The jungle has undergone significant adjustments once again in League of Legends season 2023. One isn’t the first time Riot has concentrated on this single role to make significant preseason changes. But never before have the adjustments been so divisive.
The preseason is still in full swing, and several players have expressed dissatisfaction with the adjustments made to the jungle, with some even believing that the role is too easy.
Riot Phlox has now released a dev blog describing the balancing team’s motivations for the jungle modifications. According to Riot Phlox, the team investigated three areas of jungling that may be enhanced. These three factors were then optimized during the off-season.
Contents
Riot’s reason behind the season 13 jungle changes
Counter-jungling
Counter-jungling is an important part of jungle, which Riot has reduced with their adjustments. These adjustments were made to prevent players from invading their opponents early and capturing their jungle, thereby leaving the opposition with no means to return to the game.
“So to help prevent the early invades we made it take more time to clear the enemy’s jungle early. ”
So, with some smite modifications, it will be more meaningful for junglers to take camps, with smite upgrading based on how many camps you take rather than how frequently you smite. Those of you who take the risk of invading will be rewarded proportionally.
Riot also mentioned the reason of preventing the counter-jungle mechanic is because it makes the invaded jungle miserable. So, they loose it down a little bit, making the mechanic still viable in the game but less frustrating.
Clear optimizations
Clear Optimization was another crucial jungle mechanic that Riot worked towards addressing. This was perhaps one of the most difficult elements to perfect, because obvious optimization would reward players who have refined the trade of jungling while penalizing others who have never played in the role before.
“We still want clear optimizations to exist. We think that they’re a healthy aspect of jungling skill expression, but we want that to be taken out of champion select and into the game…”
Riot has made several changes to the leash ranges to try to counteract this. This should also deter players from double camping, or setting up two camps at the same time.
Pathing
Last but not least, Phlox talked about jungle pathing. They’ve tried to change pathing to offer more variation and open up the jungle to a number of pathing possibilities that weren’t there previously by moving a lot of camps around and making some more relevant and others less so.
Reducing the sustain in the jungle, particularly the heal from Gromp, while also making Krugs less of a burden to grab, should provide players more alternatives for exploring the jungle.
The Scuttle Crab timer was also a major problematic. Scuttle will now spawn at 3:30 instead of 3:15, giving faster junglers time reach base before grabbing scuttle, while slower junglers may move straight from their jungle to the river.
As of now, Riot will continue to watch the jungle and work on these improvements to enhance them ahead of the 2023 ranked season.