League of Legends news » Feel the burn: How Cinderhulk changed the jungle

We're two patches into the Cinderhulk meta, and it's obvious by now that much has changed -- starting with the optimal itemization for junglers.

With the area of effect damage and extra health bolstering the power of tank junglers, the meta monopoly held down by Jarvan IV, Vi, and Lee Sin in the past few months has at long last been broken. But the ramifications of the new jungle item doesn't extend merely to choosing new champions, as its design and utility demands a wholesale change in how junglers play the game.

FIRE AND ICE

According to yoe Flash Wolves jungler Hung "Karsa" Hau-Hsuan, tanks like Sejuani and Shyvana are the biggest beneficiaries of the new item. "These two clear [the jungle] fast already, and Cinderhulk just makes it even faster. So they can farm very well, get more gold and more items than before."

North America's Josh "Nintendude" Atkins, of Challenger team Fusion, shares a similar assessment. "I think the main thing holding back the tank junglers was pacing. They struggled to keep up with clearing into ganking into brawling, and a lot of bruisers (Lee Sin, Jarvan, Vi, Rek'Sai) were very good at those three in the early game."

Part of the problem was in the comparative power of the initial Season 5 jungle items. According to Nintendude, the old Juggernaut enchantment, which Cinderhulk replaces, was straight-up inferior in utility to Warrior. "A large sum of flat attack damage, combined with the armor penetration and cooldown reduction, just gave you a super-Brutalizer for a fairly cheap sum of money."

In comparison, Juggernaut didn't aid the developmental phase for tank junglers in any significant way. The health, cooldown reduction, and tenacity bonuses were of greatest utility later on, when team fights were more prevalent. But unlike Cinderhulk, it made scaling into that phase a problem. "They need to farm up and get to these item breakpoints that are much later into the game," said Nintendude.

Thus the importance of Cinderhulk: replacing Juggernaut with the area of effect damage of Sunfire Cape neatly solves the scaling problem.

Though it might have replaced one problem with another.

FANNING FLAMES

"This [Cinderhulk] has an interesting effect on competitive play," said Nintendude. "I 100% agree it reduces the skill level required to play the role, because playing the Warrior junglers required a lot of precision, and it allowed good junglers to dominate the early game. However, with tank junglers, you generally take a backseat to farming and warding and playing off how your lanes are doing as opposed to them backing you up for the big plays early game."

Karsa was among the first to utilize Rek'Sai in the LoL Master Series in Taipei, and made a name for his early game aggression. Yet he is also expecting to change his play style to accommodate the new item. "I'll farm more than before -- less early ganks, since my opponent and I will be choosing poorer early-game junglers. Fewer 2 vs. 2 or 3 vs. 3 team fights in the early game -- just farm and put wards on the map, and wait for everybody to reach level six."

The impact goes farther than just the jungler too. Karsa also expects the mid lane to change in response. "Before this patch, there were a lot of assassins -- but now there will be Vladimir or Urgot in the mid lane, really different from before. When the jungle gets more and more tanky, the game cannot be shut down very early now, and teams can have a chance to come back in the late game. So every team will want to pick champions that do better later."

WILDFIRE

But Nintendude stresses that while the mechanical barriers have lowered, that doesn't make the role itself any easier. "It reduces the mechanical skill level, but the game sense aspect gets very interesting in tank versus tank jungle matchups, and requires more map precision and being in the right spot to hit the perfect engage."

That said, both junglers expect there to be tweaks to the item down the road. "Cinderhulk's overpowered," said Karsa. "It makes tank junglers much stronger than other types. So it needs to be nerfed a little bit and made more balanced."

Nintendude agrees. "In my personal opinion, Cinderhulk is a tad overtuned. Junglers that were Warrior-dependent don't have huge windows to dominate the early game anymore; Cinderhulk's now a huge item breakpoint for tanks. There will definitely be space for Warrior junglers, but not many; the only Warrior-building jungler I expect to stay top tier is Rek'Sai."

In the meantime, pro players still need to deal with the fresh wave of heavy-hitting hard engagers. Nintendude expects the meta game to shift over to tank-busters as a natural response: AD carries that can safely lay down fire from the far peripheries of a fight. A combination of significant range and sustained damage is what’s important, so more Kog’maws and Jinxes than Corkis, as the best way to keep cinders from turning into ravaging wildfires is to simply starve them of fuel (or, in this case, gold).

But his suggestions merely mitigates the impact that Cinderhulk’s made on Summoner’s Rift. For now, the jungle burns.