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The REAL Reason People Don't Like Jungle

Hilsun·2/24/2020, 2:29:17 PM·1 votes·5,463 views

Dear RIOT,

As a jungle main for the past 5 or so years, I appreciate that you're taking a serious look at the role. But while I appreciate your efforts to expand the pool of viable champions in an effort to encourage players to embrace the jungle, that's not the reason players—especially low ELO players—don't enjoy the role. The real reason people don't like jungling is because jungle is the easiest role to blame when a game goes poorly, and players do not typically enjoy being constantly blamed for their laners' lack of map awareness, mechanical insufficiencies, and selfishness.

While this has almost certainly been universally true through League's history, I feel it is particularly true this season due to the heightened power of objectives alongside nerfed jungle experience and ganking disincentivization—you have simultaneously made jungling more impactful and more difficult, making it even easier for a team to place blame on the jungler.

I know that there have already been buffs to jungle camp exp and gold to begin addressing some of these issues, and I appreciate that work, but unfortunately that does not mitigate the amount of blame a jungler receives whenever anything goes wrong. As a jungler, if a laner dies to a gank, it's your fault for not counter ganking. If enemy jungler gets rift herald or dragon, it's your fault for not being there first, even if all lanes are feeding and/or have 0 priority/presence. If you are constantly being invaded by enemy jungler and laners, it's your fault for not warding enough. If bottom lane goes 0/4 in the first three minutes before you've even been able to clear both buffs, it's definitely your fault for not ganking at all, and that same bottom lane will loudly complain all game about how they never got a gank (for anyone who seriously doesn't know why a jungler doesn't gank a fed lane, it's because the odds of a successful gank are out the window at that point).

Unfortunately, I do not have any ideas to alleviate these painpoints outside of /muteall or playing a different role. The sheer amount of map-presence naturally embedded into the role means that a jungler is required to juggle an absurd amount of difficult decision-making and prioritization that most players neither see nor appreciate. In their mind, their lane is all that matters, so if they don't receive ganks, you as the jungler must be doing nothing.

Sincerely,

A Jungler who is incredibly sick of being flamed for other people being bad at League of Legends

43 Comments

PhearBunny2/24/2020, 2:40:07 PM7 votes

Why i dislike jungle- Because unless i pick Lee or Elise, my success is directly tied to my laners having priority. If they cant collapse to help me, but the enemy junglers teamates are available to collapse and help him, its a automatic loss for me. I will be forced to powerfarm my jungle, sitting around waiting for mistakes to capitalize on. Playing entirely reactively rather than proactively because im down 2 levels to the mid laner and enemy jungler. If i be proactive, im going to feed. Being forced to play reactively rather than proactively literally puts the game in your enemies hands. Granted they can still throw the game, but thats literally what needs to happen for you to make a comeback.

Sylaelque2/24/2020, 3:06:15 PM5 votes

I secured all the objectives and didn't give a single drake to enemy still people flaming me and reporting for no reason. My honor rank ruined after playing jungle... Even I got 3 honors at so many games, it seems just doesn't matter. [sg-janna] https://www.leagueofgraphs.com/match/euw/4425574540#participant1

Sleeping Bat2/24/2020, 3:29:51 PM4 votes

you've even been able to clear both buffs

I'm not trying to justify a 0/4 bot, but if you're not ganking on level 2 right after first buff you're a bad jg in current meta. Hey, don't look at me like that, these are Rito's ideas, not mine, to reward aggressive jg and penalize the passive ones, that's how Rito understands "dynamic gameplay".

III BAKURYU III 2/24/2020, 4:18:29 PM4 votes

I don't like playing jungle because you rely on your teammates more so than support and adc relies on each other. You need to be in 3 places at once, you need to get every dragon, you're constantly walking in fog of war by yourself because people don't know how to ward, 15-20 mins into the game your jungle gets taken away on a regular basis, you gotta donate your blues over to a mid laner that will feed it away, you are at times, 1-2 levels behind and have crappy items, if you take 1 lane cs your laners call "GG".

You are pretty much everyone's b$tch

GankLord2/24/2020, 5:12:56 PM3 votes

Preach brother. You see my name right? I 100% gave up jungling near the end of last season and i've been jungling since the end of Season 3. It's complete garbage.

NF Remilia2/24/2020, 4:21:32 PM3 votes

Me: Taking/stealing 4 dragons. Me: ganking bot and mid gettign them ahead Me: Stealing baron My midlaner goes 1v5 late game, after that adc follows. Top and support trying to rescue a 10%hp adc instead of backing off. My team: Report jungler so useless...

Mangled Puppets2/24/2020, 6:42:57 PM2 votes

Because Riot has forced such an importance on objectives and because snowballing is getting increasingly easier to do, naturally the role most in control of those win cons are going to get blamed. Not that I think that is a good thing at all; It's a sad truth but that is what Riot enforced with these changes just so that proplay is still fresh and fights break out more often. All it takes is one gank and the other side can snowball. Sometimes all it takes is a mildly successful gank (Not even a kill, but burnt sums, wasted mana, low hp, etc.) If you can force a recall you take a couple plates from the turret and your lane is ahead in xp and gold and probably has a major component to their first item. Laners playing safe also get penalized if their jungler doesn't punish over extended lanes because then they are just handing the enemy free turret plates and put a target on their head to get dove by the enemy laner+jungle. Obviously this doesn't mean a jungler can't be making an impact somewhere else on the map when this is going on, (maybe they are securing a dragon or herald, maybe they are ganking another lane) but if the jungle themselves is behind, or maybe just playing safe themselves/power farming, it creates an unhealthy incentive to blame the role because one jungler is snowbaling the game and the other isn't. Some people are just awful at the game and die 1v1 and blame jungle, that's been true since the game's creation, the reason jungle blame has increased so much is because laners feel the success or defeat in a lane is too heavily dependent on a jungler. People don't like to lose their lane because the enemy just so happens to have gotten 3 plates worth of gold, and free passive stats from a dragon. It no longer feels like you are playing a fair game anymore because it is outside the window of control a player has. ("my laner didn't beat me because he outplayed me, he just got extra perks from a dragon and also got 2 plates worth of gold so he just out stat me.")

I think the problem is snowballing is far too easy. I don't think the jungler should be directly responsible for player performance, but Riot has sort of created this extremely unhealthy relationship with the jungle role because it forces them to play a scapegoat role to blame all their problems on because the role they play in the game is so extremely tied to everyone else's performance.

Łilÿpú2/24/2020, 8:13:50 PM2 votes

Hmmm... tbh I kinda like how jungling is now... I thought my Evelynn would have been gutted by the jungle changes but honestly, I have a much clearer understanding of what I need to do as a jungler and that's to gank when I hit LVL 3 and soak up lane minons>trasition to my scuttle then transition gank to that side lane and soak up those minions in that side lane....that being said though.... you really must have thicker skin to be able to play the jug role ... its league of legends, so you know literally every game, will more than likely have someone who just wants to be toxic, ignore them if they think your just stealing exp from your lane. because it means those players don't know how to jungle themselves. I end up being LVL 6 eve way before the enemy JG so I get the ball rolling HARD on Evelynn in that way. and it works well for me. i just think JG just means you have extra responsibilities which are fine because the rewards for a job well done is great. but if you can't deal with it there are others that can take the role.

Bugog2/24/2020, 8:28:05 PM2 votes

Jungle isn't gated by champions, it's limited by knowledge. It's particularly bad if the enemy jungler is a lot more experienced and counter jungles you hard. It's also easy to get thrown off by a level 1 invade and all kinds of other shenanigans.

I don't know anyone who was like "if I could only play garen or gnar jungle I would main it".

HeeroTX2/24/2020, 9:37:46 PM2 votes

As someone who HATES (and pretty much never played) Jungle, I'll say the problem is its a role that MUST be proactive. Any other role you CAN (maybe not ideal, but can) play defensively. If you're not playing Jungle offensively/aggressively, then you're losing, period. If that's not your play style, then you're screwed. If you're new to the role and the enemy is not, you're screwed. If your champion is not currently suited to that play-style, you're screwed. Simply put, the risk/reward for anyone other than jungle mains is really bad.

2gudaiya2/26/2020, 1:14:59 AM1 votes

even right now, 1/5/2 Vi rq's the game after feeding from jungle. garbage junglers. i'm being 3 man ganked again.

Freewalker2/26/2020, 1:41:54 AM1 votes

I tried jungling once about five years ago. Executed on the first monster after leesh. Never again.

Soft Mist2/25/2020, 12:51:23 AM1 votes

The reason i think people don't like playing jungle, is the same reason they don't like playing games against bots, its mostly you versus camps. other lanes it's you, versus the laner, versus minions, versus enemy jg

maybe that's just me, but I just found jungle boring, I don't really care about the flame personally, also jungle is supposed to be support, it's not a carry role, and everyone loves to be the carry top/mid/adc as a jungler, if laners lose, then we just lose

you know there is actually a mute option, that you can toggle before you get into a game, that mutes team and or enemy chat. If i had to pick a role where i could mute team chat, and not communicate, it wouldn't be adc/supp because you should be telling your adc/supp to freeze, push, go in, when to ward etc

that leaves top/mid/jg top might be an island, so i'd be fine to mute as a top laner, jungle is you versus camps, and occasional ganking when you want to, so I'd be fine to mute all as a jungler too

jungle is the easiest role to blame when a game goes poorly

you say that, but imo the easiest role to blame when a game goes poorly is the lane that fed.

you must be talking about a world where you never gank bro. or where every single lane is losing, i guarantee you if you have a lane that isn't far behind, and you finally hit 6, as long as you gank them. and get a successful gank off. that laner will be on your side. if bot/top hard int, but you get mid kills, mid is not going to be blaming jungle.

also just pointing out again it's so easy to /mute all as a jungler and just play the game before game even starts you can mute during queue or champ select

The thigh guy2/25/2020, 6:32:08 PM1 votes

I dislike jungle now after 4 years of being a jungle main, because you have ALL this responsibility, but none of the power needed to justify the amount of responsibility. This is what a team expect of their jungler who is behind in gold to everyone but the support, and behind in levels to both solo laners.

  1. Camp top
  2. Camp mid
  3. Camp bot
  4. Solo every dragon
  5. Solo both rift heralds
  6. Secure baron
  7. Help take all turret plates but don’t take any gold
  8. Be in every fight ever
  9. Ward for every lane
  10. Track and ping enemy jungler

All while keeping up with farm, and you’ll likely still be flamed.

Jazzchimera2/24/2020, 5:52:38 PM1 votes

Play Top, doesn´t matter if you win or lose the laning phase, the only time they flame you is when you don´t use Teleport. Your team decides the game, Top is the most deadbeat lane in the game that even your teamates forgets about you.

OnlyOneLift2/24/2020, 3:03:11 PM1 votes

I know that feel bro, but I don't completely agree. Mute whiny laners right away and just do as much as you can yourself. Other than mid and top, other roles can't pressure the map the way that a jungler can, and a jungler can pretty easily remove top from most games. If you role swap, you can get flamed less but also feel the pain of having your lane screwed by a pressuring enemy jungler. Let the heat roll off and leave the whiny trash players behind in ELO. Tarzaned wasn't Rank 1 for 4 seasons because jungle can't carry, he was rank 1 because jungle CAN carry.

2gudaiya2/26/2020, 1:08:23 AM1 votes

too many junglers are bad at jungling. maybe if they got better at it i wouldn't flame them. like wtf man why is dude roaming top side jungle when i've informed him i am drawing enemy team to top lane so that he can get drake? 90 seconds later, drake is gone, to enemy team, well done team, despite them sending 3/4/all fucking 5 to deal with my split push. garbage junglers.