If you have played with or against hunters lately, you might have noticed something different. Instead of seeing a Bluestone Pendant or a Death's Toll, that Artemis started with... Throwing Dagger? You decide to ignore this for now, and go into Duo as Neith. You know that your early game is much stronger. Your wave clearing abilities are superb. But as you get settled down in your lane, something else also seems very off. Artemis's clear is a lot better all of a sudden, and her basic attacks onto your minion wave appears to be splashing over. What's going on?

This happened to me shortly after the 3.5 SMITE patch, Protect and Serve. When I read the patch notes to see that Throwing Dagger had been buffed to help hunters with clear, I was already a bit worried about the adverse implications. Sure enough, it has found a place in the heat of debate.

So, what's with all the hype over the new Throwing Dagger?

The Throwing Dagger is part of the Shuriken item tree.

CHANGES TO THROWING DAGGER

Throwing Dagger is the Tier II of Golden Bow, found in the Shuriken item tree. Before the buff, it was mostly if not completely bought as a gateway into Golden Bow, on assassin Gods like Mercury or Ratatoskr. In 3.5, Hi-Rez changed it to do the following:

The goal with this buff, according to the patch notes, was to define the item as an assistant to early game wave clear. In that regard, they were successful. Perhaps too successful. The item has found its way into the first slot of many hunters since the patch, causing a shake-up in the Duo lane.

To get a better idea of how far ahead Throwing Dagger is right now, let's compare it to other popular start options for hunters.

Comparison

By comparing these options, we can make some observations:

• Throwing Dagger is best in Physical Power. It gives very early Critical Strike Chance, something that none of the other three can boast.
• However, Throwing Dagger lacks the health/mana sustain that the other three provide.
• Throwing Dagger also costs the most gold, 100 more gold than Charged Morningstar:
  • Throwing Dagger: 1300g
  • Bluestone Pendant: 800g
  • Death's Toll: 800g
  • Charged Morningstar: 1200g

Is the lack of sustain in Throwing Dagger worth the Crit and Power? Hunters post-patch 3.5 say yes.

SO, WHAT'S THE ISSUE?

Well, as I mentioned before, Throwing Dagger does its job too well. While it feels great to smoothly clear waves with Artemis, the other effects are making Throwing Dagger do more harm than good. It is unfair to early game hunters like Neith who rely on their natural wave clear to get a nice advantage at the start. With all of the hunters having such great clear now, Neith's early advantage can be rendered useless.

The early RNG element added by the +10% Critical Strike Chance can leave players feeling frustrated and helpless against an enemy hunter shooting them down so early in the match, especially by an Artemis or Jing Wei, whose steroids improve their Crit chance even further.

Many players also feel it isn't a good idea to buff hunter's early game at all, as the class is meant to be a bit weaker in the beginning and grow into late game carries. If all hunters are strong all game, the class can become bloated and annoying to play against. (Season 2 "Hunters Everywhere" meta, anyone?). The supports could also find themselves lost, as the hunters they are meant to keep an eye on in the early game are now more or less independent.

WHAT DO WE DO?

All of these things highlight just how difficult it can be to maintain a MOBA in terms of balance and viability. If Throwing Dagger is nerfed too hard, we risk making it and Golden Bow useless. This can be devastating to a Mercury who relies on it as a core item in his builds. In other words, too hard of a nerf on an item can be a nasty indirect nerf to one or more Gods as well. But, if we keep it in its current state, we risk bloating a class that many argue is already a bit too strong.

No matter what item is introduced to try and help a specific God or class, we risk everyone picking it up, as we have witnessed here with Throwing Dagger, and several defensive items in the past like Sovereignty. Items are like threads on Arachne's web, all interconnected, all influential to one another. It's a delicate thing to keep all of these items balanced, mistakes have and will continue to be made.

No matter what route they choose to follow, I'm interested to see how Hi-Rez responds to our Throwing Dagger situation. Until then, you can find me with Apollo, crit-striking everyone with 100 damage at level one.

How do you think Throwing Dagger should be adjusted? Share your ideas in the comment section below!

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