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Jungle Item Balance Idea

Heedprime·7/18/2015, 8:25:19 AM·3 votes·706 views

ISSUE: Champions are taking smite and jungle items without being the jungle and to me that is stupid. Itemization should favor jungle items being on junglers and these items should be weak on any other role by comparison.

ISSUE: Sated Devourer is a great item right now that is edging the tank jungler meta out and replacing it with an attack-speed jungler meta.

ISSUE: Runeglaive is not great on all AP junglers. It is strong on NIdalee and Ezreal but weak on FIddle.

 If you look at the first two issues side-by-side and really think about it, the solution to both of them is clear. Why don't you see many people taking the most OP jungle item when they don't jungle? Because you have to farm jungle to make the item strong. How can we make it so Runeglaive is not as OP in lane? Make it so you have to farm jungle to make it strong.

 On top of this I feel like cinderhulk and warrior need a little love to make these jungler types have a chance to shine. Some jungle tanks are still good but with devourer they get a little outclassed by the ![Aatrox](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/Aatrox.png) , ![MasterYi](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/MasterYi.png) , ![Kayle](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/Kayle.png) , and ![Jax](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/champion/Jax.png) junglers.

My proposed item adjustments:

item 3710 Devourer/Sated Devourer - Keep this one as is.

item 3708 Runeglaive - I like what riot did with Runeglaive but I feel like it has two inherent flaws. One being what I mentioned above where champs like Ezreal are taking it to lane and being OP. The other is that certain AP junglers like Fiddlesticks don't utilize its passive very well. My suggestions is that you keep the spellblade passive but have it build stacks like with devourer and also have it behave a little different so champs who don't want a lich bane aren't screwed so hard.

item 3057 Spellblade - After using an ability, your next basic attack will deal additional magic damage equal to 100% base AD + (X% of AP) to your target and up to 3 additional nearby targets (prioritizes monsters if the intitial target is a monster, prioritizes champions if the initial target is a champion) where X is equal to the stacks you have on this item. (1.5-second cooldown). Versus monsters, this effect restores 7% mana plus 1% for each additional target hit beyond the first. Max 30 stacks. The sated effect would let your abilities to also apply the effect but have a 6 second cooldown.

 ^ This means Fiddle could farm jungle and occasionally throw out an AA once in a while but if he had a sated runeglaive he could ult a teamfight with a strong initial burst as well. I think this could make runeglaive on par with devourer on terms of scale as well as help out AP junglers who don't normally prefer a ![item 3100](https://ddragon.leagueoflegends.com/cdn/16.11.1/img/item/3100.png).

item 3709 Cinderhulk - Change two things here. The % bonus HP should be (5 + X)% bonus HP where X is the number of stacks you have with this item. The Immolate passive would be that it deals 15 + (X) magic damage to nearby enemies, 100% bonus damage versus monsters. Max 20 stacks and then becomes a Sated Cinderhulk. Sated Cinderhulk would give you +X armor and magic resist.

item 3707 Warrior - Bring back the Incinerate passive from Spirit of the Elder Lizard. UNIQUE - INCINERATE: Deals an additional 20 + (X) bonus true damage over 3 seconds upon dealing physical damage where X is the number of stacks you have with this item. Max 20 stacks and then becomes Sated Warrior. Sated Warrior would also apply a X% slow for 1 second when Incinerate is applied.

I think this would allow all manners of junglers the opportunity to shine with their jungle item and open up a wider variety of strong jungle picks.

8 Comments

PrinceOfStorms7/18/2015, 9:08:31 AM3 votes

This is one of the few well-thought out posts that I've actually seen on this forum.

However, the one concern that I have is that you'll still have certain junglers that work the best with these new jungle items, like how Nidalee is the best abuser of Runeglaive, Yi/Aatrox/Kayle/Jax are the best abusers of Devourer, Sejuani/Gragas are the best Cinderhulk abusers etc.

That was a problem with the Season 4 Jungle items, where because Kha'zix, Lee Sin, and Elise were the best junglers for using the jungle items, they were the junglers that were almost always picked.

LilxPaprika7/18/2015, 9:15:46 AM2 votes

I agree seems pretty obvious to me as well, someone on reddit suggestion machete counts how many camps you destroy from the beginning. and that you have to destroy different camps to be able to purchase the jungle item.

Honestly on the one hand i could care less if laners get jungle items, if it wasn't for the fact that they have their own similar version of said items to choose from. (problem is jungle items are cost efficient for laners which makes them attractive) jungle items imo would have to cost about the same as lane items, junglers just need more gold from jungling imo. i'd create something like devourer for 2250 gold, and sated devourer for 2850 gold. this would deter laners from desiring it as much over their alternatives.

Posted this idea for warrior: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/4kxEhbAn-warriors-turn

the format of the game is to give champions more ways to make gold if they have difficulty getting some. Making jungle items cheaper/extremely cost effective will just give champions who don't have difficulty getting gold every reason to get said items for themselves. The fact that this is overlooked really gets me.

LilxPaprika7/18/2015, 9:54:55 AM2 votes

Quick history of jungle items: Way back when, jungle didn't even have jungle items and both teams had smites that couldn't be enchanted. Then jungle items were introduced and smite had yet to be enchanted, the jungle items were budget oriented. laners might get a jungle item. like say a Talon could apply lizard elder's true dmg on his ad spells. They were not forced to get smite to equip a jungle item either. you would think they would have been more common in lane then. But at 2000 gold they were a bit underwhelming stat wise compared to alternatives. Back then you could still see someone like shaco not even bother getting machete and start doran blade and rush hydra to clear faster. (this made his early ganks really strong, hence the changes to the jungle being near impossible to clear without machete early game and the desire to force champions to get smite to buy machete)

up until now I didn't mind the idea of 1 out of 5 members of each team being down 1 summonerspell of sorts. so long as both teams were equally "handicapped". Nor do i mind giving junglers enchanted smites now. So long as the playing field is equal is all.

Now here's what happened. Up until this point smite never got enchanted, then the developers saw fit that junglers were left out sort to speak of a summoner spell of their own. Forcing laners to get smite to use a jungle item would have been a huge deterrent to use jungle item in lane were it not for the fact that smite now comes with its own enchantment(essentially a built in summoner spell).

that said, here's my idea: the real solution is to give junglers a way to sell their jungle item come mid/late game once they've cleared 30 or so camps. (thereby abandoning the enchanted smite that came in handy early game) and allow them to unlock 1 preselected summoner spell. They will also have the choice to keep the jungle item and preferably upgrade it and continue using enchanted smite. with only 1 summoner and enchanted smite. http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/gameplay-balance/zAjNsbtN-actual-simple-jungle-solution

so here's how it could work. once you've reached say 30 stacks in the jungle you will be notified that you can now either upgrade the jungle item or choose to sell it at no selling price penalty and receive a summoner spell. The latter will entail you no longer receiving bonus gold from the jungle however. which shouldn't be that significant at this point because the game shifts around this time towards objectives and team fights.

If you're unsure no need to makeup your mind then and there, can continue completing the rest of your build in the mean time. This would open up jungle build options wide open, no need to make duplicate items for everything in the jungle. Fiddlesticks for example would just sell a mini magus instead of upgrading it into runeglaive and use an item that suits him.

In this example you can choose to get rid of enchanted smtie and get 1 summonerspell, with a non enchanted smite. Assign a new key to it however. it could be place in slots 1 through 6. whatever you switch it with will get placed in a new slot 8.

http://media.lolusercontent.com/api/embedly/1/image/resize?url=http%3A%2F%2Fapollo-na-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com%2F1436616362%2Fjunglesolution.jpg&key=f0abbd34f14549f3a15cd94dd9970851&width=150&height=150&errorUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.leagueoflegends.com%2Fapollo%2Fassets%2Fdiscussion-thumbnail-ward.png