Concerning this reddit post http://www.reddit.com/r/leagueoflegends/comments/2lipg6/jungle_pathing_changed_yet_again_pbe/ I didn't like it when you gave junglers 4 pots instead of 5. Now we get 2 pots. Thats pretty bad Riot.
I've got a few things to say about the new jungle to quell any of your fears, from playing on the PBE. For one, yes, it's harder, but only before the first upgrade. The new jungle items allow tank junglers and damage junglers to have the same amount of sustain in the jungle unlike spirit stone being biased entirely for high-damage junglers. After about level 3, the jungle is about the same as season four with a few bonuses you can get from the monsters. But on the flip side, it gives a LOT more gold and experience.
The increase to the stat floor means that Lee isn't completely broken in level 2 invades (still annoying, but not impossible to deal with for a lot of champions) and contrary to what you might think, Diana of all people has come to the immediate forefront in terms of jungling power. She has the fastest clears as well as good sustain, hits six as fast as midlane if she tries... it's crazy. We'll have to see how the meta develops, but pretty much every jungler that is a REASONABLE pick right now can still jungle. Even Darius and Wukong can handle it if they take the right path.
It's a lot like S1 jungle, in a way, which is nice. Really, people who have been jungling for five years tend to like the changes.
If everything I'm reading is true, here's a summary of why jungling is going to suck in season 5:
Buffs spawn later, so you either won't get a leash or your allies will be much later to Lane or go to Lane and come back to give you a leash. Buff alone isn't enough for level 2, meaning the jungler has to clear an extra camp at level 1, many junglers need 2 skills to clear camps effectively solo (why the leash is so popular). Combination of these 2: junglers won't get the instant level 2 head start and first to level 3 advantage any more, even though solo laners already reach 6 before them. Junglers will now be either similar level to or possibly lower than the duo Lane throughout laning phase. Result of this: with smaller gold income and a level disadvantage, junglers will only be successful when ganking a really out of position laner. Against any experienced player, ganks should be unviable - meaning junglers can't get kill/assist gold/xp, putting them even farther behind.
Camps are being made stronger, are spawning less frequently, and give more gold (but recall above buffs give less xp, not sure of other camps). Stronger camps combined with the level disadvantage might prevent early game jungling all together, requiring leaching from lanes (which your laners won't like) before being able to clear the jungle. Those few junglers with enough sustain and damage to actually still manage jungle clears despite fewer health pots won't be able to just farm the jungle as they'll need to wait for camps to spawn.
It appears that the conservation stacks are being removed, resulting in even less gold income.
The new vision objective will give junglers something to do when camps are down, but will again take away from time that could be used to earn gold.
Benefits: The new jungle items, with the improved smites and enchantments, sound much more useful. All junglers will suck equally (at least until someone finds out the 2 or 3 that can Excel in such a poor and rough environment) so it won't always be Lee sin vs kha'zix (even though honestly I see other junglers just as frequently).
I'm just really hoping it's either not as bad as it sounds or riot fixes the issues here. I'd much rather go against a lee sin in a jungle I can actually compete against the laners with than be a jungler where neither team's jungler can do anything at any stage of the game...
its mostly the lack of spirit stone thats going to be rough. any jungler without extremely low (or no) mana costs is going to really suffer without a spirit stone.
On that note, guess who doesnt need mana to jungle?
Well, junglers also now have a lot of special bonuses to take advantage of through the small buffs, like the gromp poison armor, so there should be less overall potion reliance.
But I will say that most of the jungle changes don't really seem to benefit junglers for early clears, especially making red and blue spawn later. In their attempts to make lvl 2-3 ganking less viable, they essentially made it an impossibility, because now the laners they'll be ganking will likely be a full 1-2 levels ahead of them. High impact early game junglers are problematic, to be sure, but if they can't reliably make that early impact, then they'll just fade into obscurity.
Welcome to the league of
RIP Tanky junglers
Don't worry friends I see what is happening Rito is enforcing the Leauge of Ranged Champions so every other lane and the junglers jobs will be made so much harder that everyone has to do a 5 man bot push
THE LEAUGE OF RANGED CHAMPIONS WILL PROVAIL
Well now they REALLY have to buff tank junglers, or else you will be 0/3 without anyone even seeing you yet. I honestly don't know why they want to make the camps harder, especially if they still advocate midlaners taking jungle farm if the lane is pushed or something.
All they're doing is effectively kicking out about 50% of the current junglers and making Lee Sin even better.
That's about it.
