Riot’s Continued Efforts to Balance Junglers in League of Legends
Riot has been working hard this preseason to address the impact that junglers have on the early game in League of Legends. Despite previous attempts to solve the issue, it seems that the problem still persists.
Just days before the start of the ranked season and as professional play was beginning in various regions, Riot announced their plans to further nerf junglers. Now, with the release of Patch 9.2, those plans have been implemented. Riot is targeting junglers in three specific ways: jungle camp experience, challenging smite, and Baron buff.
Jungle Camp Experience
Riot has been making changes to the way camps give experience over the past year, and these changes continue with Patch 9.2. This time, the alterations are focused on the scaling of camp experience. Instead of experience increasing with every level, it will now only scale every second level and at half the rate it did before.
This is a significant shift, as camps will grant roughly 17 percent less experience at level seven. This change will have a major impact on high ELO players who base their pathing decisions on the level differences and camp experience. It will force them to rethink their strategies.
Furthermore, this change may lead to the rise of team compositions that allow junglers to sit in side lanes and soak minion experience. However, this would come at the expense of another lane, most likely top lane. It will be interesting to see how junglers adapt to these experience changes.
Challenging Smite
During pre-patch testing, Riot attempted to balance both Challenging and Chilling Smite. However, only a nerf to Challenging Smite will be implemented in the live version. The nerf removes the vision granted by Challenging Smite for the duration of the debuff.
This change will particularly affect early-game duelists like Xin Zhao and give priority to champions who opt for Chilling Smite, such as Karthus.
Baron Buff
Riot’s adjustments to minions have made it possible for one Baron to effectively end the game, especially when teams empower waves with cannon minions. To address this issue, Riot is reducing the early power of the Baron buff and increasing its scaling. Baron minions will be slightly weaker, and Baron will provide champions with less AD/AP.
While Baron will still be important for snowballing teams, they will have to be more strategic in how they utilize it as the next objective.
In conclusion, Riot continues its efforts to balance the impact of junglers in League of Legends with the release of Patch 9.2. In Patch 9.2, Jungle camp experience, challenging smite, and Baron buff have all been targeted to create a more balanced gameplay experience for all players.
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