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Why Being a Jungle Main is Rough

Galáctic·1/4/2018, 4:39:53 PM·1 votes·1,063 views

I have been a Jungle main since the beginning of Season 6, and in my roughly 2000 games as mostly Jungle, I can say that being a Jungle main is simply one of the most painful roles to play in this season.

Lets start from when I started playing, I got introduced to Jungle when the meta was centered around lethality, burst junglers. IE Kha'Zix, Rengar, Graves etc. They could nearly solo carry a team and overall have a MASSIVE impact on the game because of their damage. This was completely broken/busted whatever you want to say, Jungle just had a huge impact on the game and there was no question about that. Your teammates showered you with love if you did a good job, which is normally what I got.

But in Preseason 8/Mid-Season 7, everything has changed it seems. Failure to pick some super meta tank/bruiser will almost 100% of the time result in the loss of your LP. And it just feels terrible, playing Rammus, Shyv, and J4 just gets boring. If you pick anything other than this and do bad, which is almost every time, your team will flame you for either not ganking them or "failing at the easiest role in the game".

Now, even when you pick some super meta champion you can't solo carry, it only increases your chance of winning. If the enemy has a fed Vayne or Trist or some hypercarry ADC with a somewhat decent support, you will lose the game, no matter how fed you are. ADCs had a reason to complain in Season 6, not anymore though. If you win lane as an ADC and have at least a 2.5 KDA, your team has won the game. I am almost completely forced to pick a meta champion, and camp my bot lane if I want to win. And if your bot lane dies before you are done clearing your second buff, if you gank bot, they will most likely be able to 3v2.

The game is too dependent on if your bot lane or any lane for that matter feeds someone who can hypercarry. You have no effect on a laner dying solo to their laner. Jungle has just become unfun with the champion pool, and the inability to affect the laning phase if their laner is fed, is ridiculous.

I'm hoping for something to fix this during Season 8.

8 Comments

Weedbro1/4/2018, 4:42:46 PM2 votes

Try being an Ivern Jungle main.

WolfChases1/4/2018, 5:01:16 PM1 votes

Why do you care that much about the meta? I understand your point and I agree, but I simply don't give a fuk about meta. My main role is jungle and I mostly play Elise, Kindred, Evelyn and Warwick. My 2nd role is ADC and I play only Sivir and Varus, when I get autofilled I play Soraka because I can heal and thats it. I am not forcing my climb, I am in Gold 5 atm and I am not upset about it. Riot simply aint gonna force me to play most boring champions aka Shywana, Rammus, Jarvan, Gragas or Zac/Seju just because they are Meta or whatever. I play this game to have fun, and if I am not having fun with meta champions I am not gonna play them. One more thing. I main Jungle since season 3 and I have NEVER PLAYED LEE SIN. :3

redniwediS1/4/2018, 5:06:13 PM1 votes

As someone who has played Garen in every single meta since I started back in season 1 I have only one thing to say to you; with enough dedication you can make your play style work in spite of what is actually strong in your role. Be that guy who locks in a "weak" champion and proceeds to solo carry the game.

Sujiren1/4/2018, 10:06:44 PM1 votes

Khazix and Kayn Are still crazy powerful picks that fit your burst meta, and can hard carry games, because early and midgame fed assasin > fed adc. I am not a jungle main, but I personally think „camp bot” is not always the correct playstyle either. I think it's more about impacting the lane match ups that are easy to gank / have carry potential. For example, I jungled yesterday for a change, my top laner was Sion Vs enemy Kled . I was playing Vi . Now I have nothing against ganking top lane, but this game going top is a complete waste of time. Enemy top laner is pretty tough to kill, and getting Sion ahead is not gonna accomplish anything. Instead I focused a little bit on the midlane match up , which was Ekko vs enemy Ryze . My midlaner wasn't even doing so hot early, he gave up a couple of early 1 vs 1 kills but I figured its still a very easy lane to gank and after a couple of suceesful ganks + midlane turret, my Ekko ended up going off. We ganked bot together, and got bot fed aswell. At that point we just faceroll the game with two winning lanes. Now lets say top lane match up was more snowbally, for example Darius vs enemy Nasus , I would probably put some effort getting Darius ahead, before the other jungler gets Nasus ahead, since I know, that who ever gets behind in the match up even slightly, will probably feed hardcore. So I think jungling has a lot to do with understanding lane match ups in general, knowing which lanes require your attention and being able to identify your win conditions.