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New (4.20) Jungle feedback

J0HN C3N4·11/20/2014, 1:05:21 PM·9 votes·4,848 views

Hey everyone, I've been TRYING to jungle since 4.20. So far my experience has been horrible.

The reduced buff duration is god-awful:

  • By the time you get the second buff you HAVE to go B and one of the buff's has already gone off.

As far as the new items:

  • I do feel that the damage reduction removal from machete was the BIGGEST hit in all jungling in my opinion. It feels that you get overwhelmed so easily by jungle creeps.

Also the sustain you get from the items and killing the big minion feels very weak.

Although there is "variety" on the items when it comes to my jungling preference I feel restricted to either the blue or red weapon and enchants though I've seen the red gem recommended it lacks due to low AS.

The XP feels very bad too, there is no way to catch up if you fall behind, though this feels as if this is the case with the entire team, snowballing feels out of control - yes, worst than before.

I'm really trying to not get discouraged since it's only the first day but out of the 5 games I've been able to jungle in today it feels as if I make very little impact on the game. It seems like now it all absolutely depends on the lanes and the jungler has no shifting power what-so-ever.

I'll keep trying as long as solo queue lets me try and jung but seems like my mmr is going to tilt hard. (what I get for only playing ranked yay me)

I hope it gets better...

Any thoughts on the matter? Anyone "loving" the new jungle? What's your take on XP, Items, impact on the game, etc?

27 Comments

bunglyfe11/20/2014, 1:52:21 PM6 votes

new items are an amazing idea but with the increase in difficulty of the jungle, using the active smite options on enemy champions over jungle camps is pretty lackluster. It has never been worth it to save smite to use in lane when i cant even kill jungle camps without it

junglers feel much poorer overall due to the difficult farming and lack of a gold generating jungle item (no dragon gold doesnt help either)

heavy mana using champions are now pretty useless without some sort of mana item. I find myself needed to rush sheen on eve or i cant even clear half the jungle without blue buff

All in all I like where the idea of this jungle is going, but the difficulty needs to be scaled back to season 4 levels to make stalkers or skirmishers worth buying

Siachi11/20/2014, 2:08:19 PM4 votes

Are you starting at blue or red buff? Because from what I've heard it's better to start at one of the smaller camps for their buff (Starting with Gromp is supposed to really help with clearing, and I think Krugs might be a good start for more carry/damage focused junglers, but don't quote me on that).

I could be wrong though. Haven't had a chance to try everything out, and won't have time until much later today. I had a PBE account I could have tested, but with college kicking my ass I didn't really have time to test the jungle much more than one custom game.

EDIT: I'm a bad jungler either way, so I really can't help that much.

Meep Man11/20/2014, 1:42:19 PM3 votes

I think the regeneration while in combat with monsters needs to be slightly increased as far as health goes and they need to increase the buff durations to around where it was before

item 1039 Health regen per second while in combat with monsters increased to 12 per second from 8 per second. Upgrades give 16 health per second from 12 per second. Mana regen per second while in combat with monsters increased to 4 mana per second from 3 per second. Upgrades give 6 mana per second from 5 per second.

Quepha11/20/2014, 3:35:13 PM3 votes

riot said they wanted tanky junglers to come out of the jungle with more hp so they could gank without going b to make up for their slower clears. how exactly is that supposed to be true when slower clears means more time taking damage from the more durable jungle? how is the new machete supposed to be better for junglers that don't build for on-hit like sejuani? i'm pretty sure warwick and udyr will come out of a jungle clear way healthier than sejuani will because they can actually clear camps.

also, holy crap does the shorter blue give me mana issues in the jungle, golem buff is supposed to let junglers actually clear camps without going oom because they have to use their abilities to kill camps at the rate that minions kill each other in lane.

it really feels like none of these changes were made with tank junglers in mind and no changes have been made to compensate them.

Auroras of Autum11/20/2014, 1:33:25 PM2 votes

I just want to say that this post also reflects my experience after several games as Amumu and Evelynn in the new jungle.

TunteToter11/21/2014, 1:33:46 PM2 votes

I kinda feel like the minority here, but I like the new jungle. I main Skarner, and I feel like he did just fine. I had to B after picking up my second buff, but after nabbing a sabre, my sustain was, while definitely not as strong as S4, not as bad as some people would make me think. I found the wolf spirit buff to be quite helpful, saved me from losing my second blue in a recent game to the enemy yi, who I smote, slowed, stunned and killed. I've also had a number of ally and enemy junglers in different games say that the raptors are a bit too strong, and I'd have to agree with them, at least for the early game. Those dirty birds hurt, but the buff they provide is more useful than I thought it would be. Pair it with a sweeping lens and you're set. I dislike that the spawn timers have been turned up, and the big buffs have had their effective time reduced. That makes it much, much harder to go for a farm till six strategy. I understand what they're trying to do, in making the junglers actually leave the jungle once in a while, but I feel like it will make you fall behind unless you start snowballing early, or aggressively counter jungle. Overall, I think there's some great ideas at work in the jungler side of this update, but it definitely is going to need some fine tuning. But on the flip side of that, some champions need some tuning as well. Anyway, that's my two cents. Respond and let me know what you guys agree with and disagree with

SerBlaise11/20/2014, 3:11:07 PM1 votes

So far I like the jungle. I do agree that it is harder, but that doesn't necessarily translate to less fun for me. It's.....riskier, and I find i'm more on edge.

I do agree with some of what you are saying. Some of the choices you have to make leave you with no good options, like backing and having the buff wear out, or continuing to farm at extremely low health. My advice; buy more pots and wards early on. Gank less frequently (I usually manage maybe 2 pre-lvl 6). It's often better to find the enemy jungler in their jungle or to countergank. These are often safer opportunities where you can be reasonably sure you will have a health advantage, as they will usually be lower health than you. But if you are not on a champion that can do this, just buy rangers and farm.

Definitely smite gromp or krugs and red buff if you are having issues farming healthily. And smite at the START. I rarely smite to kill the buff anymore; its better to just ward the jungle and peel off the buff if you get invaded. heck, if they try and do the buff after that, they will be the ones with low health, and you can probably get the buff and the enemy jungler. The difficulty of your own jungle counters invades!

Ad Astra per Asp11/20/2014, 3:18:32 PM1 votes

Well, season 4 junglers were game dictatingly strong so ya it will feel lackluster compared to last season Riot basically stated this already. On the other hand, junglers have to make meaningful choices now instead of just camp and farm and disrupt all of early game with abandon. One role shouldn't determine the outcome of early game so strongly.

Velasan11/20/2014, 1:45:51 PM1 votes

I had the opposite experience. It was very easy to pick up and I loved the new jg system. Usually a pretty simple big buff to small camp and back for first jg upgrade then gank and farm some more was the simplest way. I didn't get to try everything yet, but there are some sustain options in the jg items too.

I like the new baron and dragon buffs. Scuttle crab I'm kind of mixed on. Sometimes I feel like giving perma wards in river all the time is over kill and makes it difficult to contest anything in said river (even a later scuttle crab). Combined with kalistas flying wards it would basically just grant vision of that whole side of the jg. Might be better if the ward could be targeted and destroyed by the opposing team.

Pyro11/20/2014, 3:41:25 PM1 votes

By the time you get the second buff you HAVE to go B and one of the buff's has already gone off.

Solution: don't take both buffs at first clear. Get one small camp, a buff and a second small camp, back for Machete upgrade, and then get the second buff and gank.

I do feel that the damage reduction removal from machete was the BIGGEST hit in all jungling in my opinion. It feels that you get overwhelmed so easily by jungle creeps.

Thank God, now jungling requires some actual thinking.

Although there is "variety" on the items when it comes to my jungling preference I feel restricted to either the blue or red weapon and enchants though I've seen the red gem recommended it lacks due to low AS.

Options to use Smite on enemy champions aren't worth much if you can't follow up on them. People underestimate Trailblazer's reduced cooldown.

The XP feels very bad too, there is no way to catch up if you fall behind, though this feels as if this is the case with the entire team, snowballing feels out of control - yes, worst than before.

The very same rules apply - the lower elvel you are, the more XP jungle monsters give you.

Willowran11/20/2014, 5:21:26 PM1 votes

I'm Torn. Only played in the new-new jungle with Skarner so far, and while i didn't feel the heavier damage so much, the lack of mana regen in jungle items hit me REALLY hard. I'm accustomed to restoring the mana i burn via spirit stone, as otherwise two camps puts you OOM. I took a gank-oriented smite, but as a result i was forced to buying into mana items, rather than the bruiser/tank build i usually ran.

I mean, changing build is not necessarily a bad thing, but Skarner had a limited-enough pool of use-able items before. Now you can't really go triforce at all- you NEED the mana from frostborn gauntlet. Probably more, which will put you back on the tanking, too.

More playing required: i want to try that stun-smite, which apparently restores mana, to see if that makes up for it some.

Jungle Lux God11/20/2014, 6:08:26 PM1 votes

Something I would recommend doing is not going into solo queue to immediately try out the new changes. Your mmr won't tank for trying out something new.

Also, I found that the new jungle is slightly more favorable for tank junglers, although I was lagging a bit in the games I played so I can't be too sure.

On Nautilus, I found I could take both buffs and three small camps before going back, assuming I started blue (if I started red then I don't think I could actually face blue without taking lethal damage if I started red first).

In terms of impact on the game, I still feel like I can have an impact on the game, even if that impact is only taking the scuttler. The buffs from Krugs and Gromp really help give junglers a little bit more impact when it comes to the early-mid game.

I think the items are pretty cool, although I am going to miss Quill Coat. The new jungle items seem to provide a lot of interesting playstyles to champs that didn't have the options for those playstyles before, and also gives the potential for a lot more playstyles than farming and ganking.

I personally like the new changes from what I've experienced so far, but I need to try them out a bit more.

Poshriel11/20/2014, 7:00:44 PM1 votes

I think that the jungle better suits me. I was always feeling like there wasn't enough to do. Ganking basically being the only thing I could do that was interesting. Now, I can get map control if I know for a fact the enemy is warding well, I go to raptors. If they are counter jungling hard, I can smite the wolf and ambush at blue. When I start out, if I want to to a carry start, I can start the golems, and move back and forth bottom and top for lane ganks. If I am going more farm to 6 style, I can start gromp, and get that early damage shield.

I've always needed multiple things to focus on, or else I lose all focus. The numbers may need to change, but what they did was really good for what jungle mains really want to do. As far as gameplay I think it's better.

Foxfeathers11/20/2014, 11:20:24 PM1 votes

I main Shyvana in the jungle. I've tried multiple runepage setups and it's a big mess. As I understand it some junglers are even worse off. If you want people to "get out and gank" instead of staying in their jungle making sustainability difficult except on the smallest handful of champs is NOT the way to do it. Respawns were increased to force people to gank but I'm just using the time to back because I damn near have to with the ridiculous amount of damage I'm taking.

It's harder to "take back" an enormous change like these than it would have been to more gradually add them. I understand wanting the new season to start out on a field that's going to stay relatively the same, reserving smaller changes for then, but this new jungle really needed to stay in the slow cooker a lot longer than it did I believe.

I won't re-hash specifics of most of what's already been said around these boards about how terrible this is but plainly I think it's safe to say the team has initiated exactly what they were trying to prevent. The jungler roster is going to shrink and so are options. By options I do not mean jungle tools but said tools are overwhelming, especially for less experienced players. Intimidating. Things just got ridiculously complicated and while I will admit I see some potential in the idea, most aspects need a serious retune. Putting even more pressure on junglers is turning a role that was hard to find anyone in team builder for into a real and actual chore.

It's a whole new game in there and one few signed up for from what I can tell so far.

Allen Lee11/21/2014, 2:24:11 AM1 votes

I strongly dislike the new jungle. Junglers have become much weaker compared to laners. They need to make the camps a bit weaker please. -Unhappy D2 Jungle main

MrHollyw00d12/1/2014, 8:30:33 PM1 votes

Although I am far from the greatest player on Earth I do agree with this post. Jungle monsters hit insanely harder, buffs do not last as long, and we no longer get additional gold. I feel like i have been wasting all my gold on Health pots to stay at half life after a camp clear, and playing a champ like Sej im already backing after 2 camps and a potential gank because im either out of mana, health, or both.

Tooterpillar11/20/2014, 3:01:09 PM1 votes

I tried it out last night with two of my mains: Volibear and Hecarim. They were supposed to be examples of my person range of sustain --> somewhat squishy junglers.

Volibear wrecked the jungle. I really enjoyed how well he stood up to the camps and I took blue-->Wolves-->Raptors-->Red without a problem. I did Trailblazer-->Juggernaut. The extra health and CDR was spot-on and I really enjoyed it. The stuns smite gave helped tremendously.

I tried the same jungle item build for Hecarim (trail-->juggernaut). I had chosen the attack damage path before but Hecarim was falling behind so I switched to the juggernaut one with trailblazer. Hecarim is really squishy at the beginning but once I got the extra health and maybe 1 or 2 other items built, he was perfect to me. Also, I would save smite to get the help from Gromp before doing my buffs.

Sustain junglers and/or extreme tanks are going to do really well in this jungle. I am going to try Nautilus tonight to see how he does. My fried tried Maokai last night and his exact words were, "holy crap, this is amazing now, this tree is solid."

But, frankly, if you can build a champ your way and it works, then yay! There's going to be a lot of diversity in this jungle now. I'm pretty excited. The only thing I don't like is the long cooldowns for smaller camps. I understand they want ganks > straight-up farming but if I can't farm, then I can't gank efficiently when mid and top have unlimited minions to work with. I just feel like I might fall behind as a jungler. Also, I don't see smiting a champion being effective when I need that smite for jungle camps. Just kinda conflicting.