Fixing jungle items

I think everyone can agree that the jungle has never been properly balanced. At every point there has been an item that has been superior to the others. The easy argument is that one item will always be better even if just slightly so and people will naturally migrate towards them. I think pretty much everyone can agree that that argument is an easy way out to avoid fixing some basic problems that have always been in the jungle items.

First the jungle needs to be simplified. There are two parts to the jungle fighting monsters and fighting champions. There are two parts to each of these, fighting monsters involves damaging them and sustain (both health and mana), fighting champions involves damaging them and surviving their damage. So effectively we have four aspects of the game where a jungler needs to be balanced.

Sustain: To Riot's credit they have generally had a pretty good handle on sustain, the various items generally fill the needs, sure some have been better some have been worse, but over all both the health and mana sustain has been fairly good. Plus since sustain is currently flat and the same across all champions I think we can agree that sustain the jungle is generally balanced right now. This means we have 3 aspects of the jungler where there are issues that really need to be looked at.

The different stats and how they interact with these three aspects of the jungle

• AD items have always excelled at this because AD adds damage to both abilities and auto attacks. This means that for an equal value AD provides the most damage to monsters. In short AD is fine.

• Attack speed as a stat generally performs adequately at this because of how much damage comes from auto attacks in the jungle. Infinite scaling items are a challenge, I personally think Devourer is close to good but it is impossible to accurately say because of the state of the other jungle items and where Devourer should be balanced. If the other jungle items are closer in power then Devourer will be easier to balance and assess it's actual power.

• Tanks have had issues with clearing the jungle through many iterations. The result of the tank struggle is that they are neglected in favor of AD junglers. AD junglers were able to buy the AD jungle item and out farm tanks to the point where they were about as tanky as someone running tank jungle items, but they also had the damage. The current iteration of the jungle the items have the same basic problem EXCEPT for once the position is reversed with Cinderhulk. Cinderhulk resolved the major issue tank junglers had in the jungle, being able to effectively clear. But it created a problem in one of the other aspects of the jungle, damaging champions. Currently Cinderhulk provides comparable damage to champions as warrior enchant PLUS Cinderhulk being the tank item also provides durability. This is a glaring oversight with the item. Just for example at level 10 Cinderhulk well deals 21 dps (obviously mitigated but that is irrelevant), warrior enchant provides 40 AD. In other words Cinderhulk roughly breaks even with Warrior in damage if it is hitting 2 targets. Or in short in a 2v2 situation a cinderhulk jungler will deal comparable damage to a warrior jungler, but the cinderhulk jungler also has more health. It gets worse though warrior has already provided all the damage it can. Cinderhulk on the other hand deals more damage later in the game while also providing even more durability. Fortunately this is really easy to fix. Cinderhulk is a tank item, providing durability is good, providing damage to champions is bad. Removing the damage dealt to champions that cinderhulk does effectively balances the item. Removing the damage to champion, means tanks still have a comparable clear to AD junglers and they can build their tank items and be more tanky than AD junglers, but it also means you don't have 5k health super tanks running around doing more damage than the AD junglers.

• AP. AP has always been in a crappy place, with a couple exceptions at any given time due to their kit. Fiddlesticks being the obvious one, Nidalee is currently the other big one thanks to the root to monsters she was given. The problem is with the stat. AP enhances abilities, but it does not improve auto attacks. Meaning if you compare it to AD in damage to jungle monsters, AP as a stat is woefully behind until a lot of it is stacked and champions can effectively combo out a camp to clear it. When you look at the item and how it performs against champions, it is a good item, it has a decent amount of AP and the CDR is a valuable stat for many champions. It is AWFUL in the jungle though. Yes it allows you to use your abilities more frequently, but that means you burn more mana in a clear compared to the effectively free auto attack damage that AD champions get. In short the clear for AP champions needs improvement, specifically the sustained damage. Currently this is addressable thanks to the machete monster burn, give it an AP ratio and AP would effectively enhance both abilities AND auto attacks in the jungle just like AD. Plus it would be easy to balance this damage by adjusting the ratio and if there are concerns about late game providing too much free clear in the jungle, simply cap the damage it can deal. But it fixes the consistent weak point for AP junglers. While not directly impacting the champion fighting of AP junglers.

There are other aspects of the jungle that are also causing discrepancies in the jungle but these are currently the two big ones. They have existed for awhile just in slightly different forms, and that is disappointing as they can be easily addressed.

TL;DR Old AD enchants allowed AD junglers to farm to the point where they would be as tanky as "tank" junglers while also having the damage from their item. Currently Cinderhulk allows tank junglers to deal comparable damage to champions as the other enchants while also providing durability. By isolating Cinderhulk into its selected role when fighting champions (tanking) this can be fixed. If a tank wants to deal damage they should need to build a damage item NOT what is a very strong tank item. AP has performed well when fighting champions, the problem is in the jungle and their clear, since AP does relatively little compared to AD (and now cinderhulk) AP junglers tend to fall behind their counter parts (a couple obvious exceptions simply due to their kits e.g. fiddle and nidalee). Giving the machete monster burn an AP ratio puts AP on par with AD when clearing the jungle while not directly improving AP junglers ability to fight champions.