You are a tank that struggles with his clear? Smite Gromp.
You're vulnerable to invades? Smite wolves.
Want to contest vision? Smite chickens.
Dude, f*ck those cheesy plants, bring back those buffs. You actually had to plan your smite ahead to maximize efficiency, and to adapt to the situation. Season 4 was the best season for junglers.
RiotRiot MapleNectar46 votesHonestly, I miss them too because I feel like it opened up some kind of interesting/fun jungle possibilities like taking Krugs as jungle Vayne to help you kite around other mobs thanks to the stun. That being said, I do think that the decision to remove them was correct. It was a pretty opaque system that was hard to understand/appreciate for the majority of players (primarily lower level). Making smiting the correct camp to aid your clear a skill test feels...off in my opinion. If I'm learning the jungle and read that I have this high cd ability that let's me nuke camps I really just want to be hitting the monster that hits back the hardest, not thinking about what micro optimizations I have to be making to be successful. If we could bring them back in a more understandable way I'd be all for it, because again, while I personally miss them, I don't think the previous execution ended up being all that great.
It Hertz When IP2 votesNow that Trackers Knife is gone, what about adding smite buffs back via an active on jungle items, separate from Smite?
MalrothDragonia2 votesI think folding unique small buffs into each camp could achieve this type of thing without tying it to smite. It might also allow you to nerf some higher performing gank junglers in a way that they would have to decide whether to gank without a certain jg buff, clear in an order that supports the buffs they want for a gank, or deny their opponents a certain camp based on the champ they're playing. Same for farming jg, like the stun on camps for junglers who struggle early could change pathing. Would also let you give limited power for champs who don't traditionally jungle to do so, without adding to their power outside of the jg. Could make for some interesting decision making without tying it into the smite cd.
That being said, I can see it being too much mind-space for a new jungler to keep track of all the different buffs. One way would maybe just make 3 kinds like plants, and just assign them to the different camps.
That honestly just solves the problem you stated of a jungler having to think about which camp to smite, but probably brings up a host of additional problems.
Ben Sharpio4 votes[{quoted}](name=Maple Nectar,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Y5rTtjAU,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-03-06T18:09:36.334+0000)
Honestly, I miss them too because I feel like it opened up some kind of interesting/fun jungle possibilities like taking Krugs as jungle Vayne to help you kite around other mobs thanks to the stun. That being said, I do think that the decision to remove them was correct. It was a pretty opaque system that was hard to understand/appreciate for the majority of players (primarily lower level). Making smiting the correct camp to aid your clear a skill test feels...off in my opinion. If I'm learning the jungle and read that I have this high cd ability that let's me nuke camps I really just want to be hitting the monster that hits back the hardest, not thinking about what micro optimizations I have to be making to be successful. If we could bring them back in a more understandable way I'd be all for it, because again, while I personally miss them, I don't think the previous execution ended up being all that great.
But how did jungle plants improve ANYTHING about the jungle? It's so retard proof right now, and they've served to be just as aggravating as they were when they were introduced on PBE. Whoever managed the jungle "rework" must have been out of his/her damn mind to think that reducing the complexity of the role, which wasn't that much to begin with, would help players understand the system.
I mean, what's the point in maining a role if anyone can play it? Doesn't feel very unique, AND you can see that this is starting to leak into top lane. ANYONE can play top lane right now. It's like you guys are vacuum sucking anything remotely cool about a role and replacing it with some casual shit because... i dont know why. The team that reworked the jungle completely fucked it up to appeal to casual players. And it's CRAZY that people seem to overlook how many problems the jungle plants have caused.
Sp33d Zer09 votesYou say retard proof, but I have seen so many people use the plants incredibly wrong.
SzGamer2274 votesIt's clear when you use a plant wrong, because its effects are immediate and extremely visible, which makes it very easy to learn from mistakes. If you Blast Cone an ally towards the enemy team, you're going to realize you've done something very wrong very quickly, but you can clear camps a hundred times as someone who's new to the jungle and be completely ignorant of any low-visibility optimizations that you've been missing.
Steelflame2 votesGreat example of this (On Kayn, such as your flair shows) is that you want to face-plant with your Q into a wall at point blank during your jungle clear.
Does this make any sense? No. But it cancels the dash portion of the animation, letting you effectively save about the duration of 1 auto each time you do it. This adds up to a faster clear (by about 6-8 seconds) and more importantly, a healthier clear because you kill faster. It probably increases your clear health by 200 hp or so in saved autos from monsters, which makes a clear go from "OK" to "full sustained without using a potion, allowing back to back ganks on two lanes." It more than enables actually going leashless clears and still coming out of the jungle at full HP on Kayn, which is massive from the enabled aggressive counterjungling (such as starting at the enemy buff or even raptors into buff if ballsy) or otherwise amping the clears.
jadelink1 votesaaaalll the silver junglers who cunning use that vision plant just before ganking.
Papa Andrei2 votesI don’t understand how removing the things that made the jungle actually feel skillful, eas good. Back when i joined even (Early S5) the Jungle was intimidating, and the djfference between a new jungler and a good jungler was immense. It allowed for options, not just “Smite for health!”
rtbf2256182411 votesBut the game has already lost nearly half of it's complexity from the earlier seasons. You did that to appeal to low elo? Why??? I can't even climb out of Silver as an ex-Diamond thanks to how easy it is for people to nuke me up front. I'm tired of no strategy in the game existing. As a Jungler for example, you just keep pathing yourself in the jungle until your team hopefully wins the game with your aid. It's not fun. What happened to compositions and managing camp times? Now everything is given to you on the scoreboard and you're fighting the items more than the champions.
Douglas Funnie1 votesStop catering toward noobs. This is suppose to be a competitive game where a skill-gap is supposed to be imminent. If you're bad at the game, learn from your mistakes and practice until you get better. If you cater toward noobs, the skill-gap diminishes which makes it easier for low experienced players to outplay higher skilled players. There's no reason for bad players to practice anymore, everything is available at their fingertips because Riot's holding their hands. Which is horrible for a competitive game! What's the point of rank system if everyone can outplay anyone due to excessive damage and RNG?
Schenix1 votesIt is understandable, that while those buffs existed they added a wonderful paradigm to the game. However to new players who may not know to read tooltips for hovering over monsters, which few notice, they would never understand until someone in the game told them under whatever circumstance.
Instead of removing them though, adding it to the tutorial or redoing the buffs a bit, or just adding a visual indicator on smite for each buff such as with a small indicator on the smited ground and like the 9999 on Arcade Ezreal, read off the buff instead and have a small animation of it compiling into the debuff icon above your abilities. Multiple ways besides. A mechanic that was actually well done was removed because of entry level blocks when those are perfectly viable to work on. Regardless, at the time I'm sure it was a reasonable decision but it is something that I would strongly wish to see return in some form when you look at the jungle again.
HalcyonDweller4 votesWhat about adding them back as relics that could be picked up? Perhaps allow players to pick up an effect from channeling on a relic for a short period of time?
Or maybe they could be given as consumable items for junglers? Consuming it in one of the quadrants of the map could enable the effect in that quadrant... maybe that's getting too into more complex stuff though, I'm just looking for ways to make this idea more viable.
RiotRiot MapleNectar11 votesHmm...the second pitch there is particularly intriguing for me. Often times what determines whether you are or are not a viable jungler is based on whether or not you're able to do your first 1-2 clears while being able to gank or invade. Letting you make a choice of item that gives you an early buff seems interesting, but I think it'd be better to solve this problem through some of jungle sustain things we've been targeting.
The other thing is we've pseudo replaced a number of the buffs already in other ways in the system. The gromp buff is essentially tied into the damage burn that talisman applies, scrying orb thing serves the purpose of the vision buff from raptors and the spirit wolf from wolf camp. That means we're only really missing the stun, so if we were to do this we'd probably need to come up with additional buffs that would provide interesting gameplay.
HalcyonDweller1 votesAlright then, now I'm excited to see what you folks are doing with jungle sustain. Are you referring to the %Missing Health and Mana scaling changes or some other experiments that we don't know about yet?
Most of that I understand, but I'm not sure about the spirit wolf bit. I think that getting something that could protect half of your jungle for a period of time against invades might be nice to have again. Or even to have something that could work for a shorter period of time in the enemy jungle. Maybe it's unnecessary because of wards, but wards are fixed and not as interactive, IMO.
What Is Smite2 voteswould it ever be possible to bring back the season 4 style spirit stone passive back onto the current iterations of jungle items? It was 8% of damage you deal to jungle camps back as health and 4% back as mana. To me it was the most healthiest iteration of tier 1 jungle items since it opened the jungle up to so many different champions and gave variety to who could show up in each game.
FCJAAAAGOOOO1 votesMaybe remove it from smite and put it on jungle items instead and having it proc automatically on the next slain camp with a ~3 minute cooldown? Mayhaps the cooldown could be reduced as the jungle item is upgraded, helping it feel like an actual finished item? That way players wouldn't have to rely on spending smites to earn them!
Sahn Uzal1 votesI mean, I can see how Krug buff is hard to use correctly for lower ranked players, for example, but ''Smite Gromp if you are a Tank, Smite Wolves if you're against a Shaco'' was pretty understandable for lower ranks. I'm saying that as someone who was a lower ranked player at the time.
Snowman Arc1 votesSo, just because newbies couldn't AT FIRST realize what each smite does, it's correct to remove it? I disagreed then, I disagree now. It's not my fault that unskilled players can't jungle well enough so that they will need extra HP smiting camps. It's like saying let's make every ability targeted because Bronzies can't hit skillshots.
GigglesO1 votes[{quoted}](name=Maple Nectar,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Y5rTtjAU,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2018-03-06T18:09:36.334+0000)
it was a pretty opaque system that was hard to understand/appreciate for the majority of players (primarily lower level). Making smiting the correct camp to aid your clear a skill test feels...off in my opinion.
I would sure hate anything to take #skill in this game.
Bonipherus1 votesWhat's your opinion on making the smite buffs a keystone? It'd definitely be in the inspiration tree I know that much
r4ndomkill1 votesmake it jungle item enchant and boost the power of the smite buffs, it sounds like a fun idea.
Rewt7 votesIm a jungle main and gotta say. glad they are gone.
They were really dumb.
The wraiths smite buff was really dumb because it was one of the causes for vision creep. Thankfully riot fixed that on all fronts.
S7 was the best Season for jungle since S3. And S8 has been just as great.
Honestly i would go as far as to say S8 has been the most fun ive had in the jungle ever. and ive been a jungle main since S2
Akali is SO HOT2 votesYou mean the wolf camp?
Rewt1 voteswraiths became Raptors. I still call them wraiths
flibitydoo1 votesI concur
the game basically boiled down to "smite the raptors-if you don't, you're a moron and are worthless to your team". Gromp smite only existed for like 3 patches when tanks were broken and you could literally afk with a thornmail and gromp buff and watch an adc with lifesteal kill literally themselves on you. And then after that the bonus dmg was just worth nothing since it does nothing to improve your jungle pressure beyond clearspeed. And the other smite choices were also worthless (oh wow vision on the half of the jungle that no one cares about or like 100 points of extra tower true damage yippee, and smiting blue felt so stupid compared to red because you were going to get blue buff anyways so why would you want some immediate mana when you are about to having infinite mana for 3 minutes).
Darkin Hybrid3 votesI think they should bring back those buffs but change them slightly, because some of them were quite how to put it.. useless.
I don't find myself using those plants too often besides blasting cone plant.
Raoul3 votesDepends.
Back then you had to smite that camp or you were not doing it right. If you actually had to smite if for your jungle didnt matter.
Now you can use smite when you need to be faster or to heal up, and saving it for your next gank isnt as punishing as before too.
AmetDeCrypt2 votesthey were aight, even as an off jungler I could appreciate them, but I like these new buffs as well because I can use them without bringing smite into the game as support which is frowned on for some reason...
XxxLumberJackxxX2 votesI miss the mana return most rip jungle Kathus
Jinx Only2 votesi like the smite buffs, i think they would help with diversity which seems to be something riot wants this mid season.
they want to open bot lane to allow mages and bruisers and stuff to go bot lane, and in their video they mentioned they like seeing zyra and morgana jungle.
i haven't seen hardly any morgana or zyra jungles though, and i feel like it's because of 2 reasons
1 reason is junglers are able to gank alot right now, many champions aren't as good at ganking as others. but i think riot is planning on changing the jungle a bit soon. if they make jungle require less ganking maybe it can help allow others things to be in the jungle more.
the 2nd reason is counterjungling. some champions struggle in the jungle because of counterjungling. the smites buffs were able to help with that.
the thing about smite buffs was you had to use your brain. if you smited for vision you then wouldn't have your smite for offensive reasons like ganking or killing scuttle.
if you see the enemy jungler ganking bot though that means you don't need to smite wolves for defense, you have to pay attention to the map and see where the enemy jungler is, instead of just smite a wolf every time it spawns. you can gank and use your smite offensively instead or something, it causes you to need to think about what the best way is to use your smite and i liked that.
if riot really wants more diversity like they say they do then i think the smite buffs are a big help.
i want to see more things in the jungle, it feels fun, i hope they figure something out if this isn't the best way to go.
i don't feel like the smite buffs are too hard to learn
and if zombie wards trigger oracles from smiting raptors that would cause smiting raptors to feel less powerful, which would be something new.
xSightlessx2 votesJungle minigaaaames. Wasnt the reason they were taken out was cause jgs focused too much on the jungle as they held more value then ganking a lane due to map control or something?
Cowgirl Ed1 votesnobody misses them unnecessary things that complicate stuff even more
the simpler the better
Blåbæret3 votes[{quoted}](name=Kiss Kiss Kiss,realm=EUW,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=Y5rTtjAU,comment-id=0003,timestamp=2018-03-06T18:01:46.078+0000)
nobody misses them unnecessary things that complicate stuff even more
the simpler the better
You're a casual. No one really cares about your opinion.
Cowgirl Ed2 votesnah, they're straight up retardation, like the useless stupid plants and other useless unneeded stuff (see also: champ reworks that fail and are left to rot). i've been playing this game since s1, i play every day and have more than 3 accounts i wouldn't consider really casual since with one of them i got high diamond in s3
rtbf2256182411 votesWasn't that Season 5 though? No way that started in S4.
xelaker1 votessmite buffs were so much better than plants
NCBuckets1 votesdoBoth.jpg
Laçez1 votesI'm fairly sure they got rid of them b'cuz they seemed like a cop out in terms of jungling and effectively building a clear path for whichever champ you were playing. They were fun though, (apart from the wolves buff imo).
Supreme Senpai691 votesI just miss the wolves. The entire enemy team always just camps in my jungle and without tracker's knife I'm so limited. Obviously my team should be collapsing when this happens, but relying on your team isn't a valid strategy and we all know your teams aren't always going to be good. I miss going tracker's knife+red trinket to keep everyone out of my jungle in the mid game. I get that with too much vision, especially wolves, counter jungling and invading is too risky and never happens. But constantly being invaded and counter jungled and being helpless to it really feels shitty.
Can't even buy sightstone anymore, for those times I went Ivern. Should I buy a support item?
SalterinoK1 votesJust another feature taken away for no reason just like boot enchantments
Vectros1 votesYes, I miss those days. More strategic.
Slythion1 votesThe jungle has been consistently and gradually getting "dumbed down" for several seasons now. It used to be arguably the most difficult role to master which seemed fair at the time given their influence in the game, "better jungler wins". Now it's easy af to jungle and it feels really bad for anyone who remembers what it used to be like
Der Lindwurm1 votesIt seems like the Gromp just isn't the awesome and revered being it once was when junglers don't start it to get the gift of the toadstool to help them clear other camps anymore.
