First Impressions on the "Road to Pre-Season: Gameplay Systems Update"

First of all, Rito, STOP CHANGING MY JUNGLE. It was fine in season 3, then you changed it. It was fine in season 4, and then you changed it again. Finally, season 5 seemed like you had finally perfected the whole "strategic diversity" concept, but no, you changed it again. Just stop. You will NEVER achieve any sort of lasting jungle balance if you keep this up, and continue to change the premise of what it means to be a jungler. Lee Sin, Rek'sai, and Elise will ALWAYS be strong, no matter what you do to the jungle, so address the problems head on, and stop fkin with literally every other champ. Let it stabilize after World's for once, and see what happens.

Ok, onto the more substantive issues:

PLANTS >When we originally gave camps Smite rewards, we wanted to allow players to decide how they used Smite to secure certain benefits. We think that system was a good start, but over time players broke into two groups: those who have basically “solved” Smiting, and those who haven’t.

So basically, players that are good at the game, and players that aren't? Are we now in the habit of balancing the ENTIRE game around players that are inexperienced or lack the decision making skills necessary to play the game? That's pretty dangerous...

>Moreover, tying that decision making to Smite makes players who take the PvP smite have to budget their smites a bit too much. If you’re setting up for a teamfight, you want to Smite raptors for vision control, the opposing ADC during a teamfight, and maybe dragon afterwards.

This is literally the reason why Riot put the smite spell on the "charge" system. You can run around with 2 smites saved up, if this isn't enough, then the problem is with the individual player, not the game. Also, upgraded red trinket >>> raptor smite buff for late game vision control. The raptor buff is most useful for clearing wards during the laning phase (ie, when you get spotted trying to gank, you can clear the ward, loop around, and gank again). It really doesn't hold a candle to a dedicated sweeper trinket.

In short, this plants change just seems like another unnecessary jungle change that will tip the meta on its ass yet again for no reason other than that Riot wants to "mix it up".

CAMPS I'm honestly not sure of what Riot is trying to accomplish here. Of course there are "best" and "worst" routes through the jungle, and that almost always depends on the champion. Hecarim needs to start blue side, because he needs mana. Many people will start gromp for the poison damage, I prefer to start blue so that I can triple proc my talisman and get max hp regen. Zac is manaless and hisclearing spell is on a low cooldown, so he starts red side (specifically krugs). No matter what Riot does, there will always be an "ideal" jungle route. Literally nothing they can do to prevent this, so why not focus on other issues?

AEGIS NERFS I actually like the sound of this. New items are a much better way to influence a stale meta than changing the game mechanics entirely, and support builds have become INCREDIBLY stale thanks to Aegis (and Locket). Hopefully they have the wherewithal to boost the personal stats on the item to compensate for the aura removal, but it's good that they are finally addressing this item that they have been forced to gut numerous times in the past (it used to give armor aura, as well).

MASTERIES Ok, rito, let's get this little thing straight:

>that meant having multiple choices at each level of the tree. We shipped with a few holes in the tree, and we’re taking this opportunity to fill those holes in.

A few holes? Riot shipped us a tree with a single branch, and that branch is called "Fervor of Battle". This keystone entirely eclipses every other mastery available by a huge margin, and any champ that can even remotely benefit from it runs it. If you pick a champ that incorporates/relies on autoattacks, you run Fervor. There are a few exceptions in the case of tanky top laners that may prefer Grasp of the Undying for it's healing, but other than that, it's Fervor all the way. Fix/nerf/remove Fervor, then focus on "filling in the holes" and fleshing out the rest of the tree. Until Riot addresses this actual cause of the current damage creep, nothing else they do will have meaningful impact.