Naafiri hasn’t even joined League of Legends live servers yet, but she’s already been dubbed “the best jungler in the game” by some players
A player stated in a recent League of Legends Reddit thread that they played 10 games of Naafiri on the PBE and that she is the strongest jungler in League. As a Kindred main, the player emphasised gap closure, massive damage, and, most importantly, how much enjoyable she is to play.
This is fairly surprising given that Riot Games classified Naafiri as a midlane assassin. The player tried her in that capacity as well, but she was even worse.
“This champion is the most fun Jungler I’ve ever played,”
“This champion is amazing in the jungle.”
“I’ve also tried her in middle, but honestly she feels horrible into most ranged match ups”
Other players concurred, saying it’s strange that the devs labelled Naafiri as a mid laner. She appears to have the appropriate arsenal to rapidly clear the jungle and gank lanes, with an easy gap closer, high-damage, and low-cooldown abilities.
Aside from that, the creators feel she also teaches players on how to be better assassins as well as how to defeat them.
Essentially, RiotRaptorr noted that Naafiri’s kit trains players to answer three essential assassin questions when contemplating a fight: who to target, when to go in, and from what angle.
Despite its simplicity, Naafiri’s kit is incredibly potent, and if a player correctly answers all three of these questions, they should be able to get the kill easily. They should also be able to leave safely owing to the reset on her ultimate.
On the other side, the developer mentioned a lack of mechanism counterplay against assassins, like Naafiri. The dev agrees to some extent, noting that the ideal counter vs assassins should be based on a macro approach rather than specific mechanics like sticking with your team.
“…assassins are primarily countered through macro play, rather than mechanics,”
In his last observations, the developer emphasised that while being the easiest assassin to play, Naafiri still has a high skill cap. The Darkin Assassin is likely to be available in League with Patch 13.14, which is set to release on July 19th.