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AP Jungling isn't fair, Riot

Jungle Lux God·7/10/2016, 4:03:22 AM·3 votes·550 views

Back in patch 5.12, Riot stated that they wanted to add diversity to AP jungling. Since then, they've done a lot to increase that diversity, including:

  • Adding Runeglaive to remove mana concerns of AP junglers
  • Adding Runic Echoes to remove mana concerns of AP junglers without being absolutely terrible
  • Adding Hunter's Talisman to give AP junglers a jungle item to improve their clears in a way that they can really appreciate
  • Reworking AP items twice, both of which were mostly beneficial for AP junglers
  • Reworking older champions and releasing some new champions to add new options for AP junglers

However, here's what has actually happened:

  • Nidalee and Elise are still the two best AP junglers in professional play with almost no close third for at least half a season
  • The only AP junglers that see play now that didn't see play before have less than a 1% play rate in ranked; in other words, there's really no increase to the AP jungling champion pool

With how much effort Riot has put into adding diversity to AP jungling, it doesn't make sense as to why there aren't as many new AP junglers being picked. Why haven't we seen more diversity in AP junglers?

I've played an extremely large variety of AP champions ranging from old jungling staples like Fiddlesticks, relatively newer picks like Rumble and Aurelion Sol, and some extremely experimental picks like Viktor and Lux. I have a lot of experience playing AP junglers, and wanted to give my thoughts on why we haven't seen the level of AP jungle diversity that we should be having while also adding my idea for adding diversity to AP junglers.

>So what's wrong with AP champions in the jungle?

It's also worth talking about strengths and weaknesses. While some champions may be overtuned or undertuned that such that it doesn't look like this, every champion has their own degree of strengths and weaknesses.

For junglers, these strengths/weaknesses usually translate to a combination of clearing speed/sustain (including how bad a specific early clear might be), ganking/dueling presence, objective control, late-game scaling, and teamwide utility. However, AP junglers also tend to have an additional weakness: they have mana issues. That's not to say that other kinds of jungers don't have mana issues (some tank junglers like Amumu have mana issues) or that every AP jungler has mana issues (obviously you can't have mana issues if you don't use mana), but that is the biggest problem that AP junglers have to deal with.

Of course that's also the problem with AP laners, but there is a noticeable difference in their mana expenditure and their tools to alleviate it:

  • AP junglers have a much higher mana expenditure in the jungle than similar AP laners
  • AP laners get three unique options to choose from for their mana item, and only need one mana item for the whole game (unless you really want the second mana item on someone like Ryze)
  • AP junglers need Runic Echoes as a mandatory mana item, need a second one to not go OOM in teamfights, and have two options for that second mana item (due to problems with Catalyst of Aeons not being a good option in the jungle)

In other words, the mana problems of AP junglers are too steep for how poorly the game alleviates them.

>How do we fix these problems?

There's a lot that can be done to add diversity for AP junglers. The best solution that I came up with was to replace Runic Echoes with two new AP jungle items:

  • One of these items builds out of Lost Chapter, has AP, mana, a jungle-based mana refund passive, and (possibly?) Morellonomicon's mana refund on kill/assist
  • The other builds out of another AP item (maybe Aether Wisp like Echoes? or maybe Fiendish Codex? there's a lot of options here) and provides combat stats without a mana regen passive
  • Two AP jungle items was avoided in the past to avoid having one completely outclass the other, but it's fine in this situation because they have completely different goals
  • Neither item should have a passive that offers an extra source of damage because they have caused problems elsewhere (such as AP Ezreal abusing Runeglaive and tanks abusing Runic Echoes)
  • In addition to these two new jungle items, Catalyst of Aeons' mana regen passive should apply against jungle monsters so it can be a legit mana option for AP junglers

The goals of this change is that you have three distinct options for how your build progresses in the jungle:

  • Rush the mana-based jungle item; you get Lost Chapter to alleviate mana early, the item alleviates mana late, and still fulfills Runic Echoes' function as a mana battery in the mid game
  • Rush one of three items for the jungle, and take the manaless jungle enchantment for a slightly larger powerspike later on; with the previously mentioned change to Catalyst, Rod of Ages users would really appreciate this
  • Rush the manaless jungle enchantment because you have no mana (or otherwise don't need mana), or you really want the early powerspike

With this system, your AP jungler of choice gets better early options for mana. Reduced mana concerns for many AP champions both early and late opens up room for many AP junglers to be viable that weren't viable before, and therefore would add a lot of AP jungling diversity.

12 Comments

MisterHealYoGirl7/10/2016, 4:44:44 AM2 votes

I mean, in terms of actual AP carry junglers (not counting tanks with incidental AP scalings like Amumu and Sejuani), how many are there? Sol, Diana, Ekko, Elise, Fiddle, Nid, and Rumble. There are a couple of super off-meta ones (Taliyah, Karthus), a couple who edge on the AP carry side of tanks (Cho'Gath, Gragas) and a few who can build more or less whatever (Eve, Kayle), but there really aren't that many of them. The fact that two of them (Elise and Nidalee) were LCS playable at the same time is a minor miracle.

Diversity in pro play is never a very useful metric. In week 1 of the NA LCS summer split, there were five ADCs picked in total, across 24 games. In that same week, AP junglers were a quarter of the 8 junglers picked, a third if you discount the two one-shots (Kha and Lee). Most of the AP junglers are unsuitable for pro play for other reasons: Fiddlesticks relies heavily on failures of vision to succeed, and Rumble, Diana, and Ekko are simply better in their respective lanes. Aurelion is a bit of a question mark; I haven't seen him played enough to judge how or why he's not picked jungle. I'd guess it's issues with invades, though I'm not sure.

Splitting the already miniscule pool of AP junglers even further is probably of limited use (this is why Runeglaive was replaced by Echoes instead of adding to it). Doing it by mana/manaless would also seem to make the problem you noted worse; junglers who already struggled with mana and clearing are forced to get an item that slows their clear and weakens their ganks, while those who didn't have mana issues are given with a better package of combat stats than they had before. In essence, doing this would reward those junglers who had the least trouble clearing while putting those who already struggle further behind.

Jetjoe7/10/2016, 4:30:02 AM1 votes

AP junglers suck dick. The only reason nidalee will win a matchup is kill stealing or the enemy being a noob.

I can recall being adc (which is the role I suck most at), and being able to wreck nidalees. Other lanes, she stands no chance.

zlumpy7/10/2016, 5:21:03 AM1 votes

Does Gragas count as an AP jungler?

Sohleks7/11/2016, 12:42:53 AM1 votes

Lost chapter into an AP jungle item sounds like a good direction actually.

Though we probably don't see more AP junglers just because Elise, Nidalee and Gragas just tower over them. Gragas and Elise have these ridiculous kits that's literally all you'd ever need. I personally think Gragas is a really stupid [too good] champion. E flash into ults has very little counterplay.