance on Throwing Dagger coming up big. Some choice reactions from a few SPL players on Twitter:

So, what actually is the problem with Throwing Dagger? 10% crit and small AoE (area of effect) basic attacks can't be that powerful right? Well, I was curious as to its actual impact, not from the view of a ADC but of a Support. I reached out to EU Team Panthera's Support Craig "iRaffer" Rathbone and asked him what the actual effect of Throwing Dagger is. His reply:

"It causes problems, because people who don't naturally get lane pressure such as Xbalanque, Hou Yi, are more safe in lane and don't lose any gold because the clear is so easy now. So it's ruined all drafting purposes."

Now that's a real problem. Whether you think iRaffer is exaggerating or not, that's a serious issue for teams when drafting compositions. If all hunters have the same clear, then it means lane pressure and clear can be down to who gets more crits from the 10%. Thats not a particularly fair item, because all of a sudden, clearing the wave and lane pressure is no longer down to skill or the difference in the teams' drafts.

The real question now is what can be done about it? Some people are calling for it to cost more gold, so either when it is picked up at the beginning of the game limited potions can be brought with it or, by increasing the cost by more, it can't be bought at the start of the game. Some are calling for the item to simply be reverted back to the way it was before the 3.5 patch and some people are even calling for the item to be removed all together. But most people are calling for the % chance for crit to be removed from the tier 1 and 2 items. Would this help? Possibly. It removes a lot of the chance factor for clearing and means no random crit kills like in the video above will happen. However, some pro players don't feel like that's the correct change either:

But if the crit isn't the correct change, what is?

This all happened the day of the ALG vs EnVy game, several days later, Steven "Zapman" Zapas, the Egr hunter weighed in, giving a different opinion to a lot of other SPL hunters:

Now while I like to see variation in SPL hunter picks, I'm not sure I want them all to have clear that good in my conquest games.

So opinion is split and divided, with Twitter being the main battleground for talks about balance. Pro players and fans alike are unsure how to fix the item but the general consensus is that it is broken and something does need to be done about it. Patch 3.6 saw no changes to Throwing Dagger, but it did see a small buff to Apollo, possibly signs they are trying to judge the item for themselves.

Give me your opinions in the comments section about what you think needs to be done, or not done, to Throwing Dagger.