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So are Juggernauts supposed to be Lane Bullies or Carries? And as a class what should they excel at?

AbyssmalHydra·6/27/2018, 9:04:28 AM·29 votes·13,157 views

I suppose the argument could be made that Juggernauts are a class of characters that vary greatly on the niche they are meant to fill and what they add to a team differs greatly indeed between them, but if skirmishers like Fiora Camille Irelia Tryndamere Renekton Jax are able to enter a lane and bully some of these said Juggernauts and proceed to outscale them then is it really fair to say that juggernauts are a lane-focused class?

Champions like Darius Garen Trundle Olaf Nasus have all been around in league since before the concept of a 'juggernaut' existed, and from the way each of these champions play are really very different, but they lack a specific edge over say someone like Jax or Fiora aside from being used to counterpick them, which even that doesnt make sense,

For exampleDarius > Fiora / Jax in lane, but Trundle Urgot Illaoi < Camille Fiora Jax in most stages of the game, especially when you consider Skirmishers dont trade any tankiness, mobility, or damage really to outshine those other picks,

Which makes me think, what ARE juggernauts exactly? They cant be immobile powerhouses if their damage isnt even that great in comparison, they dont snowball as hard as most skirmishers, they get outscaled by alot of them, and I suppose the only scenario they can really be passed off as 'good' in is if they face tanks, but the way their kits work require them to get ahead/fed off those matchups (which isnt normally easy) to be any noticable presence, meanwhile Fiora Camille Irelia will operate perfectly fine if allowed to free farm/free roam due to them ALSO beating tank matchups.

Even when you take into consideration Juggernauts build mostly tank, item 3071 item 3053 item 3742 item 3075 item 3194 being a solid go-to build, even when they lack the CC to be an efficient tank, lack the mobility to impact a team fight too heavily, and lack tools like item 3078 and item 3748 to split properly.

So im really just trying to ask, what is the purpose behind Juggernauts? And when should they function best, in lane or as late game monsters? They have so many losing matchups and their own design philosophy leaves their gameplay intentionally flawed, as most of these characters have intense scalings and are item reliant yet get outscaled anyways.

I hope a rioter can say something, maybe Im missing a part of the big picture? but as much as I love Urgot and Trundle they will never be as efficient at shredding tanks as Fiora Gangplank Camille despite losing to, being outsplitted, and being outscaled by them even if their kits are designed to make them excel at these things. But it does seem like Trundle at least makes use of himself by adapting into the jungle, would be interesting if more could follow suit.

55 Comments

Teridax686/27/2018, 9:40:31 AM20 votes

I'd have to say that it varies, but then again, I also agree that there are clear problems with the way juggernauts scale currently. Nasus, for example, used to be one of the game's foremost hypercarries, yet now he can't really do all that well in late-game teamfights, due to how easily he can get killed while being kited. Meanwhile, champions like Illaoi are meant to be lane bullies, but are themselves easily bullied by champions who can either outrange them or trade quicker. Juggernauts are almost certain to get outpoked in lane, but are also equally certain to get kited later on, which makes it difficult to decide where exactly they should shine.

Personally, I think there are two main pain points with the way juggernauts are currently designed:

  • Number one, they're really binary in relation to how they deal with range and mobility. If they manage to get in a protracted slugfest with another champion at melee range, they'll tend to win by default, but otherwise they tend to lose hard. As it so happens, the sheer amount of mobility and range in the game means it's not that difficult for the latter situation to happen. As such, I think juggernauts need slightly more options to deal with being outranged, even if those options don't need to be great. This should especially help juggernauts become stronger in lane, and could thereby be well-suited for lane bullies.
  • Number two, juggernauts are extremely vulnerable to incoming CC and damage, yet don't really have the adequate tools to deal with either. Many of these champions have sustain or defensive steroids, but they usually tend to work well only if they're hurting opponents at melee range, which kind of defeats their purpose as fallback tools. Juggernauts could use heavier active defenses, even if it came at a cost to their base durability, these defenses could use a lot more CC resistance or even unstoppability in the right circumstances, and their application shouldn't simply rely on a win-more model of providing persistent healing at melee range. Mechanics like these would scale well in later combat, and so could be of use especially to juggernauts intended to scale better late.
Fefnil6/27/2018, 10:23:19 AM7 votes

It all boils down to the damage creep issue of the last years. Every source of damage is higher than it should be. This means juggernaut's is higher too, but one of their niches is that their damage is unreliable or requires setting up. So they aren't able to do that much more damage quickly, but champions who they should be able to tank in sustained fights like divers or skirmishers have higher damage as well that is reliable, and are able to burst through juggernaut's sustain, which is strong but either unreliable just like their damage or scales with their defense, and currently offense is unbalancedly stronger than defense. So, in other words, the damage creep - short games - flashy plays meta literally destroyed the core of another class.

Thefrostyviking6/27/2018, 2:35:42 PM7 votes

Hold up.

Your champ categorization is completely off isnt it?

Irelia,Renekton and Camilie are divers, Irelia loses a lot of melee matchups and Renekton is indeed a lanebully that is much worse outside lane.

Only Jax Fiora Tryndamere are true Skirmishers.

And that comparison between Urgot/Illaoi/Trundle vs Jax/fiora/Camilie? thats nonsense.

You have to compare individual kits, not just be like "omg they belong to this role but they are beating this one".

I cant say i understand urgot but Illaoi sucks against anything that can dodge her tentacles, so all 3 beat her, she is a lane bully against other immobile melee.

She also scales into a monster eventually with her E, that thing is beyond ridiculous post some point.

Trundle is a anti tank champ, he is a reasonably good duelist but he isnt specialized in it, much how Jax isnt as good at diving into teams as vi or hecarim or wukong.

And everyone beats tanks right now, tanks are crap.

And Trundle is as far as i know, one of the best picks when dealing with a strong tank, he just ults and nabs all their stats, essentially stealing their jobs.

No idea what Urgot does or what he is even supposed to do.

Juggernauts are lane bullies, strangely designed lanebullies at times or just suffering from old and lacking kits in some cases.

Look at Darius for instance, he actually has really powerful damage, both sustained and burst if he gets ontop of things and his scalins are good too, what kept him from being good was the fact that peel was kinda easy to do.

But what happens when a team invests things into letting him stick on the enemy team while he also gets to lane against melee like say Yasuo in the botlane? He has the chance to truly shine.

Shyvana is also partly a juggernaut, diver/juggernaut to be specific.

She probably wont beat most juggernauts 1v1 but she can sure wreck havoc on any other(not skirmishers) poor fellows that she lands on.

Im pretty sure olaf has the same deal as Darius but he´s been nerfed more due to LCS popularity.

Fiora, camilie and GP are all super weak early......if you actually have the tools to abuse them, if not they are safe enough to scale up which is kinda unfair really.

But toplane always was a game of rock-paper-scissors post like season 3.

Risen296/27/2018, 4:39:38 PM5 votes

Nothing about juggernaut class description is suppose to make them lane bullies.

Juggernauts tend to be defined as being, pound for pound, stronger than other fighters. But their power is gated behind situations or ultimate cooldowns.

Juggernauts are suppose to have high damage and defense, a combination which would normally be imbalanced if it wasn't gated behind conditions and limited by their immobility.

kile1476/27/2018, 2:41:28 PM4 votes

Also, when you say Darius beats Fiora and Jax in lane, he doesn't really. The matchup is mostly skill based with a slight advantage to Darius (he has a 5% lane kill rate advantage on op.gg). Even with this early advantage he actually has negative win rates against them overall though, because he gets outscaled so rapidly and doesn't have any good way to prevent them from scaling. Basically Darius can kill Jax and Fiora once or twice, but he doesn't stop them from farming and starts losing to them as soon as they get a full item. The only champions that Darius actually consistently wins games against are lanes he counters so hard that he gets 60%+ lane kill rates and completely removes them from the game. Then he ends up with 52%+ win rates overall.

Elkington VI6/27/2018, 10:17:01 PM3 votes

Trundle Has never been lane focused, as he was intentionally designed to jungle. He's always been a bruiser that provides a balanced level of damage and utility for the team. He can even be played support. Unlike the other juggs, Trundle doesn't depend solely on dealing damage to win games.

The problem with most of the juggernauts, apart from their lack of mobility, is that they have nothing to fall back on aside from damage. Their kits are too selfish for having "arguably" the most unreliable/avoidable damage output in the game.

IdveYsUfSK6/27/2018, 4:55:20 PM3 votes

Juggernaut is pretty much a class that contains handicapped melee champions that riot doesnt put any effort in reworking their kits other than giving them number adjustments. Hence their strengths is just to outstat the enemy much more easily. But their current state is so bad that a much superior class of bruisers called slayers which are much more reliable and easy to pull off overshadows them in majority of situations. Slayers can even be built to outstat juggernauts through drain tanking. This is always why there are a load of higher ranked players using slayers instead of juggernauts. It is always better to play a bursty melee champ with a gap closer and cc instead of a immobile juggernaut whose main purpose is to eat cc. I think the other juggernauts still needs to be buffed close to darius level of power. Darius is always an exception whenever juggernauts are weak as he has all the tools he needs to succeed, healing + free stats+ aoe hard cc + execute.

BobaFlautist6/27/2018, 8:00:52 PM3 votes

Keep in mind that light fighters (most skirmishers and some divers) are overtuned right now, but here's how I visualize the intended differences in strengths/weaknesses:

Juggernauts are supposed to function like battlemages. They don't get to pick their fights, and their dueling is mid-tier between dedicated duelists and non-duelists, but if they get a good flank off and land their combo without being effectively kited, they'll roll over your entire damn team. In many ways they counter hard-engage, since they have the durability to survive the engage and then the damage to slaughter the enemy team once they're in their face.

Skirmishers, on the other hand, are kind of the opposite. They excel at target access (choosing their battles) and at dueling, but in a full blown teamfight, a skirmisher that isn't ahead (or super overtuned) will just be held down have their lunch money taken by a beefy tank + dps. They have some durability, but they're usually dependent on repeated autos/ability use to do their thing, whereas juggernauts tend to have a lot of backloaded burst that will still go off after they're cc'ed as long as they got their first hit(s) off.

So, for example, a juggernaut is much better to have if the enemy team tries to engage on you when you're fighting dragon/Baron or under your tower, since the fight is on your terms. They complement poke/peel comps by punishing incomplete engage. They'll decide a teamfight if the enemy team doesn't control them. They're more powerful defensively and reactively, since they can punish deathballs super hard.

A skirmisher, on the other hand, is better for a splitpush (or sometimes heavy engage) comp - they'll 1v3 if ahead, but they usually won't decide a teamfight - they'll just make an already decided teamfight worse by instantly sweeping the enemy team. They're better aggressively, and pro-actively, since if they get engaged on they just die, and they're great at punishing a team that's slightly off balance, and caught by surprise.

TempName548466/27/2018, 2:32:34 PM2 votes

there's a lot wrong with this post but mostly the part where you imagine darius counters fiora in lane, the part where juggernauts apparently don't build triforce and the "gp shreds tanks btw".

Hexs Fortune6/27/2018, 3:43:49 PM2 votes

Juggernauts lack of mobility often makes for an abusable laning phase

Juggernauts tend to be less adept at dueling due to their kitability

Juggernauts often require set up for their damage ( or struggle to get in range), where as divers and skirmishers can get out quicker and more reliable burst assisted by gap closers

Glory976/28/2018, 8:24:37 AM2 votes

Juggernauts typically are close range immoblie melee with decent defensive options. The concept itself is good and it worked well before damage was powercreeped so hard that any type of defensive item/ability became useless in this game. You could kite a nasus back in season 3, but hell even with the whole team you'd need at least 10 second to kill that guy, but meanwhile everyone has true damage, everyone has max health%, if the nasus can survive more than 1 sec. tanking 5 people then it's already astonishing.

The Space Cowboy6/27/2018, 8:46:07 PM1 votes

IMO juggernauts have more damage than tanks but less tankyness. I think the ideal juggernaut would have a skirmisher kit with worse scaling, except one ability would be a short duration defensive move. They should have a brief window of strength and defense.

Automated Riven6/27/2018, 10:31:41 PM1 votes

Imo jugs should not be able to 1v1 a duelist or a scirmisher easily. (assuming they are played well) but they should thrive in teamfights which should last longer then they currently do.

Stew526/28/2018, 1:47:52 AM1 votes

You didn't take Morde once into consideration in this post...

Glîtchy6/28/2018, 4:17:50 AM1 votes

Juggernauts really just excel at lane bullying imho

Weiner the Pooh6/28/2018, 6:05:17 AM1 votes

Well for one most are much more useful in team fights than especially Fiora. Fioras team fighting is ass especially compared to juggernauts. She splits and duels them while they put team fight her. So that’s definitely one advantage.

The Whamboozler6/28/2018, 7:09:03 AM1 votes

I've said this before... and I will say this again.

Riot's little classifications for champs don't really matter. Juggernaut, Diver, Skirmisher... etc. they made these terms up late into the game's life when there were already 100+ champs that existed and had been made before they even CONSIDERED what a juggernaut and a Warden freaking were. The newer champs follow those roles a little better, but even then, those roles straight-jacket creativity a bit and make it hard to design champions so there aren't really "typical juggernauts" or "standard skirmishers". There are a SHIT LOAD of champs muh man... there will likely be more exceptions to the rule and champs that fit it.

The roles thing was just added as a loosely-applied term to be used by new players to get a VAGUE idea of what a given champ was supposed to do in the game and in fights. So newbies know that Malphite is supposed to start teamfights not build full AP and pretend he's an assassin and splitpusher. Or tha Jax is a guy that floats in and floats out picking people up... not a freakin' tank that should be jumping in first and staying there.

The roles don't really apply very well... and you shouldn't base your understanding of the champs on them. Use them as vague baselines for what champions do and then assume that there is a lot more nuance to them if you pick them up and play them full-bore.

ShabanShaulich6/28/2018, 7:46:56 AM1 votes

They excell at stat checking enemy melee laner and getting kited by everything ranged and getting destroyed by slows if they have no summs up and getting outclessed by champs like irelia and camille.

Meep Man6/28/2018, 7:50:30 AM1 votes

Juggernauts are just bulkier usually. There's little difference except that Juggs swap mobility for durability, although sometimes that seems questionable. Darius, Garen, and Trundle are the only Juggs I've ever felt truly bulky as. The issue is that Riot doesn't seem to like durability being a scaling stat, so this usually just makes it to where the only Juggs that are useful either provide a ton of utility (Trundle) or bully people to death in lane when sheer durability still matters (Darius). There's also the odd Garen, who just stays useful because the combination of his W and the Villain mechanic makes him ALWAYS be relevant unless the enemy has incredible amounts of crowd control.

DragonShea6/28/2018, 11:31:57 AM1 votes

As a juggernaut lover I gotta say there are many issues why Juggs are hard to play.

  • It's hard to make him them less binary due to them being so dependent on stats.

  • RIot doesn't take immobility and range into account when designing champs and how much power they need to sacrifice have it.

  • They are low ELO stompers due to being simple but strong and players don't know how to exploit their weaknesses.

  • Can't really balance them well in fear of them becoming too powerful.

  • They like sustained damage but lack the burst needed to win fights in this damage saturated meta.

  • No tank meta no jugg meta.

These are the reasons as to why juggs are not that good. Because Riot don't know what to do with the "frontline" and as a result have killed off durability. Juggs want nothing more than to be tough enough to merc champs that mess with them and because they also will cause player retarded screeching when they are viable then they are most of the time left as the semi-viable at best.

Here is the deal, there has been a mobility creep and a damage creep, do durability has not been increased at all. Tank items are barely viable and even HP items can't be of use due to not having the resistances needed to back it up and them being nearly useless. In short. Juggs have the damage to keep up but lack the durability and mobility to have a proper place in the meta and have not gained any compensation for it.

So if Riot want to buff up juggs to becoming balanced then they need to have better durability and utility to compete with the their opponents, Juggs, tanks and even some divers need some buff to durability for them to be able to survive, tone down the game in the game a bit but also increase the defensive might of those champs will make the game more balanced and fun again. Juggs should be able to take a few hits and not worry about getting nuked even when they are ahead because their sustain will not be enough to save them in moments of high damage.

Jackom16/29/2018, 12:20:21 PM1 votes

Personally, I say that the juggernaut class is more tied to the concept a champion that does great dps (not burst) mid-to-close range, is almost as resistant as a real tank, but is kiteable (NOT slow, kiteable). As long as those elements are respected, a juggernaut can be either a lane bully, a carry, a split pusher, or a mix of those; probably also something else that I'm not considering right now.

Yorick for instance is a split pusher, neither a lane bully nor a carry. He can probably 1v1 a lot of champions if his ult is up, but it's not guaranteed.

Nasus is a carry.

Illaoi is a lane bully.

Tychusfindlay9186/27/2018, 3:43:28 PM1 votes

if you look at the darius changes in the past year they have all been focused on nerfing his early and buffing his late which is kinda weird.

rayzo6/27/2018, 5:15:45 PM1 votes

yes

Vlada Cut6/29/2018, 3:51:03 PM1 votes

They should excell at going tanky and deal a lot of damage through black cleaver's armor shred passive but sacrifise mobility for bonus damage. Except Conqueror on few juggernauts imo made it questionable as to why go both true damage and armor shred...