@Riot Is This Your Idea of Diversifying the Jungle?

LankPants··3 votes·1,134 views
2015 LCK Spring/Scoreboards/Round Robin/Overview

Riot, one of your goals in the preseason was to diversify jungle picks. Based on jungle pick rates in LCK I'd say this was a gigantic failure. So far in the LCK there have only been 3 junglers with any sizeable impact on the pick ban stage

JarvanIV : 29 picks, 3 bans, 51.7% win rate, 97% pick/ban rate LeeSin : 26 picks, 2 bans, 50% win rate, 84.7% pick/ban rate RekSai : 2 picks, 19 bans, 50% win rate, 63.6% pick/ban rate (not available week 1, 100% pick/ban while available)

After this there's a significant drought in champ picks and bans

Rengar : 5 picks, 6 bans, 40% win rate, 33% pick/ban rate Pantheon : 2 picks, 0 bans, 100% win rate, 6.1% pick/ban rate Elise : 1 pick, 1 ban, 0% win rate, 6.1% pick/ban rate Khazix : 1 pick, 0 bans, 0% win rate, 3% pick/ban rate

While Sejuani has 1 pick she was played as a support and not a jungler.

So Riot in Korea there have been 7 junglers played within 3 weeks, only 4 of whom have greater than 10% pick/ban rate. This isn't diversity, it's the most stale the jungle has ever been. There are 3 junglers who have an effective 80% pick/ban rate, one of whom has been consistent between all metas, one consistent through many metas and one who was just released.

I think it's time to stop blaming the jungle for these champs individual problems, they are too good and will continue to be picked across any jungle because of it, even jungles which don't favour them.

7 Comments

Ehkrickor1 votes

I think we just have to get used to seeing Lee Sin in the top jungle stats. That isn't going to change, but if they give some of the other cusp champions a little love then they would move up in the stats. Take my man Zac for instance. All they do is give him back max range at lvl 1 of his e instead of its range leveling up as you go, and he would be right up there being complained about ^.^

LankPants1 votes

Actually Lee's been less dominant than both J4 and Rek'sai, but overall I think all 3 are in dire need of nerfs and junglers like Zac just cannot be competitive while they are strong.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

since j4 is the only OP jungler I play I am definitely curious how he could be nerfed if at all

Khristophoros2 votes

His burst damage needs to go. He has so much going for him, being able to delete an ADC with only one damage item puts him over the top.

Leti the Yeti1 votes

oh, not the slightest bit worried then I play him for his ridiculous ability to engage from such a massive distance lmao

I use to go full tank jarv and go 30 assist all the time before i realized his ad scalings were pretty broken

LongFur Fox1 votes

Riot has a major problem with diversifying the jungle that does not just lie in balance.

The main problem comes from the fact that in competitive play the teams can actually capitalize on small leads in the early game and win by just having that. This is what makes it impossible to balance elise in soloq since she drops off very hard in the mid to late game. The popular competitive junglers are similar if less extreme than elise in that they all have a good early game to be capitalized on.

When looking at your and other comments on the forums a lot of people mention tank/utility junglers but since they have a weak early game they are not going to see competitive play. In soloq however i believe tank junglers are at their strongest atm since season 2 due to ganking being worse than season 3+4 compared to just farming and counterjungling being almost dead due to xp and gold rewards from buff camps being at an all time low compared to the rest of the jungle. The only reason they are not played is because you cannot carry (and people for some reason believing that they have to carry every single match) and pros don't play them.

ProfDrDeath1 votes

Rek'Sai has already boarded the nerf train, from the looks of the PBE.

Lee could use a through session with the nerfbat, indeed.

And J4, too. But for J4, the problem with his jungling lies partially in the things his kit features - he has %-current HP damage to soften the monsters up, an Armor and AS passive boost for clearing, a versatile knock-up and an AoE-based slow for ganking - and all that before level 6. At 6, he also gets one of the most flash-drawing abilities in the game.

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