Is Nunu destined to become the next O.P. Jungler or a shell of his current self?
I'm sure many of us are aware of the changes coming to the jungle of Summoner's Rift in the 2015 season. Monsters with higher base stats, the removal of most current jungle items in place of ( what I hope are ) more balanced upgrades of the Hunter's Machete along with Smite now giving buffs to the jungler. Ideally this should make the jungle a level playing field, and Riot themselves have said ( see paragraph two of "The Details" @ http://na.leagueoflegends.com/en/news/game-updates/gameplay/preseason-2015-new-jungle ) the following in regards to tankier junglers:
First, the current jungle is heavily biased in favor of fast-clearing junglers who double up on their sustain through offense. Our first goal was to balance this more equally in favor of other attributes like sustain and mitigation in order to open up the strategic space for jungler power. As such, we’ve given basic camps a pretty hefty base stat increase. We’ve also changed the pacing of the basic camps, increasing their gold and XP rewards, along with their spawn delay. This puts a higher premium on mitigation-focused junglers who can stay healthy to gank after clearing a camp, while high-damage junglers might be more effective at ganking but will have a tougher time keeping up.
Now enter Nunu, a Jungler who currently is effective without being overpowered. I'm just wondering how the jungle changes are going to impact him. At the time of constructing this board Nunu's ability titled Consume ( his Q ) deals 400/550/700/850/1000 true damage to the target minion or monster and heals himself for 70/115/160/205/250 (+75% Ability Power) while giving him a buff for 120/150/180/210/240 seconds based on what was consumed. The specifics (see "Consume" @ http://gameinfo.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/game-info/champions/nunu/ ) are that Nunu's attacks and spells deal an additional 1% maximum health as magic damage if after eating a reptile, consuming golems gives 10% increased size and maximum health, and digesting wolves/wraiths grants Nunu 15% movement speed for three seconds.
Combining his Consume with the upcoming changes to the summoner spell Smite, assuming Nunu's buffs from Consume stay the same, could lead to some very powerful stats for Nunu. Current video footage from the Public Beta Environment has shown smiting a camp's large monster to give a buff: smiting the large wolf gives vision near the "blue buff" for a good period of time while smiting what were the wraiths seems to give true vision to players when a ward is near. Many other buffs can also be found in the jungle through Smite and my concerns rest on them stacking to the point where Nunu becomes the next big problem. On the flip side what if Riot were to "tweak" Nunu's Q so that it gave no buffs or no health?
This leaves Nunu ( in my eyes ) to be somewhat of a mystery. I won't know how he preforms in the jungle until the update is live and I was hoping I could get the thoughts of the League's community ( Riot staff included ) on what they see in the future for Nunu and how he'll interact with the new jungle.
Thanks for the read, Jae Beae.