League of Legends jungling “stagnant” says Riot Games, outlines changes for Season 3

A role commonly found in most League of Legends teams is the stalwart jungler, a hero bravely venturing into the underbrush that borders lanes in pursuit of sacks of gold masquerading as hostile creatures. In comparison to normal lane-play, jungling can be somewhat lackluster and inefficient, as nerfed creature camps and gold per 10 items diminish challenge and increase the pressure on lanes. Yesterday, Assistant Game Designer “Statikk” said current jungling tactics seem “stagnant” and that changes are on Riot’s scope for Season 3 tournament play and beyond.
“The current dominant jungle strategy is fairly stagnant, and the overall current jungle playstyle in many cases severely limits potential strategy and choices in other lanes/roles as well,” he wrote. “One large problem is that efficient farming of the jungle has very little payoff compared to constantly applying lane pressure by camping/ganking. Overall, junglers severely lack in gold unless they successfully gank and snowball the game from the get-go and/or opt for a gold per 10 strategy.”
Season 2 of League of Legends’ $2 million world tournament wrapped up earlier this week with a victory by Taiwan’s Taipei Assassins after Riot issued a $30,000 fine to team Azubu Frost for unsportsmanlike peeking at the spectator screen.
“The approach we’re currently taking is to significantly increase the rewards of jungle camps over time (junglers already have a huge impact on the early game),” Statikk continued. “To go along with this, though, we are buffing jungle camps back up to actually be more threatening while simultaneously offering new and improved item paths for players to specialize in the jungle. Overall, we want junglers to be rewarded for building combat stats rather than always being forced to build gold generation items.”