There was a time in League of Legends history when every game featured one or both of Lee Sin and Elise controlling the jungle. In recent memory, however, neither champion has been particularly strong and remain as fringe picks. Recent buffs to Elise and Lee Sin, courtesy of Patch 8.12, look to change that and might be strong enough for the duo to once again rise to prominence.
Elise is gaining five extra movement speed in both her human and spider forms, which will allow her to travel the map slightly faster. Her W, Volatile Spiderling, is also receiving a base damage buff ranging from five to 25, depending on level. This will allow her to clear jungle camps slightly faster, as well as making her ganks more powerful.
Lee Sin is receiving much stronger buffs, beginning with his W, Safeguard/Iron Will. The cooldown on the ability is going down by two seconds at all ranks, allowing him to make those patented ward jumps all the more often. Ever since the removal of Tracker’s Knife in Patch 8.4, Lee Sin has been lacking a lot of the mobility that made his ganks so deadly, and a flat two second decrease for his main movement spell will definitely make him more dangerous. On top of that, the Tempest portion of his E will do 10 to 30 more damage, increasing with rank. Like the buffs to Elise’s W, this will make his jungle clear slightly easier and allow him to deal more damage during ganks.
With buffs to other champions like Sejuani and Kindred also dropping with this patch, there will be plenty of jostling for the title of strongest jungle champion.
