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7.2 Jungle nerfs, items need to be adjusted too

Kirius Dark··53 votes·2,642 views

Season 7 saw the removal of smite buffs and increased timers. 7.1 saw nerfs to jungle experience. 7.2 even further nerfs to the jungle timer, more damage and less sustain

All of these have been broad nerfs to the entire jungle without any thought on the junglers. Top tier junglers remain top tier because their kit is largely AD with AoE, strong ST and sustain while the tank and AP junglers continue to get shit on with these across the board changes in attempt to slow down the strong junglers, it slows down the junglers under tier 1 even more.

They really need to address the different jungler types of AD/AP users, and ganker vs counter jungler vs heavy farmers, yet all these changes are as a result of fast clearing AD gankers.

If they really want to pinpoint problems they need to make changes to the jungle item enchantments which the different jungle champ types use. Smite on champ is also so strong that it's almost a waste to use on camps, so solving 2 issues at once with something like:

Runic Echoes Enchantment - Smite on large monster restores x% mana. AP junglers after clearing have low mana for ganks which is why AD champs are so much stronger right now.

Cinderhulk Enchantment - Smite on large monster increases the immolate passive damage on non champions by x% for a set amount of time. Cinderhulk users are largely tanks who have some of the lowest clear speeds out there right now and fall far behind from AD assassin/fighters who can burst their camps super quick then gank. This will help them catch up with clear speed

Bloodrazor Enchantment - Users of this have some pretty strong junglers out there for a few champs (Shyvana) but not so much for some others (Trynd). The issue auto attackers have is the lack of AoE to clear raptors or krugs. Smite on large monster provides a small radius cleave damage for x# of time against non champs.

Warrior Enchantment - Users of this are the strongest jungler types out there right now being AD casters for high ST/AoE damage clearing with strong AAs. They dont really need anything on top, but wouldnt be fair to get nothing. Maybe something like autos add burn damage to monsters, so heavy AD casters can get a small buff to autos.

Increase the gold to finish the jungle item by ~100g-150g? for this extra buff and to slightly delay further items so you dont have a jungler with something like item 1412 item 3134 at 12 minutes ganking you, but wouldn't have the dirk completed yet. IMO this is the proper way to delay early-mid jungle power rather than screwing with jungle timers and monster exp & power

24 Comments

ForFoxSakes17 votes

@RIOT - need to consider this heavily.

AP and tank junglers getting screwed over because you're trying to nerf fast clear champs like LeeSin Rengar Khazix who have godly single target, AoE and sustain without directly touching them and hammering all the other junglers in the process

darknuke11 votes

I think I'm most upset by how much mana it takes for most junglers to clear now. No honeyfruit early for a mana boost or mana from blue buff smite (old, but more of a problem now) equals major sustain issues for some champions. Manaless champions are going to reign supreme this patch (yay, more LeeSin).

I've had to hoard the blue buff more than ever with champions like Naut and Hec jungle. It's just impossible to clear the jungle with very little mana sustain options except the boost you get from your jg item.

Edit: I don't understand why smite can't also give a mana boost as well as a health boost.

Kirius Dark4 votes

Agreed. It's a pretty major problem when many junglers NEED their blue buff just to be relevant while others could care less for it which are the strong junglers LeeSin Rengar RekSai

Those who need mana are also further set behind if they get a item 2032 especially if they give their 2nd blue to the midlaner. If you dont give your buff while the other side does your midlaner is going to take a beating

PiVoRx11 votes

Riots jungle balancing logic: "If Lee can do it, everyone can", and as always they solving problems in opposite direction, instead of nerfing broken junglers they nerf entire jungle.

TacoTheKitten10 votes

[deleted]

Kirius Dark8 votes

Theyre taking a massive portion of the blame when the game changes, yet this is the direction the game is going as a result of their changes. Lower jungle spawn rate = champs go to gank, and those who are able to clear all and gank are reigning supreme. Then because theyre doing well everyone else gets punished for it. Same goes for the honeyfruit. Who else really benefits from it other than jungler? Maybe a dominating laner who is already winning but all of the plants were largely for the jungle role all for the sake of "yolo lets change shit up just because"

As far as I know, never has the leashing and first clear been such an "issue" that theyve needed just drastic changes over multiple patches just to address a role's start

AtheosisX2 votes

I like the plants, but otherwise I tend to agree. They emphasize changing things up to "keep things fresh" rather than balance and game health, and it's a serious problem. The plants alone would've been enough of a change in my opinion.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

I am fine with the plants UNTIL someone who gets caught out just blast cones away like nothing happened. The rest of the plants are fine (and the blast cone used preemptively is fine), but removing the ability to interact with the blast cone in combat or while taking damage at least will alleviate some of the frustration I have imo.

AirKingNeo5 votes

I humbly disagree. By the time you get your jungle enchantment, you don't need to smite camps anymore to clear them, only smite objectives, champions, and rarely monsters for healing. This was Riot's goal of course, so I doubt they'd add such a useless buff to junglers. I've played a lot of powerfarm Kayle jungle recently and after Bloodrazor I never really smited camps. I'd expect high elo to be able to smite camps less than me.

Realistically, direct buffs to some champions (Small ones to elise, huge ones for fiddle, ect) and the return of Purple Smite (AoE stun on the camp, also should gives some CDR on smite like 5-10%) would be much better. Alternatively, smiting camps should give back 10-20% missing mana or something.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

Do you not remember why purple smite was removed? Yes, it increases slow junglers speeds by a lot (Naut, Grag, Amumu, etc.), BUT it made the faster junglers A LOT faster and allowed Shyvana and Co. to instantly kill most camps. There was no risk to counter jungling with purple smite on someone like Shyv because the camp died the second you looked at it (and with the long jungle respawns this season counter jungling is already a game winning strategy if done well since it gives you SO MUCH xp over the enemy).

AirKingNeo1 votes

I never counter jungled with purple nor did I realize it made Shyvana clear too fast. However the current jungle could balance it pretty well.

Kitty Clarissa5 votes

honestly buff mana regen in the jungle for Ap/mana reliant junglers since being low on mana in the jungle means no ganks and slower clears, AP jungle is pretty much boned for the moment and HURAYYY LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin LeeSin

he remains dominant for over 6 seasons still despite the number of nerfs they did to him .

Phyuq Yiu2 votes

They think that bc he has a very high skill cap that automatically makes it so hard to RQQ. But there are suddenly so many Lee players in bronze and silver that cannot insec but don't have to, just be stciky as fuck and run anything down that you see. Oh, are they being scared little bitches behind their tower w/ full HP? Ward hop behind that shit and kick em out into your team. "Oh, he has a bad late game, so he can have full control of the first 35 min in a meta where most games are over pre-35". BALANCE!

ŚtrongMental3 votes

i cannot stress this enough.

Kirius Dark2 votes

^^

Phyuq Yiu2 votes

Top tier jg vs not top tier jg is such a disadvantage for the whole team.

Pendergast8911 votes

Would a new jungle smite, that gave nominal exp and gold increases when used to kill a jg camp, be out of the question? Doesnt have to be both.

Kirius Dark1 votes

I doubt they'd do this when theyve been ham fisting nerfing jungle exp across the board only to bump it back up

Prozzak1 votes

If they don't need anything on top of it (warriors) then you don't just give them something for no reason. It is that stupid logic that keep certain champs strong forever. Warrior doesn't need an addition.

I like your other thoughts though.

Salron1 votes

A lot of junglers frequently skip jungle items nowadays If you increase the cost of Warrior then you're just encouraging even more people to skip their jungle item in favor of something more cost efficient

Kirius Dark1 votes

A lot of them dont skip it. The jungle item is so efficient in cost there's no reason to skip it on most champs other than those rushing tri force (Hecarim Vi) Even Vi sometimes goes for warriors first depending on their needs or if they decide to skip tri force. Lee delays it since he opts for damage first before spending it on the ward jg item because he's paying for utility over kills but these are the outliers and also top tier right now

Who else skips it, especially those who are not considered top tier meta?

DarkRitual1 votes

Increase armor/lvl on jungle monsters. First clears would be similar, but they wouldn't continue to oppress other options later on. Tanks often deal magic damage, so could still clear at the same pace as they do now.

My Waifu Vanilla1 votes

AP junglers already don't run out of mana after Echoes so the smite is "wasted" in that sense (changes nothing). A better solution is making the AP jungle item build out of Lost Chapter instead in order to give AP junglers mana assistance BEFORE 3k gold into the game (echoes+boots). There is only 1 (?) AP jungler as of right now that doesn't use mana and that is Rumble who would probably just rush Liandry's instead if need be if a change like this went through (assuming AP jungle item did NOT keep the Echoes effect).

Jerry SeinfeId1 votes

Maybe we should bring Trailblazer back?

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