Patch 5.6 : Welcome to the Jungle

Hey guys! So patch 5.6 hit live servers Wednesday morning and, while more a patch focused on buffing random champions, has definitely affected the jungle in some ways. In this article, we'll be discussing what's changed and what to expect with these changes. 

Champions

So first, I'll be discussing the changes to specific jungle champions and whether or not they'll be effective or viable in this patch.

Aatrox is one champion that used to be a massive priority pick in the jungle (e.g. Season 3). Lately, Aatrox hasn't seen much play and it's mainly due to the fact that his late game is incredibly lackluster. The Blood Well change has a lot of potential to help his lategame out due to something like a 5 man ultimate filling up your Well. This allows you to utilize your passive to effectiveness. For example, if your passive is popped with a full Blood Well, you heal for more. In addition, you gain more bonus attack speed. There's potential to see Aatrox in this patch as a decent jungle pick, especially with Cinderhulk and the champion's capability for early aggression and dives.

Elise, a champion that saw play throughout both Season 3 and Season 4, was gutted to the point of barely being viable in Season 5. While these changes address some of her problems and will most certainly help her out, I feel that Riot is ignoring her major underlying problem; her damage. Currently, she falls off incredibly hard late game and I feel that the main thing that would make Elise viable again is a revert of the nerf in patch 4.4 where her base damage as well as her maximum health % damage was reduced on her Q in both forms. A revert isn't even necessary. Just a small damage buff and Elise would see a decent increase in play. Overall, sorry Elise mains. She was buffed and this will definitely help her but I don't believe it'll make her a great pick.

Evelynn is another champion that has seen better days. While at first glance all these changes seem to be buffs, the removal of the W passive no longer granting bonus movement speed will hurt Evelynn and most likely reduce her damage output. Pre 5.6, you could spam Q while staying on a target AND get off auto attacks. However, it'll be much harder to stay in range now that you no longer gain bonus movement speed so it's more likely that you'll just be spamming Q. Fortunately, the new passive where her W will have its CD reduced on spell hits should compensate a bit since you do spam your Q. Also, the reduced stealth time for her passive will be pretty nice. She's definitely received some needed love but I don't think she's quite going to be a top jungler again. Will she be playable? Most likely. Top tier? Very unlikely.

Hello darkness, my old friend. Nocturne's a champion that's needed a little bit of love, especially after the nerfs to Feral Flare last season. While I consider Nocturne a farm jungler (e.g. use ultimate on CD, focus on farming camps), this buff allows him to use his ultimate more often and stay a little bit relevant. Now, mixed in with the E buff which gives him a massive movement speed increased when fearing a target (Patch 4.21), it's likely that Nocturne will see more play. Get excited Nocturne mains!

Rammus is a champion that, initially, I thought was going to be top tier this patch with the Cinderhulk. However, Rammus is generally a champion that rushes mobility boots + homeguards before anything and focuses on early jungle pressure. Since you don't actually have the Cinderhulk that early on, it doesn't help with clears at all. That mixed in with the fact that Rammus' early clears are already horrible makes him a mediocre pick at best. The mana reduction to the Q should help Rammus a little bit but doesn't address his main problem which is his clear speed. I don't think he'll see much more play this patch.

One of the two power picks of last patch, Sejuani is receiving some much needed nerfs. She was a little overbearing in patch 5.5 with the Cinderhulk considering she was already a top tier jungler prior to 5.5. The W nerf isn't THAT massive in comparison to the nerf to her ultimate. If you look at the overall damage reduction, it's 0% no dmg reduction at rank 1, .5% nerf at rank 2, 1% nerf at rank 3, 1.5% nerf at rank 4, and 2% nerf at rank 5. So late game, her W does 2% less damage. Using a 4K health tank as an example with you using rank 5 W, the damage went from 480 to 400. However, you're now punished more for whiffing your ultimate. This is the big change. Before, if you missed your ultimate, the enemy team was slowed so obscenely that you could catch up and still wreck havoc. Now, they're only slowed by 30% so you REALLY need to land your ultimate now. Despite these nerfs, Sejuani is still a top tier pick and I expect that she'll continue to be pick or ban this patch.

 

Sion is the second power pick of patch 5.5 due to his incredibly healthy clear speed and synergy with the Cinderhulk enchantment. His Q now does less damage to monsters by 10% so it's a nerf to his clear. Similarly, his E does 20% less damage when you hit a monster/minion with it. While the E is focused more as a nerf to overbearing laning phase as a top laner, it also hits his jungle clear a little bit. Overall, decent nerfs but I believe he'll still be a decent jungle pick this patch. The synergy he has with Cinderhulk is just too powerful.

 

Technical Changes

This range reduction is actually PRETTY huge. Here's another image to showcase just how big of a reduction this is. Red is what it is now. Green is what it was before. Note that you CAN'T actually sneak past it so you'll dip in and out of vision if the enemy team has scuttle crab control. You just can't see inside the pit anymore.

This change is going to be pretty huge on how it effects a lot of factors such as early dragon clears, baron and dragon vision control, and standard river vision control. It basically forces players to get a ward IN the dragon pit if playing against champions that can go over the dragon pit wall to sneak dragon since they can effectively avoid the rift scuttler vision if they can sneak into the pit. 

So this is a pretty awesome change for all of us jungle mains. As it stands now, if we're set behind early on, it's pretty difficult to stay relevant in experience in comparison to solo laners. More often than not, a jungler ends up being around the level of the duo lane when REALLY behind and, when REALLY ahead, still behind the solo laners in experience if you don't tax their lanes. It also helps champions with mediocre clearspeeds and gives them more bang for their buck, so to speak. The only thing I'm worried about is if this change will cause a surge of more farm focused junglers (e.g. Udyr and Master Yi). Otherwise, awesome buffs.

While the jungle didn't receive that many changes in comparison to patch 5.5, a few things were definitely affected so the jungle meta will shift just a little bit. For the most part, the top tier junglers are still the same ones as last patch. The main change are the rift scuttler vision changes along with the buff to jungle experience. Thanks for reading everyone.