Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Why Jungle Morgana may be the next big thing

She's one with the trees now, let her have her Disney moment.

Morgana is, and has always been, one of the strongest champions in League of Legends. One of the things that continually baffles me is why she ever fell out of favor. She's a CC machine with the longest root in the game and an AoE slow into stun. Her Black Shield can completely turn the tide of a battle and make an initiator or carry effectively CC immune. She wave clears like a boss, and still puts out hefty damage. 


Despite all this, the last time I saw her picked regularly was back in Season 2. What changed?



Towards the end of Season 2 and into Season 3, push strategies began to rise into the spotlight. If you left your tower undefended, it was as good as gone, and this was especially true for mid lane. Because the first mid tower opens up the map so much, teams were rushing to take it down whenever possible. Gone were the days of passive farming, and along with it the strength of a roaming mid. Morgana was the definition of a roaming mid, since she lacks solo killing power unless the enemy is careless.

The other role that Morgana could sometimes fill was that of a kill-lane support. However, champions like Leona and Blitzcrank (or more recently, Thresh) already brought more reliable or greater power to that setup than her. It really wasn't feasible to bring her along through the laning phase.


Then came Season 3, and more recently, the change to jungle XP rates and spawn times in the 3.8 (Aatrox) patch.


In my experience, it results in a dodge.

1:  Fast, Safe Clear

This is becoming less of a talking point with the amount of help that junglers are expected to be given, but even without help she can level to 3 and be ganking mid at the 3:00 mark. If a gank opportunity isn't available, she can continue to 4 very quickly and seek out any lane she wants. 

What's particularly good about Morgana is her passive spell vamp. Assuming no disruptions, she is almost always at full health and doesn't use all 5 health potions. 


Speaking of spell vamp...



2:  Smite is amazing

Spell Vamp applies to summoner spells too, which results in Smite doubling as a gigantic burst heal (provided there's a minion, monster or pet nearby). While this equates to 40-100 health in the jungle, once she's out of the woods and itemized this becomes roughly 500 health.

This interaction makes Spirit of the Spectral Wraith a particularly strong item choice on Morgana. Not only does it provide AP, Spell Vamp and CDR (Morgana's favorite stats!) it also lowers Smite's cooldown. With my rune/mastery setup, Smite ends up on a 50 second cooldown and I end up with 44-49% spell vamp (depending on level) with this item alone.

Comparing it to other effective health summoner spells (barrier, heal), Smite provides more health on a significantly lower cooldown. Of course one would need to be conscious of dragon or baron timers and remember to have it available to secure objectives, but the rest of the time jungle Morgana is packing extra health in her pocket.

3. Ranged ganks
There's a reason junglers don't get 3 second CCs, and especially not ranged ones. Morgana's Dark Binding starts out at 2 seconds and works its way up to 3 as you rank it. Additionally, it has a 1300 range (290 higher than standard unit vision). This of course comes at the price of aiming the ability, which can be difficult in a laning situation when everyone knows where you are. With the jungler's freedom to roam, however, her position can only be revealed by wards or ganks. As an extra bonus, Morgana also doesn't have to get her hands dirty to gank- if you miss a binding, you don't have to follow up with a strong commit.

4. She doesn't stop being Morgana
Late game she's still going to be throwing around spell shields, Flash-Ult-Zhonya's-ing, and providing solid poke and fast wave clear- all the wonderful things that made her powerful in the first place.

Runes and Masteries


Morgana spends a fair bit of time standing around with nothing to do, so the extra flat AD makes quite a difference clearing camps and in early ganks. The spell vamp quints can be substituted for flat AP for a slightly faster clear time, but the difference at key gank times is roughly 5 seconds and isn't noticeable. Of note, I don't take magic penetration because jungle mobs don't have magic resist, and even if they did it would be reduced by Tormented Soil and dip into negatives very quickly.


The XP mastery is the difference between leveling on wraiths or not, which provides a fantastic window to gank mid at the 3:00 mark. Otherwise, more of the same- armor, health, and spell vamp. Bonus damage on basic attacks for reasons stated above- you're going to be doing a lot of autos in the jungle.


Two ranks of Tormented Soil will get you through the jungle camps at sufficient speeds. I rank Dark Binding first to maximize the duration of binds during ganks, taking a point in Black Shield at level four to provide additional utility while visiting lanes. This point can be put on hold until level 8 for more early bind ranks, but I'd rather have a shield available that I don't use than die because I needed it when it wasn't available.


When clearing camps, be sure to bind the big target, and take a step back to get some extra time away from them. It may not seem like much, but it really adds up.

26 comments:

  1. I've actually been saying this for so long and all my friends laugh and joke saying what an idiot I am. so I did it on my smurf, to show them and they said it didn't count if it was on my smurf...

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    Replies
    1. Why listen to others opinions? If it works FOR YOU as a Jungler then use it to your advantage.

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  2. well, teemo can too jungle.

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    Replies
    1. teemo has no cc, you cant just hang to your red buff xD

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    2. well, thats pretty much what master yi does

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    3. except master yi has a gap closer and move/attack speed mega steroid...

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    4. Teemo also has a move speed, and an attack speed steroid.

      He's also got a blind which is more CC than Yi has.

      He can also kill Yi for sport if he's vs a Jungle Yi.

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    5. Teemo health in the jungle and clear speed unless he uses his shrooms to clear camps is mediocre at best.

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    6. Trust me, jungle teemo is not viable. But too much fun if you combine it with AP shaco jungle ^^

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    7. Teemo comes out of the jungle with more health than Mundo after a full clear

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  3. trying it.. and will take 4% spell vamp and 2% lifesteal

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  4. So I heard you're looking for an AP jungler that has a lot of sustain, ranged cc that lasts days, waveclear, AOE, and lategame threat. Fiddlesticks says hi.

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    Replies
    1. On what planet does Fiddlesticks get credit for his wave clear?

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    2. Fiddlesticks ulti is an insta wave clear....

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    3. Only the dumbets idiot would waste ult to clear a wave of minions with the cd it has...

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  5. Something else to keep in mind is that *I believe* if you fire her binding from the fog of war, they can't see it. This was true a while ago when she was in favor, but they may have changed it since then. This would make for very potent ganks if you can fire from around a corner or in a bush.

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    Replies
    1. Was a bug, and has been fixed along with all the other invis projectiles

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    2. not all of them
      i still see(or dont see) plenty of invisible gragas barrels and nidalee spears

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  6. This is very blue buff reliant and if i were against a jungle Morgana i would counter jungle her a lot pre level 6. If she misses her root she is dead.

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    1. thats why you ward, also that is why you pick a mid laner that can jungle so the enemy doesnt know you're jungling in champ select.

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    2. The smite is a bit of a giveaway

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    3. and since when did riot allow the players to see the opposing teams summoner spell picks in champion select? hmm? Think before you comment :P

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  7. Hello all!
    First of all, i'm much sorry because my english is very bad :(
    That beeing said, one of the main things that a Morgana jungle would lack, in my opinion, is the ability to duel in the jungle.
    I main jungle, and much of the most picked/strongest junglers in the current meta are very good gankers and duelist in the jungle (eve, j4, lee, zac, xin, among others). On the other hand, i'm prety sure that she would clear like a monster, and i'm certaily gonna try her.
    For last i don't think she will be much viable in competitive simply because there are better options out there now. For instance, a mundo with spellvamp quints is a beast in the new jungle: he probably clears faster than morg while thansitions better (in my opinion) to late game because tou can build only tank, grab a liandrys torment and deal "tons of damage" (ty phreak :)).
    Another one that worth mention is gragas, because he also scales better than morg (also in my opinion) while can duel better in the jungle than her. he can also pull very explosive "ranged" ganks post 6 with his ult (like morg) beeing a better pick than her in the actual patch. After insec played him in the all stars, WE (i think) pick him in the semi finals in lpl. with the nerfs in elder lizard (witch kinda hurt eve) i think he can be the strongest ap jungle now!
    ty for patience!

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  8. Will try this later. I have tried Morgana with Smite in the middle lane, and built SOTSW just for the lulz, but I never tried her in jungle because I assumed she would be too blue reliant and her clear-times wouldn't be so nice, but it seems that is not the case. Can anyone comment on how her damage is with these masteries and the amount of gold she gets in the jungle? Can she compare to Karthus jungle in that sense?

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  9. I jungled Morgana today for the first time, and seriously, this is something I will do more often. It was so strong! I found myself being able to gank more and often than with other champions, and her ganks are deadly!
    However, I hope it doesn't become meta to jungle Morgana, cba to face a jungle-morg every match.

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