First I noticed they were trying to make the game easier for new players when they put up the 15 second barrier at the start of the game. Now adding plants in random spots instead of learning how to use your smite in the jungle, I'm silver elo and I know how to use smite. Seems like the want to make the game easier for new players.
LostFr0st2 votes15 second barrier was added due to all elos asking for it (they'd blow flash trying to chat). Plants are no longer random spawns on the Pbe.
MaNiaK1 votesI used to be able to buy my start items fast and get out to place a early deep ward before the enemy could get into their jungle. So that barrier made me feel like it was to hold players back from getting deep wards, and give people that were a little slower more time to buy items.
But serious adding a barrier for players that want to say GLHF 0_o
LostFr0st1 votesWut? It's not for GLHF XD The barrier is a buffer time for people loading into the game, it also has a component now that locks out summoner spells within that time frame. When they got to the F they ended up flashing before.
Mimy1 votesBronze Players know how to use smite. I'm bronze and I may not be a Jungler, but I know what each of the jungle Smite buffs do.
They know that if I am a Teemo, that they need to smite Raptors before ganking. I can't tell you how many times I failed a Bush stealth because of the Raptor buff.
"I'm silver elo and I know how to use smite." (Your thing says you placed gold?)
There really is no difference between Bronze and Silver, at least not till higher silver. At that point people start to become slightly more mechanically skilled
Half the time I imagine people get out of placements and place Silver, Drop into bronze, Claw and climb out of bronze, At this point they'll either sit there, or they'll continue to climb.
I don't quite understand this logic. Plants in no way make the game easier for low elo/new players.
I promise you could probably make a montage with how many people who are about to F up a blast cone escape.
Scrying and Honeyfruit seem simple enough to have a basic understanding, but as we can see you can use them for a far greater variety of things.
Such as forcing people to eat honey fruits to SLOW them. I can see assassins using this tactic to catch high priority targets easier. They have the burst to bust down the small heal the honey fruits do.
MaNiaK1 votesNot all bronze players are the same, most just don't have enough time to climb out, and yes silver and bronze are pretty much the same until you see bronze 5.
Mimy1 votesNot all bronze players are the same, most just don't have enough time to climb out, and yes silver and bronze are pretty much the same until you see bronze 5.
That's not bronze, that's Wood Division. I got put in there at the start of the season, took forever to get out of there. QQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16F6rGJx80s
Here's some Entertainment.. xD
Umbral Regent1 votesWarning: This post is longer than a max-range Enchanted Crystal Arrow stun. There'll be a TL;DR at the bottom.
I wouldn't say that plants are there to make Jungle easier for newer players, in fact I'd have to say it balances it out, to a degree. In my opinion, the removal of Smite Buffs from Jungle monsters (and, consequently, adding an innate heal to Smite to compensate), would be what would make Jungle easier.
And, I say that the Plants balance out the difficulty level of Jungling to a degree because it is, no matter which way you slice it, still less content to have to understand and think about than Smite Buffs.
For the sake of showing what I'm saying; Smite Buffs: Greater Krug - Every fifth auto-attack against a minion or neutral monster stuns Red Brambleback - Regains Health Greater Raptor - Gives an aura that detects nearby wards; first ward detected pops the aura and gives a brief time of disable before the aura wears off Greater Murkwolf - Creates an untargetable, unattackable sentry that detects enemy entry into that quadrant of the Jungle, pinging and seeking them out Blue Sentinel - Regains Mana Gromp - Gives a Poison Aura that deals damage to anything that basic-attacks the player
Plant Effects: Scryer's Bloom - Creates a large cone of spores that reveals all units in the direction it's struck towards; immobile entities suffer the spores longer Blast Cone - Knocks up and repels units in the area of effect a la Zigg's Satchel Charge Honeyfruit - Creates a group of small fruit that can be picked up by anyone to slow self and regain health
That's essentially half of the stuff Junglers have to worry about taken out of the equation. But, there is still a list of Jungle stuff that remains to keep our attention; (note, I'm only condensing the following into key, noteworthy effects. The list will not include all of the information about the buffs, for simplicity's sake)
Buffs: Red Brambleback - Gives auto-attacks a Damage-over-Time effect Blue Sentinel - Gives mana regeneration Rift Herald - Gives whoever claims it solitary power in the form of a generating auto-attack buff (like Dead Man's Plate and Kercheis Shard items) Ocean Drake - Gives team stacking, periodic Health and Mana restoration Mountain Drake - Gives team stacking true damage to towers and boss monsters Infernal Drake - Gives team stacking attack damage and ability power Cloud Drake - Gives team stacking out of combat movement speed Baron Nashor - Gives team fast-recall, attack damage and ability power buffs, and empowers nearby minions Elder Dragon - Gives team Damage-over-Time on all damaging abilities and attacks, doubles other Dragon empowerments Scuttlecrab - Grants team a modest area of vision just outside of the boss pits
Now that on its own is daunting to read and think about. But that isn't nearly all of it. We also have to think of our items, too.
Jungle Items: Skirmisher's Saber - Can Smite enemy Champions, decreasing the damage they deal to you and allowing you to deal more damage to them Stalker's Blade - Can Smite enemy Champions, slowing their movement speed Tracker's Knife - Allows the user to generate and drop wards
Jungle Enchantments: Warrior - Increases attack damage and cooldown reduction Cinderhulk - Increases health and provides damage aura that works better against Jungle monsters Bloodrazor - Increases attack speed and causes attacks to deal %Max Health damage Runic Echoes - Increases ability power and movement speed, and provides a Luden's Echo-type generating spell-proc buff
Granted, some of those are more obviously better-suited to certain champions and playstyles, but nevertheless, that provides all the more thought-work for Junglers. So much so, that Plants can probably only be considered a small relief. And this isn't even covering a lot of the variables - champions chosen, playstyle used, lane pressure, clear pathing, etc. And with all of this said, I can only wonder if there's even a point to discussing whether or not Riot's making it easier on new players, with all that the Jungle still is.
TL;DR - Plants aren't making the Jungle easier, they're just halving one aspect of what made Jungle difficult. It's still difficult, but there's more room to experiment in the coming days.