I've been playing League since 2010, the scuttle change is one of the worst changes I've ever seen

Now I know what you're saying. "But League of Cleavers" "But Juggernaut update" "But assassin update" "But Ardent Censor meta" but I honest to God think this scuttle crab stuff may be one of the dumbest change in the history of this game.

I've been a pretty avid jungle player since season 3 and I've never felt so shitty about playing jungle than right now. Sure, there were times when jungle was less impactful, had less diversity, etc., but there's never been a time where I'm FORCED to duel the enemy jungler if I want to remain at all relevant. I like champions with late game power curves. Kayn, Evelynn, Kindred, Hecarim, etc. Even though I have played duel type junglers who actually like to fight and do aggressive invades, late game champions have always been my favorite.

If I want to play jungle now I'm probably going to get shit on by a Graves or Lee Sin over a stupid crab because it has literally been made as important as red or blue buff, if not more. Many people may think it's a bad change but disagree that it's as bad as I'm saying, but hear me out.

1. This change was done despite everyone under the sun saying it was a horrible idea. Even non-junglers realize how completely stupid a change would be to make a coin flip crab the most impactful camp in the game.

2. It ruins the purpose of the actual scuttle crab. The scuttle crab was made to heal off of for junglers and later in the game when duels are breaking out over epic monsters it serves as unremovable vision control as well as a speed boost, greatly impacting the team who got it. Since junglers are basically forced to spawn kill the crab until like 15 or 20 minutes now, and because it only spawns on one side at once, you usually won't have a crab available to kill when you're fighting over an epic. Nice.

3. It kills diversity. Like I said, if you want to play a jungler who isn't particularly good at 1v1 dueling (which is a lot of jungle champions) you might as well go play a different role. Not everyone likes Lee Sin, Riot. I don't give a shit that it makes pro games more exciting, the other 99.9% of the community doesn't always want to fight the other jungler. The reason I jungle is because I like to have lane impact and carry potential while also being less susceptible to counter picks.

4. This change was clearly not done with good intentions. Say what you will about Ardent, Black Cleaver, or the failed class updates, but at least Riot genuinely thought those were good for the game at the time. This change reeks of LC$, like many of the stupid changes in the last year or so. Some of us frankly don't give a shit about LC$, but the game is being balanced to make pro games as competitive as possible. When the game used to be balanced around high plat/low diamond, pro games were way more fun to watch. Sure, they were fun to watch because Udyrs and Olafs walked into the enemy team and 1v5 pentakilled, but the game was pretty fun for the rest of us and pro games were a bloodbath. People at the highest level of play will make very few mistakes, so Riot has to put RNG elements like scuttle in to make some excitement happen, at the cost of the game that everyone else plays.

5. A feeling of shittiness. You know what nobody likes to feel in a competitive game? That they were screwed by something they had no control over. Just ganked top and didn't get the kill? Well the crab will spawn bot just to make it worse. Fought a hard fight bottom that went even and you have no health to fight over the stupid crab next to the dragon? Feels bad.

5b) A feeling of shittiness related to flow. I don't want to stop farming camps, go all the way to the river, and maybe get a crab. It just doesn't FEEL correct. You're farming up your camps like a storm but the crab is spawning, do you go all the way out there, possibly get it, have it take you to the other side of the river, then you have to go BACK to get wolves? This isn't a fun gameplay decision, this is an unnecessary risk that one patch ago no one in their right mind would have considered. Unfortunately if you don't fight for the crab, you'll fall behind. Riot has always said they wanted to open up jungle paths, but the current viable jungle path is "If the crab is alive or about to spawn, drop what you're doing and go have a stupid duel to get it."

Idk. This is a rant if you couldn't tell and I could keep going but I'll stop here. Everything that's needed to be said has already been said, I'm just adding my voice to the mix. The jungle changes are stupid, and honestly make me wonder if I should be a Top/Support player in ranked instead of the role I've been crushing it as since season 3.