There’s only been one thing on League of Legends players’ minds since Patch 8.10 arrived last week, and that one thing is the Rift Scuttler.
The little bugger is worth upwards of 140 gold, tons of experience, and even mana/health returns, making it worth more than most jungle camps in the game and at least as much as the two buff camps on either side of the map. Mid laners are running Smite to help their jungler secure it, supports are taking Unsealed Spellbook to switch to Smite when possible, and if you can’t win a duel against the other jungler when you go to secure it, you’re going to have a bad time.
Players, pros, streamers, and pretty much anyone else you can think of that plays League have taken to Reddit, Twitter, and the official game forums to complain about the state of the jungle post-Scuttler rework. Well, Riot has apparently found some semblance of an issue with the new Scuttler as well, because according to the company’s post on the forums today, it’s about to be nerfed. Well, barely.
The Scuttler’s respawn time is going up in order to alleviate some of the pressure surrounding the neutral objective, so the jungler’s game is less dependent on where and when it spawns. That sounds fine and dandy, but the respawn is only being extended by 15 seconds, which is not terribly significant. It helps, but only by a little.
In general, heavy-handed balance changes are dangerous, so it’s possible that Riot wants to tread lightly to make sure that this sort of change will work, before potentially changing it more. It’s also possible that the balance team simply disagrees that the current Scuttler is a problem, and therefore are reluctant to make big changes.
Either way, don’t expect this 15-second respawn timer to affect much, if anything at all. It should go live with Patch 8.11 next week.
