Jungle XP buffs on the horizon in League of Legends

Jungle mains can finally stop complaining—XP buffs are coming.

League of Legends lead gameplay designer Mark “Scruffy” Yetter shared some quick gameplay thoughts in the Dev Corner today, reflecting on the preseason jungle changes. Though Riot’s intention was to encourage less early-game ganking and more farming, the nerf to jungle XP reinforced it. But upcoming buffs hope to “skew” toward farming over ganking.

Here are the potential jungle changes hitting the Rift.

• Buffing jungle XP per min for minutes four to 18 and spreading it across the less targeted camps that are often skipped by gank-heavy junglers.
• Pushing back the minion farm penalty removal to further nerf funnel strategies (which are rare but extremely strong).

Gank-heavy junglers, like Lee Sin and Elise, tend to skip certain camps that are out of the way or have little XP payoff. The upcoming buffs may entice early-game junglers to stop at these camps while benefiting farming junglers more.

And the frustratingly overpowered Master Yi and Taric funnel strategy made a resurgence in season 10. To counteract that, Riot devs plan on pushing back the minion farm penalty removal to put an end to the cheese strat.

Despite certain unforeseen issues with the jungle nerfs, Scruffy believes one intended goal was still met.

“Pathing is more balanced,” Scruffy said. “This goal was definitely achieved, not all paths are perfectly balanced with each other but we’re much closer here than we were in season nine.”

It’s unclear if these jungle changes will hit the Rift in Patch 10.3 or in a later update.

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