Riot still working on jungle health, may eliminate Rift Herald

Riot posted its State of the Game post for January and lead champion designer Andrei “Meddler” van Roon talked about what changes are coming to make the game healthier for everyone.

In the current state of the game, junglers are far too strong. Their sustain is good and it prevents the champs from needing to back, which results in early ganks and easy farming.

We’re still talking about how much agency over the game junglers should have in general. Even last season, there were some circumstances where jungler ability to decide the game felt out of line with the other roles, so it’ll be something we continue to discuss and evaluate even after bringing the current spike in influence under control. The core issue under debate is how much raw power junglers should have to trade off against other positions given the control they have over when/where conflicts happen and ability to force uneven fights.

- Meddler

Riot knows that junglers should be important to the game, but a beefy jungler shouldn’t be the game decider. Meddler noted that Riot will be nerfing the experience junglers get and changing the honeyfruit spawn during the early game. Lessening the amount of sustain that junglers have at their fingertips will slow down their growth.

Some jungle camps might also be changed to do more damage, like Gromp and Krugs, so there will be more risk in ganking the nearby lanes after clearing them.

Meddler also notes that the Rift Herald is often ignored, since the reward isn’t seen as a priority. Riot will be changing or removing him in the future.

These changes are noted to come in the future, but it’s unsaid when. The season is still fresh so there’s still lots of time for change, so be on the look-out for when this stuff starts rolling out!