Lee Sin: Still defining the jungle meta, 4 seasons later.

Krepo16··116 votes·8,222 views

I have to ask, as an avid Diamond I jungler for 5 seasons, why Lee Sin is the only jungler that is still absolutely, ridiculously broken. For all the jungle changes, he is still going to be picked in most competitive games. His mobility is out of control with even the slightest concept of the champion and he only needs to build one damage item for the entire game to out damage most other junglers. If you cannot compete with Lee Sin in the jungle, you cannot jungle. There is no other jungler that has been this persistently overpowered throughout every season. We've even seen Rioters come right out and say that if he wasn't so popular he would've been nerfed long ago, yet here we are, 4 seasons later with the same stale jungle meta because champions like this continue to dominate no matter what the jungle items are, or how difficult the camps may be.

There's a simple way to open up the jungle to other characters and that's getting rid of ridiculous characters that no one else can realistically compete against. Riot was fine doing it to Elise, they didn't bat an eye when they did it to Eve, so I think it's about time we bring the golden boy down from S-tier.

149 Comments

Yfrappefort31 votes

I've been saying this since his release : Lee Sin should have stayed as an April fool.

Helmight22 votes

The problem with Lee Sin is that his kit has no inherent weaknesses. He has free sustain, a shitton of damage, utility, mobility, tankiness, peel, etc. all built into his kit. What really needs to happen is that Lee Sin needs a rework that actually gives him exploitable weaknesses. Otherwise, he will continue to be THE defining jungler.

Alpharite2 votes

Yeah, no weaknesses, he's so good late game that it's not fair.

Helmight21 votes

His damage falls off lategame, yes. But he still retains his incredible mobility, utility, peel, etc. Lee Sin basically transitions from a damage-dealer into a tank. And it's not like he does zero damage lategame either, not with an ability that does % missing health.

The Whamboozler3 votes

^ This. Lategame Lee Sin won't be killing lategame Nasus, but he can still juke, peel, initiate, backdoor, waveclear, and assassinate carries pretty well. He's got so much utility that his early game power is really unwarranted. You want a jungler who is terrifying early game and falls off late? Shaco. Shaco is an absolute terror with his early ganks, and pretty safe too. But he doesn't have 40 passives and a ton of free stats, and he falls off hard in teamfights. He's also less mobile than lee, can't initiate or pick out a carry.

Let's not pretend that Lee Sin "falls off". He's just no longer the unholy terror he was early. He falls from a 10 to an 8 in usefully, and that's still more useful than some champs get to be ALL GAME. What's more, his strong period is the one that matters most... the time when lane dominance is being established and small leads can make a HUGE difference. He needs a nerf to his utility, not his damage.

Alëk2 votes

^ This. Lategame Lee Sin won't be killing lategame Nasus, but he can still juke, peel, initiate, backdoor, waveclear, and assassinate carries pretty well. He's got so much utility that his early game power is really unwarranted. You want a jungler who is terrifying early game and falls off late? Shaco. Shaco is an absolute terror with his early ganks, and pretty safe too. But he doesn't have 40 passives and a ton of free stats, and he falls off hard in teamfights. He's also less mobile than lee, can't initiate or pick out a carry.

Let's not pretend that Lee Sin "falls off". He's just no longer the unholy terror he was early. He falls from a 10 to an 8 in usefully, and that's still more useful than some champs get to be ALL GAME. What's more, his strong period is the one that matters most... the time when lane dominance is being established and small leads can make a HUGE difference. He needs a nerf to his utility, not his damage.

Except for his Ult dmg. THAT is too high. and the fact that his E scales with AD. beside that you're right

metaworldpeace1022 votes

Yep, Riot nerfed Lucian because he was a solid fit in any team composition. His nerfs were definitely warranted. LeeSin Also suffers from the same issue. He fits into EVERY team comp. Riot stated that they want "strategic diversity" and that champions should be picked depending on what type of game you want to play (ie Stall comp, Poke comp exc.) It's time for Riot to follow through with their plan and nerf this son of a bitch that's been terrorizing the jungle for 4 seasons as mentioned by the OP.

Kaisha5 votes

Yep, Riot nerfed Lucian because he was a solid fit in any team composition. His nerfs were definitely warrented. LeeSin Also suffers from the same issue. He fits into EVERY team comp. Riot stated that they want "strategic diversity" and that champions should be picked depending on what type of game you want to play (ie Stall comp, Poke comp exc.) It's time for Riot to follow through with their plan and nerf this son of a bitch that's been terrorizing the jungle for 4 seasons as mentioned by the OP.

They say that sort of non-sense every pre-season. Not once have they ever followed through on it. They might as well claim they're gonna solve world hunger and resurrect unicorns.

Xtremey20 votes

kha zix was at the beginning of season 4 and got beaten to shit with the nerf bat numerous times. Elise got the same treatment in season 3. Riot dont be so biased towards the blind monk, he's always been in competitive play.

Keevalroy11 votes

He's flashy and fun to watch. Kha, Eve, Elise, Vi, and Zac aren't. Why do you think they got run over while Lee got a small poke in the ribs with the nerf bat? They want this to be a spectator sport, therefore they need to have someone who has mobility restricted only to how many charges they have on sightstone, who can also jump all around the screen avoiding danger.

Why do you think Thresh, Yasuo, Azir, and Kalista were made? LCS Big Plays.

Xtremey2 votes

He's flashy and fun to watch. Kha, Eve, Elise, Vi, and Zac aren't. Why do you think they got run over while Lee got a small poke in the ribs with the nerf bat? They want this to be a spectator sport, therefore they need to have someone who has mobility restricted only to how many charges they have on sightstone, who can also jump all around the screen avoiding danger.

Why do you think Thresh, Yasuo, Azir, and Kalista were made? LCS Big Plays.

azir isn't really mobile, but his soldiers look pretty cool when they're zooming all over the screen.

Keevalroy2 votes

I guess I should have worded that better, I meant that Azir is flashy just because he can be. That's why I think Rek'sai is decent despite being a current champion. Her mobility can be easily punished by buying wards to see where the tunnels are, and all you have to do is walk on them. The E tunnel cooldown could go up a bit, or it could have a slightly smaller range, but that's her only mobility other than her ult, which has to be on a tunnel, so ward control could mean the difference of getting flanked or being safe in your position. The only downside to her coming out is there doesn't seem to be any reason to pick Nocturne now.

Xtremey4 votes

I guess I should have worded that better, I meant that Azir is flashy just because he can be. That's why I think Rek'sai is decent despite being a current champion. Her mobility can be easily punished by buying wards to see where the tunnels are, and all you have to do is walk on them. The E tunnel cooldown could go up a bit, or it could have a slightly smaller range, but that's her only mobility other than her ult, which has to be on a tunnel, so ward control could mean the difference of getting flanked or being safe in your position. The only downside to her coming out is there doesn't seem to be any reason to pick Nocturne now.

well, nocturne is by far a better duelist, she just brings more to the table with her ult and w.

CaptnJakSparrow18 votes

Lee and high skill shouldn't be used in the same sentence. The average bronze player can play Lee Sin well simply due to the fact he's in every single game. It wouldn't be an issue if I always got my way and I always got jungle, but . . . therein lies the problem. I do not. So, here I am . . . usually an adc, and the next thing I hear is "first blood" with Lee Sin's face and my jungler dead somewhere in his jungle. Then again. Then again. Then again. and then by level five here's a 4/0 Lee Sin tower diving me because he's already that fed. Can you guess how much I can actually do? nothing. I mean, is the game still winnable? Yeah. But only after you drag it out for a half hour sitting behind your very last set of turrets, down two drags and hope you catch them all out. No other jungler pulls that off consistently besides Lee Sin.

Learn 2 Swim16 votes

There has been close to 10 junglers nerfed in the past 6 weeks and Lee Sin will continue to go untouched.

Skarner, Warwick, Rammus get 1-2 weeks where they are viable before getting gutted and Lee Sin gets 3+ years of being #1 or #2.

FCK YOU RIOT

Yfrappefort5 votes

There has been close to 10 junglers nerfed in the past 6 weeks and Lee Sin will continue to go untouched.

Skarner, Warwick, Rammus get 1-2 weeks where they are viable before getting gutted and Lee Sin gets 3+ years of being #1 or #2.

FCK YOU RIOT

I guess I'll be back to banning Lee Sin 100% again when Warwick will get nerfed....so much for strategic diversity.

SmokingPuffin11 votes

why Lee Sin is the only jungler that is still absolutely, ridiculously broken.

Lee is probably still quite strong. Your timing is horrible, though. Warwick on live is as broken as any jungler ever and vastly more broken than Lee on live.

You should save this post for the next patch.

Krepo1651 votes

The thing is, Warwick is a problem that is being fixed immediately. No one is under the delusion that it's going to stay that way. Its the difference between a persistent problem and a temporary one, like the old Black Cleaver. They're not even picking WW in OGN, but there is, surprise surprise, a Lee in every game.

SmokingPuffin12 votes

The thing is, Warwick is a problem that is being fixed immediately. No one is under the delusion that it's going to stay that way. Its the difference between a persistent problem and a temporary one, like the old Black Cleaver. They're not even picking WW in OGN, but there is, surprise surprise, a Lee in every game.

You're half right. First four games of Champions Winter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oflerdjBhXg&t=15m15s - Warwick vs Lee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV98RPkT5S0&t=20m25s - Warwick purple ban, Pantheon vs Lee https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5MfoyLJ98M&t=18m25s - Warwick purple ban, Lee vs Kha'Zix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kbtOMdNi_k&t=11m57s - Warwick vs Lee

Krepo1625 votes

Fair enough, I didn't catch the first 4. The fact that everything is vs Lee pretty much sums up where I'm going with this, though.

Grunt66610 votes

Uhm wariwck vs lee are you joking? Skt ti was simply a far better team and thier lanes shit out huya, had nothing to do with jungles that said 2/2/7 ww vs a 3/1/3 lee who was on the far weaker team...says alot lol.

but yah even if WW is currently OP because of a broken item on him, how is that 4 years of d1 dominance? ww powerful for 2 weeks insta nerf? lee sin 4 years still top of the pile each and every year.

Skias6 votes

Yeah, they struck relatively fast against Warwick. Lee seems to have popularity armor that protects him.

AFK Push11 votes

why Lee Sin is the only jungler that is still absolutely, ridiculously broken.

Lee is probably still quite strong. Your timing is horrible, though. Warwick on live is as broken as any jungler ever and vastly more broken than Lee on live.

You should save this post for the next patch.

Warwick is only broken because of great sustain in his passive, and his ultimate. In fact, take away the ult and he is a worthless champion. Lee sin's kit is wayyyyyyy too well rounded, he has the damages early, wave clear, a shield for sustain, AS steroid for even faster clears, a SHIT ton of mobility, and a hard CC. No champion should be this well rounded, in fact the only weakness for Lee is that "he falls off late game," however, how often do you see lees being useless late game? It is not that hard for a mediocre lee to make some "plays" because of his amazing kit, and snowball. Besides, even if he falls off late game he is not useless, because he can splitpush well, and ult a carry into your team etc...

eyes wide shut3 votes

you literally just said he was a bad champion because his kit was designed really well. please stop. just stop.

chumbler13 votes

you literally just said he was a bad champion because his kit was designed really well. please stop. just stop.

Uhhh no. Lee Sin's kit is not designed well unless you are a complete idiot and think "Just cram a bunch of shit in and remove any relevant resource costs" is good design. He is flat out one of the worst designed champions in the game.

Keevalroy2 votes

He is flat out one of the worst designed champions in the game.

cough Yasuo cough Kalista cough

metaworldpeace102 votes

He is flat out one of the worst designed champions in the game.

cough Yasuo cough Kalista cough

Why do people think that CertainlyT's champions are horribly designed? I would argue for the fact that they are too WELL designed. His champions offer cool new gameplay mechanics. Are his champions usually too strong? Yeah, probably, but look at Yasuo, he's been nerfed BEYOND reason, he still does respectable damage, but man ANYONE can bully him out of lane early.

Keevalroy4 votes

Simply because they're cancerous abominations with loads of hidden power (that Riot doesn't like in their champions) making them overloaded, toxic nightmares to face. Look at how overloaded his champions are; it's almost like he's making a competition for himself to see how many passives he can cram into a champ before they're shipped to PBE.

If you want to ignore that, then could we re-examine the mobility creep they claim is on their radar and apparently isn't a problem? Have you noticed each one of his creations has gotten more and more obnoxious since he started designing? I'm fearful for what the next one is going to be.


EDIT: pasting a concept I had nightmares about a while ago.

Passive - Safety Box. A recharging Windwall that creates a box when --Champion-- is in danger of being hit with a skillshot with extra armor pen while it's down.

Q - Super Slam! A targeted knockup and heals for a percentage of the damage dealt and it's cooldown is lowered depending on how many champions are hit and grants movement speed running toward them while they are airborne.

W - Righteous Light. A light orb that can be dropped to give vision, passively providing 5/10/15/20/25 magic resistance and grants an attack speed bonus for champions within it's range, and lowers the armor and mr of enemy champions. Retrieving the orb, --Champion-- gains bonus health regen.

E - Miracle Dodge. A resourceless dash with no cooldown going in the direction of your cursor. --Champion-- will monitor your progress and deem successful dodges worthy or not of LCS BIG PLAYS! Gaining the stacking buff LCS BIG PLAYS grants --Champion-- increased gold generation from minions and champion kills.

R - Alter of the T - --Champion-- sacrifices his/her teammates for the glory of CertainlyT, granting him/her increased base stats, and twice the power of his/her abilities for the remainder of the game.

metaworldpeace102 votes

Simply because they're cancerous abominations with loads of hidden power (that Riot doesn't like in their champions) making them overloaded, toxic nightmares to face. Look at how overloaded his champions are; it's almost like he's making a competition for himself to see how many passives he can cram into a champ before they're shipped to PBE.

If you want to ignore that, then could we re-examine the mobility creep they claim is on their radar and apparently isn't a problem? Have you noticed each one of his creations has gotten more and more obnoxious since he started designing? I'm fearful for what the next one is going to be.


EDIT: pasting a concept I had nightmares about a while ago.

Passive - Safety Box. A recharging Windwall that creates a box when --Champion-- is in danger of being hit with a skillshot with extra armor pen while it's down.

Q - Super Slam! A targeted knockup and heals for a percentage of the damage dealt and it's cooldown is lowered depending on how many champions are hit and grants movement speed running toward them while they are airborne.

W - Righteous Light. A light orb that can be dropped to give vision, passively providing 5/10/15/20/25 magic resistance and grants an attack speed bonus for champions within it's range, and lowers the armor and mr of enemy champions. Retrieving the orb, --Champion-- gains bonus health regen.

E - Miracle Dodge. A resourceless dash with no cooldown going in the direction of your cursor. --Champion-- will monitor your progress and deem successful dodges worthy or not of LCS BIG PLAYS! Gaining the stacking buff LCS BIG PLAYS grants --Champion-- increased gold generation from minions and champion kills.

R - Alter of the T - --Champion-- sacrifices his/her teammates for the glory of CertainlyT, granting him/her increased base stats, and twice the power of his/her abilities for the remainder of the game.

haha I had a good laugh. Regardless of what people say though, CertainlyT has been a fantastic designer when it comes to pursing new mechanical options and gameplay material. I guess you could argue if it has negatively or positively affected gameplay health, but I think overall, he's really expanding the way the game will be played in the future.

Keevalroy2 votes

haha I had a good laugh. Regardless of what people say though, CertainlyT has been a fantastic designer when it comes to pursing new mechanical options and gameplay material. I guess you could argue if it has negatively or positively affected gameplay health, but I think overall, he's really expanding the way the game will be played in the future.

Oh don't get me wrong, I think he's very creative, but as you said, he's changing the way the game will be played, and as you can imagine, I'd say it's in a negative way. His champions just don't belong in League, maybe a different moba.

Ixaxxar11 votes

I'm sick of seeing lee sin in every single "pro" game. It is not fun to watch, this champion is stupid.

Skias10 votes

Lee is greatly protected by the masses who play him. For reasons I can't understand, people love him. Riot has stated they fear the backlash of nerfing him. He needed to lose ward jumping a long time ago. That single thing is a huge amount of power that only Kat and Lee get for free, when even flash is gated with a massive CD. We all know the value of a free escape. The thing is, the ward jump never feels like it is budgeted into their power value at balance.

If Lee and Kat lost their ward jump, huge problems would be alleviated.

Edit: as pointed out by my fellow summoners, Jax also possesses the ability to ward hop. Always feels great when he does that.

CrotchguzzlerJr2 votes

I guess you can leave out that Jax can also ward hop.

Skias2 votes

you're absolutely right. In everyone of these scenarios its feel cheap to the recipient who lost a kill because a bug was allowed to remain in the game because of "fun". Recently they said they weigh fun vs frustration, I have no idea how ward hopping staying in the game won out. It's incredibly abusive. If a champ is allowed a 2nd flash in their kit on low CD, then they should pay for it with lower damage.

Edit: I've brought this up what feels like 100s of times and never gotten a Riot Employee to respond on the subject of ward hopping.

ValyrianBlade5 votes

To say they won't nerf a champion because he's popular is ridiculous. The OP champions will always be the most popular, because people want to win!

That said, they did remove his as slow last season right? And that was his best use in the late game, so they did something. They probably just need to lower his damage by a little and they'll be okay - I don't find him broken OP at least at my level of play. Maybe even just slow down his skillshots, make them harder to hit so he has more counterplay through people dodging it...

Krepo1621 votes

https://twitter.com/RiotMorello/status/484042166948212736

I guess reality is pretty ridiculous then.

ValyrianBlade6 votes

Yea... It's just not a good reason for doing something. I mean, WW has the highest pick/ban rate ever right now, so should they not nerf him because he's the most popular anyone has ever been?

What I really don't get is why riot thinks they have to do a full nerf or nothing. Why can't your patch just lower his base ad by 1 point and call it a day. Maybe that's too little, but the point is you can make some small changes that still bring the champion in line without really actually nerfing someone. You don't need to half the ap scaling on a skill and increase its cooldown by 40% to fix someone, sometimes all they need is just a small tap...

Jefftiffy4 votes

Lee Sin really isn't a problem. I don't know why everyone has to moan about an early game champ. His late game is being hit near every patch, and he struggles in the new jungle. He very vulnerable to counter jungling if he tries to farm.

People complain about Lee who relies almost purely on reaction to the other team when their is Yi who can just farm till late game and run in and 1v1-1v5 depending on the enemy teams comp. Honestly the junglers that synced with FF and now Devourer are so much more toxic than Lee is now. Why? Because Lee falls off hard and takes a lot of skill to play while most of the junglers that use infinite stacking are late game champs. Lee struggles to duel any ADC or AS heavy champ late game due to the nerfs to his tempest awhile ago.

Vicarious11712 votes

By "defining the jungle" people are talking 100% about the early game, late game the jungle itself doesn't really matter all that much so Lee falling off doesn't apply.

People are talking about his ridiculous ability to easily make plays and his stupidly high base stats to also give him one of the strongest dueling capabilities during this phase as well. Honestly if Riot changed his scaling, as in lower his base stats and give him better percentages then he'd be more balanced, the issue is because of how easy it is for even awful players to make plays with his kit if he has good percentages then he becomes unstoppable, so changing this around would be a huge risk.

But yeah, trying to defend this broken as sh*t champ by talking about less then stellar late game while everyone else is talking about his ridiculous early game won't help him out too much.

Krepo1618 votes

I mean that's just not realistically the case at high levels of play. Yi is very easy to play against due to how susceptible he is to CC and being instantly burst down. You have to have a lot of gold on Yi and a lot of items in order to do anything. Lee can still clear the jungle to level 3 with full health afterwards. He is being picked in 100% of games in OGN (Korean pro league, the guys that wreck everyone). He's very broken.

Sammystorm3 votes

I get tired of these broad overstatement that are just not true.

Lee was only a champ for about 3 months in season 1.

In season 2 it was all about the tanky aoe junglers. Maokai, shen, and shyvana were huge in the jungle.

In season 3 we saw a lot of different strategies but with the removal of hog and philo stone and the tougher first clear we saw champs that could make huge impacts on lane early that also had high single target damage, like lee sin.

Season 4 was very similar to season 3.

The problem that forced these high damage junglers into the jungle was the progressive increase in difficult in the monsters. I know in season 3 they had a nerf on aoe damage (not sure if it got reverted) so that jungle mobs would only take a percentage of aoe damage.

The problem isn't lee sin but instead how riot decided to balance their jungle in season 3. They forced a meta change and people decided that the meta that developed in season 3 is more effective. So to get a change we would need to incentivize the tank junglers to be played. Which riot has attempted to do several times but hasn't been largely successful.

I would say it is more the jungle defining the junglers rather then lee sin defining the jungle.

Krepo1612 votes

Short of his release in Season 1 there was never a point where Lee Sin was a bad jungler. Even in Season 2 he was still considered a high tier jungler. The fact of the matter is his high base stats, powerful kit, and insane mobility have always been a problem. He will always beat these tanks in the jungle because his stat distribution makes it so that he does more damage, while still maintaining high survivability from his kit. I started playing Lee in season 1, back when you could W halfway across a lane. I assure you, he was still good back then.

Sammystorm1 votes

He ahs always been a good champ, yes. However he will not always be able to beat tanky champions. If riot keeps balancing the way they are he will be stronger earlier but doesn't scale well. However if they go back to season 2 and mr and armor being absurd tank junglers would probably be better at all points of the game. I mean he was very obscure in season 2. You really didn't see him much. Was he good? yes but he never defined anything. So you bring up some points worth talking about but you make broad statements that are just not true which makes it hard to debate your points.

Krepo1612 votes

The problem with using Season 2 as an example of him "not defining the meta" is the fact that he just didn't define the NA meta. In Korea they figured out very quickly that a champion that had a kit that was this absurd could be used to do all kinds of crazy things. It's called an "Insec" because we didn't learn how to play him well, they did. If anything we were just behind a trend that already existed. You could still build Lee Sin like a tank and he did just as much as anyone else, he just did it better.

Edit: I also went back and looked at my season 2 stats and Lee Sin was my most played champion so...I think you might be exaggerating just how uncommon he was. Theoddone for example also had him as his most played champion and he was one of the premiere professional junglers at that time.

Circuit Bear5 votes

Too add onto this. There was Diamondprox who became a pro only playing Lee Sin at first. When Gambit picked him up that was his only solid character.

Lee Sin was about on par with Shyv if not slightly below since his slow actually allowed him to duel shyv efficiently at the time. And this was back when he still had the aspd, spellvamp/armor/lifesteel whole bit. The only reason I would say he wasn't top tier was cause the philo/heart of gold wasn't the greatest route on him and sightstone didn't exist. Like shyv at the time, only haert of gold was okay on him compared to the tank junglers which got both.

But as a character he was never below maybe second tier in Season 2. He just didn't have a billion videos on the gimmicks you could do with him nor was there an LCS to advertise him every week(LCSBIGPLAYS Dawg... 90% of them have Lee in them somewhere.)

Steel Inquisitor2 votes

Another Lee Sin circlejerk. He's been nerfed into oblivion already.

Krepo1642 votes

Apparently oblivion is being picked in 100% of games at the universally agreed on highest possible level of play?

Alpharite2 votes

If he's so broken, why is his winrate so low in ALL levels of play?

Krepo1615 votes

I really have no idea why Reddit spread this idea that solo queue win rates are the sole metric by which a champion's power can be determined. I keep emphasizing here, he is picked in 100% of competitive plays at the highest level because he is so versatile and powerful. Even if you look at NA's Diamond/Challenger Ranked 5's he is maintaining about a 50% win rate consistently. Solo queue is not a good metric for determining a champion's power by itself. The games go much longer than they should and there are far more mistakes made in solo queue games than there are if something is played to its full potential.

Edit: Also as of right now Warwick and Pantheon just happen to have good synergy with the new jungle changes and both of them are being nerfed next patch which I suspect is going to change the way those graphs look real quick.

Saint Millay14 votes

His win-rate is low because his play-rate is so high. If someone gets forced out of their lane and into jungling they always pick Lee Sin because they know he's always good.

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