Boards›Gameplay

The jungle is really close to being balanced.. Just a few more things need to be done!

metaworldpeace10··6 votes·831 views

There are only a couple of small balance changes that need to be made regarding the jungle (champion power not included, but this would build a strong base for future balance changes to champions) Here are some small suggestions that can be implemented without breaking the Jungle (hello old feral flare)

  1. Increase the base damage of devourer from 25 ----> 35 on hit damage (was 40 when the jungle changes were first implemented in the pre-season) This would be a nice small buff to the "auto attacker" junglers Like Yi, Xin, Nocturne, Kayle, Aatrox, Tryndamere, Trundle and WW. Most of these junglers are out of flavor and need a little bit of help in the current jungle. Right now farming devourer stacks isn't as strong as Cinderhulk and Warrior enchants (magus will be talked about later). This proposed buff will give devourer a bit of "umph" and help it stay in line with Cinderhulk and Warrior.

  2. Magus, reduce the ability power of the item from 80 ----> 60, add the mana-restore passive from old spirit stone (3% of damage done to monsters, restored as mana). This small change to the Magus enchantment will help out the AP junglers like Fiddle, Elise, Eve, Diana and Kayle. As of right now, Fiddle is basically the only "strong" AP jungler option. Evelyn and Elise probably need more specialized buffs in order to fully benefit from this change, but I think in general the added mana sustain to these AP junglers will allow them to clear a little bit quicker and allow them to gank more often.

  3. Remove Poacher's Knife. I know this idea is pretty extreme, but I think the removal of Poacher's Knife is the best bet in terms of retaining game health in the jungle and balance. As it stands now, the role Poacher's knife fulfills is already being fulfilled by trailblazer and specific champion's kits. We already see plenty of counter-jungling. There are many champions who can counter-jungle effectively with trailblazer (Nunu Shyvana MasterYi XinZhao Udyr JarvanIV Vi LeeSin are all exceptional counter-junglers due to their fast clears and or mobility. The reward for counter-jungling is already there.. you starve the enemy jungler of gold/xp, which forces the jungler to go into lanes to try and soak up xp. Buffing or changing Poacher's knife can have two possible outcomes. 1) If you're winning the game, you're gonna be counter-jungling anyway, adding in the potential benefits of Poacher's Knife.. you will snowball the game out of control. On the flipside, if you're behind and have the Poacher's Knife in your inventory, then you cannot reap the benefits of the item, plus you don't get any bonuses from staying in your own jungle so... the item is useless. It's too feast or famine. Polarized gameplay proves to be very hard, if not, impossible to balance.

13 Comments

Kingsgrave2 votes

Magus just needs reworked completely.

The problem is there aren't many AP Junglers anyway and I can't see that changing if they went and reworked the AP Jungle enchant.

Diana EliseNidalee Fiddlesticks Karthus Malzahar are all the ones I could really think of. If the item gave Mana and worked like Liandries I could see it working but even then, who would even go jungling thats AP other than these 6?

junglerboy162 votes

Champs like Amumu Brand Chogath Evelynn Gragas Nidalee and Teemo all can jungle pretty well (not so much Teemo, though) and often do use Magus. Amumu, Cho, or Gragas don't atm because Cinderhulk is so strong, but Nidalee, Brand, Evelyn and Teemo can and often do use Magus.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

Champs like Amumu Brand Chogath Evelynn Gragas Nidalee and Teemo all can jungle pretty well (not so much Teemo, though) and often do use Magus. Amumu, Cho, or Gragas don't atm because Cinderhulk is so strong, but Nidalee, Brand, Evelyn and Teemo can and often do use Magus.

Cho'Gath, Amumu and Gragas are far more reliable as Tanks honestly especially with Cinderhulk Eve to my understanding is played as an AD Tank nowadays. Teemo doesn't really bring much at all to Jungle that he doesn't already bring to Top Brand is a good one actually, I could see him being good if the item actually gave some form of Mana regen I derped and forgot to add Nidalee because I'm stupid

junglerboy161 votes

I've actually seen most Eves that don't fail horribly build more like a hybrid damage fighter than anything right now, so things like Botrk, Trinity force, Magus, Warrior, Gunblade, Nashors, you name it and then some tanky items. She doesn't have to use magus to be effective, but she certainly can and does on occasion.

Brand is actually a pretty good jungler outside not having great sustain, but you can soft leash a camp really easily for the first few seconds before it hard resets (because of his passive), saving you at least 100 health per camp in your first clears. his banks are great if he can get his stun combo off into his pillar of flame, giving him excellent burst and enough lockdown that most lanes can help followup pretty easily, and his passive is great for securing kills if they escape to tower since you can tag them with one last spell and watch them burn to death. That said, giving Magus mana regen somehow would be a big help for him.

junglerboy162 votes

Every change you are putting forward does nothing to really address the core issues that make these items need help, except maybe the magus change. Buffing Devourer will just make it the dominant item again like in preseason, without making it any healthier (AFK farming jungle is BAD, no matter how you cut it, since it is non-interactive and extremely passive with no strategy involved). Removing Poachers doesn't fill the niche it was supposed to have, just replaces a sub-par option with NO option, which is in fact worse.

Kingsgrave2 votes

{quoted}

Every change you are putting forward does nothing to really address the core issues that make these items need help, except maybe the magus change. Buffing Devourer will just make it the dominant item again like in preseason, without making it any healthier (AFK farming jungle is BAD, no matter how you cut it, since it is non-interactive and extremely passive with no strategy involved). Removing Poachers doesn't fill the niche it was supposed to have, just replaces a sub-par option with NO option, which is in fact worse.

Honestly, Poachers is trying to fill a niche that doesn't really need to be filled. Its already filled by the other 3 anyway. Removing it would be ideal.

Devourer's problem is a shitty build path. They seem to be improving that somewhat on the PBE. It needs to be somewhat risky with a high reward tho, so improving the damage it gives right off the bat seems like a tad much like you said.

metaworldpeace101 votes

{quoted}

Honestly, Poachers is trying to fill a niche that doesn't really need to be filled. Its already filled by the other 3 anyway. Removing it would be ideal.

Devourer's problem is a shitty build path. They seem to be improving that somewhat on the PBE. It needs to be somewhat risky with a high reward tho, so improving the damage it gives right off the bat seems like a tad much like you said.

That's my reasoning with the Poachers Knife, it's a cool concept, but the niche is already being fulfilled. How would you buff devouers though? As it stands right now the trade off for farming/scaling into late game is not as good as compared to cinderhulk and warrior. I'd like to see a build path improvement, and a higher risk/reward factor for trying to farm and scale up.

Kingsgrave1 votes

{quoted}

That's my reasoning with the Poachers Knife, it's a cool concept, but the niche is already being fulfilled. How would you buff devouers though? As it stands right now the trade off for farming/scaling into late game is not as good as compared to cinderhulk and warrior. I'd like to see a build path improvement, and a higher risk/reward factor for trying to farm and scale up.

I honestly don't think devourers needs buffed. Its fine where its at.

junglerboy161 votes

On PBE they actually have updated it along with all on-hit items' build paths. They all build out of recurve bow now, but recurve bow isn't just 900 gold of AS, now it costs 1100, builds out of 2 daggers, and deals 10 damage on-hit.

The Paulrus1 votes

I think raising devourer to 30 is reasonable, but I wouldn't go above that. Baby steps, especially with AA-heavy jungles who can snowball easily.

I think 3% might counter the mana gating a bit too much. You would either have to remove the CDR from it, or reduce the mana. If you reduce their ability gating both in CD and in mana in one item, I think it'd be a bit too OP.

I also don't think removing Poacher's is the way to go, but I definitely think it needs a rework.

But to do it, there has to be a consensus about what counter junglers need to do. You need to be able to get in, contest/kill their camps, avoid the enemy jungle/laners, and get out.

So what mechanic gives you the ability to do most of that well? I'd argue the movement speed buff is a good start, but a stealth component should be added.

A reasonable rework, imo, for poacher's could be:

Scavenging Smite: When you smite a monster in the enemy jungle you gain half a charge of smite. If you kill that monster, you gain +20 bonus gold and you become stealthed except to true sight (Evelyn stealth mechanic) and gain a +75% movement speed bonus for 5s. Attacking or casting an ability will break this stealth (teemo stealth mechanic), but you will gain 15% bonus attack speed for 2 seconds.

Scorpionex1 votes

Idk what everyone is talking about diana needs no help in the jungle shes kinda a sleeper pick atm

BluePolarizer1 votes

Agree on devourer. 35 base damage, builds from recurve bow would be amazing. Unlike what junglerboy said, its actually much less optimal to feed devourer camps than to feed devourer champs.

Cindikle1 votes

I'd say 70AP for Magus. 60 its really low in terms of an AP item. 80 was honestly just right. I'd rather see it drop to 10% CDR than lose AP. Also if we compare it to Morello's. Same AP and CDR. But Morello's has mana regen and unique effect. I don't think it's unfair to ask that they just give it regen.

Change Devourer to do something like 0.5% of max HP and 1% of total AD for it's damage. This increases by 0.05% and 0.2% every stack or something. What this does is make it so that jungle camps are not the only restriction to it's damage. The item will scale on it's own as you build items, but you still need camps to make it stronger. Problems being finding balance in the numbers and the fact this makes the item a hell of a lot more complicated(this alone will likely make it never see light).

Poachers I've always thought should grant a small bit of vision on jungle camps. Walk a bit into their jungle, see if any camps are alive, do your thing. This also brings a bit of other options. It could grant vision on the enemy(again it'll be a very small view, wont really even see the minions around the camp leaders, but you can see the leaders attacking). It could show you if your own camps are under attack, making it also a good counter to counter jungling, although trailblazer would be overall better to clear faster if you ward right. Overall this gives in the job of scouting the jungle. Something a Poacher would need to do. Before someone asks, the vision buff on jungle camps is visible to everyone, so you'll know if you're being watched. Wolf buff can nullify this if need be, giving some safety in one side of the jungle. Otherwise yes, just delete it.

More from Gameplay

3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay764 comments
7,167
votes
3 Refunds per season, upvote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay156 comments
3,510
votes
UPVOTE FOR URF
Gameplay606 comments
2,440
votes
Yes plz.
Gameplay456 comments
1,721
votes
3 Refunds per season, up vote if you want 3 refunds per season.
Gameplay114 comments
1,716
votes
When is ANYONE at riot going to address the awful new player experience?
Gameplay634 comments
1,383
votes

More by metaworldpeace10

It's been 6 years and we still don't have a "safe to leave" option when somebody never connects
Gameplay107 comments
297
votes
What if Sejuani had Lee Sin's pick rate and winrate? ( 35% PR and 51% WR)
Gameplay259 comments
270
votes
You know what's toxic? Not being able to connect to the fucking game because "firewall"
Gameplay207 comments
270
votes
Can we PLEASE have a "safe to leave" option after 5 minutes of somebody not connecting..
Gameplay119 comments
233
votes
The PBE has been down for 2 and a half weeks, first update is a nerf to... SONA??
Gameplay375 comments
172
votes
"Mordekaiser is just plain unfair" - Worlds Casters
Gameplay132 comments
171
votes