Tali mid vs Tali Jungler... It's a hard decision to make.

Okay so here's my thinking.

Tali's Q is a huge component of her playstyle, and the way it works indicates to me that she has two real options for serious play.

If you play Tali mid, you can max q first, but if you do, you'll run into the problem of running out of space to take advantage of worked earth, and firing one shard instead of 5 because you're already standing on some. #feelsbadman

But if you play her as jungler, you can pop out of nowhere, possibly a bush near the target laner, and not only fire off 5 shards drive by style, but also leave a patch of worked earth down on the ground giving you TWO movement speed boosts to get out of the lane and back into the jungle. You move faster on worked earth, and you surf when you're near a wall.

Mid has less uninterrupted wall on the way out. there are gaps in the wall to break the momentum of your passive. It's not really that big a deal, but I can imagine it being slightly annoying, enough to make you want to try top lane so that you can get back into lane on a surfboard and not stop on the way. Not sure how much time you can shave off of getting into lane, but it would be real fun to TRY, and little things like that add to the skill cap of a champion, making them more appealing for long term mastery. I'm gonna call it a strike against mid even if it's negligible.

That being said, you don't HAVE to max q, and as wingsofdeath pointed out on his stream (despite being wrong about the new summoner's rift map, come on) You can instead focus on W and E, and lay down a minefield and then knock your opponent into it for a VERY nasty burst combo which leaves them for sure in strike range of your q. (by strike range I mean, low enough health for the kill, not actual distance) This gives you very strong waveclear as well, and you get significant pushing power, which forces someone to babysit the lane for fear of losing 2 turrets.

In the end you're looking at some strong plusses for both roles:

Jungle

1. Movement boost on passive. very hard for anyone to predict where you'll be without vision, and you can get places other champions can't, faster than expected, setting up ganks before the enemy can respond. You can also get OUT, faster than the enemy can handle. League of mobility++.

2. Q is like two abilities in one when used for ganking. it's a drive by. it sets up a kill zone. And it leaves your mark behind on that spot so that the enemy knows for several minutes, you can always show back up there at that spot, and when you do you'll be moving EVEN FASTER in that zone.

3. her minefield is anti-dash. When a jungler shows up, dashes are the preferred way of getting the hell out of dodge, and you make them costly.

4. You can knock targets over the damn wall. if someone dashes over the raptor wall to get away from you, you send em right back.

5. If you ult to put a wall down, you can seperate the enemy team, and then when they try to correct that, you go ahead and, yep, you guessed it, knock em back over.

Basically you just get a ton of utility options that will ruin teamfights or pick off targets in the wrong hood. This screams flex jungler. You need to get picks in the jungle because your team loses the teamfight? She's got that. But in a pinch she can be the keystone of the team comp as well.

Mid

1. Mobility. Not in the form of a dash but in terms of always being slightly faster than the opposition. This is part of Janna's invisible power, it's not to be underestimated.

2. Waveclear, if you need it and you want to focus on it, you can have it early.

3. disengage via her knockaround.

4. zoning via the wall. (don't try to use it to escape, you get knocked off the wall if you take any damage, so... you just die and waste the cooldown)

5. the minefield is a nice deterrent to early ganks by... kindred, among other champs.

Her strongest pull here is going to be the mobility. For just about every character, speed is a massive factor in making sure you're in position to do what you want to do without being in danger, and I think she'll be quite strong regardless of her combat damage just by that virtue alone. You can probably safely expect her to be strong to OP on release, but players who learn to take advantage of the speed will end up doing the best.

And I still can't decide which role I think she'd be stronger in. Maybe you guys can shine some light on things I surely missed.