How the new jungle changes both help, and hinder the jungle

so, I wanted to make a post that was serious about the jungle changes, and not all these memes about crab = win etc.

so, I, as a jungle main, think that riot did much more harm than good this patch, and want to actually explain why and try to say what I, personally think should have been done, in order to positively influence the future of the role of the jungle, that is both strategic and challenging for junglers as individuals and allows them to impact lanes in such a way that is healthy to both the role and the game, and provides an experience to the jungler that is both challenging, strategic, impactful, and enjoyable.

POSITIVE:

EARLY ROUTING early game jungle routing, actually does not feel that bad, still a little awkward since its new, but after making some new paths myself and looking at what higher elo players are doing, it actually feels kinda nice to have different routes, unfortunate that it had to come at a cost of some of the junglers early pressure but, I do like that everyones clear has more variation than buff > wolves > buff then meet at river or gank top. pre 8.10, whenever someone asked me how to route, it was always buff > wolves > buff, and I am actually really happy that this will be much more strategic than that, at least for a while, as I do fear that eventually we will find that kind of equivelent, but until then I'll enjoy it.

NEGATIVES:

FIRST SCUTTLE SPAWNS TOO EARLY as we have all seen in higher elos, at lvl 2 there is often a gang bang top river for the scuttle crab, part of the reason that mid laners and top laners are taking smite. this is really, really crippling to so many junglers. I was really hoping this would be one of the things they fixed before it went to live servers, but when you encourage this fighting at lvl 2, you pretty much give junglers the option of playing things that are good at lvl 2 (xin, lee, graves, etc.), or picking something that will just concede the scuttles, but compensate by power farming all game. I know I am biased here, being a rek sai main, but champions that need all 3 abilities AND are primarily playing for the early game take a massive hit from this, and it feels like they just don't have enough options.

_my suggestion for this is to delay the first scuttle spawn until after champions hit lvl 3, just so we are keeping these champions atleast viable. _

SCUTTLE SPAWNS TOO OFTEN so, as we all already know, scuttle is worth a lot, especially after its been cleared once or twice. losing it feels absolutely horrible, but that is kinda how objectives work, it feels bad to lose a buff, it feels bad to lose dragon, its gunna feel bad to lose scuttle. the difference is, with dragon, I can coordinate a play onto it and then I can do something else, I have plenty of time to go farm my top side, get a gank off top lane, even get some good dmg on to the turret, then i can back will probly still have a good amount of time to set up for the next dragon. this is not at all how it feels with scuttle, after taking it I have 2 mins to do something, it often feels like I take scuttle, go back into my jungle to take about 3 camps, then recall and then i have to go back to scuttle. this feels horrible, especially for a role that wants to impact lanes, if I've got the time to take 3 camps and recall then I have to go right back to scuttle, how am I supposed to be expected to ever gank a lane, nevertheless pressure a turret without conceding scuttle. everything I want to do is

1. gank a lane
2. dmg a turret
3. farm my camps
4. recall
5. take a scuttle you could not even do all of these pre 8.10, nor do i expect to be able to do all of this at once, but in the early game you generally only had to sacrifice one, maybe one and a half by only taking only a few camps or a little bit of dmg on a turret etc, but now you can only do 3 of these, and if you lose scuttle you are putting yourself at a massive disadvantage in terms of gold and lvl, so in most of my games it feels like I am entirely unable to gank a lane, because I do put some priority on my buffs, so if I take buffs/wolves/wraiths and recall, I have to go to scuttle. what I could do is pressure a lane and then recall and get scuttle, but then I am missing a massive amount of exp and farm from missing my camps. I understand that the decisions you make as a jungler should have counterplay, and should feel bad if they get punished, but this just feels like a lose-lose. even if they dont punish me not taking my own jg, I will be so far behind them because they are taking their own camps and I am not, for a miniscule lead on a laner. in most of my games I end up feeling like no matter what champion I'm playing, or how good the gank is, it will not be worth it. the amount that I lose just from not killing camps in my 2 mins of freedom between scuttle spawns feels absolutely horrible even if the gank ends in a double kill bot lane.

the other thing this does, is it entirely removes the importance of early game pathing decisions and tracking. looking at my, and my enemy jgs path is so braindead easy to track. scuttle is going to be top river in 1 min, so he is going to be there in 1 min. this removes so much of the skill expression between a good jungler and a bad one because you do not even need to think to know where the enemy jg is, its so obvious they will be on their way to where crab is, and if they are not, who cares? you have already won. falsely predicting their movements ends up in a win for you anyways, because you get crab, and pretty much nothing else on the map until 20 mins is worth more, so who actually cares?

please just put more time between the scuttle spawns so we do not feel entirely obligated to be in the river every 2 mins, and actually get to choose where we go and when, as well as making the ability to track and predict the enemy jgs movements more impactful and skill expressive.

RUNIC ECHOS okay so I know for this one I am beating the dead horse, but lets be honest, every pre 8.10 ap jungler values move speed over cdr and mana. I actually like the direction you went of giving cdr, I dont think it was a bad idea and could help open up more ap junglers, but with this change came mana, which given the mana regen from jg items is entirely unnecessary, and the removal of ms which really hinders the existing ap junglers. and the fact that it gives mana + the insane amount of xp scuttle gives combines allowed mid laners to take smite, and just buy runic echoes as a cheaper alternative to ludens. I, and many other junglers I have talked to, think the best bet for runic is to get rid of the mana, as it is not helpful for junglers in 95% of scenarios, and give runic echos movement speed AND cdr, it sounds a little bit loaded, but I'm expecting lower ap values and/or a higher cost to compensate.

RIOTS GOALS

REDUCING EARLY GAME JG PRESSURE so, this was the big selling point for all of these changes, or should I say nerf to junglers. they did not like that junglers could impact a lane at lvl 3 , when the laners were lvl 2. this was something so many top laners complained about, and I thought it was kinda dumb because

1. these ganks were extremely predictable and repetitive, thus, easily avoidable
2. that pressure is one of the tradeoffs of the route your jungler chose, if they did the same path, it would have been a 2v2 or a countergank
3. if you got the bad end of the stick, that is one of the ways you will feel that the enemy jungler is better than yours, just as my top laner dying over and over again 1v1 is a key sign that they have a better top laner
4. pressuring lanes is one of the biggest reasons the jungle as a role even exists

but okay, I'll omit this one, the ability to gank a level above them was pretty strong. my suggestion to this problem is to make it take slightly longer to clear camps for the first time, jgs arrived just before the laners hit lvl 3, so making it take ~10-15 more seconds should make them be at the same lvl by the time the jungler arrives.

what many pro/high elo jgs recommended was to make it take 4 camps to get to lvl 3. while I think this is good, so much better than scuttle changes, I fear this would open up way too big of a window for lvl 2 junglers such as graves or j4.

this problem was, actually fixed fairly well from making 4 camps to lvl 3, which is why I really do not understand why all the changes to scuttle, but with these changes came the level 2 jg surge which is what i feared, which entirely worsens the problem of junglers pressuring too early, because rather than meta junglers being good at lvl 3 and lvl 6, now you are getting pressured by the jungler at lvl 2.

INCREASING JG VS. JG INTERACTIONS I entirely disagree with this one. one of the things I have noticed is that while many jgs do not play aggressive enough, this should be left alone in my opinion. the ability to confidently invade and take objectives may be rare, but it is risky and requires a lot of experience and skill in terms of knowing where they will be, when, how much hp, how can you route to that point and be healthier than them, etc.

junglers do not gain enough from just hard demolishing their counterpart, doing this makes you win the jg matchup, but not the game. rather, the success of a jungler is within the ability to give yourself a small lead off of a good invade or prediction that leads to an invade or countergank that is successful, then using that lead to pressure lanes, but more importantly objectives. when I am playing rek sai and I have a lead, I set myself goals. I want to take every red buff that spawns for the next 15 mins to keep making sure their jg stays behind. I also want to use my lead to hard impact bot lane to get my adc ahead, get first brick bottom, get dragons, and ultimately get my bot lane ahead to the point where I can leave them alone in the 2v2, and they will be so far ahead that they will continue to win that lane.

in the games I have played, the better jungler is defined by their ability to gain and maintain leads, and use those leads to impact/win lanes and control objectives, a good jungler will know how and where to force an interaction, and riot should not attempt to force this kind of thing, as a good jungler will already know how and where to make it happen.

CREATE A NEW OBJECTIVE (SCUTTLE) TO LET JUNGLERS GET A LEAD honestly, I really do not think this was a good idea. maybe it was, but this just reflected horribly upon whatever was in your heads, idk. what this "objective" feels like is a chore, as I said earlier. it's up too often so you don't have many options as to where you can go or what you can do, and it makes it so obvious where the enemy jg is. there is little to no time for junglers to pressure lanes, so laners are happy because they never get ganked by the enemy jg ( but we will still get blamed for them losing the 1v1), but at the same time junglers lose almost all control they had of the early game, because capitalizing on the major strengths the jungle had as a position, now gets massively punished with huge xp deficits.

this crab is not fun. its not fun for junglers to take, but they are obligated to take it or they get so far behind, and it is such a large objective that its not even a jg vs jg interaction anymore, its a lvl 2 skirmish, its almost like coordinating an invade where if your lanes are losing, it wont matter how much of a better jgler you are, you have to concede it because the thread of being collapsed on by the laners who are just straight up demolishing yours is too big to risk, and what are we to do? gank that lane? because ganking that lane means that we concede either scuttle crab, or our whole jg because we are either doing it right before scuttle spawns, or when scuttle is up.

junglers are put into a lose-lose situation because of things they do not even have control of. and with this new objective removes the skill cap and game wide impact of the jungle as a role, which makes it feel so much more linear and basic that its not challenging or even fun to play anymore.

** TLDR: ** Scuttle crab is more of a chore than an objective, and forces junglers to prioritize it every 2 mins rather than being able to impact lanes or pressure objectives. it is especially crippling for you to not get it, even if it was because of things like mid priority that are entirely out of your control. and because this "objective" spawns at lvl 2, the amount of viable junglers is massively reduced to powerfarmers that either ignore the first few, but make up for it by never leaving the jungle, and lvl 2 junglers that impact the laners before the "problematic" lvl 3 junglers.

I do not think the scuttle changes were a good idea, but if riot is truly dead set on keeping them like this, in order for jungle to be enjoyable to play, these crabs need to come up less often, and slightly later than they do currently.