The Sad State of Jarvan Jungle
Oh Jarvan, how you were once the King of the Jungle as much as your father is of Demacia. The fear that stroke in the hearts of every man who DARED to pick a champion with only one escape besides Vayne Poppy and Gnar, who would Flag Drag Flash Ult past a ward only to ult his own teammate under their tower with aggro, who would hop through your team and keep the enemy carry from doing anything but shoot pees at his manly breast(plate), but no longer. Why? There can be arguments made about power creep, there can be those who say items are bad, there may even be some who pin it entirely on the meta, but I disagree. Power creep is a thing, but moreso just leads to him being outclassed in some ways. Items, quite frankly, are actually pretty good. For those who prefer heavier AD Duskblade and Youmuu's current states make him just plain silly, whereas for tank we have new goodies such as Titanic, Sterak's, and a freshly buffed Iceborn gauntlet, and metawise when is the unique utilities he brings to a team ever bad? Either he works great as a peeler or he runs lovely as an engager, with a nice , yet in the jungle his winrate is abysmal (45.52% on average, the amazing Flag-Draggers only rising to about 52,5%). What is causing him to be so bad?
It's his clearing and sustain. Ever since his E's armor nerfs (which I do not advocate readding) he's began to struggle, and the removal of armor pen on Warrior has left him with both low clears and unhealthy ones, disallowing him from controlling the game early as he was largely dependent on, as are all heavier gankers besides full tanks such as Gragas. Well, like Gragas, who was suffering from much the same and plays an extremely similar role, how about we buff his clears? How about in the exact same way?
I suggest a clause is added to Jarvan's passive, which would read something like this: **Basic attacks deal 10% of target's current health to champions as bonus physical damage.
Attacks on Jungle Monsters above deal 10% of the monster's current health as physical damage to the target and any nearby monsters. Killing a Large Jungle Monster reapplies this damage as if it was full health.
This effect cannot occur on the same target more than once every few seconds.**
The numbers could be tweaked easily, and this gives him several options: He can focus the large monster, and let the nearby minions get killed by the secondary proc. OR He can focus the smaller monsters after whacking the first, and add multiple procs of AoE damage for each he smacks before refocusing the large monster.
Improving clear speed directly improves health for ganking and will allow him to function better early, make his tank builds more viable without destroying his clear speed (though warrior still would likely be the best option, as it is on all early game AD junglers), and NOT bring back the horror that was tower diving level 3 flag max Jarvan who gave absurd effective gold value just for being on a team.
There are likely many more options to improve him without making him the monstrous champion he used to be, but I believe this is the best way to make him properly kingly again.
Thoughts?