League of Legends preseason 2015 jungle changes detailed

Last week, when Riot Games first started talking about the preseason changes for League of Legends, they emphasized a focus on bringing back "strategic diversity." Part of these changes include, once again, changes to the jungle.

"Currently a small pool of optimal junglers has been skewing team compositions toward a small set of strategic plans, so our focus for 2015 is to let players take the junglers they love and the junglers they want to fit into their team’s strategies. I realize jungle diversity improvements have been a focus a few times in the past (has it been every season?), but this time around we’re taking bigger steps and we’re excited to share our ideas with you," Riot Games said in a blog post focused specifically on the new jungle.

Part of the 2015 changes are aimed at "building a jungle that has components to empower and react to many different actions that junglers take." Ultimately, this should allow Riot to make changes to the jungle landscape midseason, rather than tuning individual champions or items.

Another change to the jungle is aimed at creating a more dynamic jungle in which the jungler is "free to make strategic decisions" throughout the game. Basically, Riot Games doesn't want the jungle role to fall into a place where the strategy is determined in the loading screen.

So what's included in the first round of jungle changes? Here are the basic bullet points; you can read the full reasoning and logic behind each change at the League of Legends website.

• Basic camps have been given a "pretty hefty" base stat increase
• Pacing of the basic camps have been changed, increasing their gold and XP rewards, along with their spawn delay
• Each jungle camp now grants a buff the first time Smite is used on them (buff available each time they spawn)
• New Scuttle Crab camp added in the river: This monster runs away from its attackers, encouraging junglers to venture out of their jungle and contest the crab in smaller skirmishes
  • When a team defeats the Scuttle Crab, they are rewarded a vision bubble and movement speed shrine  that grants out of combat movement speed in front of Baron or Dragon pit.
  • Scuttle Crab isn't dangerous, but it is durable

In addition to these jungle changes, there is a completely new set of jungle items, built from scratch. The items have been designed to allow for strategic diversity. Depending on your team strategy, the items you purchase should differ from game to game, even if you play as the same jungler champion.

The Hunter’s Machete will remain a starting item, but there have been some changes in how it deals damage and sustains your champion to be "nearly role-agnostic." This item shouldn't be better on a fighter than on a tank, Riot said. The Hunter's Machete also upgrades into four other items, each of which changes your Smite spell to a type of action you might want as a jungler.

Stalker’s Blade increases your power while ganking, allowing the jungler to play a larger-than-usual role in helping snowball lanes and put the whole team ahead.

Poacher’s Knife provides you with additional power and incentive to cross the river and invade the enemy jungle, stealing whatever camps you can opportunistically take and putting the enemy jungler behind.

Skirmisher’s Sabre gives combat power specially targeted to a 1 versus 1 situation, empowering you to seek out the enemy jungler and try to kill them, to show up during enemy ganks and turn the tide of a battle, or to punish an invading enemy jungler.

Ranger’s Trailblazer makes you faster and safer at fighting jungle monsters, allowing you to stay safer while farming because your health will be generally higher and giving you more time to take other actions.

Riot assures that these items are "role agnostic," meaning they can be purchased regardless of what type of jungler your playing as. They don't provide stats binding them to one role; however, the action they help you do is important in terms of helping "add to a strength you want to reinforce or a weakness that you're looking to shore up."

These items will also have an enchantment system that provide stats relevant to your roles. Each enchantment gives "roughly the stats you'd get for the total cost of the enchanted item, so the jungle passive from Hunter's Machete and the additional bonuses on the second tier items come effectively for free on the final items," Riot explained.

• The Warrior enchantment adds attack damage and Lifesteal
• The Magus enchantment gives ability power and cooldown reduction
• The Juggernaut enchantment adds health, armor, and tenacity
• The Devourer enchantment gives attack speed and on-hit magic damage which stacks up as you kill enemy champions or large monsters

The changes to the jungle is just one of the many Riot has planned for the 2015 League of Legends season. Riot promises more in-depth blogs focusing on additional changes