I vehemently disagree with removing the ambient gold. Yes, a jungler can just farm their own jungle and then sponge off a laner, but that is really not the best thing the jungler could be doing. The reason I wouldn’t get rid of ambient isn’t that it would simplify the macro game way too much.
I like that as a jungler I can punch the other team in the wallet. I mean, I could sit in a lane and sponge ambient, or I can watch the enemy’s farming path, steal it before they get there, and force the other guy to go sponge ambient off of his laners. That lets me starve 2 enemies instead of just one, and it’s a good way to work around a poor 1v1 matchup with the enemy jungler. Basically I can beat the enemy in the jungle and use that to impact the lanes too.
Ambient also allows support/utility junglers to exist and that’s a good thing. They aren’t the only sort of jungler you ever see, but they are one of the viable choices. It’s a good thing that jungle can be played successfully in a number of different ways, because it leads to a huge variation in optimal team comps.
Sponging ambient off a laner is almost never the best use of a jungler’s time as things are; so I don’t see where the problem is.
Rn the best junglers rn are utility junglers which just act as a secondary support for the bot laner. Jungle Churn or Cath or pretty much any tanky hero is extremely powerful right now and I just want to separate the different advantages of building old ironguard to assassins being able to level up very quickly. Right now, tanky junglers have the same advantages assassins have with being able to build whatever they want just fine whereas they also have the ability to build cheap utility builds, which make sponging bot very viable for them. If Ironguard were, say, a 600 gold item, the jungler would have to invest a LOT of gold to be able to have both of those advantages and be slowed down in the early game as a result.
I agree that assassins might need a bit of help, but I wouldn’t mess with ambient to fix it. It’s true that tanky utilities are common, but there are plenty of other ways to go.
How many junglers are really “never play”? My comfort picks are Inara and Koshka (and utility is a big part of it), but I’m really flexible about how I build them, and the reason I chose them so often is because of that flexibility. Other than them, I play: Miho, Skye, Anka, Reza, Joule, Ozo, Alpha, Grumpjaw, Reim, Glaive, Tony, Catherine, Grace, Lance, and Lorelai. I feel like Tony is bad and I’m horrible with him, but my team wins when I play him, so whatever. There are a lot of heroes and play styles that work in the jungle right now. If you want to be married to one hero then assassins don’t work, but there aren’t too many other heroes you could do that with either. “Inara” is always the right answer, but how many other heroes can you count on making work with every comp?
Ambient allows for a lot of good things. It’s a good thing that tanks are able to work as junglers. It’s a good thing that doubling up in a lane can be viable. It’s a good thing that a jungler who gets totally chased out of the jungle can scrape by on ambient. It’s a good thing that time spent rescuing a laner doesn’t result in too much gold lost. It’s a good thing that junglers don’t feel like they need to last hit lane minions.
It’s not that hard to work around tanky junglers. It’s the easiest way to play the jungler, but it’s easy to steal from the guy who wants to just farm his own jungle and then camp in a lane. That is very “micro” kind of play, and it’s easy to sidestep it if you play the macro game.
Since we have a ton of heroes that work in the jungle right now, I think a better solution would be to just address specific heroes that are having problems.
I truly think that the top lane problem can be fixed with just a bit of bush management. Lawnmower a couple of key bushes so that top isn’t always running scared and running out of cameras. Bushes don’t directly affect mobility, but they do a lot indirectly.
I agree turrets die stupid fast. Just had a game where top and bot lane were neglected because everyone was focused on blackclaw for a couple engagements. We lost the last turrets in both of those lanes from minions alone. Entirely our fault, and it was a losing match, but still ridiculous.
Irongaurd from what I remember was just ambient gold but in item form, and it really killed any creative captains because some heroes desperately need early items and can’t waste the gold on the contract. Inktomi said it well, ambient gold does a lot, and cutting it would throw too much out of wack.