Are Jungler scores down across the board?

Horus2·1/27/2015, 11:15:27 PM·1 votes·759 views

Looking through the LCS/Korea/EU results.

Lots of really poor scores for junglers. Even some terrific experienced junglers, like Meteos, seem to be struggling.

A couple of big scores from Jarvan in Korea, but LOTS of games were both junglers are going like 2/3/7 or 1/5/10.

I feel like with the exception of J4/Rengar(neither of who I play), there's not many junglers left who have both good clear and are also good gankers/later game champs. I can have a really solid jungle phase and still end up behind top lane in levels. What are some other experiences out there?

Thoughts?

4 Comments

disregardable1/27/2015, 11:49:06 PM1 votes

Junglers are given the experience of an AD Carry with the gold and scaling of a top laner. They're basically secondary supports. I'm honestly surprised jungle Alistar hasn't seen more play.

ZerglingOne1/27/2015, 11:54:46 PM1 votes

Skarner is sleeping in his corner waiting for FoTM status (he's powerful as fk right now)

But yes, jungling is significantly harder than it's ever been. I mean ever ever. Lower experience, lower gold, harder monsters, Lower sustain, harder to gank, and high respawn timers make it a pretty awful experience.

ProfDrDeath1/28/2015, 1:06:31 AM1 votes

not many junglers left who have both good clear and are also good gankers/later game champs

Which is sort-of the point. Riot wants you to pick a jungler for one or maximum two of those traits.

A jungler with good clears, like Shyvana, Nunu or Warwick, is supposed to have either sucky ganks or a weaker late-game, and his team is supposed to compensate for it.

In previous seasons, and especially in S4, the jungle was set up in a way that made everyone have a good clear, and hence made that strength irrelevant. If jungle sustain is irrelevant, all that matters are gank strength and lategame strength. And competitive jungling in particular does favor early gank strength out of these two, leading to the dominance of the guys like J4, Lee Sin, pre-nerf Elise, pre-nerf Eve, Rengar, Vi or Pantheon. Especially when most of these were AD based and had a good transition into mid-game by virtue of the strength of Elder Lizard (and still have nowadays with Warrior enchant).

SmokingPuffin1/28/2015, 1:14:31 AM1 votes

Season 5 is explicitly intended to nerf early game junglers. They were too game warping in season 4.

It is bad design if there are any junglers that are good clearing, good ganking, and good in the late game. It turns out there are some, and that needs fixes. We want strategic diversity in the jungle, and we currently don't have it.