How the Jungle Changes Affect More Than Just Jungle – League of Legends
The pace of Jungling has slowed a lot in Season 9. See how this has affected all lanes!
Explaining the Changes
Since Season 9 has begun there have been multiple changes to the Jungle role that and, while these changes are nerfs to the Jungle itself, they also change the game for everyone else, not just the Jungle. After Patch 9.2 was released, there was a lot of tuning to the amount of experience that Junglers could gain from their camps.
This change initially slowed down the pace of the game on its own, as Junglers are no longer able to level 3 gank lanes before the laners level up enough to really be able to compete with these ganks. After these changes, there was quite a large emphasis on teams needing to compete for the Rift Scuttler in both the Top and Bottom Rivers.
The reason for the large amount of competition over the Rift Scuttler was for the experience gain and gold gain. However these changes in Patch 9.9 are not a nerf to Rift Scuttler’s experience or gold, it simply delays the spawn time for the Rift Scuttler from 2:00 to 3:15.
Rift Scuttler’s level is based on the average level of the current game when it spawns, thus it really is not a nerf to the Scuttler itself. Now after explaining these changes, let us look at how the affect the overall game and how it impacts the meta for the other lanes as well!
Effects on Each Lane
Top Lane does not feel as impacted by these changes as the other lanes. As it is, Top Lane still just kind of keeps to itself and has Champions that will scale and be very effective later in the game most of the time.
There are still Champions in the Top Lane that are effective early game and less effective later, but these Champions are not as necessary as they were when Rift Scuttler spawned at 2:00. These Champions were very strong when contesting the 2:00 Rift Scuttler, but now that Scuttler spawns at 3:15 Top Laners that are good at skirmishing at levels 3 and 4 are more prominent, like Yorick and Darius.
The reason this does not affect Top Lane as much is for the reason that a lot of the Top Lane Champions that were being played did not have the best level 2 to compete for the Rift Scuttler, with the exception of a few like Renekton, thus this lane does not see much of a change.
Jungle, as mentioned already, has slowed down substantially. Junglers can no longer hard out-level laners early and then just pick a lane to cheese and always get something out of it. However, this does not mean that early game Junglers are not effective.
Junglers who are powerful early game and have a strong early game clear can now try to counter-jungle sooner and more efficiently while not having to potentially worry about taking the Rift Scuttler first! Junglers that have been seeing success after the changes would be Vi and Hecarim. Even though Hecarim was recently nerfed, he is still quite a powerful pick!
You can prioritize your Jungle Pathing ending with Rift Scuttler now, rather than having it as the mid-way battle point where you hope your laners will roam to help you take Rift Scuttler.
Mid Lane has also slowed quite a bit, now more champions that were not as dominant until level 3 and 4 are seeing better results due to the simple act of pushing back the spawn timer of the Rift Scuttler. A strong example of this is Aurelion Sol.
Aurelion Sol, although not the most powerful early game Champion, does have power in the sense of being able to hard shove the first couple of minion waves. This gives Aurelion Sol time to back, secure a small item advantage, and then get back to lane before the next wave crashes into his Turret.
This makes it so that Aurelion Sol will be stronger by the time the Rift Scuttler spawns, making him much more able to compete for the objective and, when Aurelion Sol is played well, he can be quite hard to stop.
The reason it is important for Mid Lane to do their best to have priority by 3:15 in the game is due to the fact that they are connected to both Rift Scuttlers that spawn, not just one like Top and Bottom Lane. Thus, having priority will make it easier to respond to either Rift Scuttler should you need to.
Ultimately, this small change makes many mages more prominent in the meta again. Most of the mages in League of Legends have quite decent level 3 potential and since the Rift Scuttlers now spawn around the time of hitting level 3 or 4, rather than before hitting level 3, these Champion can impact the map more effectively to gain an advantage.
So, with Mid Lane being rather heavily affected, how do these changes affect the Bottom Lane?
Bottom Lane has been slightly affected, not as much as Mid Lane or Jungle, but a bit more than the Top Lane. Again, Champion with strong level 3s will be effective in competing for the Rift Scuttler, but most of the Champions that were already being played in the Bottom Lane fit that bill.
Vayne is an ADC that has been seeing more play and is quite strong when fighting for the Rift Scuttler, but she was starting to see some more play before these changes went through. In fact, the role of Support is more impacted by these changes than ADC is.
Supports that have been strong in this meta have for the most part been the enchanters (Soraka, Sona, etc..), but pushing the Rift Scuttler spawn time to 3:15 allows supports to get to level 3 and help their Jungler compete for the objective. This makes Champions like Taric, Braum, and Nautilus quite powerful.
These tankier more CC focused supports can really impact a fight for the Rift Scuttler and can help your Jungler to secure some important early game objectives, as Rift Scuttler is more powerful than one might first think!
Concluding on this topic, pushing the Rift Scuttler spawn time really slows down the pace of the early game, allowing laners to get a bit more powerful before the Scuttler can spawn. This bring some Champions with strong level 3 potential into the meta for all lanes. This makes people less inclined to pick powerful level 1 and 2 Champions to fight for the early Scuttler and allows each lane some time before they have to start roaming around the map a bit.
Although this might be considered a nerf to the Jungle, I feel as it is more of a shifting in the Jungle pacing and, as a result, the pace of the early game for everyone. This opens up new Jungle routes to play around the fact that the important objective of Rift Scuttler now spawns 1:15 later than it used to. This small change can have a large effect on the game and will allow people to take advantage of Champions with level 3 power spikes, mostly in the Mid Lane, Jungle, and Support Roles.
Hopefully any Junglers reading this out there are able to shape their new Jungle paths accordingly, and that any Mid Laners and Supports try some new Champions with powerful level 3 spikes to assist in securing the Rift Scuttler. Top Lane and ADC, well, keep doing what your doing as long as it works! Good luck in your coming games Summoners and we hope to see you out there on Summoner’s Rift!
Like our content? Support us by getting our merchandise in our shop
