League of Legends Preseason Jungle changes are fun and rewarding

It’s been quite some time since Jungle has gotten love in a meaningful way. Jungle was always a very powerful role, but often considered to be the punching bag of the team. It’s a very hard role to master, but due to the overwhelming amount of things you’re supposed to pay attention to as a Jungler, it’s also a tough role to get into.

After watching players actively avoid the role for a while now, Riot has finally decided to give Jungle the attention it deserves and make it a bit more beginner friendly in the latest patch. After two weeks, let’s see how jungle feels.

New Jungle Pets? Yes Please!

Instead of the traditional jungle items, we got our egg and jungle pet this patch. Your pets evolve as you progress by getting monster and/or champion takedowns that grant you stacks. Pets can evolve twice throughout the game and receive bonuses with each evolution. It’s been interesting seeing how the meta evolves around jungle pets thus far. The evolutions flow naturally and jungle itself doesn’t feel much different.

In addition, your pets fighting alongside you is more of a visual kink then an actual game changer. With every attack your pet performs, they heal you for 70% of the damage they do, but this doesn’t feel much different when compared to the previous vamp buffs.

To those that haven’t touched LoL in a while, heres a quick for Dummies view:

• Mosstomper is perfect for Tank Junglers. It gives you a shield based on your health, slow resistance and Tenacity once your shield is broken.
• Scorchclaw is the right pet for aggressive players and assassins. It gives you bonus damage and slows
• Gustwalker gives bonus movement speed and is perfect for Junglers who want to rotate and gank more often.

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Jungling experience thus far in pre-season patch

This season we’re seeing Jungle grow into a more beginner friendly role with the new Jungle in-game recommendations. For anyone who’s not all that familiar with how jungling works, the game is gonna recommend jungle pathing for champions based on high elo data.

But this does not come without a cost.

Since we’ve already mentioned that pets are able to heal you, Smite lost its omnivamp effect, players will no longer be able to clear their jungle, kill Gromp using smite, heal to full HP and run off ready to gank their teammates. This will make things a lot more interesting in the early game.

In addition, the Jungle camps now have more HP but deal less damage.  To compensate and give slower Junglers a chance to contest the river area, Ancient Krug and Scuttle have taken a big hit. Scuttle spawns 15 seconds later than usual (3:30), giving newer Junglers more time to clear while faster ones can seize this opportunity for a pre-Scuttle gank. The Ancient Krug does not spawn 2 additional Krugs anymore, making the camp less of a time sink and allowing players to explore more interesting early game pathing.

Additionally, players weren’t as impressed with Chemtech Drake the first time around, but now he’s back again and still underwhelming. The Chemtech Buff now grants you and your team a stacking buff of 5% Tenacity and 5% Healing and Shielding power. Chemtech Soul also grants a few new looks to the Rift, mutating the environment and enhancing jungle plants.

Want to try out Jungling? Now is the time!

We’re happy to see Jungle in the spotlight for a change, and it’s the right time to give the Jungle role a go. While you’re learning new things, your pets will help make you feel more comfortable in the Jungle and aid you throughout the game. This League of Legends Preseason seems like a big W for now.

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