Are invading and counterjungling fun?

Nameless Voice··53 votes·6,191 views

One of the new preseason changes is to add items to allow for stronger invading and counter-jungling.

Riot say that this will encourage junglers into player-vs-player activities, but I have to ask: are these activities actually fun?

Right now, junglers are very... unbalanced. You mostly see invades happening by the likes of Lee Sin, who is guaranteed to win any early-game 1v1 against all but a very small number of junglers, so instead of "an interesting 1v1 fight in the jungle", being invaded by him tends to be more "I got invaded at level 2 by Lee Sin, since he's an unbeatable duellist, I'm either dead, or blew my flash and lost my buffs."

Counterjungling is similar; you get someone like Udyr, who is almost impossible to catch, running into the jungle, taking buffs, and then running away. He's less like to murder you, but his combination of tankiness and damage means that most junglers can't punish him for invading since he will also win a 1v1, and if the laners try to collapse on him, he can usually just outrun anyone and get away.

What this tends to mean is that, instead of an interesting 1v1 interaction, you get one player (the one with the strong duellist jungler) making life a complete pain for another (the one with the weaker duellist jungler), and often effectively removing that player's presence from the game.

Maybe it's just me, because I tend to play junglers who are not the handful of top-tier duellists, but I don't find this particularly fun.

Are there plans to add something else to help support the junglers being invaded, so they have a chance against these strong duellist champions?

73 Comments

SPIDER FIESTA35 votes

No, invading and counterjungling are absolutely not fun. The problem with invades and counterjungling are that if you're being invaded you, as a jungler, have almost no real recourse except to pray that your laners help. The towers are too far away to effectively fall back to. As a jungler you don't really have a "safe zone" like laners do. It's extremely frustrating to be in that situation where even if you ward, it effectively just means you get to watch while the enemy jungler walks over and takes your buffs and camps.

meatbeater884 votes

It is unfun because it requires coordination in a team game? I think its very fun and challenging 3/4 people on each side fighting with only 1 spell! If invading became more popular, then soon everyone will learn how to play against invasions/how to invade.

It adds more challenges. It punishes a team that decides to not pick a single champ that is not good at level 1. It rewards a team that works together and plays outside of the ordinary way. Its risk/reward. You invade and get the buff, are you gonna take that and walk away? You get the junglers flash out. You can be safe and call it a win or you can go for the kill.

Its a change that you can adjust to and once that season is long gone, and the invading items are gone, you will be a pro at invading/counterjungling and countering the invades

DrinkMoreWhiskey14 votes

Except it significantly lowers the pool of viable junglers.

JevelFaithful2 votes

I wonder if that's a problem with counter jungling or with the junglers. In other words, nerf lee/udyr OR players learn to ward your jungle.

Actually, I expect if this kind of gameplay indeed goes live, I'd expect people to use more early defensive wards. And if you,re invaded, go take theirs. We need to learn to play more in team, beacsue THAT is the counter to invades. And if 1v1 jungle action is more prevalent, riot will need to rebalance around that.

MacbethAndCheese1 votes

What if there was some way that fights between junglers could be ALOT more slow so there was time for laner reactions, like smiting someone who had smite, would exhaust them for 3 seconds, which would allow people time to react, meaning that champions that always win (looking at you blind man) wouldnt be impossible to deal with

BlazingSalvo17 votes

Not to mention Nunu absolutely destroys the new Jungle. Typically Riot does this: They make a change or introduce itemization to "help" a class or role, then proceed to nerf every single member of that class or role.

See: Black Cleaver/Hydra introduction Nerf: Riven, Garen, Lee Sin, Kha'zix, Zed, Talon, Pantheon, Aatrox, Wukong Hecarim, Jayce, Vi, Rengar... Heck, the only champions not changed since the AD item overhaul were Nocturne and arguably Renekton.

Same can be said for Marksmen. They nerfed BT, buffed IE to make IE-rush champs and hypercarries better, then nerfed Twitch, Trist, Kog'maw, etc. Despite nerfing BT, they still gave compensatory buffs to Graves, Ezreal, etc.

The support role could be a huge example as well. I don't even want to bother. Just look at Lulu.

So quick question: Why even bother changing items when you're going to nerf/compensate everyone affected?

The jungle items to "promote X" are going to put "X junglers" over the top and get them nerfed, and result in compensatory buffs to "non-X junglers." Guaranteed.

AnomalousChimera7 votes

Use Nunu. Buy Poacher's Knife. Stalk enemy wolf camp, Eat more stuff. Profit.

Daddy Space Lion2 votes

Not to mention Nunu absolutely destroys the new Jungle. Typically Riot does this: They make a change or introduce itemization to "help" a class or role, then proceed to nerf every single member of that class or role.

See: Black Cleaver/Hydra introduction Nerf: Riven, Garen, Lee Sin, Kha'zix, Zed, Talon, Pantheon, Aatrox, Wukong Hecarim, Jayce, Vi, Rengar... Heck, the only champions not changed since the AD item overhaul were Nocturne and arguably Renekton.

Same can be said for Marksmen. They nerfed BT, buffed IE to make IE-rush champs and hypercarries better, then nerfed Twitch, Trist, Kog'maw, etc. Despite nerfing BT, they still gave compensatory buffs to Graves, Ezreal, etc.

The support role could be a huge example as well. I don't even want to bother. Just look at Lulu.

So quick question: Why even bother changing items when you're going to nerf/compensate everyone affected?

The jungle items to "promote X" are going to put "X junglers" over the top and get them nerfed, and result in compensatory buffs to "non-X junglers." Guaranteed.

This is the conundrum.

You solved it.

Kudos.

Grand Eleven1 votes

This is why I personally feel introducing even more jungle items is the worst idea they could come up with. I have a feeling net season I'm abandoning jungle. madstone/FeralFlare already ruined things in a lot of ways for me ... ugh.

otternuke15 votes

Yeah, invaded are very unfun one sided things right now. Especially in soloQ where even if you're getting attacked and ping for help, there's less than a 50% chance they'll actually come.

Grand Eleven1 votes

If you're smart you invade when lanes are pushed. It the best way to ensure your lanes don't get ganked (you're busy invading) as well as ensure that jungler will get no help (if they leave while pushed under tower the tower is likely lost).

I enjoy counter jungling as a strat ... much less passive then madstone farming.

Lneacx14 votes

Let me turn the question around: What exactly is an example of fun? Do you find aiming a skillshot at an enemy champion fun? I feel that most things that are 'fun' don't seem fun anymore when viewed objectively.

Even if counterjungling/invading isn't 'fun', there are still reasons it should exist. For the same reasons that getting killed is unfun yet is still a necessary feature of the game, jungler-jungler interaction should also exist; invade and counterjungle are two examples.

If someone is naturally a better duelist than you, then why shouldn't they be able to leverage their advantage? If Syndra can abuse Fizz in midlane, why shouldn't Lee be able to abuse Sejuani in the jungle? If it's because Lee is able to do everything Sejuani can but better, then that's because Lee is broken - not because counterjungling is broken.

The vision counterplay to invades is also now more robust. First of all, Crab and Wolf grant areas of vision control: Crab controls a river chokepoint, and Wolf is capable of scouting an entire quadrant of the jungle. This means that, if you're afraid of the enemy jungler, you have the power to pick the proper jungle rewards to stop them. You can also use green trinket defensively for where the Crab and Wolf don't cover. If anything, you have more options than before against invades.

Capitan Rick1 votes

I think the bigger problem is all the junglers being used right now are strong duelists/ single target dmg, and they buffed those junglers with the item, its not opening play, but buffing the buffed. Its also gonna make it hard to balance because say lee sin maybe super stong in the jungle, and nerfs will hurt lane lee, its gonna be a balancing nightmare.

Raptamei9 votes

The problem with invading is that the side that gets more help from their laners usually wins.

When you invade the enemy jungle yourself, you're betting that their laners are retarded and let you shit all over their jungler (and then go [all] report our jungler noob idiot), which is about a 50/50 gamble in silver. And vice versa.

oh you wanna die3 votes

you think thats a 50/50 gamble? that shits a 70/30 gamble in gold.

Feathermane8 votes

One thing we can all agree on is that Lee Sin is never fun to play against.

Junkο5 votes

Counterjunling and messing with the other jungler as Shaco is a ton of fun.

Till a good Shaco does it to you.... (good Udyr and Lee Sin too, but Shaco is a real pain)

MrSc0tty4 votes

I find being killed to be highly unfun. Late game, being killed can cause you to be out of control of your champion for upwards of FORTY SECONDS-Riot nerfed 3 second hard ccs for exactly this reason. Why not remove dying entirely, resulting in 100% player agency in order to win games?

On a more serious note, I feel like you're missing counterplay that you actually do have. Even currently, let's say i'm laning as a tank, vs a Lee Sin. What I'm going to do is start with my warding trinket, and start at the opposite buff from the traditional configuration (for instance, start red as Amumu). Then, after I finish my leashed buff, I place my trinket in the bush on the far side of the camp, and I head up towards my blue buff. If by some chance the enemy team invaded me, or Lee Sin is psychic, I have red buff and I go and make an unexpected level 2 gank on an enemy to burn a flash/get a kill and snowball my friendly lane. If not, I will spot Lee Sin heading to my (gone) red buff, claim my doubles before he has a chance to, AND I have the knowledge that he is on the opposite side of the map so I can enter a lane and be super aggressive in order to get a nasty gank off. Lee Sin loses a huge chunk of his early game threat, I'm safe and secure in the knowledge that I scale infinitely better than him, I got off a really solid gank and my team knows exactly where he is, and it was almost zero risk to me.

and, to add on to that, I think you're forgetting the counterplay they're adding in to the new strategies they're creating. That wolf smite bonus is going to be quite powerful when combined to the already available counterplay you can get through warding and communication. If an enemy enters your jungle to counter, and you spot them with a ward, advantage goes to you 100%-you know where they are, and you have the choice of either popping into their jungle then ganking from a really unexpected angle, or just going and hammering one of the enemy lanes.

I get it. People don't like their routines screwed with when jungling, and it stinks when someone kills you in the jungle. But the key here is that you had options to deal with that and you didn't-that's on you, not them.

DrinkMoreWhiskey3 votes

That works great till you get high enough that teams are warding your buffs to see where you start if they've got a counter jungler

Skaarrjj3 votes

I actually agree, I think invading and counter-jungling is actually anti-fun for the jungler it's happening to because you are normally helpless in these types of situations.

JevelFaithful2 votes

because you are normally helpless

Just becasue of that, I'll say the problem is not invades, it's that the players don't know how to play for it. I predict we'll see more defensive wards and hopefully eventually more team response when possible.

Legalt3 votes

Honestly, if you're playing Sejuani, you can still counterjungle a Lee Sin if he 1. Doesn't kill his red with smite, or 2. Takes too much damage from his camp and blows his cooldowns before you jump on him. He may be able to counterjungle more reliably, but if YOU'RE the one going for it, especially if you take the new counterjungle items and he doesn't.

It definitely WILL open up more options. I'll leave judgement on it overall till after I've played with this, but I think it may open up cool new gameplay.

MakersF1 votes

Sej has no sustain whatsoever and loses a lot of health early levels, unless they buff her she won't see play in the new jungle imho

Gorgannan1 votes

I think you need to be patient and wait to see how all the new changes affect things. When they've told us maybe half of what they're doing, it is too early to be disputing whether or not a jungler will even be playable.

Remlap12233 votes

Counterjungling should exist (TIME TO TROLL! Trundle) But it sure as hell ain't fun. Usually when I'm playing as Trundle, I start blue and save my smite so I can mosey on over to the enemy's red buff and take a good ol smite out of it, then working my bot camps that I left behind, and proceeding to gank the shit out of some lanes. This kind of invade I'm all for because it's easily counterable by a well placed ward, and it doesn't hinder jungler options.

The type of invades I'm NOT ok with are the ones that Shaco and Lee Sin are (in)famous for: sitting in your red bush and either fearing you with a jack-in-the-box, and proceeding to backstab you to death, or smacking you with a tempest/sonic wave resonating strike combo, and literally kicking the shit out of you. This leads to you getting super behind, and stifles the champion pool to amounts that would make Occam's Razor cut itself for the idea. And lo and behold, what champions are taking the piss out of jungle right now? LeeSin Elise Evelynn. If Shaco didnt' have that ridiculous buff identifier on his clones, he'd probably be up there too. Of course Lee Sin is the brown top hat of the shit show that is jungler diversity because he fosters an unhealthy fanbase of rabid freelo whiners that derailed his rework that would have arguably balanced the champion.

Synergistic Flow3 votes

As a jungle main I like counter jungling. It's a mini game in of itself and always changing. However, when I get counter jungled it can be very annoying but at the same time it's just part of the game. If you jungle long enough you can find ways around counter jungling. For those that don't jungle then yea, it'll probably be harder and less forgiving but it'll emphasize the difference between a good jungler and an ordinary jungler just like how lanes are played. I've played many matches where I have gotten ahead of the enemy jungler but because of team fights the difference has turned out negligible. I really like that Riot is giving the jungle some love: treating it like a solo lane. It will leave a lot of room for outplay potential and more team coordination.

Please keep in mind that all these changes have yet to be finalized. There isn't much point in getting worked up about it until release.

Nameless Voice3 votes

I'm going to qualify this a little bit.

I think that the problems that I pointed out with invading and counterjungling are primary caused by certain jungler champions.

I think that counterjungling is fun when the enemy jungler doing it takes risks to do it. Sneaking into the jungle and stealing a blue buff when you see the enemy jungler in another lane is interesting, with risks and benefits.

The problem I have with counterjungling is when it's done by champions who don't care. Champions who can come in and take a buff, and don't care if the enemy jungler finds them there because they have no fear of dying to the enemy jungler. Udyr is the most obvious example of this (even if you catch him at your buff, he can usually tank you, and often even another laner, for long enough to get away.) Hecarim and Shyvana used to be other examples of this (though I don't see those jungling lately.)

I think that the important thing here is risk. If the enemy jungler is taking a risk, where if they don't do the invade/counterjungling properly, they can lose, then it's interesting. But when you have one-sided situations where the invader is almost guaranteed to get a kill (or a Flash), or the invader has no real fear of being caught for their counterjungling, then it's not fun. It feels like you've lost because of champion choices rather than because of skill, which never feels like fun.

On the side of invading, if the invade will only succeed if you get the drop on the enemy jungler, but if they have warded and seen you coming, they can turn around and surprise you and kill you instead, then it's interesting. If your champion is guaranteed to win the fight even if they surprise you, then it's not. It's losing based on champion picks.

wolfax1 votes

How exactly do you stop it though? Udyr and Lee Sin are meant to be duelists, so they should be able to duel. In the early levels one dueling champion is going to outduel one tanky champion. Unless you make every single jungler a dueling or tanking champion.

Counter jungling is one of those things that needs to exist because there needs to be a way to punish passive junglers and to make the ganking ones have to weigh the options of going in lane vs making sure their jungle buffs are secure.

Capitan Rick1 votes

I think the bigger problem is all the passive jungler suck right now, except mumu. That ult plus % dmg, never fair.

hatemoronsbuster3 votes

I have a gold 4 account and i use warwick jungle a lot. It's really fun to do invades after a few ganks. The jungler catches you and his teams don't help? fight till you're low hp and ult him. You're fighting, know you can't win, and the dude is under 50% hp?. Run away. The thrill of the hunt makes invades and counter jungling fun

Direwolfiez2 votes

The only time I ever participated in an invasion that worked, the opposing Lee Sin rage quit, so...I'd say no, it's not really that fun, at least for the jungler getting invaded. He only got help after we stole his red, and we picked up 3 kills...kinda felt guilty about that.

FantasySniper2 votes

I hate getting counter-jungled. Even if my team can manage to punish them for it, they'll still keep doing it because I have no alternatives to getting help from my laners, which is a super-unpredictable strategy in itself because even if they are willing to help, they risk a lot to do it and it isn't guaranteed that we'll succeed.

It's an utter reversal of the jungling role when you need your teammates to come gank for you.

Kufkus2 votes

Getting counterjungled is very laregly in part to two major mistakes that you are making

  1. Your jungle pathing is sub par/ you did not compensate your buff started for likely being invaded at your second buff
  2. You show your face on the map in top/bot and the enemy jungler takes notice and counter jungles accordingly.

I also highly doubt lee sin players will take the counter jungling item because primarily lee sin tries to gank lanes to set the carries of your team behind, rather than just you. It also sounds like they are making objective based junglers more powerful with these changes by simply adding more objectives to the map. Hell, when you kill wolves with smite they scout for you. Jungle safety is going up exponentially early game with these preseason changes IMO.

AmightyT2 votes

Counter jungling I ridiculously fun for the winning side, and hell for anyone who isn't Lee Sin. when you get counter jungled and you lose your buff, a very select few junglers can recover from that, which Riot probably doesn't care about since they are going to cull alot of junglers with the preseason changes, first it was tank junglers like Taric and Alistar, now unless your Lee sin, Udyr, J4, Yi, or Vi you shouldn't even try.

Quepha2 votes

especially when riot wanted to make tank junglers more viable and only really got halfway there, and now they're talking about buffing their worst nightmare.

Conncept2 votes

Wouldn't know, never jungled, hardly ever solo laned. To this day I can't figure out why people play a MULTIPLAYER TEAM ARENA GAME and then fight over getting the solo lanes and bunnythumping through the woods alone. But that's probably one of the dozens of borked SR mechanics that caused me to move to dominion, no carrying, no farming, no soloing; you fight as a team and win or lose as a group.

JevelFaithful1 votes

To answer your question, because people knwo how to teamfight, but not how to lane as a multiplayer. They want full control of their lane instead of having the possibility of being doomed by their ally.
Basically, they know how a full team think, they know how the jungler think in a gank situation (probably, some people don't). They don't know how a single player work and don't knwo how to have a constant lane against 2 players.

This is coming form a mainly suport/adc player btw. I prefer duoing too.

RenaiCirculation2 votes

This discussion mostly feels like:

I like to play cool champs who don't have everything for free. Getting harassed all game without counter-play sucks. vs. I play Lee Sin! Of course it's fun! :D

Though having camps stolen is annoying, people can deal with that. However when someone doing that and warding your jungle just to come in and kill you repeatedly (sometimes with their own laners) and deny you every buff, at no point do you feel like they're beating you fairly. Like people have been saying, even if you do manage to get some actual help from your solo queue teammates, Udyr and Nunu just run away, Shaco does an invisible blink, and Lee Sin ward jumps over the wall and kicks to the nearest camp. Which he'll do again in 5 seconds without having to worry about mana costs.

Long story short: It's never fun to get s--- on when there's literally nothing short of going duo top you can do to play against it.

meatbeater881 votes

5v5 game.

Requires more thinking in the drafting stage.

But ok lets just say its unfair to make it easy.

EDIT: Along with this change, there should be like a 20 second planning phase before bans come out. Ive never had problems with communicating in this game. The ones who dont say anything are usually trolls or afk anyways

2yftLP0KQC1 votes

you just have to coordinate with your team. that's all. if we are invading, we make sure we have a good support, preferable blitz, or thresh. some stun, or slow to guarantee a first blood. if we are being invaded, we just kinda wait it out, until jgler killed our buff and he more than likely be less than half health. all you really have to do is flash in (if need to) attack and ignite.

teams that pick blitz are more than likely to invade, so place wards accordingly. when they invade we also spread out, and come in from different directions, this confuses the team not knowing who to attack.

Nameless Voice2 votes

We're not talking about level-1 jungle invades, we're taking about lone junglers going in to kill the other jungler.

meatbeater881 votes

Well then if I was a weak duelist like sejuani I would ward the entrances and spam pings on the closest laner for free kill

H3lla Moneys1 votes

Invading and counter-jungling have been pretty much worthless this season with the jungle changes to make catching up easier (camps give more xp if you're under leveled and there are more camps than there were in S3). It's a better allocation of time to simply farm and gank, but trying to stalk the enemy jungler to keep him behind is pretty much a trivial pursuit. If you can take a first buff or get first blood by invading, that's good, but other than that counterjungling is pretty pointless for putting someone behind.

It doesn't feel fun to be on the receiving end of counterjungling and invading if you don't know what to do, but I think it added another layer of complexity to jungling. In S3 when it was prominent, I played both very strong early game junglers capable of counter jungling, and very weak early game junglers who were very likely to be counterjungled. This interraction between junglers made the matchup most of the time, and my knowledge of how to properly counterjungle and avoid being counterjungled made jungling more dynamic. At this time, junglers for the most part only interact in a counterganking scenario.

TenSlashTen1 votes

1 buff turns into 2 buffs.. 3 buffs etc. Dragons. Every exp lead they get matters. Means he gets six first.

Six is a huge powerspike. Generally you can do wierd things like ask your support to play zil if you think you're gonna get invaded often so at least you can stay even on exp somewhat.

But you're right, over the years riot has kind of nerfed invades pretty heavily already imo. theres not much exp difference between clearing 2-3 small camps as apposed to clearing your buffs now like there was in s1/s2 area.

They spread it out around the jungle so you're still somewhat able to keep up.

Its funny to see people saying invades are that bad now a days. But its still bad as in you miss alot of early game exp that puts you out of having a quick level 4/6 to gank with.

H3lla Moneys2 votes

1 buff turns into 2 buffs.. 3 buffs etc. Dragons. Every exp lead they get matters. Means he gets six first.

Six is a huge powerspike. Generally you can do wierd things like ask your support to play zil if you think you're gonna get invaded often so at least you can stay even on exp somewhat.

But you're right, over the years riot has kind of nerfed invades pretty heavily already imo. theres not much exp difference between clearing 2-3 small camps as apposed to clearing your buffs now like there was in s1/s2 area.

They spread it out around the jungle so you're still somewhat able to keep up.

Its funny to see people saying invades are that bad now a days. But its still bad as in you miss alot of early game exp that puts you out of having a quick level 4/6 to gank with.

I'm sorry, but if you're letting the enemy jungler get all your buffs and snowball that into dragons ect. you deserve to lose. losing 1 buff isn't as devastating as people seem to think with the xp boost for people who are underleveled. The only single buff that can put a substantial dent in your clear is if you lose your first one. Invades are still good, but trying to stalk the enemy jungler to keep them underlevelled is just a poor allocation of time.

TenSlashTen1 votes

you're right, making the game a 4v5 is a waste of time.

with free dragons/barons because they/you can't out smite because they're 2+ levels behind and your smite does more damage is just a waste of time. What was I thinking.

You obviously know everything, why bother making points to talk about with such an intelligent player. Silly me.

Yungbud420x69x1 votes

It's the most fun thing about jungling IMO. What's fun about farming your uncontested jungle, then ganking? Farm uncontested jungle again, then ganking again. I'm glad they are encouraging it. More PvP is always good.

For the people who are talking about how it's making a lot of junglers unviable (Any tank jungle besides amumu), that's why the jungle is changing next season. The current jungle and jungle items are the cause. They are gone next season, hopefully leading to more viable junglers. It was all in the red posts. Try reading them.

Gunpoint1 votes

Lee Sin player: "Check out my sick mechanics bruh" *Q's in, steals red buff, W's out Nautilus player: "afk"

Berry Blast1 votes

question: do any of you think this will actually work...as im scrolling through the comments people are saying it encourages the team to play more like a team....in theory yes it might be forcing it a little though but do you really think with this community people will actually do that? not even joking but if im playing mid 9/10 games the jungler never gives me a blue buff unless i can solo it myself and he died so i beat him to it then he eventually tower dives and gives them a double....this is why i never leash or help the jungle at the start anymore im not sure if other people are as stubborn as me but its just setting them up to lose

Capitan Rick1 votes

Honestly i think its an attempt for viability in the pro scene. IN the pros counter jungling is a joke because of the coordination. If your in the other jungle and spotted, the lanes collapse, and your dead 8 out of 10 times. In solo queue, however counter jungling is viable because laners have their faces so far up their asses counting cs numbers that they forget the rest of the world exists. Its gonna be the rise of nunu and warwick and other stong duelists just screwing over the other jungler xp wise. If they have successful ganks in lane, and they steal your buff, its not so bad. Unsuccessful ganks and no farm to fall back on? its a horrible snowball situation for a jungler on one team to become entirely ruined from some bad luck. Its gonna be a shitfest in soloqueue.

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