New Jungle XP and Early Ganking

bvcderrttyyhjjjk··12 votes·1,397 views

So after playing for a while in the new jungle, as I am a main jungler, I made some observations about it. The changes seem to be greatly aimed at playstyle diversity. Yet I find that there is on thing that happens regularly.

If you get chances to make good ganks early, you get quite fed and are able to carry the game; if your team is pushing/enemies are tower hugging for the first 10 minutes, you will greatly fall behind laners, especially in XP and therefore level.

Farming the jungle does not seem to give you a comparable amount of XP to lanes. And this is a bit annoying because sometimes you just will not have any windows to gank. And if that happens you become mostly useless.

I think a good solution could be adopting something like the gold, where the amount of XP that you get from the camps is increased if you have a jungler item (to prevent stuff like bot lane stealing camps early).

All this because I still feel like ganking and getting kills early still IS the only really viable way to carry games, but sometimes you just DON'T get the chance to do it, even if you want to. And this goes for assassins mostly but even for fighters and tanks. If you don't get kills early you fall behind massively, and from there you will just be almost useless, or a human shield for carries at best.

I am kind of sick of my ability to carry completely relying on if I can get kills early, because that is kind of situational and not always an option. Now I am not saying that ganking should not be rewarded, infact I likethe fact that you get big rewards for being very active, I like doing it myself. But I would like to see it being less punishing if you just don't get any ganking windows early.

What do you think about this? Thanks for reading. Keep positive and give constructive criticism please. :)

11 Comments

Ashes Arise3 votes

This new jungle has pushed sooo many junglers out of viability its just silly. I really can't wrap my head around what they are trying to accomplish.

WooBeeWoo1 votes

I agree completely I used to main jungle but right now I can't get into it because I don't have fun with it anymore.

Ashes Arise1 votes

It really isn't fun anymore. The changes are so bizarre. I don't even play half as much as I did at the end of S4

BluePolarizer1 votes

Its part of the new jungle snowballing they put in. Jungle is even more snowbally than before, now its 1 mistake early = useless for entire game.

Fluppets1 votes

Im having the same experience; my pre-6 has to be perfect in order to be relevant mid-late game.

On top of that its just impossible to explain to your team that they shouldn't poach my jungle, especially the chickens.

They've made the Jungle so much harder, but we dont really get anything in return for it I feel.

RyuPhalian1 votes

I have noticed this too. This really limits the number of junglers you can choose from as they need sustain to go through the jungle and exit with enough health to gank, enough damage to kill the jungle before the jungle kills them, AND they need a decently strong ganking tool. Smite may give you bonus XP when used on a jungle camp, but that doesn't matter if you have to buy a gank upgrade to help the team. Though ti be fair, currently in the PBE Smite works on an ammo system where it has a 75 second cooldown and can hold 2 charges but you can't cast Smite again for 15 seconds after using it and cooldown for the second Smite only starts at the 1:40 mark. This will allow junglers to Smite twice as much in the jungle to help with their clear or help those who chose a gank version by letting them have Smite ready for ganks while using the second charge to help farm the jungle while they wait.

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

It's annoying to have your lanes afk push while the ww/yi happily farms away, only real option at that point is to counterjungle (risky because the lanes are so pushed you won't always know when the laners leave). I've generally been trying to play champions that can clear well and counterjungle because yeah, there will be some games where you can't pull off ganks in lane phase and you need to be relevant lategame anyway.

bvcderrttyyhjjjk1 votes

Yeah. Don't get me wrong here, I like all the new things that you can do in the new jungle and the dragon/baron rework. But I think that they just need to give you a little more XP just so you don't end up being permanently 3 levels below solo laners, which kinda puts you at huge risk every time you gank or teamfight.

I get the fact that they may want to make it more of an "all or nothing" deal, but I just hate when there is no occasions to gank lanes and you spontaneously fall very far behind in levels and become useless without really making anything wrong yourself.

I mean, a solo laner that just farms without getting kills is still pretty damn relevant. A jungler that just farms, unless he is some specific champion (looking at you, Yi, WW, Fiddle...) is going to fall way behind his laning counterparts.

PL551 votes

I mainly play Rengar jungle, and it's so annoying. If I can't get a successful early gank I am totally useless until I farm up and pick off people in team fights. So I am basically screwed if my lanes are winning hard.

bvcderrttyyhjjjk1 votes

{quoted}

I mainly play Rengar jungle, and it's so annoying. If I can't get a successful early gank I am totally useless until I farm up and pick off people in team fights. So I am basically screwed if my lanes are winning hard.

On assassin junglers like Rengar and Kha'Zix too, the change was brutal. And I know because I used to main Kha'Zix for the most part in S4 and then Rengar when Kha'Zix got nerfed.

They can still be strong if you get off to a really REALLY good start, but if you don't, well, you are just free kills for the enemy team. And that is why I am currently not playing assassin junglers in ranked anymore. They are even more reliant on that good start to be any good.

I think that this situation just ends up screwing over ALL jungle champions, especially assassins without much sustain. Like I said in the topic body it still affects EVERY jungler. And I think that a situation that makes an entire role very unreliable depending on the circumstances need a bit of tuning.

Right now, even if the enemy jungler is AFK, if your team is pushing and you don't have windows for ganks, you are still going to be useless. That is different in lane where if your opponent was AFK you'd get a big benefit from it. The bottom line is: jungling diversity has increased, but importance of getting good ganks early kind of ruins it. You game depends pretty much on that alone. And that is not really great.

Vertanium1 votes

Agreed, and Riot seems to have a double standards with jungle as a whole. They make all the camps far harder to kill to prevent "poaching" but then they don't want jungle camps to give reduced XP to laners because Apparently when you are behind the jungle is the only way to stay in the game. (there was a red post somewhere on this, if someone could find it that would be awesome.) Lee and Elise are still picked not because they are "OP please nerf" but because LCS values the best combo of sustain, safety, and early pressure possible. Until they Actually go through each jungle champion and buff them. (which won't happen because they want this mess of a jungle to work.) Lee,Elise, and (Vi/Jarvan/Panth) will always be the holy trinity of junglers.

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