All jungle, drake and experience changes coming with preseason 13

With most of the preseason 2023 changes hitting PBE servers today, it’s time we take a look at the significant jungle and experience changes being introduced.

Riot have mentioned before that they intend to make all roles equally difficult for new players, and that’s what these jungle changes are aiming for. Chemtech Drake is coming back with a different approach and the experience changes in the solo lanes will be fun to see.

Chemtech Drake returns in season 13

The Chemtech and Hextech drake were meant to bring diversity to the game without creating unusual. Four types of drakes already existed so why not make it six? Well, a good idea with poor execution is how anyone can describe the original version of the Chemtech drake. This time around, when slaying the drake, the team would receive a small amount of tenacity and healing/shielding power. The Chemtech Soul will now give bonus damage below a certain health threshold. We are yet to see how Riot plans on balancing a drake giving stats from Legend Tenacity, Last Stand, and the passive from Spirit Visage.

Instead of creating camouflage zones that were impossible to balance in competitive play, the Chemtech Soul will now alter vision in a different way. Blast cones on Chemtech Rift will now blast you twice as far while Honey Fruits won’t slow down anymore and will give you a small shield on top of the usual heal. The new Stalker’s Bloom plant will reveal a small area around it and a large cone area opposite the direction it was hit, granting movement speed towards revealed enemy champions and reducing wards revealed to 1 health. 

Jungle pets coming back in season 13

Instead of buying jungle items, in season 13, we are going to be purchasing eggs for our jungle pets! They will hatch once we collect enough “treats” by clearing the jungle, and they will evolve as the game goes on. The Noxian Embercat will give bonus damage and slow the enemy, the Ixtali Ixamander will give a shield based on your health and bonus tenacity and slow resistance once enemies have broken it.

The last pet is called Ionian Cloudleaper and it will give bonus movement speed. On top of this, in order to make the jungle more appealing to new players, Riot is also adding indicators that will show how far you can leash the jungle monster before it resets. You will also have the option to enable recommended jungle paths according to your champion.

Solo lane experience changes

Riot has been trying to balance the solo lanes ever since the Ardent meta and this is their latest attempt. Solo laners will now get 95% of the experience minions give, instead of the previous 93%. But if you share it with someone else, you will now get 22% instead of the previous 24%. This doesn’t hurt bot lane experience gains but will prevent top laners from taking smite or funnel strategies. Mid laners have been complaining that their cannon minions are worth 10 gold less than other lanes so now every minion going to the mid lane will give 1 gold less than other lanes. At least up to 14 minutes, after that everything is going back to normal, which should prevent mid lane champions from snowballing the entire map.

Header: Riot Games