Have junglers really lost out in 4.13?

Overview

There has been a lot of talk recently about patch 4.13 hitting junglers pretty hard. Here we break down how much, if at all, junglers have been impacted. The major way the jungle role has been changed is through adjustments to health and XP totals in the jungle. The second way in which jungle has been effected is through a nerf to Bumba’s Mask.

XP Reductions

When you look at the XP reductions that have come into effect with patch 4.13, it does not look as bad as some people have been saying. While the XP reductions are pretty significant, what is more is what camps had their XP reduced. It is the neutral camps of the Fire Elementals and Oracles. While controlling these is a good way for a jungler to get ahead and advance, they are not secured farm and they are very unlikely to be soloed.

Oracles are normally a battle between the duo lane and the Fire Elementals will often be taken by whichever solo is more dominant. This is not to say that a jungler who is farming properly and hitting timers wont also be there, but they are not the bread and butter of the jungle. Will it hurt junglers having an objective that is normally split between 2-3 people getting a reduction in XP? Probably not, especially as I said earlier these are normally objectives shared by multiple roles. This means that we have to look at things in relative terms. While a jungler may farm up slower because of these changes, so is everybody else.

Health Increases

This is probably the change that for my money is going to make the most difference. Jungle buffs now take noticeably longer to do and solo. Taking longer to farm obviously reduces XPM and GPM, thus hurting your overall farm. However, how often are jungle camps really cleared solo anymore? Not often, your adc or mid is likely to be at red and your solo is going to be at blue. It is also usual, especially in the early game, to have someone at your speed with you.

With two members, jungle camps still fall relatively fast. Seeing as the buff that gets soloed the most is speed and that mainly gets soloed later in the game, it doesn’t really make a huge difference. As later in the game you still burst through them in an ability and a couple of AA’s.

At the top levels where everything is pretty much shared anyway, I don’t really see this making that much of a difference. The biggest time you’re going to feel this is when you have laners who don’t want the camp XP and won’t be sharing waves with you. However, even then I don’t think that situation has been made much worse than it already is by these changes.

Overall I don’t think this is going to make a huge change to junglers, but of all the changes I do think it will hurt the most. This is mainly because, as the role that takes most of its farm from camps, having them take longer to kill will obviously hurt them more.

Bumba’s

Image Courtesy of smitegame.com

The five percent nerf to Bumba’s Mask is not really all that bad. Bumba’s was probably overtuned, and the nerf justified. In the early game especially, the sustain it would give you was pretty insane. Also as it is percentage based off camp health it has not really been nerfed all that much. With the camps getting significant health increases the difference in regen is not all that noticeable.

Conclusion

Overall I think junglers have little to worry about. Most of these changes either affect more than just the jungle role or are negligible if people are farming effectively. With that in mind, I think it will have a larger impact on the jungle role at the lower level of play compared to higher levels.

Top image courtesy of gamemascot.com

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