Prepare your bodies for all of the horrible sona players!

I believe that the last round of Sona nerfs are getting reverted.  Coincidentally just in time for her big skin.

Kass also is getting the big nerf.

And of course low mobility junglers are getting a pretty solid nerf as well.  So thats fun.

Riot has revealed the new champion.

He could be fun, but the trolls.  Good lord.  He can freeze teammates AND he can allow enemies to pass through walls.  Don't make your solo queue support angry.

Oh thats fun! now EVERYONE can be Reksai! Awesome kit on that guy. We will definitely be seeing him played.

Jesus, the repeated nerfs to all junglers are brutal.  I honestly think that we are getting to the point that if you can't get one of the top 3 or so junglers, it might be better to go 2/1/2.  I'm serious.  BIG nerfs to low mobility junglers and most tanky junglers this patch, and they had problems already.

I think that there has been so much complaining about jungle and fighters on the boards/reddit that Riot has actually gotten toxic tbh.  Their balance team is willfully refusing to do what the community wants at this point because they don't want to give in to the "whiners".  So they are trying to fix major problems while being spiteful, and its just a mess.

I don't really see to much changing in the jungle. A slight nerf to j4, smites range and the jungling item literally everyone buys? unless I missed something they didn't change to much. 

With three camps on each side and being able to get a true damage slow off a cheap item with smite, what about running smite supports top and bot?  The blue side could be using going for some high efficiency damage increases  and getting some farm as they pop in and out of the jungle, while the red support could do quick runs through to pick up red for the adc.

Don't see the problem with jungle though, if you don't have CC or high mobility, not sure why you'd be in the jungle, and you don't need both to make a well planned gank succeed.  Trundle pillars will work just as well after this patch as they did before, J4's the only one getting a minor nerf aside from the range reduction on smite, and he's been comfortably above 50% for a long time.  If the slow on smite is your only means of effectively engaging, it's never really been a viable jungler.  I guess the 5 damage off warrior might hurt a little, but everyone takes warrior because it's so much better than juggernaut, it will still have huge efficiency.

kass visual update on pbe looks good anyway - http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/02/224-pbe-update.html

The biggest deal is the loss of ability to change smites.  Before A LOT of junglers needed to swap pink smite for blue smite.  Blue smite is better at most phases of the game, but you need pink smite to not suck early.  You can't do this any more without paying a fairly large tax.  That's a big nerf to most non strong junglers (most of the top tier junglers won't care that much).

The smite range nerf is big to the non mobile junglers.  Udyr, skarner, voli, etc REALLY care about this nerf.  They need that range to gap close.  The intended targets of the nerf don't care so much.  They have mobility to gap close already, so a bit of range off the top doesn't matter so much.  But Udyr losing a third of his gap close range?  Yeah, thats big.

Also, pretty much everybody loses 5 AD due to Warriors nerf, except for nidalee.

Jungle was already the least popular role by a fair margin (according to reddit info).  Jungle was also the least diverse role by a substantial margin by pretty much any measure that you want to use.  3 nerfs, 2 of which really hit at the lesser junglers is going to be ugly.  Really ugly.

Right now Vi and Nidalee are huge, Lee is great if you can play him, J4 is probably still decent (the nerf is bigger than you think - his first clear is going to be REALLY REALLY rough - for reference, I do the necessary 4 camp clear in our organized games at less than 100 health a lot of the time, and he lost a ton of armor late game).  Pantheon is still fine since not a lot of this matters to him.  After that its getting really ugly real fast.

Usually I look at some things Karl writes and say to myself that he's looking at things through a purely jungle perspective.  I always respect his opinion but am kinda weary cause he's a bit bitter and I want to believe that Riot will get it right.

But yeah.  This sucks.  Jungle sucks.  Lee Sin being the only jungler you can count on always being able to play sucks.  I know it's a hard thing to figure out... but how hard can it be?  Why can't they give everyone the Shyvanna treatment and make her abilities work well on jungle monsters only.  Shyv can be balanced in the jungle now without the brick in lane nightmare that is Shyv Top becoming a thing again.

what i don't get.. and please explain it to me if I'm missing it... didn't they say they were going to do something to buff jungle tanks? hurm..

Anyway, I'm downloading the latest pbe build. Will try out the new champ some tomorrow as time allows (and if he's still enabled).  Might stream that for a little bit, but I'm sure there will be other vids out there soon. Night all!

ff at 21 has some ability stat details for the new champ-live on pbe now anyway

http://www.surrenderat20.net/2015/02/224-pbe-update-2-bard.html

oh.. and I think there might be a tip here... ban rango - dj sona appears, rangos like to kill her. 

oh - and I'm sure we all agree we are thrilled to see another galio skin - cuz f u meta.

I guess I should of clarified in my original post about the jungle is that you already only see like 4-5 main junglers (nid, j4, lee, reksai, vi) already. I do not see this trend changing at all with the jungle changes. These 5 junglers are still the only ones that will be played since they don't give a fuck about any of the changes.

I also think mao kai and malphite are not terrible in this jungle but are just not played much. Mao doesn't really take damage in the junlge and malphite can clear with a healthy HP (slowishly if you wait for his shield to regen inbetween doubles and red or blue and gromp). AD malphite is better in the jungle and starting W for the aoe on autos. They both have really strong CC for ganks and are always relevant late game even if they have a shit jungle. dueling wise they both are not to bad but would probably die to vi/reksai (malphite more so then mao and everyone dies to nid if she hits you with a spear).

Going big with Gambit this week! Ill probably regret it hahaha.

dj sona live now