Riot wants diversity in the Jungle, but...

But the Hunter's Machete upgrade is being raised 100 gold. 100 gold may not sound like much because normally it is not a lot. However, in the early game, 100 gold is the difference between going back to play with an important item or going back with insufficient supplies to sustain your play. Changing the price of items like this benefits or hinders laners quite significantly, but laners have the ability to alleviate this problem by practicing their mechanics well in order to maximize their income. When this change is applied to the Jungle, however, we are talking about a different scenario.

Junglers, unlike Laners, do not have the luxury of having a stable income of minions. We are like freelancing workers who pick up money wherever we can, so that means we never have a reliable source of gold; we can get a surge of money from ganks, dueling, or power-farming, or we can get demolished from failed ganks, jungle invades, and the brutality of 4 chickens. Thus, being said, increasing an early-game Jungle Item has much more drastic consequences for Junglers, meaning a 100 gold increase on our items hurts us more than laners. What makes this even worse is that because of the drastic changes to the Jungle in Season 5, many Junglers need to recall after taking our third camp, meaning those Junglers will recall with 350 gold in their pockets. There are not many Junglers who, with standard Jungle Runes and Masteries, can naturally stay in the Jungle long enough to get an extra 100 gold for the first Tier-2 Jungle Item, and there are other Junglers who need to take unorthodox or gimmicky Runes and Masteries consisting of Spell Vamp runes and masteries.

And why is this bad? Because we already have a small group of Junglers who have not been been suffering as much, Jungle diversity has been decreasing because that small elite group of Junglers are outclassing everyone else. Why play x Jungler if Fiddlesticks can outsustain everyone or if Jarvan can do it without getting beaten up by the Jungle creeps? With the 100 gold increase to the Tier-2 Jungle Item, the small group of Junglers who can stay in the Jungle may not be affected, but anyone who has been suffering in the Jungle will be playing catch-up from the beginning of the game as they will recall without enough gold to buy the most important item in the game for them. The strong Junglers are being left basically scratched while everyone else is being nerfed severely.

Now what is my problem with this? I should not feel obligated to play x Jungler because that Jungler outclasses so many others. I should play my Jungler because I want to, and I should be rewarded for playing my Jungler (unless it's Urgot). However, this change means that some of my favorite Junglers, like Nocturne and Nautilus will be outclassed, and I will be punished for playing a champion who cannot keep up with the small group of Junglers who can find means to reliably acquire 100 more gold before recalling. In fact, I am being punished for playing a champion who cannot clear 4-5 Jungle camps before recalling. The Jungle is now punishing champion choices, and that is unprecedented. Riot has never released a change which promotes a champion choice while punishing players for choosing other champions.

I would like to hear everyone's opinion on this matter, but please keep this civil. Respect my opinion, and I will give you the same respect.