League of Legends Has Changes Coming to Help AP Junglers

Whether you're a quick-bursting Elise main or a one-trick Rumble jungler, League of Legends has several changes coming that should help AP champions perform a bit better in the jungle.

AP champions aren't the most common picks for the jungle, tanky champions and AD-heavy brawlers and assassins seen quite a bit more often. Some champions that don't go strictly tank builds such as Elise and Nidalee have still seen some time in the jungle, even in professional play, but they're mostly overshadowed by the other meta picks.

Riot Meddler discussed some of the designers' intentions with AP junglers in the upcoming patches in a recent Gameplay Thoughts post where he explained a general goal for the role:

"We're going to take a look at a couple of AP champs from a jungle perspective, see if we can give them a bit of help," Meddler said. "Not sure on timing, given there's some more critical work (runes stuff mainly) that's demanding a lot of work right now, hoping to do some explorations during the next few patches though."

The runes that are being worked on will certainly impact the changes needed for AP junglers, so it makes sense to clear those up first. Some of the new runes, base stat changes, and future AP item tweaks might even make some AP junglers more viable in the meantime, so getting other factors worked out first is a priority.

As far as specific champions go, there aren't any details that have been outlined at the moment regarding who will receive specific changes. However, Meddler explained that the changes could help champions already in the role as well as those niche picks looking to work their way into the jungle.

"That might mean work on AP champs who already jungle, or at least used to in the past, could also mean work on AP champs with play patterns that would be fine in the jungle who just haven't been good enough at clearing historically to do so (e.g. someone like Morg might be a good candidate, Annie given her high reliability when ganking probably not)," Meddler said.

The changes coming to AP champs will likely be explained in greater detail as we draw nearer to the patch that they'll be scheduled for.