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Where is Our League Heading Towards - The Misplaced Direction of the Jungle

SavgSoul··49 votes·6,631 views

Brief Foreword:

Dear fellow friends, whether you are Bronze V or Diamond I, whether you play with friends or by yourself, ranked or normals or ARAM, it’s time we face a grave issue that affects our game. In fact, it’s a series of issues that stem from one root cause: complacency and ignorance. I bet it’s of no surprise to anyone that this game is declining. It’s not declining in player count and it certainly isn’t declining in toxicity in terms of community, but it is declining in terms of essence. In other words, the game that we all enjoyed playing (I guess some of us at least) since S2 has changed for the worse. We feel nostalgic about the past because the current game and meta are disappointing, and the problem is we focus too little on small bugs and issues, and not enough to realize fully that unless we push for more change with Riot, this game we all love will degrade into nothingness. So, we seek to bring up some fundamental issues with this game and hopefully raise awareness in order to encourage Riot to take steps in the right direction to making this game better.

**DISCLAIMER: We do not claim to know everything about this game and there are certainly arguable points that we make and we hope to see your opinions/solutions!

TL;DR: Our game is slowly going to sh*t so push for change!!

~Cheers, Icyops + Kuhaku

Jungling

The jungle got essentially overhauled due to the update and here are some MAJOR reasons why we should be worried:

  1. Overall, the entire jungle got buffed but junglers didn't get the tools to fight against this. This caused SEVERAL issues.

Buffing the jungle so hard just destroys champion diversity. Firstly you kill off an entire species of junglers, the tanky ones who wish to just get a quick clear and head off to gank. These champions just CANNOT survive in the jungle, if they fail a gank they are pretty much screwed because they have almost no way to efficiently keep up in farm because they get absolutely destroyed in the jungle. Nautilus, Hecarim, Skarner, Sejuani, these all had viability once, but now they don't offer ANYTHING in the new jungle. Also it ensures picks of junglers that have either A. high sustain or B. high damage, much of the champions who have this have some strong gapclosers to gank with as well. (Warwick, Lee Sin, Kha Zix, Vi, etc.) So in a sense you aren't changing much in terms of champion picks.

  1. Rewards for smiting are EXTREMELY niche and oftentimes don't do much.

Giving incentives for smiting certain camps was a good idea but the incentives that came out were just aimed towards certain situations. Smiting blue as manaless just doesn't do anything. Smiting wolf is useless if no one ever comes in your jungle. Smiting razorbacks may be useless if the enemy team does not ward. Smiting gromp gives a very ineffective damage over time when attacked, its almost as if it doesn't do anything. Smiting krugs is perhaps the best option in most early situations as it can help you clear the jungle. These also don't scale into the late game. Suggestions: Give buffs for killing monster instead of smiting and change up buffs for some monsters as they are very niche.

  1. New Camp, Rift Scuttler

To lightly touch on Scuttler, its a very good idea and this is how some of the monsters should've been. You kill the monster, you get the buff. Just a small complaint from many is that it takes too long to kill (if no cc is available) and the gold/exp isn't worth it. Small buff in those regions would be great.

  1. Jungle items are cost-effective for the wrong reasons.

Each of the previous jungle items had some sort of gold flow method which allowed many jungles to somewhat keep up in income despite not farming heavily. This was the basis behind tanky junglers and kept them breathing. Now on the same note, there were several junglers that relied on farming and the old jungle items complemented that style. New jungle items just don't offer that. Junglers lost income and the items were made extremely cost-effective for that reason. But with this comes issues too, what if I am playing Skarner or Hecarim and the enhancements don't appeal to me (I want trinity force first then resistances/hp). Some jungler that can make effective use of these cost effective enhancements will be able to overpower me as they bought some cheap items with good stats while I am sitting here trying to acquire my trinity force without any jungle enhancement and just an enhanced smite. These aren’t the only champions that don’t enjoy the jungle enhancements. Cost effectiveness is forcing junglers to build enhancements first and forcing certain item builds. Straight up nerfs to cost effectiveness is not the answer here either. An alternate method must be considered.

Overall, the massive changes to the jungle are doing more harm to this game from our experiences and few others. It is destroying the viability of champions and taking the power away from Jungle instead of adding power. The unnecessary complicating of Jungle arguable makes the standard S4 jungle paths more interesting, BUT it lowers the efficiency of the role. Most of all, many simply feel the jungle is less FUN and impactful and isn’t that what this game is about?

So guys, we urge you to comment and share your thoughts and if you agree, push for Riot to stop focusing on these kinds of changes, and instead worry more about champion pool balance. There’s a good reason why there’s 100+ champions and playstyles in this game, but we need to stop making only 25% of them viable for the meta at a time. Buffing/Nerfing cycles are not helping and these overhauls aren’t working. We need change before our game loses meaning.

143 Comments

Wînter Fox27 votes

I personally love the new jungle. The customization is better than ever, smiting is a meaningful choice (smite the chickens to spot a ward or smite Red for full health?), and I don't have to see troll picks like jungle Trist anymore.

As for the difficulty - get some armor runes, make it to level 3, buy a item 3713 and you'll be fine.

SparrowPriest9 votes

Not taking this if you play a champion that has slow clear is why you fail. You will get behind without it. They also clearly stated that they want damage based junglers to not be able to sustain in the jungle so go heal at the fountain. Its designed so you wont fall behind if you do so.

Junkο7 votes

I played Hecarim yesterday, despite a good leash that left me with almost full hp i had to recall after wolves.

4nth0l0gy14 votes

A few points:

-Champion diversity in the jungle has not been destroyed, it's just been changed. And will probably change again for the better when Riot brings struggling junglers up to par with some individualized early buffs for each (Nautilus Sejuani Evelynn Hecarim). You can definitely still do a level two gank if you so choose, I don't know where you're getting this idea that tanky junglers can't gank early. You're not going to get a full clear right away if you do that, but that's what choices are all about, and that's a positive change.

-I agree that some of the jungle smite buffs could be more useful. Krugs, for example, don't really have an effect on anything outside the jungle, and by that virtue insist that, to keep them useful, you start your clear at their camp. That's a bit restrictive.

Dragon buffs are also poorly ordered; the first (permanent free total damage) is vastly too strong and snowbally, and the fourth (makes it easier to break towers) is pretty mediocre considering you'll likely have baron (the ultimate siege-breaker) at the time you acquire it.

I don't think all new buffs are bad in terms of gameplay though. I love the raptor one. The red one feels great. I think the lacking ones could just use a little smoothing out.

-Jungle items...I feel like they don't give stats quickly enough, is my biggest issue. I wonder if there would be a way we could even implement a fourth tier (item 1039 -> basic stat item -> smite choice -> final (fully realized) stat item) into the build. That seems complicated though, and I don't have a good suggestion outside it. I do like the new items though; diversity and customization are both, in my opinion, almost always a good thing.

No matter what though, junglers are definitely not being "forced" to buy certain items (aside from jungle items, which are inherently diverse anyway).

I definitely feel MORE impactful and I have MORE fun with the new jungle, I don't know where you're getting the idea that it's less fun and we're less useful now. If anything, junglers have an even more important, niche role, which is AWESOME!

SparrowPriest4 votes

Damage isn't that big a deal unless the game to you is dueling to the death every time you engage. Id expect that Dragon gold would be a damage boost as well.

Vicimus13 votes

I miss the days my Skarner/Hecarim was viable. I miss my kind.

Ad Astra per Asp2 votes

He's still very viable, I recently owned with him and didn't even build a rangers, which most champions can't get away with. He's way easier to use than eve is right now for example. And most champs HAVE to build ranger or be left behind in obscurity. But rangers is a good item anyway so it's not that big a deal.

I still would like them to make taking rangers not so mandatory on so many champions however.

Oleandervine10 votes

I personally don't like the new jungle. It took the strategy out of when and how to gank and interact with opponents and shoveled it into micromanaging a billion different buffs, getting easily slaughtered by tiny monsters, and eradicating junglers like Evelynn who simply cannot withstand the current conditions. I like some of the changes, like the crab, and the smite buffs, but this nonsense with beefing up the monsters so that it becomes more of a survival focus rather than a farm and gank focus just ruins the role.

DynamiteGazelle3 votes

Have you played Evelynn in the new jungle? She does just fine. I don't know why people keep saying she can't handle it. I've won more games with her in the new jg than I've lost..

Junkο5 votes

If i have to recall after wolves while playing Hecarim who has some sustain and spammable dmg spell, then i really can't imagine Evelynn surviving

Boomboombam6 votes

Recalling after wolves is not a bad thing any more. Practice. Try this with hecarim, start at frog with a leash and smite for buff, it dies extremely quick and gives you lvl 2, you can now kill blue without a problem, take wolves, youre lvl 3. Go back and upgrade to the axe that gives 15s off smite, go to red, you now have both buffs and near full health and can gank top/bot depending where you started. Ive had extreme success with this

Zanathax2 votes

Yeah. A lot of the people complaining on here are just plain doing it wrong. Trailblazer goes a long way towards fixing most jungler's problems with sustain in the early game... that and knowing that you need to start at toad or dbl golem(w/e they're called now) and Smite them for the buffs they give. Then you go blue or red. With the exception of Nunu and WW, every jungler in the game needs to back after 3 or 4 camps... and at least Nunu WILL see the nerf hammer before S5 gets out of Beta, or shortly afterwards. WW too, maybe. Their sustain is just too God Tier.

Earl Eulrich3 votes

For the first clear you really have to relay on the massive hp you get from smiting red with almost any jungler currently (guess invading red will become a real thing in professional soon/maybe shaco will rise in popularity again).

Feathermane9 votes

Yeah, the strategy of rushing level 3 and ganking with an overpowered red buff was a pinnacle of intellectual achievement on a par with the invention of calculus. Get over yourself.

Kingsgrave9 votes

These changes allow Riot to make a lot more junglers viable without having to do a bunch of reworks to them. It lays the groundwork for diversity.

Junkο8 votes

Not really, Skarner, Eve, Hecarim, Amumu, Seujani and other junglers are all unplayable now. I had to recall after doing wolves with Hecarim, that's terrible.

KzooCrasher6 votes

You are definitely building/playing them wrong. I haven't had any troubles on any of those champs they sustain quite well if you build them right.

Junkο5 votes

How am i supposed to build during the first clear other than machete+2 pots?

SlowChemical11 votes

I went 9/8/13 masteries as Hec, extra pot with gold. Started krugs, got buff asap. Raptors, red, wolves, blue, toad. Cleared whole thing. Everyone is jumping to conclusions before even trying to figure it out. Besides, preseason is meant to test things out. If there are problems, there is plenty of time for them to be addressed once some actual data is gathered.

AbodyHUN6663 votes

Get the jungle masteries in the defense tree (I don't remember their english names). The % max health bleed effect is stronger since the monsters have higher health.

Sworn Anemone8 votes

I'm actually seeing a lot of success with Hecarim Nautilus and Sejuani on streams, and it's not hard to see why. Yeah, you have to build different but when you do build them right they're really hard to kill. For the jungle as much as for other champions. Try item 3725 on em.

Vicimus8 votes

Now sir I agree with your advice, but why am I being forced to build a certain item for the sake of VIABILITY? It isn't even like hunters machete, that is an entire item. What if my goal is not resistances? What if I don't value resistances early and value damage? Special kinds of damage sir, sheen procs, sunfire dots, mpen items to magnify base damages. But the problem arises if I don't build that item, then my enemies will and they will take advantage of this cost efficiency that has been offered.

It is LIMITING.

SparrowPriest7 votes

Because it unlimits you by allowing you to jg a tank and any other jg you choose. It also allows you to defend a tower against a wave as a tank jungler without just getting bombed with pokes while trying to melee them down.

Sworn Anemone5 votes

They've doubled spawn time for jungle creeps. Speed farming the jungle is no longer efficient, so sacrificing some of your farm speed for defense is no longer debilitating, as it just means less time without something to kill. For these cases, start with early defenses as I suggested and build power into the late game. If you want early game offense, don't bring a tank. Sorry :\

KzooCrasher4 votes

This is the opposite as limiting.... you can jungle almost anyone with the right item build.... seems like it makes things less limited making more champions viable.

MyGhettoFantasy6 votes

Now sir I agree with your advice, but why am I being forced to build a certain item for the sake of VIABILITY? It isn't even like hunters machete, that is an entire item. What if my goal is not resistances? What if I don't value resistances early and value damage? Special kinds of damage sir, sheen procs, sunfire dots, mpen items to magnify base damages. But the problem arises if I don't build that item, then my enemies will and they will take advantage of this cost efficiency that has been offered.

It is LIMITING.

It is limiting if you play in a bubble. This is a TEAM game. If you are going to hold onto your income in hopes of acquiring a substantial power-spike all at once, you need to understand that that is a STRATEGY. It has shortfalls you need to shore up by using your team mates.

If you are weaker early game because of your strategy, ward appropriately, alert your allies and make sure they are able and willing to back you up. "Hey mid and top, I'm still pretty weak atm, I am warding my blue jungle and I am coming to clear it. Will you please be ready to assist me if the enemy jungler comes to gank?".

I think the biggest problem with the new jungle are the players. They conclude that trade-offs are flaws in the system that should be glossed over, rather than taking it upon themselves to successfully implement their strategy. Riot is moving the game away from Jungle effectively being another lane with one or two tried and true formulas, and pushing it toward being dynamic and organic; capable of rewarding multiple strategies and yielding enough diversity to allow players to adjust their strategies as the game unfolds. We're seeing the days of "run this circuit over and over and over again until xx gold is achieved........profit".

Riot is pushing the game toward more diversity in strategy. I thank them for that and I am glad they are pushing the game in this direction.

Shend it1 votes

I disagree there, solo que is not even close to a team game. The coordination quite low and at lower elo's the game is really more about how you do rather then your team. Adding more "strategy" and "diversity" actually ended up lowering the amount of junglers that are viable by quite a lot. People in lower elo's never picked a team comp they strickly just pick for their self or their lane. So trying to argue it is a team game in solo que I will disagree. The new patch works for competitive play and 5v5 but not for solo que from platinum down.

MyGhettoFantasy2 votes

I disagree there, solo que is not even close to a team game. The coordination quite low and at lower elo's the game is really more about how you do rather then your team. Adding more "strategy" and "diversity" actually ended up lowering the amount of junglers that are viable by quite a lot. People in lower elo's never picked a team comp they strickly just pick for their self or their lane. So trying to argue it is a team game in solo que I will disagree. The new patch works for competitive play and 5v5 but not for solo que from platinum down.

I don't disagree with you. However, players refusing to play as a team does not make the new jungle design bad. It makes those players bad. In most competitive games and sports there are varying degrees of strategy and tactics.

Let's take football for example. The routs run by little league players are not as complex and do not require the level of skill as those found in pro football. That doesn't mean that football needs to change or that it is poorly designed. It means that little league football is not as interesting or engaging as pro football.

Likewise, just because every other bronze player is Rambo doesn't mean that LOL is watered down or unsophisticated. It means every other bronze player does not get as much out of the game as they could. I don't think that means we should water the game down so their simple minded strategies yield better results.

I''m not pro. I understand that there are better players with better mechanics and better strategies than myself. For example, I am decent with LeBlanc, but I have difficulty effectively incorporating DFG into her combo. Mechanically I suck at doing that. That doesn't mean that LeBlanc sucks or DFG is OP when she falls into better hands. It means that I should get better or avoid using LeBlanc in any serious games.

I feel the same way about the new jungle.

WooBeeWoo8 votes

I agree I hate the new jungle. I personally love jungling Naut but I literally can't take how terrible he is now. Like his strength is cc so no one wants to give him buffs. But the trade-off? 1. bad clear 2. can't counter jungle and is easy to kill in his own (bad duelist) 3. having slow clear means low life, low lvl, no ganks, no ganks with Naut means no gold, no gold, no tank. In the end he can't do it. He CANNOT get into the place where his cc is worth a damn.

JJI74410 votes

I agree I hate the new jungle. I personally love jungling Naut but I literally can't take how terrible he is now. Like his strength is cc so no one wants to give him buffs. But the trade-off? 1. bad clear 2. can't counter jungle and is easy to kill in his own (bad duelist) 3. having slow clear means low life, low lvl, no ganks, no ganks with Naut means no gold, no gold, no tank. In the end he can't do it. He CANNOT get into the place where his cc is worth a damn.

Take Trailblazer on Naut. It seems counter-intuative, but Trailblazer is the "I need help with clear speed so I can gank more" upgrade. The blue one is more of a "my ganks suck and I would like them to be slightly less terrible."

HexTechBomber5 votes

I have to say OP, I cannot disagree with you at all. My other problems I have is that me and two friends play a lot on the Twisted Treeline ranked and the changes to the jungle items have even actually hindered the flow of going 1 top, 1 jungle, 1 bot and now it's just better to go 1 top, 2 bot or 2 top, 1 bot because jungle items provide nothing really worth anything and their are no little bonuses there at all. The old jungle items of Season 4 worked wonders on that map because of the defensive one giving you an aoe reveal, or burn damage or ap and cdr. They were fantastic there as they had some use of damage instead of just an enhancement for being a jungler.

I also am not happy with how turrets have turned out on Twisted Treeline this season as before 5 minutes if an enemy pushes a minion wave to turret, your turret has -6 armor making it take true damage at that point since no armor prevents or causes it to be actually just pushed down passively by at least minimum of 3 waves of minions making pretty much the turrets worthless. Season 4 was great because you had early extra defense and even then some more defense on the turrets making them still harder to push. Right now basically if you get aced at any point with in 5 minutes and enemy has 1 full wave at turret they will be able to pretty much take down that turret right then and there and that then begins to put you behind for an early mistake.

Besides current glitches between champions and items, map glitches (blue/red boxes appearing), items not going off properly or other various problems happening, this has been a HUGE disaster for Riot right now and hope they can recover.

Please make Twisted Treeline a separate setup of ranked from the normal Season 5, to be honest the Season 4 setup was just PERFECT for the Twisted Treeline map and games would actually last and being aced once and making one mistake early doesn't hinder you and make you fall far behind because of it. Please Riot do something good for this. I've been a long time fan of your game and in fact been around since Season 1, I loved when you changed Twisted Treeline map and the Season 4 was perfect for it. Please re-evaluate changes for between Season 4 and 5. The Season 5 changes to map and such are fine but you could totes take this in a much better direction honestly. Listen to your community, we're the voices you want to hear, we are the players and we know we have influence but you just have to listen to us and our input. We are obviously currently not happy with the setup of the new jungle and I agree that instead of smite killing the camp, just killing the camp would be quite nice. Yeah it may give a lot of power but for those of us without smite could make use of some of the buffs as well too. Instead of the normal Dragon, Red, Blue and Baron. It'd open for all new strategies.

Their is a lot to change.

TL;DR: Twisted Treeline Season 5 is horrible, turrets push down easily, one early mistake puts you incredibly behind, new items need tweaked, bring back Season 4 or something different to Twisted Treeline. Summoners Rift map currently stands needs adjustments and bug fixes.

iDreamChaserH974 votes

I agree with the post in general. Don't play much jungle but the role felt weaker and heard friends saying that it's going to be the same as before after people get used to it - stale meta with defined effective champions, over half aren't even played. Partly why I don't play much anymore is because fun roles/champs get removed all the time and the same old bs gets repeated eventually

Antonidas14 votes

Season 2 will forever be the best season because it was the funnest season of them all !

Earl Eulrich4 votes

Most of all, many simply feel the jungle is less FUN and impactful and isn’t that what this game is about?

I think it´s still quite the opposite...jugnlers stillhave an incredible impact on the game, probably far to high. If your jungler fails setting up control onto the bottom half of the map early on you´ll see your botlane struggle and drakes go over to the opponent really fast, tending to snowball the game within 15min to a place of no coming back.

If anything they still have to find a way to involve toplane more within the game. THis is the real thing that made S2 more or less the best season so far...with the more lane-centric playstyle till min 30 back then it didn´t really matter that top had been far off, it still saw a lot of action 2v2, as most junglers really tried hard to win this lane while bot had still been scaling and mids constantly roamed around to help out their sidelanes.

Nowadays it´s all shifted to controlling vision and grouping early for easy objectives once you got a lead vision-wise. Top just gets ignored because ADCs scale a lot faster and dominating bot is way more important than dominating top, especially since drakes set an enormous amount of pressure on your opponents now.

TL/DR: things that need to change in my humble opinion:

  • the bottom-half of the map is way too important compared to top currently, map-balance has to improve
  • adcs scale too fast into the game compared to how well they scale over-all. So either take some scaling away from them or reduce their midgame-power (and pls get rid of rush IE->3crits in a row RNG-spikes)
  • vision is still too snowbally, I think we need sth. that generates save vision like an indestructible ward.
Steve Erwin4 votes

As a jungle main, here's my summary of what has happened to the jungle.

Idea- great. - I was getting tired of MadStone Udyrs running around at level 16 with more farm than anyone else at 10 minutes. The jungle needed a new monster, and everything about the scuttle crab's design as far as effects for killing it and placement is fantastic. Specializing smite is another fantastic idea, as it expands jungle diversity beyond "Farm to 6 as ww, guaranteed kill, then farm until ult's up again." Post first clear as most champions, the jungle had nothing that could really threaten you if you were above 25% health, and you mostly chose whatever camp was closest to you. The higher damage camps means you have to choose between a gank heavy playstyle, counterjungling, farming or objective control, with rewards for specialization.

Execution- poor to bad. Scuttle Crab has obnoxious amounts of health with a measly gold reward, tanky junglers have vanished from existence, and even fast clear junglers are hopelessly behind in xp at most stages of the game unless they're super fed, at which point the very snowbally nature of the low-cost high efficiency jungle items makes them impossible to kill. Smiting wolves has no benefit unless youre facing a SUPER counterjungler, at which point it's still only worth a ward, which is 75 measly gold. Krugs are only good for jungle clearing and have no late game effect on anything.

All this being said, it's preseason. It's always gonna be wayyy off when they first implement the changes, and by worlds next year the game will be about as balanced as it's gonna get. Give em some time to figure out the numbers and buff the correct champions, and it'll all work out ok.

aLuunatic3 votes

i have to disagree with you. i think the new change is for the better. To be honest with you, it was kind of getting boring in the old meta. Im like you and been playing this game for a little more than 3 years now and its starting to get BORING. im not high ranked or highly skilled and my highest ranked i have achieved was G1. I mainly solo q ranked but i think the new buffs are fun and you can experiment with new items, builds, ganks, and routes.
you are right about how tough it is early on but once you get ur first jungle upgrade its easy after that. some champs will still clear it like crazy but there is nothing you can do about that.
everything changes man so learn to go with it. itll make you better as a player.

prediction.. they might lower the cost of item 1039 so we can have one more item 2003 . (fingers crossed)

2pudge1cup3 votes

This new jungle seems unnecessarily complicated. It feels like all of these changes were based on "throw as much shit at the wall and see what sticks" rather than any goal beyond making level 3/4 timing ganks impossible unless you are one of the handful of junglers that doesn't care if it's more difficult.

TheWedge3 votes

I loved jungling. I say loved because riot just ravaged the jungle for everyone. Virtually every jungle champ has to back after 2 camps and the only ones that don't were already the most aggressive and strongest gankers anyway. So basically you just parsed down the jungle selection to less than 8 champs if you want anyone to be effective. There are no situations where it should be ok as lee sin that at level 8 if my smite isn't up I will die to the bird camp. It's absurd. When they play tested this did they never actually jungle and just had successful ganks every time they tried. What was the thought pattern on this? Did they want you to commit all your gold to pots so you can kill some mobs or just live in lane so you didn't have to die to jungle creeps. I have almost 5000 games played and have gotten many people to start playing and within 4 games in this new jungle I wanted to stop playing forever. Do I have to be perfectly optimal with my masteries and runes so I have any chance of surviving or just play warwick every game. If so why not just eliminate the other champions altogether.

JayFoe3 votes

The new jungle is intended to add strategic diversity but fails at doing so completely.

Most of the smite buffs are either garbage or timing-mandatory (red regen buff, for instance). "Should I smite wolves to watch for invades?" No, you shouldn't, razor/wraith buff is better. "Should I smite toad to powerfarm jungle safely?" Powerfarm what jungle? Since there's no viable farming strategy for junglers (not enough gold), any smite buff that benefits farming is a waste. Wolves are theoretically useful but the placement of the spirit makes it a generally poor choice as it provides very poor coverage (it will catch someone coming to steal you wolves and that's about it). The only smite "choice" is "should I smite the razors to clear wards or should I save it to gank mid?"

The new jungle offers no income, which cuts out any gold-focused jungler. Without any way to generate competitive income from jungling, gold-reliant junglers and lategame junglers are no longer an option. The new jungle also puts junglers at much higher risk, so risky junglers or junglers with bad early clears are no longer viable (especially as the playerbase catches on to the changes and starts to reliably invade junglers early).

With the reduced income, more expensive machete, and slower clear, junglers are less competitive with mid and top lane. Either lane can reliably win a 1v1 against an enemy jungler around level 2-4. This makes safe junglers even more important.

With all these in mind, the list of "viable" junglers will be extremely limited, focused on junglers that can operate effectively without significant income and can make the first 1-2 clears safely. There's no spot for risky junglers (because the risk never pays off). There's no spot for farm junglers (because there's nothing to farm). There's no spot for counterjungling, because the risk / reward is completely uneven (the invasion item loses to either smite upgrade and invading puts the jungler at a massive risk now that they are facing harder, more durable jungle creeps and have less power compared to a mid or top who might catch them coming or going).

There are interesting ideas in this new jungle revision, but as-is its a terrible step backwards in terms of strategic options, decisions, and paths available to a jungler.

Hayaishi2 votes

The only real problem the jungle has it's how hard it carries.

You nerf the impact the jungler has and the jungle is fixed.

PotatoMine2 votes

I have to get to bed so only had time to skim, but Riot wants this to be a great game just as much as you do. But it's not easy to do. As you mentioned at the end, " but we need to stop making only 25% of them viable for the meta at a time." Riot works hard to make this as much the case as they can, but with millions of people playing in a highly competitive game people WILL find the OP and they WILL extort it.

In addition, your only looking at the face value. As Riot has said a number of times, this is a stepping stone. This is the pre-season, time for change and experimentation. The jungle change does make the jungle MUCH better because it lets Riot adjust it in ways they could not before. They can let people have skillful choices in games because of the changes in the jungle. And not everything needs to be used in every game, you mentioned that that smite effects where weak, they don't need to be powerful to have an effect. They are just another part of the puzzle.

Rikirie2 votes

I was able to clear the jungle fine with naut using 9 armor marks/ armor seals/ scaling MR glyphs and scaling HP regen/5 quints

The only real problem i had was the chicken camp, it messed me up pretty hard

I went blue > wolves > chickens > red back, Gomp > wolves > chickens > crags then cleared dragon scuttle crab

i went trail blazer vs saber due to the % life and mana restore, I'd advise mana pots on first back

all in all he has no real issues clearing Nautilus

Sadistic Cheese2 votes

I find your comment about tanky junglers odd. I had some trouble with Zac, but I think after the first clear it was mostly I haven't played the champion in forever and he may have been nerfed a little much and thus just...not viable to start with.

I tried Skarner in the jungle as well and found that he was actually damn good. Jungle clears weren't a problem. I've seen Sejuanis do good and have heard she MAY be one of the few that can achieve full-clear by herself if she plays things right. Hecarim I just don't like personally. The lack of cc is rather meh and I find he can't do much if he's not fed/snowballing, but I could be wrong.

As for cost-effectiveness, I'll agree that the lack of a GP5 item kinda hurts. There's other options like an Avarice Blade (good enough for J4 though I think he probably benefits from Black Cleaver more), but if you're building Trinity Force on a jungler, I feel like that might not be wise in the first place unless you've had multiple successful ganks.

To me, Trinity Force is a risky item to build in general. It just takes a ton of time and gold unless your farming is on point and you've got kills under your belt to assist with it. It takes awhile with a laner who gets constant cs. With a jungler who has to balance his farm with ganking lanes and securing objectives? That's gonna take forever. OF COURSE someone's gonna get cheaper items and wreck your face. The problem is not the jungle, the problem is your choice of item to build that takes three components and a ton of gold. Ain't nobody got time for you gettin' your shiny yellow triangle swords. There's lanes to be ganked! Teammates to help! Dragons to aquire/steal!

Now yes, if you've got a ton of gold and you're doing well and the team is ahead and you can't help but get or be a part of a kill every time you turn around, sure. Go Trinity Force. But I don't think setting your sights on it from the game start and not deviating from that path no matter what is going to help you and your team. Most of the time when I see a Trinity Force player on my team it's not "oh dang, he just got Trinity Force! He's gonna snowball even MORE now!" It's usually "Jeez, he's FINALLY gotten that Trinity Force after like twenty minutes or more. Maybe now he can actually get something BUILT in a reasonable amount of time."

New jungle is different. It's tougher. I agree that more junglers should be viable, but we're hardly a week into this. There could be jungle champions we're completely ignoring/forgetting about until someone brings them up and goes: 'uh, yeah. This champ's awesome in the jungle...you guys didn't notice?'

Plus they're still working on fine-tuning things, supposedly. Maybe we should give them time for that before we scream for massive change.

DioBrandoh2 votes

  1. You're right that a lot of junglers should've had some tuning to their base stats to stay relevant. The first clear is invasion heaven for characters like Warwick, Nunu, and Shaco. The first clear is incredibly brutal. However, you only need the gold from your buff camp and a small camp to get a jungle item and the hatchet lowers smite's cd and turns it into an AoE burst/stun. That should really fix any clear issues instantly and anyone else has good options. From there all the enhancements are basically Ancient Golem/Lizard/Wraith/Flare. After the first clear all junglers should be relevant.

  2. The Smite rewards are actually really good. You have a DoT, stuns for repeated autos, the ability to kill the next ward you come by, the wolf which helps scout while you invade... then the blue/red buff smite buffs are subpar, though the buffs you get for killing them are pretty good. Thing is you have to ask yourself whether the buff is going to be worth using your smite on given the longer CD.

  3. The scuttler is not a gold/exp objective, its a temporary ward/speed boost to make taking Dragon/Baron safer. It can be a good pickup for roaming too but I find its best to have someone kill it as you start dragon so if things go south you can speed boost out of the fight. It's fine where it is.

  4. As I said on point one, the hatchet is the jungle item for junglers who can't clear effectively in this jungle. I've been messing around on it with Sion mainly and some like Hecarim use it well too and really as long as you can manage to pick it up you have a very efficient smite and should be able to sustain yourself. As for your Skarner example I don't really understand a Triforce rush. You get a tier 2 jungle item any season for around 800 gold and then you put yourself into a 3.7k goldsink on a melee champion without a gap closer. OFC you aren't doing well. You should at least build a juggernaut/warrior enhancement in order to get some quick, powerful stats before trying to finish your tri. Building components is fine but honestly I see Skarner as a tank anyway so I'd just get Frozen Fist with Juggernaut usually. Lets you cc more often in fights while still having decent damage.

Also you missed the major point that is ACTUALLY a huge threat to junglers - the buffs to invades. Between longer camp timers, the poachers knife, and the early damage characters like Shaco and Nunu are more brutal than ever before. You're forced to play much more defensively with your camps or to soak more lane XP to stay relevant. Everyone is as strong as they've been midgame but really the early game is much, much more dangerous and that's the only problem I see as a legitimate threat as someone who's jungled since S1.

Paradrakor2 votes

I watched the patch rundown videos and I still don't get why they changed the jungle so much. I think that the new jungle is interesting, but like everyone else is saying, it's creating the opposite of strategic diversity because high sustain junglers are immediately top picks.

Pryotra2 votes

lol, Please. welcome to a Jungle reminiscent of S1, where WW was a viable pick if you weren't too comfortable in the jungle, and things like Yi were only for those who knew what they were walking into.

The jungle isn't as accessible any more unless you choose the jungle path. This is a good thing. No more mids just deciding that wraiths seem tasty because all lanes are pushed. No more tops grabing golems because they can't leave the tower to farm minions. This is a good thing. If you are a laner, the only jungle creep you should try for by yourself during lane is the river crab, and even that is OK because it benefits the whole team.

If you want a carry jungler, be prepared to invest in some Rune pages, and spec your masteries accordingly. If you want a tank jungler, make sure to bring some sustain. If you are tanky dps, you will likely have the best time, so long as you have something to either mitigate damage to yourself or sustain.

I approve of this jungle, I just feel the Dragon buff needs tuning.

Effigy2 votes

Essentially the new jungle is tilted in the favor of gank-happy junglers (as though they weren't sitting pretty on the top of the tier list anyway). Some of the new features such as Smite buffs are nice, but, as Savg stated, very niche. Overall I think the new jungle is the worst development decision made by Riot to date because it's a global nerf against junglers in general. Anyone who needs to be able to farm the jungle until the hit six to make their ganks viable (WW stand out here, champs like Noct and Amumu to a lesser extent) will no longer be able to clear the jungle without having to recall at least once.

What I just realized is that there has been a role reversal: Junglers are now the ones who need ganks.

Guy Fox Teemo2 votes

The new jungle is ridiculous if you aren't a sustain jungler , then your going to almost 100% guranteed to do terrible the new jungle is WAY to difficult to clear.. You get taken to 10% heatlh on almost every jungle camp in the first 5 lvls. The only viable jungle item now isitem 3713 since you are extremlly reliant on smite now or you'll die to jungle mobs. And since you get so low when fighting hte jungle mobs if you aren't a sustain jungler your forced to back. Which means no ganks and since you backed thats time you wasted on not farming or ganking which means less exp, which results and being behind if you dont just sit in the jungle and farm. Which then again means no ganks. At all. THe new jungle focus's on surviving, waiting for drag, clear it, go back to farming until 20mins which makes it very boring and the new jungle doesn't even give more EXP when its harder to clear and it takes double the amount of time to respawn then it did before.... The new jungle items also give you about no sustain at all.

Shend it1 votes

I can agree with that logic, but if they wanted to make a larger number of junlgle strategies more viable why nerf lee? He has been nerfed quite alot over the past season. I believed he was already balanced, there were people who out dueled him early, people with better clears, and people with better sustain. He also has a pretty high skill cap to be good with yet they just continue to nerf lee more and more. Why nerf lees lifesteal on the w when the last time they changed kha all they did was take off some base damage on his w.

chumbler2 votes

I can agree with that logic, but if they wanted to make a larger number of junlgle strategies more viable why nerf lee? He has been nerfed quite alot over the past season. I believed he was already balanced, there were people who out dueled him early, people with better clears, and people with better sustain. He also has a pretty high skill cap to be good with yet they just continue to nerf lee more and more. Why nerf lees lifesteal on the w when the last time they changed kha all they did was take off some base damage on his w.

Lee Sin was singlehandedly killing jungle diversity because he is an incredibly stupidly designed champion. Obliterating him would be the single best thing they could do to improve jungle diversity.

Also for anyone exclaiming that they've increased strategic diversity so much, no they haven't. It looks like they did because we're on day 3 and people are trying new stuff that, if it were good, would just get immediately nerfed. The jungle still only cares about one thing: clearing speed, and gankers are still hamstrung by how out of control vision and disengage have gotten. These are nothing but bandaids to try to keep people interested, especially the ones who are never going to be critical of Riot. They're in "Milk the cash cow" mode. They're never actually going to fix any problems. At best they'll pay meaningless lip service.

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