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Has anyone else noticed more diversity in champions played, or is it just me?

SexyyNappa·11/27/2014, 7:34:57 PM·3 votes·604 views

Ever since the preseason changes happened the middle lane top lane and jungle meta has shifted, whether that is a good thing is up to you, i have seen veigar and more conservative mid laners, i.e less ad assassins, more of those "no escapes other than flash" mid laners now this could be partly due to the fact that junglers are spending more time farming than they are ganking. Another reason for this may be because the junglers arent ganking mid lane. This could be considered a good thing or a bad thing, so lets take a look at some examples,

          Last season Lee Sin Kha'zix and Elise were dominating the jungle with not much room for stopping them in terms of counter jungling, or by any other means, they were just better at everything than other junglers were. Now, im not a jungler in any way i main mid but simply because the jungle meta has shifted, the other lanes have shifted as well, i'm noticing a trend where only high sustain junglers are being played, such as fiddlesticks, ww, and the like, and because of this those specific junglers are focusing more on ganking bottom lane than any other lane, top lane meta has shifted in such a way that Nasus, Riven, Jayce, Singed, and Jax have rose to the top. usually you could shut down that nasus or riven with a jungler gank or two but now the jungler hangs out near bottom lane more than ever, now lets take a look at why this might be.

         Dragon: The dragon is now MUCH more than what it was, the gold it gave previously made an early dragon not a good idea unless you were absolutely ahead by a pretty large margin, what i am noticing now is that junglers are hanging around bot lane getting a kill or two and then going straight to dragon ASAP! This is a VERY nice meta shift, as it adds some really fresh decision making skills, "enemy jungler is top lets get a kill on bot lane and go straight to dragon, this also shifted the top lane meta! Since junglers arent ganking top or mid lane as much, that nasus/ singed is ready to free farm! now that leaves riven, jayce, and jax, why are these people going top when farming top laners are so dominant? Simple! To draw the enemy jungler away from that dragon! It's creating situations where if you dont go up top lane and stop that fed riven that dragon isn't going to help you! Which is a GOOD THING! The reason why sustain junglers are so dominant right now is partly due to the fact that those such as fiddle and ww can get a dragon in pretty early.

Although sustain junglers might be getting played right now also due to the fact that the jungle is MUCH more difficult right now but what do i know im just silver! xD Now, Riot has stated they wanted the jungle to be more difficult, but this difficult? lol i will need to play more games in order to get all of the facts but these are my two cents. Hope you all are enjoying preseason 5 as much as i am! Good luck on the fields of justice summoners! :)

7 Comments

SexyyNappa11/27/2014, 7:35:39 PM1 votes

Feel free to add to the discussion! :)

Kingsgrave11/27/2014, 8:34:43 PM1 votes

I've had success with non sustained junglers like Sion so the jungle isn't super far off

Volt Cruelerz11/27/2014, 8:50:36 PM1 votes

I've seen more diversity in mid, but I just chalked it up to preseason randomness. What you say makes sense though, but those carry top laners are doing could potentially push a lot of champions out of the meta, specifically, the farmers.

My eeeeel11/27/2014, 9:11:02 PM1 votes

I think the opposite. After more than 50 ranked games played, the meta is fixed just like the last time. Because jungle has less impact on the game due to more difficult jungle (which is bad thing imo), you might be right that more champions are viable in lane phase. Yet, in order to win in competitive games, being just viable is not enough; you have to play the champions that fits the meta or good at snowballing most efficiently.

For the top lane, since dragon is the most effective way to snowball now since inner turret is much stronger, top lane has to get teleport to make impact to the game. Also, champions who are relatively strong at 10 min~20 min are much preferred for that reason. 8% buff the first dragon gives is pretty significant as it also increases base ad, basically directly improving dmg by 8% allowing the team who first get it win next team fight easily.

For jungle, I really don't have to explain much. I'm seeing warwick played every single nondraft game or being banned every draft game. The sustain is pretty must in the new jungle which limits the champion pool. Also, hard cc and high dmg is preferred because those helps to burst down river crab easily. Imagine taking river crab with rammus. It would take 5 min.

For the mid lane, the meta favors champions who can poke, have high physical skill dmg, and have hard cc. The new elixir gives small ap, mana regen, and true dmg every 5 sec. Champions like mordekaiser, vladimir and akali would just waste the mana regen stat. Also, for burst mages like kassadin, fizz, or diana, mana regen is not efficient stat on them because they usually just spend most mana in few combo and don't use mana constantly. Yes, they can use mana regen to farm more but you won't want to get elixir just to farm. The elixir favors ranged poking champs because they can take advantage of periodical true dmg when they poke. Champions who deal constant dmg like ryze, karthus, and cass, or do a burst dmg would be impaired by the 5 sec restriction on the true dmg because they are rather short ranged and can't proc the true dmg often or can proc only once per combo. Wrath elixir is probably the most broken elixir right now in terms of cost efficiency. It gives the same ad as pickaxe and 10% spellvamp. By just taking the stats, it is worth about 1200 gold and considering there is no pure ad item that gives spellvamp, it worth more due to uniqueness. Most people use elixir before expected teamfight because that is the time when they need most power boost. If you can just nuke enemies and team fight decent (which is likely cause the elixir gives huge power boost), the duration is increased by about 2 mins. It is even worse than the red elixir that used to cost 250 gold. Moreover, the team's vision control relies heavily on the mid lane. The river crab is very important for vision control because it prevents gank and helps ganking and roaming thanks to the speed boost. Champions that have hard cc and burst are just better at taking the crab and fighting 2v2 when it is contested.

TBH, bot lane is pretty unaffected. Even with few item change, they are still not efficient as the old items so I saw no good support getting such items. (Ohmwrecker is useless when losing and cost inefficient, banner of command's active is pretty useless in teamfight and worst than solari, righteous glory is too expensive, catalyst not useful to get after lane phase, there are better tank item for melee support and slow is wasted on ranged support.) Yet, with warwick being so op, the adc who can rush qss and still deal decent dmg is more preferred.

Kuroi8611/27/2014, 9:21:46 PM1 votes

Nautilus Hecarim Khazix My three main junglers, I've not really had any issues in the jungle past the initial clear. I've not tried pvp jungling yet, but everything points towards junglers having to take one of three paths. A. Farm hard, if you need to power your way into your late game, then you need to focus all you've got on farming with the occasional gank. B. Gank hard, for when you need to snowball, farming your whole jungle just won't give you the lead you want, and doing all that means you'll be too low to properly gank, so you've got to be selective about what camp you take, then proceed to any lane that is even towards the middle and gank hard for a kill, no more burning their flash and calling it a success. C. Counterjungle, while Poacher may be a bit weak, it can still give you a decided advantage in smite stealing, and if you've a good early game vs a weak early farm champ, then you've a chance to claim their jungle as your own and push their power game out of reach.