New Jungle Itemization VS Solo Lane Alternatives

Jungle Items vs Solo Lane alternatives

Once again, Riot is rolling out extensive jungle changes with the coming preseason patch. One of the biggest changes focuses on jungle itemization. With a new enchantment system, Riot is hoping to open up some jungle diversity and offer junglers meaningful itemization choices to fit a jungler’s chosen play style. Along with this, it seems like Riot is hoping to bring endgame builds for junglers closer to the power level of a solo laner’s build. In this article, I will examine the current jungle items, their replacements, and the ability of these new items to bring junglers into line with solo lane builds.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard

Popular with attack damage brawler and caster junglers, the Spirit of the Elder Lizard is the most purchased of the current jungle items. On live, the Spirit of the Elder Lizard costs 2000 gold and provides the player 30 attack damage (AD), 10% Cool Down Reduction (CDR), and 50 true damage on hit that burns over three seconds. This gives the Elder Lizard a stat gold value of 1397(1080 + 317), excluding the passive burn, meaning it is only 69.85% gold efficient.

The closest replacement to the Elder Lizard of the coming enchantments will be the Warrior enchantment. The Warrior enchantment costs 2800 and adds 45 AD, 10 CDR, and 10 Armor Penetration (Apen). This puts the Warrior enchantment at a 2117 gold value (1620 + 317 + 1801) with a gold efficiency of 77.75%, excluding the passives coming from whichever mid-level jungle item you select.

As of now, the three most popular junglers to make use of the Elder Lizard are Lee Sin, Kha’zix and Jarvan IV. While these three see most of their play in the jungle, all three have also been seen in the top and sometimes middle lane as solo laners. As I noted above, it appears that Riot is trying to bring the end game builds of junglers into line with the builds of solo laners. When looking at the most purchased items, several top guides, pro player builds and my own game knowledge, the following items stood out as solo lane luxury items for these champions: Ravenous Hydra, Trinity Force and Black Cleaver.

Ravenous Hydra is the main item left out of jungler’s builds, but most found in the solo lane builds for the same champions. Hydra costs 3300 gold and provides the champion with 75 AD, 15 Health Regeneration (Hp/5) and 12% life steal. This gives the Hydra a gold value of 3900 (2700 + 540 + 660) and a gold efficiency of 118%, before you even take Hydra's passive or active into account.

Tri Force has a cost of 3703 and provides 250 Health (HP), 200 Mana, 30 AD, 30 Ability Power (AP), 30% Attack Speed (AS), 10% Critical Chance (Crit), and 8% Movement Speed (MS). These stats give Tri force a gold value of 4546 (665 + 400 + 1080 + 653 + 900 + 500 + 3482) and a gold efficiency of 122.77%, once again before you even look at Tri force’s passives.

Last we have Black Cleaver, which costs 3000 gold and provides 200 HP, 50 AD, 10% CDR and 10 flat Apen. This give the Black Cleaver a gold value of 2865 (532 + 1800 + 317 + 2163) and makes it 95.5% gold efficient before taking into account its passive.

As you can see, I referred to the solo lane items as luxury items for a reason. These items all have higher costs, some of the highest in the game, but along with these high costs are also higher levels of gold efficiency. Not only do the solo items provide more stats, but they also provide them at a cheaper gold level than the jungle items. The Warrior enchantment will bring elder lizard users closer to the level of solo laners, with both a higher gold value and gold efficiency; they will still be at a slight disadvantage come late game.

Feral Flare

The next jungle item under review is the Feral Flare. A favorite among heavy farming junglers, such as Master Yi, Udyr and Warwick, the Feral Flare will be replaced by the Devourer enchantment. Currently, Feral Flare provides 30% AS, 12 AD, 10 health regen on hit and 25 on hit magic damage, which scales up as the user farms the jungle. The Feral Flare provides stats with a gold value of 1332 (900 + 432) with a cost of 1800. Not counting the on-hit damage or other passive, this gives the Feral Flare a gold efficiency of 74%.

The Devourer enchantment is the most natural replacement for Feral Flare junglers. The Devourer enchantment provides the following stats: 50% AS and 40 on hit magic damage, which, like Feral Flare, scales as the jungler farms camps. This means that while costing 2800 gold, the Devourer enchantment only grants 1500 gold worth of stats, leaving the Devourer enchantment at 53.57% efficient.

Yi, Udyr and Warwick also see time as solo laners. In their case the solo lane items that get purchased are also highly expensive items: Infinity Edge (IE), Trinity Force and Sunfire cape. Tri force was broken down above so we’ll start with IE. IE is a favorite among solo lane Yi players and grants 80 AD and 25% crit chance. This means that IE has a gold value of 4130 (2880 + 1250). With a cost of 3800, which in turn means that IE has a gold efficiency of 108.68%. Sunfire cape, our first defensive item, grants the user 450 HP and 45 armor for 2650 gold. Sunfire cape offers stats with a 2097 (900 + 1197) gold value giving it a gold efficiency of 79.13%.

Once again all solo lane items provide a higher stat value and do it at a higher gold efficiency. These numbers, however, are a little misleading compared to those from the Elder Lizard. This is due to the fact that much of the value of both the Feral Flare and the Devourer enchantment come from the passive on hit damage. With a higher static stat value, higher attack speed for auto reliant champions and ramping damage that does not have to wait 30 stacks to begin, the new devourer stats should end up being more gold efficient and bring a farming jungler’s final game build closer to that of a solo laner.

Spirit of the Spectral Wraith

Now we move on to the ability power jungle item, the Spirit of the Spectral Wraith. Spectral Wraith is the only option for AP junglers going for an offensive rather than a tanky build. Right now the biggest users of the Spectral Wraith are Fiddlesticks, Elise and Amumu. On the live patch, Spectral Wraith provides the following stats: 80 AP (50 to start ramping to 80) and 10% CDR. With a cost of 2000 and a gold value of 2057 (1740 + 317) the Spectral Wraith has a gold efficiency of 102.85%, meaning it is the only gold efficient jungle item, even before its other passives.

The new replacement for the Spectral Wraith will be the Magus enchantment which will provide the user with 80 AP and 20% CDR with a cost of 2800. The Magus enchantment only provides 2374 (1740 + 634) gold worth of stats, meaning it is only 84.79% efficient.

Of the primary Spectral Wraith users only Fiddle and Elise see time in solo lanes. When in a solo lane, the luxury items that these champions opt for tend to be Rylai’s Crystal Scepter and Rabadon’s Deathcap. Here we see a continuation of the solo lane trend, buying high damage high cost items with their extra slot.
Rylai’s grants the user 100 AP and 400 HP for a cost of 2900 gold. This means that it provides 3242 (2175 + 1067) gold worth of stats and is 111.29% efficient. Rabdon’s provides 156 AP (only including the extra AP the passive grants for the item itself) and costs 3300 gold. This means that Deathcap provides 3393 gold worth of AP and is 102.82% efficient.

While the Magus enchantment will statistically be less efficient than the Spectral Wraith, it still provides more late game stats than the Spectral Wraith. Along with this, the calculations above assume that the user has been able to stack the Spectral Wraith fully. While this is not incredibly difficult to do, it does still require time. The Magus enchantment will give the jungler all the stats up front and not require additional time spent in the jungle in the mid to late game in order to build stacks.

Spirit of the Ancient Golem

The final jungle item up for review is the Spirit of the Ancient Golem. The Ancient Golem is the go-to item for junglers who want to tank up. The three biggest users of the item are Rammus, Sejuani and Amumu. The Ancient Golem provides the champion with 200 Health, 20 Armor, 10% CDR and an extra 25% boost to their bonus health. This means that the Ancient Golem is worth 1383 (667 + 400 + 317) gold in stats. With a cost of 2000 gold, the Ancient Golem’s stats are only 69.15% gold efficient.

The replacement for the Ancient Golem comes in the form of the Juggernaut enchantment which grants the user 500 Health, 10% CDR, and 35 Tenacity. This means that the Juggernaut enchantment provides 1617 (1330 +317) gold worth of stats. Since the enchantment costs 2800 gold it is only 58.82% gold efficient, however, this does not take into account the Tenacity, which provides a great deal of value for tanky champions.

These champions do not see much use outside of the jungle. For the sake of comparison, however, let’s compare these stats to some of the late game and less picked defensive items, Thornmail and Warmog’s Armor. Thornmail is an item usually picked up late against all AD compositions. It provides 100 Armor at a cost of 2200 gold. This means it is worth 2000 gold in defensive stats and is 90.9% gold efficient. Warmog’s is purchased when a champion wants to stack health and gives 1000 Health and 10 HP/5 which is worth 3027 (2667 + 360) gold. Coming in at a price of2830, Warmogs is 107% gold efficient.

Overall Thoughts

After examining all of the jungle options and their usual solo lane replacements, a few things became very clear. First, it appears true that Riot is trying to raise the jungler's late game presence. The new items may not always be more gold efficient, but overall have higher late game stats and provide stronger passives that cannot be measured by a gold value. For example, Ancient Golem is losing its armor, but the Juggernaut enchantment will provide tanks with tenacity, allowing them to be more disruptive in team fights. The armor is very easy to itemize elsewhere in a tanky build and the added health with the passive will have a much greater impact in the late game.

While this is true, it is also evident that Riot is still afraid of late game jungle carries. We all saw how quickly Feral Flare was nerfed when it showed true carry potential. While all of the new enchantments will provide more gold worth of stats they will still fall short of many higher cost items that solo laners are able to build. Those high cost items all tend to provide more gold worth of stats and do so more efficiently.