The impact of the mage update in the jungle

Patch 6.9 is coming soon, and everyone knows that it's bringing a large amount of changes that alters the way we play the game. The most prominent of these changes is the changes to mages. Between reworks happening to over a dozen mages to the dramatic changes to mage itemization, there's a lot to talk about when it comes to the updates. And people certainly have been talking about it, except what most people have been talking about is the impact these changes have on the lane.

What people haven't been talking about is how the mage update is going to impact the jungle. While jungle mages have never been competitively viable on a consistent basis outside of Fiddlesticks (as opposed to AP assassins like Nidalee or AP bruisers like Rumble), some of the reworks have the potential to turn some of the reworked mages into meta junglers, and regardless of whether or not mage junglers become a widespread thing the itemization changes are going to have a big impact on every AP jungler regardless of whether or not they are a mage.

As a jungle main that has been playing mage junglers for quite a while, I wanted to start a discussion to talk about the impact of these changes on the jungle in regards to how good some of the reworked champions would fare in the jungle now and how the itemization changes would impact AP champions in the jungle.

>Champions: Needless to say, champion reworks could dramatically affect what role a champion is good at, with the recent marksman update being a good example, where Graves became a good jungler and top laner and Corki becoming a good mid laner. The mage update will likely be no exception, and there are some champions that could become meta junglers next patch. Regardless, it's still a good idea to talk about how the reworked mages will fare in the jungle. I can't talk about every mage since I haven't played every mage, but I can talk about the 5 mages I have personally played in the jungle.

Malzahar seems to be getting some of the biggest changes most favorable for the jungle, and if any of the reworked mages become meta junglers, it's going to be Malzahar. While his clear seems mostly the same compared to live (apart from specifics on speed or sustain), he does have some major problems with his jungling that are getting fixed in the update. Malzahar's live clear struggles when clearing without blue buff or Runic Echoes, trying to kill Scuttle Crab, getting invaded at level 1, and trying to gank without his ultimate. While he will still be a 6-reliant jungler his other weaknesses are getting a massive improvement compared to live.

Summon Voidling getting changed to Void Swarm seems to be the biggest reason his jungling is stronger. Malzahar not having to cast 4 spells for his jungle sustain lets him clear more mana-efficiently and, when combined with the mana cost reductions he received, makes him less reliant on blue buff and Runic Echoes. It also lets Malzahar fend off invades better because he doesn't need to save his Call of the Void for voidling sustain on his first camp, leaving Malzahar with a choice of which ability to start (Q to fend off invades vs. W for faster, healthier clears). Finally, getting Voidlings on command also gives Malzahar a powerful, reliable move to kill scuttle crabs with, which he doesn't have on live.

Void Shift also helps out in improving his early game. On his first clear, Void Shift also helps out with sustain (but only on the first clear), and improves his resilience against invades by giving him a powerful defensive steroid that allows him to be completely immune to 1-2 hits and a powerful defensive tool in case he needs to start Q early.

The only negative change is that Null Zone's removal gives him less objective control due to his loss of % health damage on Null Zone, but I don't think that matters nearly as much as his other jungling problems getting solved, and because these problems are gone Malzahar's jungling is looking better than ever.

Brand's live clear is one of the fastest clears in the entire game because of the high damage of his passive, but also gets really bad sustain. His rework he's getting doesn't seem to be dramatically changing that, although it does seem to be getting a bit better.

The thing to note about his clear on live is that he's super dependent on getting to level 3 because all three of his blaze effects have some degree of value during his clears and every clear wants at least two blaze effects for clear efficiently. His changes seem to make him more reliant on level 3 because of the reduction in damage of the actual Blaze DoT (which makes his level 1-2 weaker) but his level 3 seems to be much more powerful and faster because of the Blaze explosion (which makes his 3+ much stronger) and the blaze stacking mechanic (which lets him burst down camps instead of waiting out the DoT for a while). In particular, Wolves might be significantly easier because he might be able to kill them in one rotation at early levels, which he can't do early on live.

He's also getting a slight nerf to his only sustain tool. The stun on Sear is the only ability in his kit that gives him any sort of sustain by preventing a monster from attacking for a short while, and since that's getting nerfed a bit he might not have as much heath at the end of his clear. It also hurts his ganks a bit due to a lower CC duration, although the damage burst of his passive explosion might make up for it.

Zyra is similar to Malzahar in which she has solid basic abilities for decently fast clears and uses plants to tank damage for her. The major differences between the two are that Zyra doesn't get her sustain at level 1, doesn't need to wait until level 6 to gank, and doesn't have most of the problems Malzahar has on live. Excluding Fiddlesticks, Zyra arguably is arguably the strongest of all the mages getting reworked in regards to the jungle on live, and she seems to be getting a bit better.

There are three noteworthy changes to her jungle: her ability to use plant tanking at level 1, the reduced effectiveness of plant tanking, and the additional plants she can get. Plant tanking being possible at level 1 improves her sustain dramatically because from my experience, level 1 is when Zyra loses most of her health on a clear, and getting sustain on that first camp is an extremely large improvement to her clears. However, she might overall lose more health during her clears because plant tanking is a bit harder now because of the reduced duration and health at early levels, but this might be offset by getting more plants during her clears.

Ever the AP jungling staple, it's only obvious that Fiddlesticks would get talked about here since he's currently the only meta mage jungler. There's already been some discussion already about Fiddlesticks' changes for the jungle (considering any discussion about him defaults to him being in the jungle), but since I wanted to talk about mages in the jungle I simply couldn't leave him out. While the general consensus is that Fiddlesticks' changes are mostly a nerf I feel like they might a nice change.

The changes to Drain are a strict buff to his worst-case scenario of being interrupted immediately, a strict nerf to his best-case scenario of chain-draining indefinitely, and doesn't really touch most of his average case scenarios. I think this would be a net neutral change because a good Fiddlesticks won't play himself into the worse-case scenario and no opponent half-decent opponent will play into the best-case scenario, leaving Fiddlesticks mostly there getting as much average-value as possible.

The changes to Dark Wind are really powerful changes that most Fiddlesticks players may not fully understand the gravity of. Against Raptors, you might be able to kill 2 small raptors at rank 1, potentially all 3 if it bounces right. You might also be able to kill the small Krug with just a rank 1 E. You might even be able to clear waves later on in the game once you've ranked it up enough.

The passive change deprives Fiddlesticks of a lot of damage, but the movement speed boost is powerful in a different way. It gives Fiddlesticks faster clears, an easier time chasing opponents, an easier time finding a good place to Crowstorm from, a longer effective initiation range on Crowstorm, better early ganks, and the ability to save flash in some situations where you'd need to R+Flash to initiate. Combined with his Drain changes, it gives Fiddlesticks the ability to kite his opponents with any sort of effectiveness, which is practically unheard of for Fiddlesticks, and will likely be the biggest form of skill expression for Fiddlesticks. The passive might still be a nerf, but now there's something for Fiddlesticks to play around with on his passive and a way to better separate the bad Fiddlesticks from the good Fiddlesticks.

Story time! Back when Runeglaive was first released, I tried quite a few janky jungle picks. Viktor was one of those picks, and it worked surprisingly well. Your entire jungle clear consisted of powerfarming for the first 5-6 minutes of the game while struggling to clear the jungle, and then when you hit level 6 with Runeglaive you turned into a god. Then Viktor got nerfed because his mid lane was too strong, and hasn't been remotely playable in the jungle ever since. Until maybe next patch.

The thing about Viktor jungle is that the reason it was doable is because his Q gave a bit of sustain and damage (not much, but just enough) and his E gave a bit of damage (the damage was good but infrequent) that you could clear most camps with difficulty. The overall problem was that his cooldowns were way too high and didn't have enough early damage to compensate for his early jungling.

The changes to Power Transfer dramatically improves his capabilities of jungling. An increase in damage and a decrease in cooldown has the potential to dramatically improve the speed and sustain of his clears, while the change to his Q shield makes his early sustain slightly weaker, but should balance with the cooldown change. The changes to his E don't really hurt his clears because he doesn't have enough early AP for the ratio change to make much of a difference and he doesn't have an augment at level 1, leaving the changes to his Q the only real factor that affects his jungling.

Will Viktor be good in the jungle next patch? Probably not, but at least he'll be better.

>**Items:**Any item receiving changes has the potential to cause sweeping changes throughout the rest of the game, and given that the mage update is causing updates to a large quantity of items it's worth talking about how they affect the jungle as a whole, especially considering there are also some other AP junglers that receive some love from the new items. It's especially worth talking about these items because their implications for the jungle can be dramatically different from those of the lane, and that difference can be staggering in some cases.

Mana Components and items Even though mages get Runic Echoes to solve their jungling mana issues, they still need a mana item for the mid-game or else you'd run out of mana during teamfights. Some champions might need mana help earlier than that, while other champions might want stacking mana items before Runic Echoes to stack them sooner. In other words, you are going to buy mana items on junglers, but which ones would you buy, and when?

Tear of the Goddess looks like it might be a legitimate option in the jungle now. Since it refunds your mana cost instead of giving mana regeneration, it might be able to replace Runic Echoes as the early mana option if you wanted to delay your Runic Echoes power spike to get the relatively larger power spike of Seraph's Embrace, especially if you have innate mana scalings or natural synergy with the Awe passive.

Lost Chapter into Morellonomicon seems to be the only other good mana item for junglers because of how situational Sheen into Lich Bane is for most champions and the problems Catalyst of Aeons has (which will be just below here). It's really the only mana option for junglers that lets you reasonably build it after Echoes without losing time stacking. Morellonomicon is also a really solid CDR option if you wanted that, and is good against healers.

Catalyst of Aeons could be really good for junglers IF the passive worked on jungle monsters. Spending 1100 gold just for 300 mana and 225 health isn't really much for someone that needs some way to refill their mana bar. Yes, you will go gank lanes, but you will end up spending more mana than you gain from Eternity, and you may not get hit at all. Junglers not being able to build Catalyst early locks them out of Rod of Ages, which is also a super important buy for a large quantity AP champions that has no real replacement.

Hextech items The hextech line of items have the potential for a very interesting impact on the jungle. All four items seem to have a big impact for a large variety of champions, offering utility if your champion falls a little behind or offering extra gank potential if the laning phase extends longer than normal. Hextech Revolver seems to be the only exception because it's passive isn't controllable, and you might waste it on a raptor or a Scuttle Crab, but if you could play around the trigger and gank when it's up then it's potentially strong.

Hextech GLP-800 seems to be the strongest possible option for junglers. While I did mention that Catalyst would be a weak option on junglers, it won't be so bad if bought after Hextech Revolver and Runic Echoes. GLP is the only mana option among the Hextech items, and if you want your second item to be a Hextech item then there. It also functions as a replacement for Rod of Ages for junglers, which is pretty nice.

Hextech Prototobelt seems to be the next best item for mages in the jungle. While the stats might not be the best in the world, the active has a lot of potential uses that could really help out a large number of champions in the jungle with stuff like ganking. It's also the cheapest Hextech item, so if you need a quick item that gives you mobility.

Hextech Gunblade is baffling for the jungle. Most mages don't have AD scalings (outside of auto attacks of course), and many don't make good use of its healing-oriented passive. It's also too expensive for the jungle, so I doubt junglers would consider this.

Defensive items Abyssal Scepter is nerfed a bit because as an AP jungler you'd really want the early power spike it gives on the aura and it costs more gold (which isn't the most affordable thing for junglers). 10% CDR is pretty good and the change in AP and MR are okay, but it doesn't really offset the cost increase.

Zhonya's is just the opposite. Its cost reduction and recipe change are massive buffs for jungling that, in my opinion, easily outweigh the reduced ability power and increased cooldown on Stasis, at least for junglers, and they also get 10% CDR to boot.

>Conclusion:

So that's my thoughts on how the mage updates could impact the jungle. What do you guys think of the changes the mage update will bring to the jungle? For you jungle mains/secondaries out there, how do you think the item changes will impact the jungle? What do you think about how they impact your favorite AP jungler (mage or not)? For all you solo lane/support mains who play any of mages getting reworked, how do you think your favorite reworked mage would fare in the jungle after their changes?

Note that this is NOT a discussion on the jungle changes themselves (such as the elemental dragons or the buff timers), as those topics have already been talked about a lot, and this discussion is geared towards providing new discussion on the impact of the reworks in a setting they haven't been talked about yet.