Welcome to the 4.20 jungle
Riot·12/6/2014, 12:01:32 AM·0 votes·12,134 views
Last week’s Expansion Tournament games marked the last professional matches to be played on League of Legends' 4.19 patch. Now that the 2015 Preseason is underway, massive changes have hit the game in patch 4.20, with the biggest updates being found in the jungle, with the introduction of new creatures, jungler items, and Smite effects. Sweeping changes to dragon, Baron, and towers will also have a significant impact on the prioritization of objectives, leaving the landscape of professional play altered and wide open for exciting strategies.
Warwick is the archetypal jungle champion, bringing impactful ganks with his ultimate, Infinite Duress, and a multitude of gold-efficient builds. The new damage and health of the jungle monsters gives him a unique level of sustain from Eternal Thirst and timely clear speed thanks to the percent health damage of Hungering Strike. This allows him to power clear at full health, ganking whenever his ultimate is up. The 110-second timer on Infinite Duress even lines up nicely with the 100 second respawn time on jungle camps.
The new jungle items also amplify his strengths. His first Machete upgrade, Skirmisher’s Blade, gives him true damage on-hit, synergizing well with the five hits of his ultimate. After that, the Devourer Enchantment grants further on-hit damage. A devastating combo. This high damage - coupled with the suppression Infinite Duress brings - allows Warwick to win duels with almost every champion.
Fiddlesticks has been a niche pick for some time now, seeing LCS play by both William “Meteos” Hartman and Alberto “Crumbzz” Rengifo. Choi “Insec” In-seok even Terrified his opponents into submission on The Harbinger of Doom at Worlds. Now, his ability to stay sustained is all the more valuable, and his strengths are only amplified in the new jungle thanks to the AP and CDR of the Magus Enchantment.
Nunu also has strong sustain, and his counter-jungle-heavy style synergizes well with the new Poacher’s Knife, granting him a speedy escape. With his powerful zoning abilities, he had already seen a strong role on ADC-centric teams, but now we could see a return to his counter-jungling power of days past.
Pantheon and Vi both have strong, spammable shields, preventing the majority of the damage from the jungle. While they are not nearly as sustainable as Warwick or Nunu, they have significant early gank power to make up for it.
All of these champions shine when it comes to the new dragon, who has a low attack speed but high damage. Pantheon and Vi can both time their shields to take almost no damage from dragon, while the other three can heal the damage up easily. As a result, they take away much of the risk of assaulting dragon.
Other champions will surely rise, but for the time being, it appears that sustain is the dominant trait in the jungle.
Dragon has been a simple objective in the past: you take it once and the gold advantage sets your team up to take it again and again. The new dragon now gives significantly less gold and a series of permanent buffs with each consecutive dragon killed. However, while the first buff gives combat stats (%AD and %AP), the next three give utility: clear speed, movement speed, and push power. This keeps dragon a relevant buff throughout the game, as there is significant incentive to deny these benefits.
To open up strategic diversity, the towers have also been modified. Inner turrets are often the primary target for poke team compositions. Their long-ranged damage and disengage potential can leave an opposing team without any compelling options. Now that inner turrets have a recharging shield, poke comps will have to try a bit harder to force their opponents out, giving defending teams slightly longer to find the right opening and stage a comeback.
With these shields, teams will no longer be able to prolong a siege as long as their mana lasts, hoping to get every small bit of damage down. Instead, they will have to commit to making a play, prompting engaging and exciting action.
The 2014 Inhibitor and Nexus turrets were vulnerable to split-pushing by late-game tanky bruisers with high amounts of armor, like Jax or Nasus. Now, the new inhibitor turrets charge up damage over time and penetrate a massive amount of armor, preventing split-pushers from ignoring the tower damage.
This has the added advantage of making late-game tower dives much more difficult, and prevents a team from simply brute-forcing a win because they are ahead.
Both of these tower changes have a common theme: Teams cannot simply sit around whittling away their opposition and expect to get anywhere. Instead, they will have to be decisive and proactive to take home the win.
New junglers
Season Four was dominated by the Spirit Stone line of items, which returned health and mana based on damage dealt. This made Spirit of the Elder Lizard the dominant jungling item, as its high damage also kept junglers topped off on health and mana as they cleared camps. The new jungle items no longer carry sustain, which changes the nature of jungling. As a result, sustain-heavy junglers who were dominant in Season One - Warwick, Fiddlesticks, and Nunu - are right at home.
Warwick is the archetypal jungle champion, bringing impactful ganks with his ultimate, Infinite Duress, and a multitude of gold-efficient builds. The new damage and health of the jungle monsters gives him a unique level of sustain from Eternal Thirst and timely clear speed thanks to the percent health damage of Hungering Strike. This allows him to power clear at full health, ganking whenever his ultimate is up. The 110-second timer on Infinite Duress even lines up nicely with the 100 second respawn time on jungle camps.
The new jungle items also amplify his strengths. His first Machete upgrade, Skirmisher’s Blade, gives him true damage on-hit, synergizing well with the five hits of his ultimate. After that, the Devourer Enchantment grants further on-hit damage. A devastating combo. This high damage - coupled with the suppression Infinite Duress brings - allows Warwick to win duels with almost every champion.
Fiddlesticks has been a niche pick for some time now, seeing LCS play by both William “Meteos” Hartman and Alberto “Crumbzz” Rengifo. Choi “Insec” In-seok even Terrified his opponents into submission on The Harbinger of Doom at Worlds. Now, his ability to stay sustained is all the more valuable, and his strengths are only amplified in the new jungle thanks to the AP and CDR of the Magus Enchantment.
Nunu also has strong sustain, and his counter-jungle-heavy style synergizes well with the new Poacher’s Knife, granting him a speedy escape. With his powerful zoning abilities, he had already seen a strong role on ADC-centric teams, but now we could see a return to his counter-jungling power of days past.
Pantheon and Vi both have strong, spammable shields, preventing the majority of the damage from the jungle. While they are not nearly as sustainable as Warwick or Nunu, they have significant early gank power to make up for it.
All of these champions shine when it comes to the new dragon, who has a low attack speed but high damage. Pantheon and Vi can both time their shields to take almost no damage from dragon, while the other three can heal the damage up easily. As a result, they take away much of the risk of assaulting dragon.
Other champions will surely rise, but for the time being, it appears that sustain is the dominant trait in the jungle.
Anti-Snowballing Objectives
To counteract the fact that teams could often run away with small early leads with no counterplay, a number of mechanics have been built into the objective structure of the game to keep it close and intense throughout all the stages of a match.Dragon
Dragon has been a simple objective in the past: you take it once and the gold advantage sets your team up to take it again and again. The new dragon now gives significantly less gold and a series of permanent buffs with each consecutive dragon killed. However, while the first buff gives combat stats (%AD and %AP), the next three give utility: clear speed, movement speed, and push power. This keeps dragon a relevant buff throughout the game, as there is significant incentive to deny these benefits.
Towers
To open up strategic diversity, the towers have also been modified. Inner turrets are often the primary target for poke team compositions. Their long-ranged damage and disengage potential can leave an opposing team without any compelling options. Now that inner turrets have a recharging shield, poke comps will have to try a bit harder to force their opponents out, giving defending teams slightly longer to find the right opening and stage a comeback.
With these shields, teams will no longer be able to prolong a siege as long as their mana lasts, hoping to get every small bit of damage down. Instead, they will have to commit to making a play, prompting engaging and exciting action.
The 2014 Inhibitor and Nexus turrets were vulnerable to split-pushing by late-game tanky bruisers with high amounts of armor, like Jax or Nasus. Now, the new inhibitor turrets charge up damage over time and penetrate a massive amount of armor, preventing split-pushers from ignoring the tower damage.
This has the added advantage of making late-game tower dives much more difficult, and prevents a team from simply brute-forcing a win because they are ahead.
Both of these tower changes have a common theme: Teams cannot simply sit around whittling away their opposition and expect to get anywhere. Instead, they will have to be decisive and proactive to take home the win.
