Riot's Jungle Issue's

Riot has had a long track record of being incapable of Balancing the jungle, this video goes over a pretty large portion of that so buckle up let's talk about Jungle, the most abused role in league of legends.

This one is a long one there is a TLDR at the bottom but please read the whole thing if you intend to comment. At least if your going to insult me be knowledgeable.

--First-- Incapable Jungler's On The Balance Team

Riot's been incapable of keeping the jungle in a balanced state where every champion available in it sits at a 48%+ winrate and passable playrate for basically ever, Devourer meta, Cinderhulk Meta, Bruiser Meta(That's been ongoing since the Scuttle Changes 2 seasons ago.) these are a couple of the meta's that aren't because of buff's to champions at all. They happened strictly because Riot decided they wanted to add or change something that wasn't necessary.

Riot changes how the jungle works Every. Single. Season. They frequently change EXP/Gold income, spawn timer's for camps and even change timer's for Dragon's, What dragon's do, Rift Herald, Lane EXP and Kill EXP in reference to The Jungle, this season is probably the worst the role's been in quite awhile if you ignore the fact that 50% of the jungle pool has been nearly unplayable for 2 year's.

Side Note: Did you know that not a single member of the Jungle Balance Team play's a non-bruiser champion as their main? Maybe now you know since they were responsible for the scuttle changes that shoved every Tank, Assassin and Mage out of the jungle 2 year's ago.

--Second-- Champion Pool and Ease of Access.

I transitioned to Jungle from Midlane, when i played midlane i mained Ahri and Katarina. The reason i switched to jungle is because i thought i'd give it a try again, here's where the issue arises. 3 Year's ago what were my options as a Mage/AP Assassin player in the jungle? Nidalee, Evelynn(Pre-Rework) and Elise, there were 3 champions that had the potential to fit my playstyle. Full disclosure, evelynn is the one that i stuck with because Nidalee and Elise were too difficult for me to learn jungle with.

What does this mean? It means that riot's problem isn't with the Jungle Pool in general it's with Transitioning from one lane to the Jungle. You don't get Smite until level 10 so naturally your going to be playing a Lane first and this is a problem. What if you like Supports and want to play jungle? Ivern is your only choice, ADC's? Kindred is your only traditional ADC in the jungle. Mage's? Elise, Nidalee, Karthus and Evelynn and let me tell you not a single one is beginner friendly.

What are the Choices/Incentives for player's to switch from a Lane to Jungle when there are probably a maximum of 6 champions that fit their playstyle AND are capable of jungling while not a single one is easy to pick up and learn with? There are none.

--Third-- Ignoring Current Jungler's

There are a total of 40 champions that riot considers Jungler's in their client, i won't list all of them but i will tell you is that in the last 3 year's there have been 8 Reworks for champions in the jungle. There has been 1 new jungler's that was INTENDED to be a jungler in 2 year's, that jungler is Kayn.

Full VGU's

Evelynn, Warwick, Nunu and Sejuanni

Mini Reworks

Xin Zhao, Zac(partially reverted), Kindred and Amumu

There are still 7 jungler's that need Reworks those champions are

Fiddlesticks, Volibear, Udyr, Ramus, Shaco, Shyvana and Nocturne.

2 of these champions are confirmed for reworks this year, but what does this all mean? A huge number of jungler's have been ignored by Riot for so long that they became unplayable or are only played when they're Overtuned(Udyr, Nocturn and Ramus). But riot doesn't want to take the time to rework all of them, instead they want to try and shoehorn in other champions from other roles that don't need to be in there and aren't successful when they are. Of the champions that riot wanted to add to the jungle, only one show's up on League of Graphs with a 2.5% playrate in BRONZE+!!! It's Diana. Good job riot you were able to get a champion who could already jungle fairly well to jungle a tiny bit better! On op.gg i should note that in Platinum+ Korean Server's both talon and diana show up but their playrates are terrible and talon has a 40% winrate. This means that despite their best efforts at trying to shoe horn more Bruiser's and AD Assassins into the role, the only 2 that seemed to work were Talon and Diana and even they don't draw in enough player's to increase the playrate by any amount above 2.5%(again different data sites are different).

In closing i like the idea of adding more jungler's but if we all take a step back and look, the jungle role has a lot of problems champion diversity is one but it's half the fault of riot for not releasing a single champion in 2 year's that's a jungler while also making several strings of changes to role to try and "Fix" it only to make it worse which spiraled out of control and resulted in a meta comprised of 5 jungler's for an entire season. Then they won't fix the jungler's that need to be fixed opting to ignore them AND the issue's with their Jungle Balance Team in favor of adding more champions to the pool only to FAIL! AGAIN!

TLDR: Riot has never been good at balancing the jungle, that much is fact, but their blatant disregard for the problems that stem from their Jungle Balance team-member's is ludicrous. Who let these guys decide what happens to the jungle when the fact of the matter is THEY made the jungle the way it is now and refuse to own up and fix it, even if they try to fix it their touch only makes it worse.