Emm…Could Riot make Jarvan IV more powerful on the top lane?

Hey I’m writing to share some thoughts about J4. Jarvan was the first champion I decided to start practicing. I like him because his armor was really cool as well as his ult.:-) I used to use him on top lane but as more powerful fighters come out like Fiora, Darius, and Riven, it seems it’s not proper to let him go top any more. In LPL matches and high level ranking games players often play him as jungle. However, now more people prefer to use Gragases，Elise，Evelynn as the jungle in a game because those AP jungles are powerful with Cinderhulk and Runeglaive. I believe Riot noticed it too so they gave 5 more attack to Warrior in 5.18 patch.

As we all know Riot also let J4 have 2 more armor in 5.18 patch, which some people don’t think it will help him a lot at the first place. I watched the YouTube video online titled Patch Rundown 5.18.In the video designers say that they prefer to make slight changes to jungles because those changes probably have big influence on how a game goes. (In my opinion he is still not as good as other strong jungles after 5.18 patch. I know he can probably gank comfortably with Stalker's Blade and doesn’t have to use Ranger's Trailblazer to maintain his heath to gank)

Anyways, the point of this post is that I hope Jarvan could have more chance to play other roles in a game besides jungle. It looks Riot tends to “fix” him as a jungle and they have thought a lot about if the rising of his armor would effect game balance or not. Like I said, I used him on the top lane before, and he performed not bad until Fiora, Darius, and Gangplank reworked. If Riot can think more about slightly improve J4’s abilities on lane rather than consider if his defense is good enough to jungle, we will have more fun to play with him.

I think Jarvan’s ability is a little bit out of date. For instance, I still remembered I used Jarvan as jungle in a game. I made a lot of effort to make my team good. I brought many visible and invisible wards for my team. I paid a lot of attention on the map to guess where the enemy jungle was and I gank as carefully as I could. Everyone on the lane performs well, too. As a matter of fact, we had 30-19 score before team fight and probably have thousands of money more than enemy team. Everything was good. However as long as we began team fight, we were very easy to lose because they have Fiora and Gragases against us. Fiora could easily twist the result of a team fight with some simple equipments as long as she successful used her ult. At the time we lost the game my score was 10-5 and her score is 6-12. We lost the game just because the enemy champions were too strong in team fight. No matter how much effort you put to the team at early game you just couldn’t win in the end. This was very sad.:-(

I still remember J4 was very popular when the Season 5 just starts. However the fact is for now my win rate of Jarvan is getting lower no matter how hard I tried to practice him. And it just means he is weaker than those popular champions. I hope Jarvan could be stronger on his abilities. At least for people who spend time to play J4, they will find new methods to defeat the enemy as return. Certainly, another easy way to win the game is to give up weak champions and use hot champions like Darius and Mordekaiser, which is the way professional players often do: Get to know the patches, choose the strongest champion and win the game... However, we’re not professional player. And we have emotion on the champions when we play them for a long time. I guess this is also why some players became angry (even choose to give up this game) when Riot nerfed their main champion.:-)

Here’s some thoughts about J4’s abilities. I think Jarvan relies on his EQ combo too much. EQ combo needs prediction just like Ahri’s E and Lux’s Q. If J4 is a jungle, a failed EQ probably only means an unsuccessful gank. However, if he is on lane, the cost of unsuccessful EQ is high. Also in team fight, if he can’t use EQ to hit the critical enemy then his function in this fight decreases much.(I know he still has ult) Apparently as more champions and patches come out, EQ combo would be weaker and harder to hit some tough enemies like Kalista, Ekko and reworked Fiora. In LPL game, we can also observe some professional players prefer to use champions have movement abilities (Azir, Vayne). That is also one reason why I think Jarvan needs to be improved a little. Not like Gragases’ and Ekko’s control ability, it is too easy to let him in an embarrassed situation which he stands there with no ability to use. Some people use J4 as assigner rather than tank doing control in team fight just because EQ combo is unstable.

Another problem of J4 is his useless W ability. Come on, you have to admit that this ability is so easy to be forgotten.:-) I mean…hey,as the prince of Demacia, he inherits Lightshield from his ancestor, but this shield is not as powerful as it sounds like. At least I believe Diana’s shield is more useful than his “royal” shield. W costs 20/18/16/14/12 cold down reduction but it’s strength is not worth so long time. I mean, look, Fiora’s W cost long time too but it could protect Fiora in 0.75s and block attack from any enemy，which is worth such long cd very much. So my advice is Riot probably need to improve J4’s W ability a little bit like largely reduce cd of W so he can use W to fight with the opponent on top lane more frequently.(Or make W stronger like removing all slows affecting on J4?)And this may not effect his performance as jungle a lot since in a gank there’s seldom a chance he could use W 2 times.

Of course, though I complained much about him above, I still believe Jarvan IV is a very good champion. As a matter of fact, I think Jarvan is one of the most a well-designed champions in LOL. I mean every ability of J4 is unique and interesting, and he has the longest distance movement ability among all lol champions. I definitely don’t want a rework on him like what Riot did on Fiora. I like every ability of J4. :-) As more powerful champions appear I just think he may need some bonus (maybe reduce some cd of his abilities instead of always stuck on his armor) so he could be more versatile and could show up on lane. When Riot has made Fiora, Darius and Garen such strong, those champions dominate the top line in ranking. If Jarvan will be on lane he definitely need more enhancements like having more power on attacking besides using EQ. One reason I like Riven and Ahri is because they have many ability combos. If I practice them a lot I can always find new ways to defeat the enemy. I hope there could be more things that player can discover on J4,too. (If Riot increases magic damage on E I may try more equipment like Nashor's Tooth?)

Now it is the end of the post. I’m writing this post to share Riot with my thoughts about Jarvan IV. I like this game very much as well as every champion I spent time on practicing. I respect the time Riot spends on analyzing every character of champion and the effort they try to make the game balance. Hopefully Riot could consider my suggestions! Please make some adjustments to J4 and I would have a better experience when using him. Feel free to share thoughts about J4 below :-)

(P.S. Can Jarvan have more cool skin? :-) I mean….his classic splash so cool that some of his skins looked even worse. Hahaha… My favorate is the darkforge.:-))