Upcoming Jungler Predictions: Who is dank and who is stank

With the new jungle roster incoming I think it would be cool to make some predictions on who would be at the top of the list and others who might not be so hot.

Diana- I’ve already seen this being used in Korea to pretty good effect before this update so she is likely to be the most impactful out of the group getting jungle buffs. With her rework it seems like her clear is going to get that much faster with her dash being easier to access. Even before her rework this was still a decent jungle, it just didn’t take off until around 6, now with the extra 150% damage to her passive she’s probably going to be a meta pick and seen much more in pro play once patch 10.4 goes into the professional level.

Darius- In the right hands I believe this has the most potential to create the biggest impact outside of Diana, getting heals from monsters along with increased bleed stack damage is going to help out his jungle clear significantly. There are enough items that provide speed boosts which can help out with his ability to close the gap and despite what some analysts think, I believe he has good enough tools to create solid ganks if the timing is right. I can definitely see Darius using frozen smite to great effect and if he can’t I have a sneaky feeling riot might increase the smite range just so guys like him and Garen can make use of it.

Garen- Much like Darius, many analysts think that Garen jungle isn’t really going to turn heads but honestly, this might be a sleeper alternate to the Master Yi/Taric combo, all garen has to do is dive his opponent with a decent amount of armor, proc his W once Taric’s ult wears off and he is getting at least one target maybe two depending on how wounded they are. Lethality Garen with frozen smite and Youmuu’s sounds like it can be a decent pick into some comps, but if you have a CC heavy laner you’re ganking for or a comp that sets your ganks up that might not even be needed.

Talon/Zed- I’m kind of on the fence about these two, their mobility seems very attractive to use early on and their ganks seem like they could be pretty nice to use, but those first few clears based on some of the videos I’ve watched seem like they could be brutal and leave them both to be pretty susceptible to counter jungling from early game specialists. They do have some good escape tools but I don’t think that may dissuade experienced counterjunglers to keep from haranguing them in the early going. Once they get past that initial stage I think they should be fine, but I’ll make a decent prediction these two will make use of the passive as mid lanes waiting for an objective/kill around mid game time more so than jungle usage.

Mordekaiser- He’ll definitely need a frozen smite but I’m not too sure he’ll be the most optimal jungler, his E may be useful but it seems like it’d be tricky to use as a ganking tool. Bami’s Cinder might do decent on him but it seems like he won’t be able to do a ton until he gets his hands on a Rylai’s. An experienced jungler may be able to use him as a counter ganker or a dive deterrent but I think with the current roster he may be pretty outmatched in terms of impact.

Gnar- This one might be pretty decent, finding a consistent way to time his mega gnar with your ganks will probably be the most difficult thing to do but his clear won’t be too bad after the first back. I did tinker with this in norms a while back and it wasn’t too awful but timing mega gnar out was still a pretty tricky endeavor. I honestly see this one as somewhere between a 46% or 47% win rate once it gets under way.

THOUGHTS ON WHO THEY COULD ADD IF THIS ROSTER DOES WELL:

Riot did mention if this jungle influx goes well they’ll definitely consider expanding the jungle pool even further to increase the diversity. Here are a few names I think may make it next onto their list.

Ezreal- Even though he does dabble with mid lane, he might be a prime candidate for jungle expansion with his W not just working on epic monsters exclusively, I could definitely see riot allowing him to use this ability on large monster camps to help his clears go a bit faster. He was kind of popular in the jungle for a while a season or two ago and they might consider giving him a comeback.

Tahm Kench- One of the most abused picks in the pro meta and he has suffered greatly in solo queue for it. He gets thumped pretty hard if not in a coordinated team setting, but if he gets a few small jungle accommodations, that might help: maybe his acquired taste will work on large monsters to do some sort of a bonus damage interaction, he can now devour those larger camps so I can definitely see him being a counter jungle terror just invading an opponent and devouring and spitting away key camps into an advantageous spot for him to smite. With the changes to Bami’s Cinder he very well might be ahead of schedule with optimized runes.

Zyra- This is already a little super niche pick and once she gets lv 3 she does decent with her clears even though they’re kind of slow, if riot wants to somehow help out with her clear speed up, her ganks might not be too bad with the right setup. Maybe plants do bonus damage to monsters? Maybe her seeds spawn faster in the jungle?

I appreciate anyone else’s thoughts on what they would predict would be the success/failure of these upcoming jungle additions.