JG main thoughts: Feedback on scuttle

tl;dr: I love the scuttle change as jg main. A minor request is that it'd be great to know more in advance on which side she respawns next.

I like the strategy aspect of LoL, so jg role is my "natural" home. However after hundreds of games, it was getting a little boring to PvE most of the time. Sure, ganks are important, as are invades, as is objective control, which is why I love jungling, but most of the time you are still fighting same monster camps over and over and over game after game. I started co-maining mid for a while partly because of this ... I don't love the CS game, but there was more interaction with opponent there. Scuttle introduced significant new decision, so games are more varied now. Sometimes you can outduel the other jungler so you go and get it. Sometimes the other jg is stronger, so if you think he's going for scuttle you go steal his opposite jg (or, of course, gank the opposite side if it's in a good spot). Most of the time each of those is not a big game turning decision, but it is interesting and varied from game to game way to have your strategic decisions (what to do about scuttle) build up small advantages.

For people who are just starting jungling, I admit the new mechanics is probably not an upside, as junging hasn't gottey same-y yet. But to be honest in lower elo, the difference is skills is so large, that even if you give up all the scuttles (other than getting 1 of the first 2), the winrate change would not be that large, as long as you are doing something else instead. There is bigger fish to fry.

One minor gripe is that it'd be great to know more than a minute in advance which side the scuttle will respawn, so one can plan a little further. The random spawn side is good, forces one to adjust, but adjusting would be more interesting with a little more notice. I don't think increasing the warning time as it is now from 1 min., to, say, 2 min. is the way to go, as it lets you know pretty soon after scuttle has been taken that it indeed has been, and this information is better earned or guessed at. I suggest that, when previous scuttle spawns, there would be an indicator (similar to one on dragon pit's wall) which side the next scuttle will spawn on. This way you are not giving info about other jungler's location when he takes scuttle , yet you have enough advanced warning to adjust your plans in an interesting way.

I also want to address common gripes I see on the boards about scuttle. 1). Makes duelist junglers too strong: -While it does increase duelist jungler's power, when I see my opponent's jungler being a better duelist, I try to guess when he'll go for scuttle, and take advantage by doing things elsewhere on the map. 2). Makes junlger dependent on laners: -Yes, welcome to laner's world. Laners are still dependent on junglers more than the other way around, and this way interaction is increased. I prefer the new way (again ,plat-gold elo, perhaps in lower elo which laner helps is too random, but the whole game is more random there, so scuttle, in the grand scheme of things, is not a big deal). 3). Makes junglers snowball (themselves) harder: -Perhaps, but it also gives the weaker jungler an interesting way to outplay the stronger jungler by going to the opposite side, so from a strategic point of view, I like the change whether I am stronger or weaker. And if someone does not like the adaptation/strategy aspect of that, perhaps jungling is not the best role for them in higher ELOs? There are at least 3 other roles that have less strategy/adaptation than jungling, before or after the change.