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Is is just me or has Chilling Smite killed jungle variety?

SeargentAnus··22 votes·4,225 views

It seems it's brought back the trinity of 'skillful' junglers. Jarvan, Lee, and Vi (The lol I build no damage but kill everything trio). These three were starting to become less popular around the end of season 4 (with Lee as an exception) with actual AP junglers seeing a rise in popularity (Fiddlesticks most notably). Now honestly I have very little issue with the trio as they're all slightly difficult junglers to play. The issue I have is that skill is thrown out the window with one upgrade, Chilling Smite. It makes their skillshots extremely easy to land, and if you have a laner with a skillshot it's almost always a guaranteed kill. Laners used to have a chance at battling in 1v2 or 2v3 before this upgrade. With this upgrade they'll hit one button, deal damage, gain movement speed, and give an extremely strong slow making it impossible to escape or fight when a jungler gets in smite range.

An even larger issue is that some junglers simply can't even think about getting the item as they're forced to buy Trailblazer or die to camps/get so low you can't gank anyways. I feel the jungle should be open to any champion that has a chance in it even you Twitch and TwistedFate.

I can see Riot doing a few things with the item.

  1. Removing it and thinking of a new jungle item to fill its niche.
  2. Making it skillshot based smite similar to FQC, and give it an extremely small AoE
  3. Lower the time the slow is on the champion
  4. Reduce the damage it deals on objectives/monsters
  5. Buff the damage on Poachers/Trailblazer on objectives/monsters

What do you guys think? I just want the jungle to be viable for more champions. It can be boring when the same basic champion trio face you every game .

63 Comments

SmokingPuffin11 votes

Just you. When Trailblazer was dominant, we had near zero diversity too.

Stalker's is a strong item, but it's not the reason why the jungle champion pool is four champions deep.

SeargentAnus2 votes

{quoted}

Just you. When Trailblazer was dominant, we had near zero diversity too.

Stalker's is a strong item, but it's not the reason why the jungle champion pool is four champions deep.

Yeah the Jungle wasn't balanced when Trailblazer was dominant. Stalkers is extremely situational when you should pick it up. It can work against junglers with bad clear. Why do you feel the jungle isn't seeing variety then?

{quoted}

It has become a game of:

Can your jungler get chilling smite, clear with relative speed, and not get absurdly low?

No?

Choose a jungler that can you idiot.

I don't main jungle, but I play very old fashioned junglers. Picked Morgana jungle and my team went up in fumes. Tried to carry them, but their Jarvan simply could gank more often, and much more safely. I was forced to pick TrailBlazer as her early game is absolute garbage in the jungle while he was able to get Chilling. He pulled his first gank off at 4:30 on the bottom lane with his Chilling Smite, and Blue buff getting the easy double kill. Didn't seem like I could do anything to help my laners or even tell them what to do before my ganking opened up around 7 minutes.

SmokingPuffin12 votes

Why do you feel the jungle isn't seeing variety then?

The goal of the jungle rework was to have specialists in different areas of jungling be good. You'd have early gankers, power farmers, counterjunglers, and jungle duelists -- each of them get an item. Then you can tune the strengths of the four playstyles with the items.

The problem we ran into is that we still have jungle generalists -- champions that are good at most or all of those areas. When you have generalists that are strong, specialists don't see play, and the result is low variety that turns almost purely on champion power level with no regard to playstyle.

Concretely, it doesn't matter which jungle item is the best, Lee Sin will be great with that item.

SeargentAnus1 votes

{quoted}

The goal of the jungle rework was to have specialists in different areas of jungling be good. You'd have early gankers, power farmers, counterjunglers, and jungle duelists -- each of them get an item. Then you can tune the strengths of the four playstyles with the items.

The problem we ran into is that we still have jungle generalists -- champions that are good at most or all of those areas. When you have generalists that are strong, specialists don't see play, and the result is low variety that turns almost purely on champion power level with no regard to playstyle.

Concretely, it doesn't matter which jungle item is the best, Lee Sin will be great with that item.

So you'd rather see these 3 junglers nerfed?

[{quoted}](name=What Is Smite,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iGPHqrI4,comment-id=000300000000,timestamp=2015-02-03T23:44:06.296+0000)

If it helps, some champions are better of with the challenging smite as their DPS is upped so much in 3 seconds of true damage AA's

The item is much more situational. It depends on how well you can stick on a target.

SmokingPuffin7 votes

So you'd rather see these 3 junglers nerfed?

Jarvan is just plain OP. Needs nerfs.

The other two are probably not that OP, and are more in need of defined strengths and weaknesses. Add power here, remove power there, make it clear what they're supposed to be good at.

SeargentAnus2 votes

{quoted}

Jarvan is just plain OP. Needs nerfs.

The other two are probably not that OP, and are more in need of defined strengths and weaknesses. Add power here, remove power there, make it clear what they're supposed to be good at.

Jarvan just needs his passive and armor shred nerfed.

Auz the Ripper1 votes

His bases or scalings could afford to be hit too

exiledFromBadmen1 votes

Jarvan just needs to be a tank, just his tag says.

Bears Dont Care1 votes

{quoted}

Jarvan is just plain OP. Needs nerfs.

The other two are probably not that OP,

The fact you believe Lee Sin is not OP compared to Jarvan makes it impossible to take you serious.

"Jarvan is OP, but the guy with higher AD ratio's...an execute...low CD mobility tools...better engagement and more flexibility on his kit is not OP."

SmokingPuffin2 votes

Lee's problem is that he's too much of a generalist. He's like Guile theme, he goes with everything. He is constantly picked in competitive play because there is no situation and no team composition where you go "you know, I really don't want to have Lee here".

There isn't much evidence for Lee having a power level problem. He's a losing champ in every elo and tends to be pretty mediocre in competitive win rates. Very low Lee ban rates in competitive play, too.

Bears Dont Care1 votes

{quoted}

Lee's problem is that he's too much of a generalist. He's like Guile theme, he goes with everything. He is constantly picked in competitive play because there is no situation and no team composition where you go "you know, I really don't want to have Lee here".

There isn't much evidence for Lee having a power level problem. He's a losing champ in every elo and tends to be pretty mediocre in competitive win rates. Very low Lee ban rates in competitive play, too.

There is quite.a bit of evidence. Lee ains damage rotation deals mpre.damage than jarvan, making his damage effective over a longer period of time.

Champions like reksai have higher damage only due to low cds but her burst is.lower as is her.mobility and utility.

Lee sins winrate looks low because he has a high pickrate, vs amumu eith a low pickrate but high win rate. Furthermore, solo queue rarely is about teamwork and lee sin is not as independent as some junglers.

The lower banrate is a result of them fearing reksai

SmokingPuffin1 votes

There is quite.a bit of evidence. Lee ains damage rotation deals mpre.damage than jarvan, making his damage effective over a longer period of time.

If we're just counting up damage numbers in a kit, neither Lee nor Jarvan are anything special.

Lee sins winrate looks low because he has a high pickrate

It's a poor argument. Plot win rate and pick rate and you will see a positive correlation. For example, the top 10 champs on pick rate have an average of 50.4% win rate, while the bottom 10 champs on pick rate have an average of 47.52% win rate.

If Lee weren't in the top 10 most picked champs, it would be an average of 51.58% for the top 10 most picked champions. That is, Lee is an extreme outlier in this regard -- given his pick rate, you would expect him to have a considerably higher win rate.

The lower banrate is a result of them fearing reksai

Lee hasn't been a priority ban in years.

Klatn Yelox1 votes

Thank You. Because, when it all comes right down to it, in every kind of situation, there are champions that would be better than Lee Sin. Its just as you said, he can do anything at least mildly good. He could do with a little numbers work in his kit, reducing burst in favor of sustained damage, but I am nowhere near the expert needed to either make that decision, nor to know how to work it out. He also definitely doesn't need a nerf. But I know posts like these will never be popular, because the majority of league players are silver and bronze, where no one will believe the cooler heads. Lee Sin is OP the same way Orianna's ult is OP. Because there is no teamfight where Orianna's ult can't win it for one side or the other.

Reynard the ƒox9 votes

Champions aren't allowed to be viable unless they make LC$ Big Plays.

SeargentAnus4 votes

[{quoted}](name=a god damn hero,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=iGPHqrI4,comment-id=0004,timestamp=2015-02-03T23:46:32.987+0000)

Champions aren't allowed to be viable unless they make LC$ Big Plays.

I don't understand Riot. You think a larger pool of champions would be much more entertaining to watch then just the same trio.

Reynard the ƒox18 votes

I remember my horror when, at the last All-Star event, the community voted for Lucian and Thresh not once, BUT FOR BOTH BOT LANES TO USE. Riot must have been so happy with themselves. Here we had a chance to vote for Urgot ADC with Poppy support, and we as a whole decide we would rather watch Lucian and Thresh, not only for the millionth time, but in a MIRROR MATCH.

Narasimha3 votes

To be entirely fair, I don't think anyone is particularly interested in watching Urgot.

Pæan8 votes

I am :C

Klatn Yelox3 votes

I am too! I propose anyone who was disappointed in that match post their desire to see urgot here, to raise awareness. And to keep this thread alive by posting daily, until Riot gets upset because they can't archive this post/thread yet. A veritable reverse boycott.

Pæan1 votes

Let's do it! My post about urgot a couple weeks back already got 2.8k views so there is a start.

Ulric Greatsword1 votes

For Urgot!

Klatn Yelox1 votes

Never actually played him, but am saving up IP as we speak. Always wanted to see why that guy can hit me at my turret while under his turret. And why I have never been owned top lane quite so much by anyone but him.

Ulric Greatsword1 votes

He's got so much range because if he hits you with his acid bomb all of his long-range skillshots become targeted abilities for a few seconds. He has a % damage reduction on-hit and on his skillshots, as well as a permaslow while his shield is up. The only thing he doesn't have is a functional ult (or range outside of his acid hunter missiles, or mobility). He's great because unless your opponent knows how to deal with you you can become a major headache for the enemy team. On the downside, if anyone does know how to deal with him in lane or dodge his acid bombs he can be pretty underwhelming and vulnerable to ganks. I sometimes troll the enemy team with an on-hit resist-shred build: item 3085 item 3091 item 3004 item 3071 item 3153 It doesn't always work, but it is a scream in teamfights.

Demonsolder211 votes

heh

qetzel1 votes

It ended up being a Vayne Thresh lane, though.

Killer X 122 votes

I remember this as well. It was honestly really sad. The commentators were like, "yea they wanna see their fave players on their fave champs"

...as if we don't already see that in every LCS game, and then again in every normal when we go play alone.

Ace Access 1 votes

{quoted}

I don't understand Riot. You think a larger pool of champions would be much more entertaining to watch then just the same trio.

yeah it doesn't make much sense, why do people like watching the same champs and not different ones

Durzaka7 votes

Chilling Smite doesnt kill variety.

The fact that Poaching Smite is fucking awful kills variety. You only have 2 choices. Chilling for Damage/ganking, and Trailblazer for farming because of how bad Poaching is.

Killer X 122 votes

Poaching smite is bad, and it should feel bad.

TTUPhoenix1 votes

Pretty much. I've never bothered with Poacher's Knife. I tried Skirmisher's Sabre (on Warwick no less) once and didn't like it and went back to Stalker's. It's not even the true damage - I've only gotten a handful of kills where that seemed to matter) - but having a movement speed steal on hand is really really handy for chasing or escaping. I get Ranger's Trailblazer on Sejuani for a couple of levels to farm, then switch it out for Stalker's.

MrBuffington3 votes

The way another user put it (not verbatim): counter jungling is about being sneaky an opportunistic, not telegraphing via item choice what your strategy for the game is going to be.

straight4free6 votes

It has become a game of:

Can your jungler get chilling smite, clear with relative speed, and not get absurdly low?

No?

Choose a jungler that can you idiot.

Reynard the ƒox4 votes

B-but Nautilus is getting a new skin!

Auryiel2 votes

I just wanna ask... Why the fuck it needs to deal damage as well as slow?

MageManiacDude2 votes

TBH it increases diversity in a BAD WAY, chilling smite now gives ANY jungler a ranged from of cc some of which are not supposed to have this, like rek'sai for instance

Erockandroll2 votes

I feel like the problem with the balancing, is that a particular niche an Item tries to fill becomes Overbearing. so it gets nerfed and now the niche is no longer viable. Tanks are probably the least likely to need Chiling smite due to the lock down they already have. This said, chilling smite should not overcrowd tank Junglers CC engage.

Challenging smite Probably has the right Mechanic, just not enough trading power. Keep in mind that the goal of jungle items are transparency between junglers. So it really should not favor already good duelist, or otherwise.

chumbler2 votes

It's almost like Riot's jungle changes were basically all terrible ideas and they have no clue what they're doing.

Abyssphere1 votes

It's probably the best item but that's just because of what happened with Warwick and the fact that the other two are useless in combat. IMO Chilling is good for the game, the tanky champs need as many tools to stick to enemies as they can get.

SeargentAnus2 votes

{quoted}

It's probably the best item but that's just because of what happened with Warwick and the fact that the other two are useless in combat. IMO Chilling is good for the game, the tanky champs need as many tools to stick to enemies as they can get.

I'd be fine with it if it was being bought by tanks. The issue is that it's being bought by the early game fighters/duelists making them even more dominant. I'd like to think of a way to make it a tank item (Maybe give it a slow dependent on HP or something?), but can't think of anything crazy viable atm that will still make it a viable upgrade.

futuresight231 votes

Really, the same junglers that are at the top of the heap now are the ones that were at the end of Season 4 (or would have been in Reksai's case) besides specific changes to champs (like Kha'zix). Except for that period of the preseason when attack speed in the jungle was really strong (when Warwick was broken and TF and Kayle could jungle), the jungle really hasn't changed much in terms of who is getting picked.

Honestly, they will have to take a look at champions individually and balance accordingly. The same champs are going to be strong regardless of what jungle item is in favor unless it is badly broken in one way or another.

Serage1 votes

With every jungle change, the jungle dies for more heros... there are only a few left. Why does RIOT like it, when you can play just a few champs? I want to see new faces in the jungle. But the next patch will prefer a few jungler again...

Killer X 121 votes

Even the champs i used to get trailblazer on i have switched over to chilling smite. Its just better.

Drunk Rummate1 votes

I'm gonna let you in on a secret right now, OP:

Nidalee jungle

but don't tell anyone!

Old Man Teeto1 votes

Riot reworked the jungle to allow for more diversity in season 2, since season 1 only saw tanks with cc being played.

They reworked it again in season 3 so that the ideal goal wasn't to full clear and then gank for the rest of the game.

They reworked it again in season 4 so that carry junglers could get gold and become an additional threat.

In season 5 they decided to go back to season 3 of clear the jungle once and gank everything.

The fact the jungle requires high-damage to clear reliably and long CD's on camps, pushes those who can clear quickly (damage), and then go gank effectively. Champions which have one of the two, are bad. As tanks such as Rammus who want to gank a lot can't since they clear so slowly, and damage dealers like Yi end up running out of stuff to farm to powerup for lategame.

Couple that with the fact neither win duels, Yi can't safely invade unless he knows where the other jungler is, and Rammus being counter ganked results in a lost fight.

Tabs1 votes

Its not as much Chilling Smite being too strong, its more the other items being way to weak

Samflash31 votes

I used to build devour...until i realized that I had to autoattack them before they got the burn.

Damage reduction was great but I really enjoyed the initial smite burning my enemy.

Grouchy Poro1 votes

CC heavy junglers that lack damage benefit from skirmishers saber more (Naut and Rammus for example), and trailblazer is good for anyone early game. The only bad smite upgrade is poachers knife (I have never personally gotten this item).

Spacesuit Spiff1 votes

Meanwhile, tank junglers can actually do useful damage with item 3715 but nobody seems to have noticed. item 3706 was a huge buff to some junglers though, especially the ones that need to land skillshots.

What Riot needs to do is bring back counterjungling and make item 3711 viable. That way you can pick Nunu Udyr Shyvana into the Trio and starve them of gold for the whole game. Right now counterjungling is almost never worthwhile because the risks are usually higher than the reward (reward more or less doesn't exist outside of getting a kill because exp algorithms cause junglers to normalize to 2 levels behind midlane no matter what happens and your opponent can always switch to item 3713 for a couple minutes) and because of the longer spawn times, half the time you go to steal some camps and find that whole side of the jungle empty.

shadecrapper1 votes

Trailblazer is way better though... Like way better. Chilling Smite can be used on champions, thats cool. But Trailblazer has the aoe, health and mana return, stuns, and will help with wave clear. Why not get trailblazer?

NoMonku1 votes

From watching week 1 and from what you are saying, I do feel it needs to be changed. They basically gave a free slow to anyone who has smite, which is very powerful given the right champion. Since this is new, I HOPE RIOT will balance it or find some easy fix, but if not, I don't think some junglers will see the light of day for awhile.

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