What does it take to succeed in the Season 2 Jungle? Most people agree that the strongest junglers this season have the following characteristics:
1) AoE damage for very fast clears.
2) Powerful ganks for strong early pressure, especially when combined with #1.
3) Utility-based skillset and item independence. Farming the jungle will always result in less gold than the lanes, so junglers that tend to build gp10s have the advantage.
These are AoE Ganktank champions like Mundo, Shyvana, Skarner, Nautilus - ALL of whom have received heavy nerfs this season because of their jungling strength.
Now, Sejuani fits each of these conditions perfectly. She has a gap closer in Q, a strong slow with E, and really good damage potential and aoe clear through her W. She uses Shurelya's and Randuin's very well, and has a high-range aoe stun regardless of items. Season 2's jungle should have been Sejuani's jungle, but she's considered universally weak, for several reasons, as discussed elsewhere. (She's not as bad as people believe, but you're definitely putting yourself at a disadvantage by picking her).
Statikk's jungle changes can be summarized by this:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Statikk
Firstly, we are going to reduce the emphasis on area-of-effect damage dealers by re-balancing more of the health and damage into the large monster in each of the camps. This allows single-target damage dealers such as Gangplank to have more competitive clear times.
Next, we’re also going to significantly increase the rewards (gold and XP) and scaling difficulty (health and damage that the monsters gain over time) of the jungle as a game progresses. This way junglers who shift their focus toward farming the jungle efficiently can acquire gold and experience faster. This opens up the jungle to many of the more damage-focused and gold-reliant champions like Master Yi who need to scale into the later parts of the game.
Lastly, as we mentioned earlier, we’re going to increase the damage dealt by monsters in the jungle. This should allow high-sustain junglers such as Warwick or Fiddlesticks to break back into rotation by giving them an edge over the competition.
Impacts on Sejuani?
1) Sejuani is weaker for single-target clearing.
2) Farm is not as high a priority for Sejuani.
3) Sejuani has neither sustain nor even damage mitigation!
The new jungle, being far less favorable to AoE Ganktanks, is effectively a nerf to Sejuani and all junglers in her class. Sejuani is already the weakest of her type, so any jungler that becomes viable through these jungling changes will automatically be a better pick than Sejuani.
Riot cannot ignore her for much longer.
tl;dr: Sejuani is workable now, but only because the current jungle strongly favors AoE Ganktanks like her. She's already the weakest of her class, but since the new jungle weakens every advantage that class has to offer, she will be totally and unarguably underpowered.
tl;dr: Sejuani is workable now, but only because the current jungle strongly favors AoE Ganktanks like her. She's already the weakest of her class, but since the new jungle weakens every advantage that class has to offer, she will be totally and unarguably underpowered.
i know things might look scary for sejuani given the limited information you guys have seen, but it's not all doom and gloom. se'ni has some new items to really look forward to, and benefits from the increased jungle rewards into mid- and late-game. sejuani players will have plenty to experiment with once the changes go live, and overall it'll be pretty interesting to see what people think of her out of the gate.
While that sounds good in theory, Sejuani's mid-late game was never her real problem. It's her early game, and how hard said makes it for her to ever reach mid-late game. She's so beat up by the end of her first clear that she has to to recall, meaning the enemy team has no need to worry about getting ganked unless they are reeeeally greedy until 5-6 minutes. There were always a lot of good items on Sej, and a lot that may have worked but no one could ever try because she wasn't played broadly enough.
I will hope that the changes are enough to make her better, but if the focus is on the mid-late game, I can't really imagine that's the case. As other people have said, Amumu and Nautilus are almost always going to be better early picks.
your skepticism is fair, but personally i think things are going to be fine. the season 3 changes are intended to put the game into an even better state—they aren't meant to single out specific champions and buff/nerf them. so, the live design team didn't make their season 3 changelist with the sole intent of buffing sejuani's mid- and late-game so they could say she is perfectly balanced and set for life. that doesn't mean she isn't going to enjoy the changes though. i think it's a net win for her.
so, do i think sejuani is going to be happier with the season 3 changes than she is with season 2? yes. and do i think sejuani will want champion-specific changes after the season 3 changes go live? my guess is that she probably will, but it's just that: a guess. it's really something for live design to evaluate after the dust settles, though i'm quite sure others will put her through testing as well. i'm sure more discussions will pop up once we're in the preseason.
New jungle changes will bury Sejuani further
1) AoE damage for very fast clears.
2) Powerful ganks for strong early pressure, especially when combined with #1.
3) Utility-based skillset and item independence. Farming the jungle will always result in less gold than the lanes, so junglers that tend to build gp10s have the advantage.
These are AoE Ganktank champions like Mundo, Shyvana, Skarner, Nautilus - ALL of whom have received heavy nerfs this season because of their jungling strength.
Now, Sejuani fits each of these conditions perfectly. She has a gap closer in Q, a strong slow with E, and really good damage potential and aoe clear through her W. She uses Shurelya's and Randuin's very well, and has a high-range aoe stun regardless of items. Season 2's jungle should have been Sejuani's jungle, but she's considered universally weak, for several reasons, as discussed elsewhere. (She's not as bad as people believe, but you're definitely putting yourself at a disadvantage by picking her).
Statikk's jungle changes can be summarized by this:
Next, we’re also going to significantly increase the rewards (gold and XP) and scaling difficulty (health and damage that the monsters gain over time) of the jungle as a game progresses. This way junglers who shift their focus toward farming the jungle efficiently can acquire gold and experience faster. This opens up the jungle to many of the more damage-focused and gold-reliant champions like Master Yi who need to scale into the later parts of the game.
Lastly, as we mentioned earlier, we’re going to increase the damage dealt by monsters in the jungle. This should allow high-sustain junglers such as Warwick or Fiddlesticks to break back into rotation by giving them an edge over the competition.
1) Sejuani is weaker for single-target clearing.
2) Farm is not as high a priority for Sejuani.
3) Sejuani has neither sustain nor even damage mitigation!
The new jungle, being far less favorable to AoE Ganktanks, is effectively a nerf to Sejuani and all junglers in her class. Sejuani is already the weakest of her type, so any jungler that becomes viable through these jungling changes will automatically be a better pick than Sejuani.
Riot cannot ignore her for much longer.
tl;dr: Sejuani is workable now, but only because the current jungle strongly favors AoE Ganktanks like her. She's already the weakest of her class, but since the new jungle weakens every advantage that class has to offer, she will be totally and unarguably underpowered.
I will hope that the changes are enough to make her better, but if the focus is on the mid-late game, I can't really imagine that's the case. As other people have said, Amumu and Nautilus are almost always going to be better early picks.
so, do i think sejuani is going to be happier with the season 3 changes than she is with season 2? yes. and do i think sejuani will want champion-specific changes after the season 3 changes go live? my guess is that she probably will, but it's just that: a guess. it's really something for live design to evaluate after the dust settles, though i'm quite sure others will put her through testing as well. i'm sure more discussions will pop up once we're in the preseason.