Riot Games recently revealed in a blog post it’s adding a bunch of changes to League of Legends to increase the number of Champions in the jungle pool. Now, lead gameplay designer Mark Yetter has unveiled which Champs will be joining the jungler fold – and even more could join in the future if it’s a big success.
Yetter has posted a LoL patch 10.4 preview on Twitter revealing the tentative changes Riot’s planning to roll out to live servers next week. Alongside the various buffs and nerfs (Soraka and Sona, we’re looking at you), there’s a list of prospective jungle pool Champs. Those that have made the list this update are as follows: Juggernauts Darius, Garen, and Mordekaiser, Assassins Talon, Zed, and Diana, and everyone’s favourite little chomper Champ Gnar.
You can already see the balance changes Riot’s making to these Champs on the MOBA game’s PBE. Darius’ Passive ability Hemorrhage has got a new feature which means his bleed now “deals 120% damage to monsters” and his Q, Decimate, now heals on hits against monsters. Likewise, Talon and Diana’s Passives also now pack extra punch against monsters (120% and 150% respectively).
Similarly, Garen’s been buffed across his Q, W, and E abilities, with Judgment now dealing out a hefty 150% to monsters, while Zed’s stats and Passive ability has been tweaked to make him more effective against monsters across the board – just perfect in the Rift’s jungle. Mordekaiser’s maximum damage against monsters with his Darkness Rise Passive has also been increased to 25-120 from 15-100.
10.4 Patch preview with tentative changes: pic.twitter.com/6k1aKdYoar
— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) February 11, 2020
Last but absolutely not least, Specialist Champ Gnar has buffs across his stats, Mini W, and Mega R (GNAR!) giving him extra movespeed, maximum damage against monsters, and better AD and AP ratios.
These changes are still tentative before LoL patch 10.4 arrives next week, and it’s not yet certain whether they’ll work in the live game, but Yetter says on Twitter Riot could add even more if it is a success. “If the 10.4 jungle pool expansion works, we’re open to doing another round (to all of you requesting X or Y champ in the jungle)”, he reveals.
If the 10.4 jungle pool expansion works, we're open to doing another round (to all of you requesting X or Y champ in the jungle)
works =
-Players are actually picking up the new stuff
-Gameplay quality isn't significantly worse because of these new picks— Mark Yetter (@MarkYetter) February 13, 2020
By “works” he means players “are actually picking up the new stuff” and that quality of gameplay isn’t “significantly worse because of these new picks”.
Whether the expansion of jungler Champs “works”, we’ll just have to wait and see when the next update rolls out on February 20 (according to the 2020 League of Legends patch schedule). In the meantime, you can check out all the details on the live version with our LoL patch 10.3 notes, as well as our LoL tier list to find out which are the best League of Legends Champions to pick right now.