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The Sad Reality of the Current State of Jungle

You are Smart·11/26/2019, 6:33:40 PM·22 votes·11,418 views

At the start of patch 9.23 riot made big changes to the way gold and exp are distributed across the rift. Significantly buffing every lane minion experience, and very slightly reducing the shared experience coverage in the bot lane. Then the jungle changes came, with jungle xp being significantly reduced for the third season in a row and catch up xp being removed, riot's only compensation buff was to reduce the camp spawn timer by 30 seconds with additionally buffing gromp's stats so it's harder to clear in compensation for gromp's additional 20 xp and 19 gold.

Not to mention the fact that the scaling power of the small camps and buff camps has been completely gutted since patch 9.2 making it impossible for a jungler that even has power farm potential to be less than 2 levels down in the current meta than the top or mid laner farming his waves the same amount of time that you farm your camps in the jungle.

Patch 9.2

  • Small Camps
  • Experience scales every second level instead of every level; scaling reduced from +50% to +25%.
  • XP SCALING Every level from 1-7 ⇒ Levels 1/3/5/7
  • GROMP XP115-172.5 ⇒ 115-143.75
  • GREATER MURK WOLF XP65-97.5 ⇒ 65-81.25
  • MURK WOLF XP25-37.5 ⇒ 25-31.25
  • CRIMSON RAPTOR XP20-30 ⇒ 20-25
  • RAPTOR XP20-30 ⇒ 20-25
  • ANCIENT KRUG XP100-150 ⇒ 100-125 (reminder: first clear still grants 30% reduced XP)
  • KRUG XP35-52.5 ⇒ 35-43.75
  • LESSER KRUG XP7-10.5 ⇒ 7-8.75
  • Buff Camps
  • Experience scales every second level instead of every level; scaling reduced from +57% to +25%.
  • XP SCALINGEvery level from 1-7 ⇒ Levels 1/3/5/7
  • RED BRAMBLEBACK115-180 ⇒ 115-143.75
  • BLUE SENTINEL115-180 ⇒ 115-143.75

While season 9 was already a very difficult season for junglers due to majority of them failing to keep up with the solo laner's xp because of numerous hard nerfs to the jungle (Which led to the frustrating heavy gank meta to soak up lane xp to be ahead), it was still possible to have a lead on the enemy when you cleared xp from krugs. Now that solo lanes xp is massively buffed and jungle xp and gold nerfed it is no longer possible to get any lead for a jungler to have a carry impact without them soaking heavy solo lane experience. This is because even with the 30 sec compensation and the gromps exp being increased to balance out the map while every single camp was nerfed junglers will always be dependent on their laners success. This is because even with the camp timer being recuded the xp is so disgustingly minimal that a single wave will be equivalent to your entire red side xp. For example in the preseason if the enemy top laner is 3/0 there is a good chance he is lvl 9 about to hit 10 while the jungler that is 1/0 just managed to hit lvl 6. Due to the fact that dual lane shared exp has been reduced also means a direct nerf to jungle ganks because if the jungler will try to soak up the xp that will mean that both him and his other laner will now be more behind than taking the xp alone. The only viable way to play the carry style as a jungler is to split a solo lane in the mid to late game as nothing else will give you any significant lead. Which is also the reason that "Jungler Diversity" is infact going down completely to the drain due to the fact that only the "support style" junglers that fall off more than the actual supports will become the ones that are viable which was already a trend in season 9 and foremost season 1-2.

Patch 9.23 Krugs BASE XP247 (217 on first clear) ⇒ 160 (Ancient Krug's first clear penalty removed) BASE GOLD125 ⇒ 120 Murkwolves BASE XP115 ⇒ 95 BASE GOLD84 ⇒ 70 Gromp BASE HEALTH1800 ⇒ 2100 BASE XP115 ⇒ 135 BASE GOLD86 ⇒ 105 Raptors BASE XP115 ⇒ 95 BASE GOLD112 ⇒ 85

The only positive change of the patch that helped increase "jungler diversity" was the xp change (revert) that allows junglers to hit lvl 3 off of each side of the map rather than only the redside. My strong advice to help "jungler diversity" is to remove either remove the educed 30 second and buff / revert jungle xp from previous seasons or simply buff the jungle xp so that other roles aside from the early or the support jungler will be viable in the meta. At the moment the Jungle meta feels extremely impoverished as seen by previous threads on the boards. It is really important that changes should be made in a positive effect in the jungle as in the moment jungle simply feels like an under-leveled smite bot that had only one duty of securing the super strong preseason objectives.

56 Comments

5050BS11/26/2019, 6:57:03 PM10 votes

No.

The game needed these jungle nerfs for a reason. Jungle has been too strong. Now you have to play smarter and go for objectives not just perma gank every minute of the game.

Ragnaveil11/26/2019, 8:47:26 PM7 votes

Catchup EXP should have been halved, not outright removed. On the flip side, the EXP gains for solo should be less than what they are now. The only reason top matters is if your poor toplaner had to FP and got shoved in a very shitty matchup where if it snowballs the game is over. Thats not top influence, its garbage design.

Fizzletop11/27/2019, 6:10:10 AM5 votes

GOOD start but there are some many points you are missing about what is actually happening in the vast majority of games.

Okay so first riot nerfs exp and gold in jungle and nerfs duo lane, then they buff exp in solo lanes. the Net gain to solo lanes is 5% over duo lane and 6% over jungle. Now RIot claims that the reduced spawn time makes up for this, HAH! Okay so now you need to farm more to get to the same level as before but, all the camps still require the same amount of resources (HP, Mana, TIME) (This is why junglers that move fast are higher tier atm) but, becuase you have to farm more of them time has actually been increased because you spend more time pathing now in order to get to the same level of exp and gold as before.

To test and illustrate this fact I went into practice tool on Clearing god Olaf. Start Blue with double smite (CD reset in practice tool) this was to mimic a leash, Gromp smite, wolves, raps, red, krugs smite, scuttle. B shop, run back to gromp, top scuttle, wolves, etc, etc, etc. SO doing this Olaf could not stay ahead of camp respawn until level 10 with full jungle item and boots... SO the idea that you can just farm more is wrong, you literally cannot out farm the camps until the game is half over.

Okay next, these exp changes totally throw out of wack windows of power and difference between lane and jungle. So like you said lane will be level 6 and your still level 4 in the jungle. Which means jungle has no chance to gank top or mid and more pressure is applied bot, who already complained they were too much the focus. But wait it gets worse. Because the jungler has no map pressure over the laners who are pulling ahead, the laning phase for top and mid is totally breaking down at level 6 and 7 as they are just free to roam with no one to punish them. Run into the jungler, great free kill as there is no counter play for being two level under at 4-5 to a 6-7. Dont run into the jungler, no big deal just go abuse bot lane who is still level 4-5.

The new strat Im starting to see from laners is to just hit 6, go buy, and then come back to lane and go ward enemy jungle camps. wait to see level 4 jungler clearing camps and just go delete them. Becuase hey, the laner is level 6 and has more items from gold.

This 2% bonus mid and top got is also exacerbating snowball leads, for every wave that you can force someone off of you are getting that much bigger of a lead that lasts for longer (time is such a relative factor in lol). So as teemo poke the jax off the first wave, okay usual stuff, but now you can hit level 2 2% faster and have that 5 second window to totally push him off the 3rd wave, and now your totally set up to own the lane for the next 5 mins or the rest of the game provided you dont do something dumb. And maybe this is the wrong example (I dont know my top matches as well anymore) but, I keep seeing where one solo laner is getting that little bit of an edge and using it to great extent. SO like having a 12% bonus from exp by the time they are level 6 and ending up with a huge 30-40 second window before the other laner catches up to them and just being able to crush them with their ult.

These exp changes to jungle have also totally thrown out of wack the balance of ganking vs time use and farming and what you can judge as a success. Now to stay relevent as a jungler you pretty much have to get atleast one kill pre level 6 if not three kills, all other results from a gank put you behind. So gank and get an assist -behind a little, gank and get flash -behind alot, gank and die -behind a shit ton!

Also, because of the whole timing of your own farm thing, counter jungling is a pointless waste of your time other than to put the other jungler back (who may not even notice because of 2:00 min respwan time) Pretty much its pointless to take the extra time to cross river for just one camps. If you can get a scuttle it maybe a break even. But, in most cases you're better served by just going to your next camp in sequence. And sure you may put the other jungler back but, you are still falling further behind too so... great now there are two junglers on the map who cant do shit except feed.

NOW OF COURSE! there are outliers of games which aren't what I described above, sometimes mid and bot mix it up in river at level 3 and 3 people with below 20% HP walk right into a Kha'zix... But what I describe above has been my experience in the vast majority of games all of which leads to one side having snowballed solo laners who just wreck face on the match with their exp and gold lead which usually only grows the longer the game goes and the more they flex their power.

And to the people saying jungle just needs to adapt to the changes, there is no adapting to a level 11 Darius roaming your jungle while you're still level 7 because he got 3 solo kills top and you got an assist and two drags bot.

016 Hiro11/26/2019, 9:33:13 PM4 votes

And suddenly Warwick who has fast clear, good early ganks, good duels, decent mobility is now god tier with 55%+ WR

I can understand catchup exp being removed or experience from camps lowered, but with both nerf you do one mistake in jungle and you are screwed for next 10 minutes

Every jungler who scale, have bad clear are now total trash tier. Now I am not allowed to touch any "fun pick" like Karth or Brand

Nahath11/26/2019, 8:58:56 PM3 votes

It would be interesting to test this by playing without a dedicated jungler (though you'd need four other people to go along with you). My theory is that if jungling is too weak, then this strategy would be superior (or at least equal) to having a jungler.

On the other hand, if including a jungler is still the most effective way to play, then the jungle nerfs are appropriate from a balance perspective.

I say from a "balance" perspective because they may still be bad from a fun perspective. It could be the case that the benefits of having a character who is only visible when he ganks or passes a ward outweigh the drawbacks of that character being underleveled, but that the experience of playing the underleveled character is unrewarding.

In my own experience, jungling has definitely become less rewarding for me, particularly when I gank someone two levels above me and get nuked, but I also wonder if what has really happened is that the jungler's power to win the game has simply been brought in line with that of the other characters. I'm still undecided.

Slitorous11/26/2019, 10:29:27 PM3 votes

More than half the JG champs are completely useless now as well as the top tier ones. It all comes down to how fast you can move around the map and clear camps if you want to stay relevant in the game while the top/mid have 5 level lead on you...

Thilmer11/26/2019, 10:18:59 PM2 votes

I have noticed that the classic "better jungler wins" thing is much more prominent now than before. And it already anoyed me before, mind you.

MuffledGarbage11/27/2019, 6:39:55 PM1 votes

So this is why I keep not getting ganks from my jungler. Good to know.

Tusutaki11/28/2019, 2:50:28 AM1 votes

Dont forget the most damning element in of all of this. Camps that are of lower level than you still gives 10% reduced XP per level difference. So even if you perform well and get all the drags and so forth, you will still be behind in levels.