Jungle Tanks Suffering?

Chaos Milk Tea·Feb 23, 2016·5 votes·401 views

Is it just me, or are there no tanks who can jungle with much success right now? At the beginning of the season I suddenly started losing a lot taking the likes Maokai and Sion into the jungle, and finally peeked the winrates and nearly every jungle tank is doing poorly. This isn't some injustice, but it does bother me a little that top lane is now the only truly viable place to put a full on tank. Rammus is hanging in there thanks to 3+ ad comps, but he still does better top lane. Meanwhile these guys are frankly not able to do much in the role.

Now I'll admit that perhaps before season 5 jungle tanks were uncommon and I simply didn't see that. I only really got into ranked at the end of S4 and early 5 so I experienced the tank meta for the most part.

12 Comments

Olath QuortekFeb 24, 20162 votes

Sion jungle is great if you ask me...

ErockandrollFeb 23, 20161 votes

After his recent buff, Gragas can do fair in the Jungle. Though arguably you could go either Cinderhulk, or Runic Echo.

I don't even know why tank Junglers arn't performing well. Is their clear speed, not allowing them to keep up? or are they just having problems getting tanky enough?

The thing is, it would seem like the items are relatively balanced in clear speed. But the top Jungle picks are on the high end of the spectrum of wave clear, which don't include many tanks. (except Gragas)

TormentulaFeb 23, 20161 votes

Well we did get a new armor penetration item and a lot of carries, junglers, everything etc are getting insane buffs or true damage added to their kit, or even crits (looking at you xin).

Junglers get such fast clear and early damage that they can easily delay a tanks late game, additionally the tank in top lane might as well not be called tanks with things like fiora existing.

In the jungle, I think the problem with tank junglers is games are too short. Tank junglers rely on their teams to win trades or be passive until they get some bulk or level 6 to be useful and help, and if the score is already 0/7 by the time the jungler reaches 6, it's suicide to try ganking some of the fed lanes and it's basically GG. I feel like this is the meta of fast early game domination rather than wait it out to late game.

Additionally tank junglers are so easier to counter jungle. Invading has never been as easy than now.

TehNACHOFeb 23, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Well we did get a new armor penetration item

Actually, since Duskblade is Flat Penetration, tanks counter it. The only reason why this item would directly affect Tank presence in the Jungle is if other champions are crowding people out because of it. Since none of the top performing champions are Duskblade users, this quite frankly just isn't the case.

GrashnimFeb 23, 20161 votes

RekSai still works well, I go mostly tank on her.

DorkunedAurasFeb 23, 20161 votes

[deleted]

GrashnimFeb 23, 20161 votes

Sometimes you have to do what's necessary for the team and not for yourself.

DorkunedAurasFeb 23, 20161 votes

For most of my games, I need damage early to properly carry. I transition to tanky later, and even trade out warrior for cinderhulk late as we teamfight (to synergize with titanic). The problem is that, at least in most of my games, I need early damage to actually do anything.

I will admit my earlier comment was probably too aggressive. I'm gonna delete that downvote farm now.

TehNACHOFeb 23, 20161 votes

Ehh, Amumu is champion 6 in overall performance rating in the Jungle and Volibear and Udyr, both very Tank/Juggernaut like champions, score slots 5 and 3. I don't think the problem is in tanks as a class in the Jungle so much as the individual champions are just underperforming.

warpenguin555Feb 23, 20161 votes

Rammus is pretty awesome still.

ltmetalFeb 24, 20161 votes

I personally believe the problem is with Cinderhulk. In my experience I do well with all of these junglers when I build an offensive machete enchant, then build full tank: Shyvana Amumu Ekko JarvanIV Udyr Trundle When I look at these junglers, only one of them was nerfed due to their synergy with 5.5 Cinderhulk (Ekko). Now that Cinderhulk is the weakest jungle enchant, the best tank junglers are tanks who build a better enchant.