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Can all of us junglers have a SERIOUS discussion and come up with some ideas? (NOT GRIPES!!!)

Righteous Rage·11/13/2015, 4:21:58 PM·27 votes·3,232 views

That way we can put together a good presentation on what we feel would be positive changes to the game with the new season. I feel that all my junglers are very weak, well, not weak, but that the jungle is harder. Getting through a clear is darn near impossible. This is the first time since I started jungling that I actually died to a jungle camp. I will be honest that I let it happen to see how far through a full clear I could get before I was killed. I didn't even get through a full clear. By the time I am done clearing I have to back. No more clear then lvl 3 ganks due to the low health. Buying items takes a long time as well. That extra cost for the jungle items, with the nerf to gold amount in jungle really hurts. SOOO what can be done to improve all this and help the junglers out WHILE keeping it all balanced?.

EDIT: Here are the changes I came up with in my document. What do you all think?

Junglers Masteries: Feast is completely negated by its cooldown, and how much damage junglers are taking. Would suggest putting a flat heal on jungle camps with no cooldown, and 50% heal on minions.

Add one mastery targeted towards damage of monsters Add one mastery for defense against monsters

Jungle items Gold: Return bonus gold to jungle items. 15 gold to hunters machete. Upon completion of tier 2 jungle Item Add 30 gold bonus when large monster killed. One of the main reasons for this is the rise in price of the jungle items. Due to how slow most junglers get through their first clear with the new patch, upgrading takes a significant amount of time, and they are unable to really have an impact on the game as early. The issue with this is the speed at which the game is going now due to the AD buffs and the weakness of the towers.

XP on jungle items:  Keep this.  This is a must in order to keep up with what is going on in the lanes.  Especially now with how quick the pace of the game.  If this is taken away, it could risk killing the role due to junglers falling so far behind in LVL.  

Hunters Talisman and machete:  Combine them to just machete.  The 20 health over 5 seconds really doesn't help in comparison to the damage that one takes.  Machete alone leaves many junglers OOM part way through the clear.  Again, due to the pace of the game, this causes them to fall behind significantly vs lanes.

93 Comments

pripustas11/13/2015, 7:09:18 PM15 votes

I would say money is the nr1 problem right now. Last season it wasn't good. This year we lost gold gain, while prices went up, and laners get more gold. It all doesn't matter if we cannot keep up with laners in gold. nr2 problem is jungle clear. Is there a reason we have such a hard time farming? Is there a reason we have to spend 1.1k gold which I would guess be something like 1.5k gold in lane spent on items that give no stats, and just makes farming easier.

AyRe CoNteMpT11/13/2015, 5:24:58 PM8 votes

last season i could do a full clear with volibear with scaling armor and scaling mr runes without even proccing my passive. now i die to the third camp.

well, the point right now is that masteries dont give you any defences anymore. i mean look at this: you get 4% damage reduction and 2 flat damage reduction. THATS IT,

last patch you got 2 flat damage reduction, 36 flat health, 5 armor, 3% missing health every 5 seconds, 3% dmg reduction and some other minor stuff. wow, so much. also you get bleed on jungle monsters which helps low-damage junglers like tanks clear very nicely.

also, your jungle item is more expensive and weaker (devourer) while you get less gold at the same time because no bonus gold from jungle anymore. wow. also your mana sustain is much weaker so if you actually need alot of mana to clear, giving bluebuff to mid is not an option any longer.

all this leaves only two champions who dont suffer any downsides from this new jungle which are lee and rexai and they got so many indirect buffs, its absurd. even they are a little weaker compared to laners now but they are SO much stronger compared to junglers that its basically season 2-3 again.

GundayMonday11/13/2015, 9:37:00 PM6 votes

Yeah this is rough. I've played a few games just to get a feel for runes/masteries and a few of my jungle champs just don't work in the game's current state. I have a few thousand games on Sejuani. If she's starting blue side, with a leash at gromp, she gets down to ~100-200hp when she finishes blue, and it's pretty slow. Slightly better if you run item 1041 instead of item 1039 , but still ridiculously low. If I see a tank jungler on the enemy team, I'm going to pick a jungler with damage and just kill them in their own jungle all game long. So that's concerning to me since 8/10 of my best junglers are tanks.

Another thing to consider, since towers are so weak (dmg wise and health+def wise), games are very short. We're looking at a fast push meta if these changes are in place. It's weird to be able to dive and tank 5-6 tower shots as a MasterYi, and then take two towers with your top laner at 5-10mins into the game. I feel like this phenomenon is going to crowd out any jungler with a late game powerspike. Sejuani again, very useful lategame, not as strong early game. Also nerfed now that there is so much damage available to ADCs with little counterplay aside from "kill them faster than they kill your ADC". So this is going to push the jungle pool towards champions that can take towers and kill squishies easily, which will crowd out AP junglers and mid-late game scaling tanks. If Riot made the towers do more damage to champs, that would probably fix this problem.

Going back to the initial clear, optimal pathing for weaker junglers might be something like "do two camps, back and buy item 2032". Which sets you behind champs like MasterYi Shyvana that can clear the jungler super effectively without backing. There's also some goofy stuff you can do with the new masteries like stacking crit chance on a carry jungler to unlock that 20% attack speed buff at the top of the first tree, which is more than full attack speed marks. Play that with a jungler that can multiply crit chance like MasterYi with his Q, and you pretty much guarantee a really fast clear that other junglers can't keep up with.

Rift Herald is an amazing change. Now you can choose between going bot and getting your ADC fed, or going top, getting that buff, and taking two towers with it. Dragon feels less important since games generally end ~20mins since things are so snowbally, so that buff top is very important. Especially if your toplaner is one of those insane tower pushing duelists like Tryndamere Fiora who will be abusing crit damage from their kit. Tryndamere can use his ult immunity to just push down towers with minimal counterplay since they're so squishy, so might as well dive his opponent, and give him a baroned up creep wave to work with too.

I also need to do some math this weekend on rune/mastery optimization. There are a lot of interesting tools to play with, and it doesn't look like many people have figured out the optimal builds. There are also weird interactions with teamwork. Think Lulu with windspeaker's blessing from the cunning tree and your tank jungler amping shields up with runic armor from the resolve tree. You can probably do some creative stuff to mitigate a lot of the #TonsOfDamage with enough teamwork, but that's going to be tough if you're going solo and not a premade group of 5. Curious to know if anyone has done any work on this yet that I can piggy back off of?

Anyway, that's my $0.02 after playing a few games and dying to red buff level 1 as a first time Talon jungle last night. XD

BluePolarizer11/13/2015, 4:34:57 PM5 votes

My last season's main, Hecarim, is flat out unplayable both in jungle and lane (moreso jungle) due to the jungle EXP, TP and potion changes (hurts top lane Hecarim badly and now autolosing lane against manaless champs), losing mana sustain from machete while gaining far less HP sustain from Talisman (hurting jungle Hec and making him extremely easy to invade whereas it was extremely dangerous to invade Hecarim before), jungle items costing more, smite upgrade costing more, being forced to choose between arpen and CDR, being unable to buy tank items in time to be influential and in general just feeling like crap.

You also lose a ton of gold due to no machete gold upgrade.

Last season I could power farm and have jungle item + big ticket item within 16 minutes or gank within the first 3 minutes with an optimal rune setup. Now I'm oom at camp 3 and can't do shit.

3tyson11/13/2015, 8:13:53 PM4 votes

early refilable pot seems like a big noob trap i think u need

secret stash, savary or tough skin for the new jg im not rlly sure yet do it seemed realy haard on me 2 i even been forced to back afther 2 camps on some junglers wich i use to do 4 on ezz

Droogzy11/13/2015, 7:33:22 PM3 votes

The first champion I played in this new jungle was Hecarim, honestly, I didn't have a problem with him, he had some mana issues for the first bit of the game, but mid-late game his clear times were extremely fast and with no problems at all.

My problem with the nature of these jungles are just too snowbally, you get one kill early game and it just catapults you forward because the first few items buys for junglers are just too expensive now, for a proficient jungler, just one kill in early game is going to seal the deal in your favor.

For the opposing jungler, it can be frustrating since you have very limited knowledge in early game (especially in soloQ) of what the jungler on the other team is going to do, meaning you can only watch as they get first blood or assistance on a kill to help them get their jungle item even faster. Once they get that jungle item, they can effectively force you out of your own jungle.

I think mobility is also an issue too, between MS quints, the 12 MS boost in river and brush, and the percentile MS boost in masteries, sustain junglers that can gank well early game are just ridiculously good now at map wide pressure due to how fast they can move even before they get boots upgrade.

Without boots, you can get close to 50 MS alone from masteries and quints, this number only goes up once you do get boots too...

UberAffe11/13/2015, 4:33:45 PM2 votes

Who are you taking in the jungle? I know I can do a full clear with Yi.

I run 18/12/0, AD/AS runes and clear in this path: Krugs(smite) > Razer Beaks > Scuttle > Red(smite) > Blue > Scuttle > Gromp(smite) > Wolves

I normally have full health when I start red and between 1/2 - 3/4 when I start blue

Righteous Rage11/13/2015, 6:48:34 PM2 votes

Ok, so from what I have heard we need a little more protection or health against the the jungle camps. We also need a buff to gaining mana. Even with the Hunters Talisman, I was struggling to proc my q with hecarim. And extra gold. How does dropping the xp down on the jungle items in exchange for gold sound? Would you guys be opposed to that?

UberAffe11/13/2015, 7:38:06 PM2 votes

I think the biggest problem is that most people aren't making use of scuttle properly, I can do a full clear on both Yi and Amumu, Back get my tier 1 jungle item and boots or upgraded potion.

BureTheBear11/13/2015, 9:55:00 PM2 votes

Don't buy Hunter's Potion unless your clear is really good (Olaf, Nunu, Fiddle, etc). Hunter's Machete is always better unless you're never autoattacking like Fiddle or Karthus. I think the biggest problem is that many junglers need to go 18/12/0 with nothing in defensive since offense got split between Ferocity and Cunning. Assassin/damage junglers are a little hurt since they can't go 21/9/0 before.

The Derpenstein11/13/2015, 11:40:10 PM2 votes

I don't like only being able to clear 2-3 jungle mobs (with pots) and having to recall. The prices are also very steep for jungling, even on "easy" champions the jungling is rough

Owatatsumi Kami11/14/2015, 2:03:39 AM2 votes

Revert all jungle changes. They were unneeded. Jungle was fine as it was at the end of the season. Maybe some tweaks or experiments but not these full on changes.

I was hoping in the off season they would look at the jungle champs and balance around the ones that were viable in Season 5. There were a lot that made their cameo and though jungle diversity had its problems over the season as a whole we did see lots of diversity. Sejuani, Gragas, Rek'Sai, Lee Sin, Jarvin IV, Evelynn, Shyvanna, Nunnu, Ekko, Elise, etc. Tank junglers, AP junglers, Carry junglers, and Early junglers all had their chance to shine this past season. What Riot failed at was balance between this styles and preventing run over into other lanes (yes, jungle is a lane and should be treated as a solo lane and not a support or worse). They should use this preseason to achieve this balance between jungle roles. I feel they should focus on balancing the group that was viable this past season and then work on bringing the rest of the junglers up to their level.

With these new changes the primary problems are as people mentioned: 1. Very difficult clears (about on par with the beginning of Season 5, caused partly by unintentional nerf to smite) 2. Lack of XP gain (if I try and gank I fall behind in XP without a doubt even if it is successful and even if I don't gank no guarantees) 3. Increased cost in items but less gold and stats compared to other lanes (for the lack of stats on jungle items [still] there is no reason it should cost so much).

To be frank it just sucks to be a jungler right now. You feel useless even if you gank or farm. This is worse than Season 4 and Season 5 which I thought were pretty good. Even at the start of Season 5 when it was rough I found it better than this current state. Clears were hard but at least you had XP and money for your troubles.

Since I have no idea why the jungle was nerfed in the first place or the intent of these changes (really, why?) the only thing I can suggest is a full revert. If Riot communicates with us then maybe we can give them specific suggestions on these changes. So far though there isn't much to be said.

Necromancer911/14/2015, 2:21:46 AM2 votes

Glad to see a civil discussion about the state of the jungle. Since 5.22 went live I have done a little math, and played several games as Nautilus in the jungle.

Observations: First off, the math: jungle gold income was hit pretty hard in the early game, but the "bailout" gold (see the patch notes for details) helps with catching up in the mid game if you get behind. A full first clear (including one scuttle crab) gives about 50 less gold than in patch 5.21. After the first back, when you would normally have bought the machete upgrade, each camp gives about 22 less gold on average if you are doing full clears. The price increase to the fully upgraded jungle items also eats up 375 extra gold (only 200 gold for devourer).

In practice, this reduced gold income combined with increased gold income for laners does make me feel a bit weaker earlier in the game. The first clear is pretty rough on Nautilus, especially the first three camps, but he can still make a full first clear without a leash. However, he does get very low doing that. I don't know how tough it is on other junglers first hand, except Tryndamere (he doesn't have to back). One thing I like about the new jungle items is the mana regeneration. Giving away blue buff was not a problem, and I was able to keep my mana at an operational level while clearing. Health sustain was also not an issue after the first clear.

Tips: If early clears are kicking your butt right now, consider starting with health potions instead of the refillable potion (someone else in this thread already mentioned this). 3 health potions give 450 HP while the refillable potion only gives 200 HP per back. I found that starting Hunter's Talisman (it is better on Nautilus than Hunter's Machete) with only 2 health potions (saves 50 gold), clearing 3 camps, then backing to buy the other jungle item gives the fastest clear speed for Nautilus. Try experimenting in custom games to find the best route and mastery set for your champion.

Suggestions for Game Changes: Getting more gold would be nice. The old conservation mechanic from season 4 may be a good approach. It would not favor the devourer junglers over the others. Maybe making the mastery that gives damage reduction from jungle monsters a little stronger.

LankPants11/14/2015, 2:57:41 AM2 votes

My build which I've been doing on tank junglers (mostly Sejuani ) is starting with item 1041 ( item 1039 is utter trash) building item 3715 then running item 3097 into item 2303 . This makes up for the loss of gold gain on the jungle item, in my experience I've been generating 1500ish gold over the 30 minutes worth of game.

It's pretty good statistically too, people were building a 400 HP item 2045 on their junglers last season, if you assume that the item 3097 passive generates the gold difference (in my experience it does way better) it's a very good item.

Static Duck11/14/2015, 1:23:13 PM2 votes

Jungle issues seem to me to be split between unresolved issues from last year's preseason and then new issues from this years preseason.

Jungle is hard as hell on initial clear. This has been an issue since last preseason. It was fine-tuned a little bit (smite given second charge, values of monsters changed), which made it possible for at least a 3 camp clear with a leash from bot in low elos. High Elos saw the difficulty of jungle entirely camouflaged by the "Double Jungle" start, where Jungler had a tank for a camp and a half. With an earlier start time and knocks to resources generated by killing monsters and a nerf to teleport, the double jungle doesn't seem to be highly valued. Earlier start time also means 2nd smite charge isn't available as early, which creates an issue with having breathing room on first clears.

Healthiest/Safest clear I've found is to start red side, get leash on Krugs (smite) -> Raptors/Chickens -> Red Buff (Smite for HP). Some champs will barely survive, others (Bruisers with Sustain) will be healthy enough to gank or run to blue. The issue with this clear is it's health efficient over time efficient. Running from Krugs -> Chickens -> Red is slower than Krugs -> Red -> Chickens. This puts you behind in XP/s, so if a solo laner dies during this time, you'll soon find yourself in that dreaded situation where enemy solo is L6, your Solo is L5 and you are L4, meaning enemy Solo is probably going to have a window to free farm or to take another shot at your laner without you being able to do much. Proposal: Make Smite generation charge start earlier, your Red can be smote as second camp for HP return. You might even get 3 smites on first clear. JNG can now clear a few more camps safely or look to gank.

Harder initial clear is coupled with lack of money. Red/Blue/Green Knife got more expensive and lost gold on kill. This equals less money and a slower game for the jungler. Items seem to have gotten more expensive across the board, but I'm not even getting those, I'm struggling to build the item that allows me to efficiently clear jungle. Increased cost of potions is something I wince at on every back, as I can't get as many as I'd like. Proposal: Gold per kill needs to be added back on knife. Seriously, nobody has even let me have scuttlecrab since knife $ change.

Although items from a lack of money perspective was addressed above, some of the new item's themselves are more of a hindrance than an aid. Not being able to upgrade my jungle item on a bad first clear is simply demoralizing. Not grabbing a potion or just 1 potting early is frustrating. I hate grabbing the second Tier 1 Jungle Item instead of a full-on upgrade, it's always like I limped home to grab the inferior of the two items, as I have already purchased the best Jungle item for my champion on game load. Proposal: Roll the two Tier One Jungle items into 1 item.

Finally in the early item category, Refillable Potion is terrible to start with and Hunter's Potion is a lackluster option and a slow play. 3 Health Pots is 250 HP more that a Refillable Pot on first clear. I need that HP. As a side note: It seems Riot wants me to start jungle item+refillable, backing for hunters pot, theoretically giving me more sustain. Hunter's pot is laughable, and wastes my time in getting to a jungle item that can keep me safe or scrap with enemies. Proposal: I got nothing. I hate the new Hunter's Pot, I don't even feel it should be in game. Ganking Junglers should be able to get items to gank, most farming junglers have a kit that allows them to farm pretty well already - or they take the knife designed for that. Hunter's Pot isn't something I see as needed. It's going to have to be incredibly strong to be relevant. Wouldn't mind seeing charge system added to Green Knife. Like, killing 3 large monsters gave you a ward back. That'd be sweet.

Finally, the new masteries have hurt jungling. Under the old masteries, almost every jungler got: (Defensive Tree) Tough Skin: -2 DMG from Monsters, VetScars: +36 HP, Juggernaut: +3% HP, (Offensive Tree): Fury: 5% Attack Speed, Martial Mastery: +5 AD, and usually a point in Sorcery (CDR) or Butcher (+2 dmg). These easy to reach points gave you a little bit of sustainability and a little bit of auto attack clear/dmg spam clear.

The new mastery system makes you take choices that see no real benefit, or you choose between stuff that can make the game more fun PvP wise or make the game easier PvE wise. For instance, Resolve Tier 2 has Explorer and Toughened Skin. One is extremely helpful for giving you speed, but the other helps you live. If you decide on the mobility skill, you'll be able to make the most of more opportunities. But the other might help your clear. When I'm playing a laner, I always feel fine with the skill I've selected. When I'm playing jungler I always feel like crap cause having both would be beyond helpful. Then there are situations like Tier 3 Ferocity. Vampirism or Natural Talent. Natural Talent's stats are nonexistent early and weak late. Vampirism scales better with higher damage. As a Jungler I need stats early cause I start fighting as soon as monsters spawn. Vampirism is what I typically take, giving me 2% Life Steal on like 65 AD, or about 1 HP of Life Steal. This is basically nothing. The Mastery System is riddled with choices that are meaningless or meaningful in such a fretful and infuriating way - like Sophie's Choice, League Jungler Edition.

Also, I miss Sorcery in ganks. Starting 5% CDR from Sorc and 5% from blues gave me another cast combo during a gank. It was easy to get and let me make the most out of my limited interactions with the laners. Keystones outside of Resolves' Strength of Ages and Bond of Stone don't help in Jungle AT ALL.

Proposal: Masteries need to feel better for Junglers and more options need to be added, particularly in areas where you have 2 scaling masteries to choose from (like an early-ish game mastery needs to be added. Perhaps 5% Cooldown to T3 Ferocity). I don't have all the answers to the new mastery tree, just a strong dislike for it. Please reply or post Mastery Tier Issues and Proposed Solutions. To be honest, I feel overall this Mastery system, with masteries that are unique with active triggered effects and very powerful opposed to minor, accumulative and subtle, is going to be hell to balance. I guess someone at Riot likes a challenge.

So, TL:DR: Earlier 2nd Smite Charge, $ On Kill From Knife, Remove Hunter's Pot as line is Trap (Lets you buff Refillable for laners potentially), Take another look at Masteries with an emphasis on creating early game talents and reducing frustration for Jungler's speccing out their champ, seriously read the above 3 paragraphs.

Bears Dont Care11/15/2015, 3:31:38 PM1 votes

Jungling as Evelynn is tricky to say the least.

NazZomLord11/14/2015, 3:40:21 PM1 votes

Malphite Surprisingly Malphite actually hasnt had a problem with jungle at all this pre-season, Gromp --> Blue --> Red --> Krugs. Start W, go into Q then E. Hunters potion is not quite needed, grab it if you want to take a Herald early. 18/12 gives a decent fast clear, Talisman is the way to go as well as a Cinderhulk tank AP build. item 1409 item 3075 item 3157 item 3111 item 3001 item 3512

Saphixia11/13/2015, 11:13:50 PM1 votes

Just to put things in place, i played my main (Warwick) and i used to be able to clear the whole jungle twice and then back at 6, get devourer, then basiclly just keep farming, occasionally gank, until 30 stacks. Now i had to back at level 3 because i almost died to red Buff, even with smite. Why would they change the jungle? It was absolutely fine before. Also played a game with a wuwu jungle who farmed almost the entire time. When i was level 18, he was level 12 Yes im not kidding level 12. Something needs to be done because it was fine last season

SithesisLord11/14/2015, 6:50:53 PM1 votes

This is Season AD6 already. Stop trying to take the usual junglers. Take Mr. Bullshit Overloaded kit that´s viable in 99% of metas a.k.a. LCSin or an ADC like Kindred or Graves and heck, even Quinn.

Passionlip11/14/2015, 10:28:34 PM1 votes

item 2031 Feels like a trap, to be honest - it isn't that strong for the price in the first clear. As Rammus i find better to go with 3 standard potions, end my waveclear and get the full jungle item, don't know for other categories of champions actually.

The Whamboozler11/14/2015, 11:28:05 PM1 votes

Jungling feels awful now. A lot of formerly viable junglers are REALLY struggling to clear, and the item cost increases set them even further back. The game seems to move a lot faster now too, making the jungler's tendency to lag behind in gold REALLY noticeable. It's pretty brutal.

I'd bring back the extra gold from jungle monsters. That was huge. I would also add something to help out jungler's sustain to bring more champions into viability in the role again. Perhaps adding an AoE effect to smite ONLY when used on jungle monsters to clear camps of multiple monster quickly, or adding a heal to the spell, AGAIN only when used on jungle monsters. Since the purple smite upgrade is gone now, why not make the base smite skill more similar to it and give it a bit of Health/Mana heal when used? I think that and the increased gold would be all it would take to make jungle feel less frustrating to play, but the items being more expensive would still make early ganks risky as opposed to mandatory.

Darius Strada11/15/2015, 12:14:18 AM1 votes

I can't even clear the 2 camps with my mainsKhazix Vi Hecarim . Can only do it withXinZhao and it's much harder now.