Riot reveals Jungle stats overhaul focused on low ELO players

In the last few patches, the jungle has become one of the most important roles in League of Legends matches, however, this has made it one of the most unstable and less chosen in the low and middle ELOs due to its complexity and its static pool champ.

Champions like Udyr and Hecarim have mastered the Summoner's Rift, and with changes to the meta that have made Diana the new queen of the jungle, changes are needed to control the power and accessibility of these champions and others, something in which the Riot team is already working

(Picture: Riot Games)

Through their development blog, Mark “Scruffy” Yetter, Lead Gameplay Designer for League of Legends, has announced some of the changes that have been implemented since 27th April and that have been evaluated and improved during the last days for the jungle.

“One of our longer term goals is to increase position preference for the jungle in lower MMR. We’re attacking the problem from a few angles that we think will in particular reduce some of the esoteric optimizations and help onboard newer players to the role.”

First of all, the balance plans on making more forgiving jungle clears, reducing the Base Attack Damage and Attack Damage scaling across many camps, increasing also the Camp Respawn Timer by 15 seconds and reducing the Camp "bright' warning timer to 10 seconds, and to compensate the cycle of the camps, the Jungle Gold received from non-buff Camps will be increased by 5% approximately.

Additionally, to widen the viable champ pool and have less reliance on a perfect AOE clearing kit or CC tools to have Scuttle dominance, the Smite will break the Scuttle Crab's shield before applying damage, while the CC effects will still be active, the Omnivamp on jungle items has been lowered to 8%, but the Smite Percent Max Health Healing has been up to 15%.

(Picture: Riot Games)

Following the changes to the Smite, the damage caused by it on monsters will have a massive adjustment, going from about 390-1000 (based on levels) to about 500 at base, and 1000 after the Smite quest completion.

Finally, to help prevent and reduce the snowball possibilities, the comeback XP will be reintroduced, meaning players will have an extra 50 XP per level when facing large monsters, and the Camp Leashing Clarity particles introduced in Wild Rift will be implemented in a near future.

“At a high level we want these changes to be helpful and satisfying for Jungle players across all levels of play but we’re not aiming for a significant power increase or decrease for the position. We’re giving and taking away power in equal measure while shifting mechanics so that the jungle is a bit more welcoming to newcomers.”, concluded Scruffy.