hey all, i know most of y'all are in the east/midwest, but not sure if any of you are going to IEM San Jose next weekend.

Me and my partner are going to be there for both days. We got seated in section 120... Hope to see anyone there?

You'll have to let us know how your experience was there.  Curious to hear about it.  Of those of us who post here, aren't there only like 1-2 on the west coast?  Not really sure. 

re: jungle paths

There was an article on Cloth5 that has a bunch of route timers:

http://cloth5.com/exploring-new-jungle-paths/

Some people criticized them about poor runes/mastery choices, but it's still a lot of numbers that you can reference to use as a springboard. If you have a problem with one of the numbers, it is simple enough to just re-run the simulation yourself (with your own setup) and compare.

Also, if you've been experimenting with Utility-tree with junglers... turns out that Runic Blessing doesn't work on Smite-buffs

Finally got around to trying panth jung... wow... really, really easy due to the block mechanic.  Just tried once to go from blue to dragon... yah.  Pretty easy to solo by 3:30 at level 2. 

WIL Panth

standard jungle runes/masters for him - flat AD/ARM/MR.  21/9.

cheese strats - can level 2 dragon and clear by 3:25-3:50 either side.  You have to be on managing your blocks very well with the flat AD setup.  If you run a max AS + flat or scaling MR/ARM, its pretty easy level 2 drag... like 90-100% chance you can pull it off.  I've tried both lv 2 with q/e and q/w.  Both seem to work fine honestly.  If you try to level 32 drag, it doesn't matter what runes you have.  Super easy with panth.

re: the cheese strat.  The requirement is blue buff.  You absolutely need blue buff.  Either side of the map, you start blue and smite, then bee line to drag.  Smite will be up again while you are doing drag ofc.  The trick is to manage your shield stacks so everytime drag hits, you block.  You fail to do this 2-3 times and you are dead. 

Cheese aside, I've drilled the normal jungle several times.  I will add that, AS runes make for faster clears on panth, but are somewhat useless for early ganks.  The AS is better for faster shield procs and dmg mitigation. 

Anyway, he can sustain fairly well without basing on blue side.  route is dbl golums + smite, red (no smite), bee line blue, smite.  Mana gets kind of low though. 

Also, I figured out why you WOULD NOT want to back and buy your upgraded jungle item after clearing dbl/red.  You lose the bonus for stuns from dbl.  If you just stay, that buff is up while you work over blue. 

That said, if you do back, its still super easy to take your blue and gank then.  Honestly, you can just back if you like imo.  The time diff is literally 10-15 seconds. 

There is a more risky strat that leaves you looking VERY good for hp/mana though.

dbl golum + smite, red, wraiths/smite.  Base, buy upgraded jung item +pots, ward, pink ward (you have just enough for jung item + pink if you had no leash).  Beeline to blue.  Kill and clear, save smite.  smite gromp, kill. clear wolves.  you have 100% hp/mana at this point - 4:15-4:25.  It's more risky as your blue is exposed, but I think the risk of a later blue inv when you have not shown yourself is pretty low at this point. You know... today...

Current fav junglers for this season - noct/panth with the edge going to panth.

My noct setup is full AS and scaling arm/mr.  Clear 2 camps, back for upgraded item, and move along.  You could sustain, but not as well as panth.

Nocts ult, while lower range, is stronger than panth imo due to the vision block and the guaranteed hit if you have vision.  Really easy to get on a priority target. 

The panth threat of dragon, though, is kind of through the roof.  You can do the cheese nonsense at level 2, but you can safely take dragon any time its exposed unwarded solo.  Best if you have blue for an early solo, but you can solo it fine w/o in my experience. 

Been mystery gifting myself... last 2 - bc alpha skarner and gatekeeper galio... i mean... wut...

jungle changes worth taking a look at.  ww nerfed a bit as well

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2014/12/121-pbe-update.html

Man I'm salty... fing hate that I got a volibear skin and voli's kind of shit imo... well, at least against the team comp i was up against.  I really need to leave teambuilder if I get a dumb team comp.  We had champs that can pretty much engage.  They had heavy disengage + ww.  We CRUSH them in the jungle early.  I buy the upgraded jungle item at 1 min 34 sec.  We keep it even for a bit, but it just goes downhill.  Ah well. 

Prior to the game, I was thinking what does voli do better than sej?  My conclusion is kind of nothing.  She can dash immediately instead of run at (and its somewhat idiot proof - minions don't interrupt), he has a passive where if he gets dangerously low, he regens some hp... anyway, he does great in the jungle. 

Voli does way more damage.

Sejuani is a massive CC tank of doom, with slows, stuns and knockups galore, but fairly low damage unless she builds AP and isn't as reliably tanky.  Volibear is just a nightmare that will kill most champs if they let him catch them alone.  Frenzy and Thunderclaws together are guaranteed high damage output without a single AD/AS item, horrendous once he's got BOTRK.  He's basically got 30% extra health outside of being focused in a team fight, and if he is the fight should be won even if he dies with little regeneration coming into play.

Sejuani is definitely better for her high AOE CC in a team fight, but that stupid bear drops an obscene amount of damage even as a straight tank.  Even killing off his team wont really help because his 12 seconds of awesomeness can eat thousands of hit points off the team if he's not CC'd and evaded.

Sejuani and Voli are completely different.

Voli is very similar to Udyr.  Sejuani is very similar to Amumu.  So Voli does a lot of things better, and a lot of things worse because they fill completely different roles (bully fighter vs AoE AP tank).

Voli is a fine champion, its just that Udyr is probably a bit better and they are pretty similar.

that's just me whinging about having a sucky gap closer against a disengage comp.  Anyway, I quickly got any desire to play vbear out of my system and the world is a better place for it.

Looks like they are changing the order of the dragon buffs on pbe. Going to log in after work and take a look at some things i think. 

mm poro oriana

Current panth nerfs:

Pantheon

• Attack speed lowered to .625 from .644

• [Context: Additional nerf to a change from a previous update. Pantheon's attack speed on live is currently .679.] 

Played some rek sai or w/e on pbe.  Very interesting champ. Kind of tricky to get the hang of his tunnel mechanics.  His entirely positional ult is also interesting.  I'm thinking he might be a strong split pusher at the very least.  hmmm