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The current state of the Jungle (8.10)

SB Cyanide·5/17/2018, 4:57:19 PM·48 votes·15,570 views

I have NEVER done a post like this,in all my years of gaming, experience, and patches. But this is something I feel strongly about.

Jungle Changes, Why?

      We have now been forced into a meta that very early requires Skirmishes from your laners to help your JG contest Scuddle Crabs. Riots implemented jungle changes were designated to target laning phase be more about laners, and less about the Jungler. This change has had quite the opposite effect, through the games I have played since the change I would say 70% of them have had 2:30 skirmishes in the river between Bot/JG/Mid to contest the scuddle crab to help their jungle get that EVER-SO-SLIGHT exp jump to help them hit 3 faster.

In the event your laners can NOT come to help you, you are forced to give up and scurry back into your jungle due to lane priority, yeah maybe you can get a cheeky smite, but thats not the point. You are now more reliant than ever on having your laners force priority so that they can help you if need be, causing an early game frenzy in which ive never seen in my 4 years of playing.

So whats the meta?

   The meta has now been **FORCED** into bully junglers that CAN contest and output high amounts of damage at level 2 these are your Lee Sins, Warwicks, Graves, Elise, Etc. the list goes on.
  You now have next to no influence on laners making mistakes early game, because you are reliant on THEM for help to keep you even relevant. These games often feel like the match is decided in the first 3-5 minutes, based on if your laner died to the opposing laner or they were able to shove priorty for any form of contest.

        **Smite on Mid Laners?** - Maybe this is a Low plat/High Gold thing, but MID LANERS are now taking smite, and with the warding change -always having visible access to when you are going to go for a scuddle crab, or your buff. How is this healthy for the current state of the game? Mid laners who take smite are now running around for free putting Junglers even FURTHER behind for winning their lane and constantly having priority.
            
        **Once Behind its good game** At lower elos, this probably isnt as big of an issue, the Jungler falling behind. People make mistakes and throw all the time. But any competent Jungler knows, once you have the lead the opposing Jungler is at a major disadvantage. If you as the Jungler have the advantage, it was more than likely because your laner won their lane and was able to help you contest, and that snowball will continue and be easier to push with the enemy laner behind, and the enemy Jungler FAR behind.

My current experiences

Today, out of the 9 games I have played, 3 of them the enemy JG afked. But, Why? The enemy was put into such a disadvantage it wasn't even worth playing the game, and as a JG main, I genuinely felt bad for them. With the nerfed EXP rates and you now being 0-2 because MY mid laner took smite, and had lane priority, they were level 2 when i was level 4. And I abused this to the degree they had no influence on the game whatsoever. This is a type of play style that should not even exist. Where you are forced into a powerless situation because a DIFFERENT role lost. Did Jungle need to be nerfed? In my personal opinion, No. Jungling is a huge part of this game, and always has been. Its a role for a reason, and a very important one. You are now required to be babysat by your laners, and trust me you better hope they aren't a Toxic personality because you'll be in for some CRISP gameplay .

Whatever riot did, they did for a reason, but it was poorly tested, and we will now see an ever-so-wonky 2-3 minutes in most games, wITh 2v2s, 4v4s going on based around a SCUDDLE CRAB. We are now left with a position that is not influential or that has meaning in the game.

    While playing, I felt both sides of the spectrum, I was disgustingly ahead, and Horribly behind. The games I was behind were because my mid laner did NOT have smite, so there was a double smite to contest while in my own jungle, and looking for objectives. This pains me to say, but even when i was ahead I **did not have fun playing these games**. And that is truly upsetting, as I have played jungle for the last 3.5 years, and it was the only role i really felt like I REALLY enjoyed. I will now be moving to mid lane, or stop playing altogether until things change again.

I could complain about how upset I am that my beloved Volibear VolibearVolibear was relevant for such a short amount of time after 2 seasons of inactivity.. But I Digress, thats a post for another day.

This is not acceptable, and something needs to change.

46 Comments

Disulfiram5/18/2018, 12:11:01 AM11 votes

"This game is not fun when I'm winning and it's not fun when I'm losing" I'm reading this more and more often, at an alarmingly growing rate, and imho RIOT should be way more concerned with it than they are showing to be - because while an angry player might still follow the game out of pure spite and might come back later, a bored player will never come back: he just won't care to.

DingDongDanger5/18/2018, 4:34:19 AM8 votes

You are getting a big ass thumbs up from me... I feel the same way. I was doing fine in jungle until this patch came out. I found that certain junglers just cannot keep up and compete early game. They need a bit more time to build and now the bullies like WW take massive advantage of that and counter jungle you so you not only lose scuttle but your own jungle as well. I fell so far behind and I couldn't even remotely catch up which led to me being unable to gank anyone since they were 3-4 levels ahead of me. My laners absolutely REFUSED to help me in the slightest yet flamed me the whole time, their lanes ran around like a bunch of crazy crack heads and were helping the enemy jungler keep me shut down the whole time. It was incredibly frustrating.

I'm mad about these changes because if you play in a lane and if you play SMART, then the jungler can't gank you at level 3 and it shouldn't be a problem... There was no point in kicking junglers into the dirt like this it was unnecessary. It's a jungler's sole purpose of existence to help their team's struggling lanes. Going in and assisting as necessary to give their team the advantage. They were supposed to be a solo role that farmed the jungle and went to aid their team as needed and get jungle objectives... Now it's the opposite. For some junglers their role has been reversed or they've been made completely void. Now I rely on my teammates to help me build by basically babysitting my jungle with me when I'm on their side. I don't have problems with all junglers, Xin Xhao, WW, Jax, Jarvan... They all seem to be adapting fairly well but some of the others that I enjoyed like Rammus just take too long to get anywhere now.

In essence, if you want to win jungle now you need to choose one of the few out of the limited amounts of jungle bullies available which takes away options and removes the fun aspect for me.

TsundereHeiress5/17/2018, 6:03:03 PM6 votes

NO. Ok sorry. I'll try not to do caps as I type this. But, the first few sentences pissed me off.

I main fucking jg. Do you know how hard it is to even get your laners to leave lane when you're getting ganked in the jungle by warwick, yi, Sei, etc.????? There have been so many fuckin times where I'm mindin my own business in my jungle, and next thing I know, I'm being chased cause I'm low health. Pinging for help and running to the nearest lane. Only to end up dead and get accused of feeding. IT ISN'T MY FUCKING FAULT. MAYBE YOU SHOULD HAVE SAVED MY ASS WHEN I PINGED FOR YOUR GOD DAMN HELP. Sorry sorry.

Sometimes it isn't even their jungler that finishes me off. Sometimes the lane I'm running to, to get help from their laner would leave my teammate for a quick second and come at me, killing me. The fact that we are now focusing less on junglers is extremely bad.

Junglers need as much help as laners at times and not a lot of people realize that. They complain when they get ganked and their jg isn't around or near them to help. Now imagine how the jungler feels when they're tryna feed off the monsters to help their team, only to get ganked themselves. There is no equality here. The laners are fine. I main JG. If you have a JG like me, I'm more quickly to ward lanes over my own jungle cause I know how bad they need it, plus if a few jungle monsters get stolen that's fine. I'll just steal from them.

The point is, I do what I can as a jungler to make sure my team stays safe and has enough vision in game to stay safe. I don't need help with a damn skuttle. What we need is something to keep junglers safe. They're the ones at a disadvantage because of all the walls and shit. It's harder to get away. So riot... FIX YOUR SHIT AND THINK ABOUT US JUNGLERS FOR ONCE. LIKE GOD DAMN. I'M TIRED OF FEEDING AND GETTING GANKED.

Perma CC5/17/2018, 10:39:09 PM2 votes

Im slow clapping and smirking at this... THIS IS THE CHANGE WE NEEDED ... FUCK everything about junglers... get rekt and THANK FUCKING RIOT because honestly im absolutely fucking loving every minute of these changes. ITs about GOD DAMN time junglers suffer a bit. SO Fucking tired of junglers in my lane before ive even leveled up repeat ganking my lane over and over and ignoring their jungle. NOW ITS TIME for junglers to suffer... BEST CHANGE riot has ever implimented... junglers now have to think on their feet and actually fucking use their brain about how they navigate their jungle and go about ganking lanes... JUNGLERS have to actually respect laners now... ITs about time. FUCKING THANK YOU RIOT!!!

spirit cooking5/18/2018, 12:55:00 AM2 votes

Triggered by "scuddle"

Kitsunes Lust5/18/2018, 3:54:13 AM2 votes

jungle? what jungle?

HotN1ps5/30/2018, 5:52:47 PM1 votes

The limited impact the scuttle crab has on the game doesn't constitute giving it such a huge exp and gold boost. You only gain a lvl advantage if you farm each crab successfully/ assuming teams help contest objective etc). Putting such a focus on something that doesn't enhance game experience doesn't make any sense to me. The speed and vision buff doesn't last long enough to have a meaningful impact on map control either. The idea seemed that in order to keep up Junglers would have to adapt and opt for ganking if they can't farm the scuttle. Its done the opposite though, junglers are opting to play around that stupid scuttle than gank fearing they'll fall farther behind if the opposing jungler managed to get ahead. I've noticed people have a huge problem deciding which objective to prioritize. Even if the team knows....one jack ass always waits around for that stupid crab.......

I'm normally not to unhappy about jungle changes but this shifts got me scratching my head. The reduction in jungle camp exp and gold makes farming back into the game impossible even if you manage to keep healthy clears up. This scuttle change is just a poorly thought out idea, by far the worst change riots ever tried to implement. They pay people salaries to figure out how to make the game better and the best thing they could come up with was give the scuttle extra exp and gold?...really?...damn bro you're really splitting atoms aren't Riot?

On the upside, ADC is a lot more fun. Laning is easier and you don't have to deal with the 4v1's in 4 minutes as often. Looks like my days as Jungler main are over...at least for now.

Ultra D1ckstink5/17/2018, 5:12:13 PM1 votes

well said

KlydeFrog5/30/2018, 6:27:05 PM1 votes

Jungle is fine not sure what people are compl about.

Stinrygar5/17/2018, 5:19:28 PM1 votes

I think the meta is also influencing mid to be with a heavier emphasis on lane priority + CC. Picks like Morgana make it really easy to shove safely and then take Scuttler even without Smite... all while being pretty safe doing it.

Mid with Smite is probably objectively not better. It's just annoying. Although, I do think Scuttler's value is too high and maybe junglers should get compensated elsewhere. Scuttler is not a jungle objective as much as it is one for laners. You can't really do it yourself if any laners come. One idea is to make it walk a little farther from lanes so there is more cost for it.

Anyway, it's still vastly better than their first idea of having an asymmetrical scuttler right at the start... that would be so artificial and it would dramatically constrain creative pathing/decision making as well as the jg pool. Right now I think the meta is being shaped and there are indicators but we shouldn't be too rash to judge. For example, I do like that intelligent pathing seems more rewarded now rather than just mindless spam ganking a tilted player.

ForFoxSakes5/17/2018, 9:14:45 PM1 votes

Mid laners taking smite sounds so stupid. Giving up a summoner spell for something that has no combat effectiveness unless you buy the tier 2 jungle item for red or blue smite, which would also set you back with your build and needing to buy an item with no lane combat stats

If the mid laner takes smite the opposing laner should be able to smash them

Risen295/18/2018, 7:04:33 AM1 votes

What is most annoying is that we specifically warned them when they announced this that this is exactly what would happen. But they thought having both scuttles spawn for the first time would be sufficient to solve the problem. Well, it isn't.

These changes haven't made jungle less impactful during the lane phase, they have just forced junglers to go early game duel/gank junglers to continue having that impact, and made it easier for a jungler to punish the enemy team with ganks by getting an early lead that prevents the enemy jungler from being able to contest them.

Besteal5/18/2018, 2:24:28 PM1 votes

Well, if I play mid, then I say this is genius. If I'm anyone else, I call BS. If you play someone like Ekko mid, you take Smite, abuse it, take all the crabs, and enjoy the LP. I know that whatever people are gonna say about me doing it, idc. It's an oversight by Riot, and I'm gonna take advantage of it.

muted team chat5/18/2018, 6:57:54 PM1 votes

As soon as I saw how much the crab was worth I knew laners were going to be taking it. The exp changes make it EASIER for them to come and take it from you than ever before.