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Let's talk about the new jungle!

RiotRiot MechaMoose·11/20/2014, 6:33:49 PM·17 votes·17,917 views

So the Preseason is upon us, and along with it, the brand new jungle! It's different, with new items, monsters, and spawn rates, so a lot of those tactics from the old jungle just don't apply anymore.

So since this is the Tips & Tricks board, lets have a discussion about strategies involving the new jungle!

Junglers, lets hear your tips and tricks for dealing with the new jungle. Maybe that's a champion that seems to work really well with the changes, or itemization strategies to handle the different packs.

I'm a pretty bad jungler, but for me one thing I like to do is keep an eye on the enemy jungler's items. If I see that they're building one of the farming items, then I'll know I might be able to play a little bit more aggressively for a while. The jungler loses the value of his item if he is forced to come and babysit lanes because my team is applying a lot of pressure.

Now, if the jungler takes one of the items that lets him smite champions item, then I know he's going to be looking to make an early impact on the lanes. Adjust your playstyle accordingly!

EDIT: This was ment to be a discussion about tips for the new jungle, not a balance discussion. Sorry for the confusion! Please post your tips and jungle strategies in this thread here: http://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/tips-tricks/QGUGRh8d-got-any-tips-and-tricks-about-surviving-in-the-new-jungle

66 Comments

Yfrappefort11/20/2014, 8:21:57 PM13 votes

I tried Nautilus again, and all I have to say is that he will need a buff to his shield for rank 1 and possibly 2 and 3.

With the monsters hitting harder, the shield almost pop with only 2 AA and since it also remove your AoE instantly, it makes his first clear very, very painful.

ModCaptainMårvelous11/20/2014, 8:00:14 PM11 votes

Some tests:

item 3706 - I feel it's not great. a 50% slow for two seconds is piddly for damage junglers. Nice in theory but IMO it can't hold a candle to any sort of CC you'd actually want on a jungler. item 3713 - INCREDIBLE for weak junglers. On a guy like Naut I could gank, smite a came and be back to full. Honestly this is probably my default jungler trinket of choice. item 3711 - Counterjungle item. That's all there is to it. item 3715 - Underrated IMO. Great for dueling/countering a counterjungler but overall it's the most kill-desiring.

But lemme take a moment to talk about item 3710 item 3718 item 3722 item 3726 . This item is fucking nuts. 40 bonus magic damage on it that increases!? Last game, moderately doing well, I was doing around 86 bonus magic damage on hit at the end of the game. That right there is obscene. I expect this thing to get nerfed so abuse it while you can.

Camp Bonus Discussion Raptor den is amazing. Smite it if you can. The sight is a great tool when you can't upgrade your oracles enough. Krud is as useful as your AAs. Fast auto-attackers (Udyr, Yi, Shy, etc) will love it. Tanky/Ability junglers not so much. Wolves are meh. The sentry doesn't run around outside of the blue/gromp/wolf den and I'm more worried about counter jungling int he south quadrent. Groomp is pretty good if you're taking a lot of hits early but falls off as you kill faster. Blue/Red are decent smites. I sometimes find myself smiting red while walking past it for a bit more HP.

All in all, I like the jungle changes. It feels tougher but also a bit more engaging and rewarding.

Vore Monster11/20/2014, 6:39:01 PM8 votes

Using the Utility tree to get that extra cooldown reduction on your Smite is really helpful in this new season, allowing players that took Challenging Smite or Chilling Smite to be able to compete within a lesser time gap than those with the other two smites.

Also, that extra 40 gold gives you a fancy 3rd pot.

UPDATE: Sejuani Sejuani can SOLO sustain the jungle starting at Blue>Wolves>Chickens>Red>Gromp>Wolves
going 0/17/13 in the Mastery Tree while having AD Marks, 1 AD quint, 2 AS quint, 5 scaling armor seals, 4 armor flat seals, and 9 scaling armor glyphs. While starting with nothing but a machete and 3 buscuits. and has the fastest camp clear time for a tank involving the first time you attempt chickens.

RiotRiot MechaMoose11/20/2014, 7:23:41 PM5 votes

Well, everything is new. I'd hesitate to make blanket statements like every jungler without sustain/mitigation is eliminated. I think that things are quite different, but explore different options and clear paths with different champions and see how things go. Maybe the old way of thinking about the jungle isn't the only, or best way anymore!

Emporer Kronk11/20/2014, 9:13:39 PM5 votes

I hate to sound like I am afraid of change, or generally counter intuitive. However, with that said, I hate what they've done to new jungle. I have not been around super long, but implementing this all at once throws everything I liked about Jungle out the window. I liked the way it was, and think it's really annoying that new Summoner's Rift Update was supposed to help current gameplay, not change it. The way it is now, I used to play a lot of Jungle, and I won't be. You've made it so Counter Jungling is even worse. If you get countered, you might as well AFK unless you play a stupid easy champ that's no fun. The way it was worked. Don't fix something that isn't broken. You turned Jungle into a super advanced, overly detailed mess. At this rate, I might as well stop playing League. I like change, but it needs to be done in increments. You shouldn't just take a bunch of ideas and vomit them all over your Playerbase.

There are soo many things wrong I don't know where to start. First off, making it so we can only buy Jungle items with Smite is not needed. It takes away more freedom from the Player and boxes you in to do what is "Meant" to be done. Not the Smiteless Jungle was ever huge for me, but taking away my ability to chose what I want to do hurts over all strategy. You're railroading Players into Meta, or what's accepted.

Next, making small camps more than Gold and XP, then using that as an excuse to double respawns. Terrible. It was hard enough when you can't gank due to whatever reason, now, there's not point to stay in the match if your team can't set up ganks. I know it's a team effort, but I don't want to be penalized as a Jungle Main simply because my Random Team-mates decide they want to keep pushed and not let me gank. Personally, I don't think I should have to stop and wonder: "What would be most useful to smite? Maybe this, so I can have vision, or perhaps I should smite this for a buff..." There's no reason to complicate small camps. What next? Does CSing in lane have special effects based on when you do it and what spot in lane the minions die?

This, I have to make note of because it should be said. Making it so if you die to Jungle camps you don' lose buffs? Come on, that is just silly. If you die to a Jungle Camp, then you messed up and shouldn't keep your buffs. I assume this was done because you made even small camps harder for reasons which I don't know for sure.

Over all, this decision was bad, and it needs to be rethought entirely. Stop shoving Junglers out of their Jungle and into fights, when you force players to do something, you kill diversity even more. Riot, the worst part about League to me and loads of others, is that everyone does one type of thing and corners you into doing certain things to counter that. Stop making it so I have to play specific champions to do well.

B3ER11/20/2014, 9:17:11 PM4 votes

New jungle has less gold due to the doubled up respawn times, its harder to clear and leaves you more vulnerable. You also gank later (after recall) which means laners have caught up in xp. On top of that red buff slow has been nerfed. Slayer was nerfed because the stacks don't deal 300% damage against monsters. You guys reaaaaaaallly wanted to nerf junglers for no reason, huh?

Don't tell me that Smite upgrades are cool now. With the CD nerf, the only viable smite is Ranger. If you want junglers to keep up, camps need a massive early game gold buff.

MrBuffington11/20/2014, 7:13:39 PM4 votes

I'm personally leaning pretty heavily on NB3 and LS and other high-tier players for their takes on the new jungle, since they're more experienced than me and generally understand the game better. NB3 has been testing junglers in PBE and such for the past week or two, he's compiled some of his initial impressions in this doc. LS is planning on releasing some more information in a few days/a week or so. Cloth5 has this really cool analysis of some of the new jungle changes, including a lot of good data on clear-speeds and sustain per different junglers.

Kýu11/20/2014, 9:28:42 PM3 votes

I feel EXTREMELY underlevel'd even if i only farm, if i try ganking lanes i ultimately end up too far behind to gank anymore without dying and am forced to go back to farming, remaining behind.

I dont like sitting in the jungle farming all game, its boring. The EXP i get just isnt enough to be able to not farm all game.

You wana survive? farm all game, you wont be too useful but at least your not 2-5 lvs behind!

dirtySOUTHfaLIFE11/20/2014, 7:04:44 PM3 votes

To be honest I completely dislike the new jungle because it just feels like the jungler is at a complete disadvantage as compared to every other lane and what was once a position that any person could do, is now a really complicated position that only highly knowledgeable players can manage and to top it off it also feels as if the jungler is forced to have to upgrade hunters machete completely whereas before it could be partly upgraded and instead people could spend their earnings on a build that the person likes better. So when I was jungler I took every opportunity i had to push lanes and kill minions to earn money much faster and not take a huge chunk of my health out while trying to jungle.

RiotRiot MechaMoose11/20/2014, 6:41:47 PM3 votes

You don't have to be an expert! The preseason just came out, so I'd imagine there are very few experts out there. If you jungle and you figure something out, then it's worth mentioning. Everybody is trying to figure out the new jungle at this point, and what sort of effect it will have on the rest of the game.

Linna Excel11/20/2014, 6:40:41 PM2 votes

My only concern about the new jungle.

Now, if the jungler takes one of the items that lets him smite champions item, then I know he's going to be looking to make an early impact on the lanes. Adjust your playstyle accordingly!

I still run into players who think Shyv is a gank jungler and then call you a noob when you try to avoid ganking from a warded bush. Hoping they'll adjust their playstyle is asking a bit much of them.

Padagi11/20/2014, 7:15:56 PM2 votes

With 4 games in, 4.20 jungle definitely is a change. This jungle is no joking matter.

Some notes:

Raptors seem a little over tuned. I realize this camp has been too easy for a while, but honestly, do they have to absolutely truck you as hard as they do? Compared to the other camps, this one is just suicide, especially for the non-sustain junglers.

You succeeded in essentially eliminating early ganks. Level 3 ganks aren't possible in any normalized reality without being extremely at risk of dying. This is going to really have a big impact on the roster of junglers across the board, because Lee Sin and others can't snowball off of super early ganks. They have to back, and their clear times in the jungle really aren't great.

Playing Amumu and Skarner in jungle already, I can say that these are much better picks than the common S4 picks. With Lee Sin and company you either end up with a Level 3 Lee Sin ganking after his back with the laners at level 3/4, or you end up with them waiting and ganking at level 4 or 5 with half health after the rest of a full clear (and after one back already). With Skarner and Amumu (and others), you can gank with 75% or higher health after a back and at level 4 or 5. That's a pretty big advantage.

It's not a bad thing... We are likely to see a landslide shift in who succeeds in this jungle. At least, that's my prediction. Any of the champions without defensive abilities and/or sustain, and have low base stats, are not going to do that great in this jungle. But that's what is going to happen with the changes required to meet the goals in diversity that Riot has been trying for, accentuating the weaknesses of junglers (who may not have even been intended to jungle), and the strengths of others who were (Warwick, Fiddle, Nunu, Skarner, Amumu, etc.).

Declined11/20/2014, 9:18:31 PM2 votes

I must admit I'm not the most knowledgeable jungler out there, however I did some testing with certain champions and I just don't see which rune/mastery pages or even jungle paths you can use for some of these junglers, namely those with low clearing speed and no innate sustain, for example Sejuani, can anyone tell me how she and others like her, can survive the new jungle?

Edit: and of course there's a post about Seju I overlooked.

TheI3igDaddy11/20/2014, 6:49:09 PM2 votes

My concern for these changes are how the weak early-game junglers will be affected. I'm talking about Mumu, Hec, Naut, Sej... Skarner? There may be more that I'm simply forgetting for the moment. These champs had ugly first clears in the old jungle, and I shudder to think about Season 5's. Are small buffs hopefully in order so that they can still stay around? I'd assume you'd want the aforementioned champs as junglers primarily, so giving them some early game love could go a long way.

This of course is implying you'd have to buff Hecarim, and I know that's probably on your 'List of Things NEVER To Do' list.

Narog11/20/2014, 10:13:57 PM2 votes

Many positive changes from past seasons were undone ,example: most of the exp from camps was put on the big monster because people used to take the exp from the jungler .

HeartlessWytche11/20/2014, 7:03:24 PM2 votes

Evelynn.... please help her D: Warwick feels really strong, good clear, safe and with devourer his ult has the damages.

I normally jungle 9/21/0 or 21/9/0, will try some builds that go into support with the 9 maybe, get longer buffs and smite CDR.

WombieZombie11/20/2014, 10:38:39 PM2 votes

If I can be honest, I kinda don't like the new jg items... There's too many, and they really don't improve upon what was already there. I guess the new items can be improved tho.

Hupsis11/20/2014, 10:48:02 PM1 votes

Try Karma with item 3724 . The aoe stun really makes a great combo with her mantra Q. It also allows her to keep alive in the jungle since using smite will restore health and mana. For added effectiveness build item 3152 . If you are in a fight with an enemy champion, smite the lane minions to gain a lot of health. I have only tested this in bot games, but it seemed to work there.

Earl Eulrich11/20/2014, 7:15:55 PM1 votes

Not really much about the new jungle...but I really question the new crab-monster. I think it only adds to vision being too snowbally and does more harm than it adds to the game on the long run (teams that are ahead tend to control the river fairly well, most of the times you´re barely save in your own jungle when you´re behind). And to keep the topic on Vision...have ou ever thought about adding a reliable source of Vision for both teams, like e.g. a yellow-ward that is visible+indestructible, but only 3 can be placed by a team at any time and it will only highlight champs that pass by for a short amount of time, but doesn´t give permanent vision of the area (think of a ward spamming the lee sin e without slowing/dealing dmg)...so it wouldn´t reveal e.g. skillshots flying by. So teams that are on the back-foot can still keep some vision-control in crucial areas without getting just swept away or catched while they try to ward in the first place.

Balderdash100011/20/2014, 7:33:42 PM1 votes

I haven't been able to play much yet, but from what I've seen of the jungle items, the counter-jungle item is trash, while the items that smite champions have huge opportunity costs. It sucks ganking bot then having dragon stolen because you used smite on their ADc just before. As for the farm item, it seems significantly stronger then the rest in general. The reduced cooldown on the farm item gives you a lot more flexibility with your smite letting you farm the stronger jungle faster, get more jungle buffs, and makes it much easier to keep smite up when looking to take a major objective.

From what I can tell, the enchantments are much better balanced, though I get the feeling that devourer might be a bit OP. Obviously, these are just my first impressions, and it's a lot harder to tell where the different junglers stand right now, so I'll leave it at that.

Flemman11/20/2014, 7:50:29 PM1 votes

one thing is sure, the new jungle give so much buff that if, like in my first game of pre-season, your jungle is afk, it punish you even more as the enemy jungler can take your jungle buff with no contest (make him twice as powerfull).

Same goes for the dragon and turret change, make it even harder to win a 4v5 :s

on the side note, is a timer for the crab an option as it's like baron and dragon, a monster both team shared?

sakuda11/20/2014, 7:52:56 PM1 votes

Master Yi, That's all I have to say.

KOSHER TACO11/20/2014, 8:00:22 PM1 votes

Not sure what this is supposed to mean

Non-sustain/low sustain junglers(Rengar,Kha'zix,Wukong,Udyr): First camp(strong leash) to first buff(smite it) to second camp, back and buy jungle item, then second buff

Start with doran item or just pots or something?

Porta Nova11/20/2014, 8:06:25 PM1 votes

I haven't gotten a chance to jungle yet, but dragons are seeming to be soooooo important now. Going along with that is the water bug thing, which I've been making sure to kill frequently as support.

Giotto11/20/2014, 8:21:35 PM1 votes

I've been playing a lot of top lane lately on both main and smurf. After a few games with these changes, I feel like top laners are now more than ever forced to take tp. That first dragon buff stack seems to be more important than most of the other buff from dragon aside from the 5th stack in terms of effect on fights. Say top lane is relatively equal, but the other team obtained the first dragon stack, top lane match up would shift towards the side with the dragon stack despite no effort or involvement of the top lane in getting that bonus (easily a free 360 gold value [long sword] for the first stack per person) and they do not need to back to use that bonus. As such, a top laner would be forced to have tp to deter such a change in match up due to other side of the map. While I think dragon should be a rewarding objective, the bonus damage should be later in the stack. The order of the buff should be re-examined. Because right now, if I had a choice between taking top lane or tping/walking down to contest dragon, dragon will be favored in a landslide just for the gold value of the first buff.

Minrog11/20/2014, 8:53:50 PM1 votes

I played a couple of test games with WW and overall I liked the changes for him.

the Smite pretty much seems like a lock for the AoE farm one (for a jungler)
the Smite that slows/true damages enemy champions seems stronger for laners, since they don't need Smite for objectives
Devourer OP. More bonus dmg than Bloodthirster? yes please. Nasus Q, hitting 5 times on Infinite Duress? huehuehue (if it stops stacking at some point, feel free to ignore. I didn't run into a limit during my tests)
I saw it in another thread, but Pantheon and Callista (the new champ) can solo Dragon at lvl 3 without taking damage

Vovix11/20/2014, 9:11:24 PM1 votes

Is there a table of the Gold/XP values of each camp? I've heard people saying that each camp now gives the same XP, is this true?

MattAkhavan11/20/2014, 9:23:59 PM1 votes

If you start blue don't smite it, smite red it gives you health back. then continue to baby camps. This is what works best for me.

LGC Jairen11/20/2014, 9:54:28 PM1 votes

while i am not my groups main jungler. I usually play top/mid and tend to use champions with a strong later game that relies on jungle assistance to get through the earliest phases.

I live in the same house as our main jungle and we play next to each other. Her main complaints while running the new jungle has been the severe lack of gold now that you don't have the bonuses, compounded with falling behind because of the longer timers and harder clear. Obviously this in turn makes some of my own farm/laning difficult because it means a fairly long delay in ganks.

I'm thinking there might need to be a bit of a gold buff in the jungle

Ark Angel HFB11/20/2014, 10:25:05 PM1 votes

Ok... I'll weight in with a very good general concept as a D4 Jungle main.

Does your jungler have a very good lvl 2 that lets them gank if they want? If yes, then they will do just fine and will thrive in the new jungle.
Does your jungler scale with lvl's and need lvls before they really come on line? If yes, then you are going to have a rough time in the jungle for much longer than you are used to.
Can your jungler scale well with items? If yes, then the new jungle items no longer drag down your build and if you get rolling you can in fact still carry from the jungle.

Power lvl'ing junglers are no longer a thing as far as I can tell. Unless your ganks on solo lanes get kills you will be roughly 1 to 2 lvls behind the enemy solo lanes at the second buff mark.

HOWEVER, the new jungle items are SO much strong when fighting enemy champs it makes up for some of this and once the game gets rolling if you get enough gold for a decent build after the jungle item... you can really scale great.

Now everything I just said is off of like one day of playing... but,

I find that the new jungle force farm junglers to do something else early other than just farm... but rewards then later...
Early impact junglers, the ones that can gank lvl 2, are still a thing and are really going to shine.
The more pure tank junglers, that can't gank early, and don't have fast clears, have been almost completely pushed out of the jungle.

Early impact = J4, Shaco, Lee, Fid, Panth

Farm Heavy = WW, Ud

Tanks = Amumu, Nunu, Rammus, Sion.

The above 11 junglers should be the main focus for most people for the time being. they will be impacting games massively.

Metheus11/20/2014, 10:43:43 PM1 votes

I tried a practice match with Evelyenn and couldn't do a clear because it was too hard. I then closed the game and played something else because one of my favorite characters is unusable.