Glory of the Climb – The Stale Meta: Intro + Junglers
With Season 3 actively live for about three weeks and LCS starting its third week tomorrow, the meta has finally settled and the dominant strategies have emerged. There is still a little room for champion innovation as far as viability goes (i.e. Volibear being used by Gambit and Giants in EU LCS) but most top tier champions and item builds have been established. If you are behind the times the current trends revolve around champions that can build primarily tanky while still doing good amounts of damage, shredding Armor/MR, and thriving in prolonged engagements. If your champion can not do these things then it better be packing some major utility for your team otherwise they really have no place on the fields of justice. I will be discussing what is the primary culprit in this shift towards HP is, as well as giving my opinion on which junglers are the best to play right now to gain LP and climb divisions.
VS 
What Caused Such a Major Shift in How the Game is being Played?
The biggest contributor to the shift in meta has been the re-evaluation of stats by Riot. Health and Damage are cheaper while Resistances and Attack Speed are more expensive. What this has done is make it so that the early game gets completely dominated by health stacking. Giant’s Belt is a premium at 1000g giving the wearer 380 HP. If we compare that to the premium AD and AP items (BF Sword and Rod) they give 45 AD for 1550 and 80 AP for 1600. While BF sword is 100g cheaper its power is masked over ten fold by the cheaper Giant’s Belt, same with Needlessly Large Rod. It takes nine attacks before armor to chip away all the extra health that Giant’s Belt provides compared to your BF Sword. It’s even worst for AP characters who don’t even receive the full 80 AP on a majority of their spells, plus factoring in cooldowns and it could be a while before your extra 80 AP negates that extra HP. Plus the purchaser of the Giant’s belt also has 550-600 more gold to spend on whatever they want. Now these numbers are not infallible truths as I am not factoring in things like your base auto attack damage or scaling AP from runes, etc but I am just trying to show comparatively what the items provide to the user at face value. The other contributor to HP being out of control right now is that Attack Speed is no longer the premium stat it was in Season 2. I don’t play AD carry a lot but I was forced to play it a few days ago in ranked and even when fed, with BT/IE, PD, LW at 30 minutes I felt incredibly weak shooting at the opposing Shen and Hecarim. We did eventually win but I felt like such a small contribution of damage as I watched every auto attack tickle that massive HP bar when I felt I should be blowing them away! Things are not as they used to be.
Anyways, the main point is HP is out of control which in turn is making bruisers out of control, which in turn is making playing non-bruisers futile, which is making the meta very stale already for only being three weeks in. I would definitely advise against playing any kind of assassin or damage dealing character (excluding ADC’s) that can not provide some kind of significant utility to your team. Let your bruiser/jungler take care of tanking, killing, and winning the game, while you take a back seat and grab some pom-poms to cheer them on.
The Best Junglers and Why.
To keep this section clean I am going to list what I think are the top 5 junglers right now and list some close honorable mentions. The traits that I am looking for that help me decide power level are based on junglers who fit a very precise curve of being able to provide early game pressure, do good early damage while being tanky, and scale well into late game transitioning into an unkillable tank/initiator/frontline/cc machine.
#5: 
Vi
Vi is incredibly new to the League scene and I think that it took Riot fixing all her bugs for people to discover how powerful she really is. Now that she is fully functional I see her banned or picked in almost every game I play. She has a very long range gap closer with her Q, shreds armor, has high base damage, has suppression, scales well, and she gets a free shield that scales well with the stats she wants to prioritize. She has great pressure early game with her ability to fly long distances over walls, does good damage because of her base values, becomes incredibly threatening once she gets six, and she scales well as a tank into the late game providing her team with initiation, armor shred, and cc. She does everything at an above average level and fits my jungler curve very nicely. The reason she is 5th on my list is that she is really only scaled well to prioritizing one enemy at a time where the other junglers outshine her.
#4: 
Amumu
Next is Amumu who is no stranger to the League or the jungle. A high priority pick in all three seasons, his use seems to get more refined the more time passes. Despite being very susceptible to early counter jungle pressure, Amumu is a tough champion to ignore even when he is at a disadvantage. His Q give him a gap closer and stun in one, while also lowering the targets MR with his passive, this gives him the ability to pressure lanes early. Once he hits six he doesn’t even need to hit you with his Q to stun you anymore, just use it to close the gap and set up a gank. He scales incredibly well building only tanky while providing great damage with his Despair’s % damage. In team fights he shreds MR with his passive, provides a giant AoE Stun, and meanwhile is able to stun someone every few seconds with his Q which has a base damage of 320 at rank 5! Ya I bet you didn’t know that. Amumu is everything you want in your jungle tank. He gets the edge over Vi because his ultimate is more game changing than hers because it can effectively be used on all five enemies. Its also as big as the Baron pit which makes contesting an enemy Baron with Amumu a walk in the park.
#3: 
Hecarim
Of all the junglers to start picking up major speed, Hecarim is leading the charge. A fan favorite of Season 2, he is now starting to make his way into the spotlight of season 3. Hecarim has great jungle clear doing it both fast and healthy. While he doesn’t have the greatest gap closer on my list he does have a unique one in his Devastating Charge; couple this with Ghost and its almost like having a 1000 yard Flash with how fast Hecarim can appear on the scene and mess up your day. His Q scales well with levels which lets him build pretty tanky and if he ever gets really ahead he can start prioritizing damage and really make heads roll. Once he gets his ultimate the angles at which he can gank from go up astronomically and it provides AoE-CC to boot! His real power lies in his W which allows him to be a late game brick wall that never dies. Hecarim again fits the curve perfectly being able to provide pressure and great early game damage while prioritizing all his items to transition him into that 4k hp monster that will never die come late game; all while ripping your team to shreds with a spear/scythe/javelin thing. His ultimate is a little less devastating than Amumu’s because it has a smaller chance of actually hitting five people, but its how incredibly hard it becomes to kill Hecarim late game that really gives him the edge. If you have Hecarim in your front line you basically always have a front line which is why he gets my #3.
#2: 
Jarvan IV
Jarvan is a scary jungler right now. If you ever hear that “DEMACIA!” and you don’t have flash you are dead. It’s that simple. Jarvan fits the curve almost flawlessly providing tons of pressure as early as level two with his gap closer that knocks you up, shreds your armor, and increases his and his allies attack speed. If he comes back at level six he will have a shield and brings a giant ring of death that he can also use to close the gap a second time! He doesn’t need to build damage because he gets free armor shred, attack speed, and % damage from his kit, which allows him to prioritize into HP allowing him to fight up to five people in his Cataclysm for as long as his team needs him to while they rip them to shreds. Oh yea his shield also slows. Jarvan is in a very privileged spot right now, as he should be he is a god damn prince, and is definitely a top tier pick for jungler, and a scary one at that.
#1: 
Xin Zhao
Xin Zhao gets my #1 spot because he fits my jungle curve perfectly as well as taking almost no skill to play. He does most things Jarvan does but with such increased simplicity it may actually make you face palm after you pick J4 and Leave Xin open. His Charge gap closes and shreds armor, no skill shot involved. He has a knock up that is based off his auto attacks, and increases their damage, which is what you are already doing anyawys, and he has an attack speed steroid which also heals him and has no cd (the heal proc) unlike Jarvan’s shield. His ultimate also has dual functionality in the fact that it can be used as a hard engage or hard disengage tool. Catch their adc trailing behind, just charge to him and separate him from his team. Did they catch you trailing behind? Target their support and knock the rest of them away as you make your escape. Crescent Sweep also provides Xin with free Armor and MR which means that Xin can deviate in prioritizing health into damage more freely than the other junglers. But in recap he provides great pressure early game with a gap closer and cc as early as level two. Has a team wide displacement ult with free defensive stats tacked on. He can build tanky and perfectly transition into the late game tank/initiator/cc machine you need him to be. He is the real deal.
Honorable Mentions:
These are the junglers that don’t make my Top 5 but I think are definitely worth mentioning as viable in the confines of the current meta, filling the Jungler/Tank/Bruiser role. They are listed in no specific order.
Cho’Gath
Elise (although she’s better top)
Lee Sin
Malphite
Maokai
Nocturne
Olaf (better top)
Rammus
Shen (better top)
Volibear
For those of you who don’t jungle stay tuned to News of Legends as I will be releasing a Top 5 for the other roles (Top, Mid, ADC, Support) in the future. Until then good luck and may this help you rise!
Love, Dcgreen
Previous “Glory of the Climb” Articles:
Dominion: Helping You To Win More Lanes and Games
Developing Your Killer Instincts: Why to be Aggressive in Season 3
Reviewing the New “League System”
Why Losing is Just as Important as Winning
@Dcgreen
nautilus contributes much more than vi in teamfights and Vi either hits her q or her target can just run of relying on her laner to assist, Nautilus has a way easier time ganking you can’t argue it…, he can go for a lane gank if e.g. top lane innitiates the enemy eithers takes the damage or trade it where nautilus can go in…
@bulb
D: whoops sorry that was ment for the other guy
@bulb
xD calm down, this is his opinion. I do see what you’re saying, but arguing against someone’s opinion doesn’t make him or you right.
Its just an opinion, not fact XD
DCgreen’s articles are entertaining to read because this is what he sees strong and why he finds them strong.
*Please don’t bash me for my grammar XD
@Dcgreen
-”It’s even worst for AP characters who don’t even receive the full 80 AP on a majority of their spells, plus factoring in cooldowns and it could be a while before your extra 80 AP negates that extra HP.”
This sentence is a little awkward and ‘plus factoring in cooldowns and…’ does not agree with the rest of the sentence grammatically. Also ‘worst’ should be change to ‘worse’
-”The reason she is 5th on my list is that she is really only scaled well to prioritizing one enemy at a time where the other junglers outshine her.”
This sentence can be changed to make grammatical sense and to improve the flow. ‘she is really only scaled well to…’ is a phrase I’ve never heard before which seems like an imprecise way of making the point. I would suggest breaking the points you are making up into two sentences rather than saying it all in one sentence. ‘However, her kit is designed for prioritizing a single target at a time rather than the entire enemy team. She is only fifth on my list because there are other junglers which outshine her.’ This might make the points clearer and easier to understand without having to go back and reread it.
-”His Q give him a gap closer and stun in one, while also lowering the targets MR with his passive, this gives him the ability to pressure lanes early.”
You should change ‘give’ to ‘gives’, add an apostrophe to ‘targets’ to make it ‘target’s', remove the comma after ‘one’, and add a period after ‘passive’. I feel as though this would be better off if you moved the point about lowering the target’s MR to a different place in the paragraph. It is secondary and doesn’t directly relate to the main point you’re making that Amumu’s Q has a lot of utility in ganks. I would remove the point about the MR lowering because you already mention it later in the paragraph.
I don’t want to step on your toes or anything. I apologize that my previous comment was too harsh. The article is outstanding and I was thinking too much about the mistakes I saw and not about how good the article is overall. I just see so much room for improvement and given the high visibility of your writing, I think it would be in your best interest to be hard on yourself to make these articles as clean and professional as possible.
stale meta?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOQKkiUxj-I
nice stale meta in korea
@Ndoggson
To everyone curious as to why I disregard Nautilus is because he gets outshine by so many other junglers. Compare him to Vi who is #5 on my list. Vi’s Q goes about as far as Nautilus and can go over terrain unlike his, making her ganks scarier as she can come from more unexpected angles, it also shreds their armor once she has a point into her W. Her passive gives her a shield that is on a shorter internal cd that Nautilus’s skill shield. She does not have an aoe slow like Naut but she does have an attack reset with her E, and it does more damage and scales better into late game since Naut never builds AP. Then when you compare ultimates they are almost the same except VI HAS SUPPRESSION and her ult brings her to the target which allows her to keep up pressure in melee range. She also displaces enemies as she travels to her target. Nautilus’s Depth Charge takes a long time to get to the target, does not carry him, and does not suppress which is a big deal. In a team fight he doesn’t shred armor which makes his Q useless, compared to Vi’s, his E is on a long cd and does low dmg unlike Vi’s and his shield is also on a long cd compared to the refresh rate on Vi’s passive. He is just in a weak spot. You would think he would be good right now cuz his shield scales off HP but he just is lackluster compared to other junglers. I think Warwick might actually be better than him simply because of suppression. :/
*edit* I did forget about Nautilus’s passive which lets him stun someone everytime he autoattacks them but I feel like this is still outshine by Vi’s suppression + the fact that Nautilus will prob never make it to a high priority target (adc or AP mid) and if he does he will only be able to stun them once before he is kited or killed.
@Brock
i think im the only person who thinks naut is worthy of a top tier spot because his cc, tankiness, and is very underestimated
@Kairte
Lowest Armor in the game, slow clear speed at low levels, unreliable ganks ’til 6… Pretty much a weaker armored Warwick/Skarner. And I’m saying this as a Nautilus fan boy, so you can take it for sure
Advising against assassins seems a little strange considering how successful Akali still is at destroying top and snowballing games when rushing a Gunblade, just as an example. I understand your point with assassins generally less effective when there’s less squishy targets available, but they’re still very much viable. They just need their own Warmogs once their core item is rushed nowadays
p.s. I assume you wouldn’t say Akali brings much utility to a team?
no nautilus? i think he is one of the best.. easy jungler and have a lot of cc!
i would say you are new to game and just following the meta and what you see is what you get
You just named most played junglers recently ,but that doesn’t mean they are best.
You got Sejuani she is very good.
i would place maokai in top 5.
and would recommend Nautilius and WW too ,
As ww seems to be low he isn’t, in high ello you dont get much options to gank so getting level 6 before ganks is legit on high ellos,and yet he can clear blue smiteless and go to stael enemies red,has very good sustain in jungler and clears fine.
There is Trundle Too .
@Cannonball4377
I try and do my best to proof read it myself. Do you mind citing any mistakes you noticed that I may have missed? Thanks.
At least in solo Q, the Bear is huge. Good clear after all, huge ganks, good “CC”. Whereas I feel like J4 and Xin have aweful clearing, and sadly it doesn’t even get better with levels. J4 can clear fast, but runs oom then. Xin sits there and hopes for his Madred’s to procc. That’s why I don’t like these two too much…
Where is nautilus? He is CC machine.
Good article with very good points made. However, if this is going to become Solomid’s go-to website for LoL news articles, they ought to start proof reading this stuff.
I would really love to see more people give Sejuani a good chance on that jungle lost. She’s a wall, has huge cc, and is very extremely versatile! The only part of what she doesn’t bring by your list is the inate Mr/armor shred. Try her out!
Where is nunu for he junglers? i think he is pretty good jungler at this meta C:
Completely agree with all the champions and all the reasons behind it. Personally I would choose Noctourne over vi but that’s just because I’ve played Noct more and feel more comfortable with him, plus now that you can build him as an assassin instead of tanky he can really lock on an adc and easily duel them.
Volibear kind of came out of nowhere and everyone is eating him up! I really enjoy playing jungle bear and hope to see it in more professional play.