I suck at jungling!

[Deleted]

Hey all,

The title says it all, I suck at jungling!

I mostly play support, which I usually perform well on. Also play top and adc often and they tend to go okay. Mid I've also done when needed and didn't go too bad.

But man, I can't remember a game where I jungled and I could say "that was a good game". I just suck at it, bad.

Do any of you have a guide that I should read that you'd recommend? Maybe tips?

I usually jungle on Jax, Riven or Yi.

[Dundebuns]

I suggest trying to Jungle in 5 v bot matches. You wont be pivotal to the match, and your options to gank will be limited due to people pushing the lanes, but you'll have the opportunity to practice your routes.

Other than that, practice. It takes a lot of skill to know when a lane can be ganked. I would also look into a larger jungler pool, as Jax and Riven aren't your typical Junglers. Zac and Sej are good AP tank junglers that have a lot of utility and are easy to jungle with.

[Deleted]

I see, thanks.

I use Jax and Riven because they're the tops I have (plus Yi.. But people always ban him anyway) so it's what I use. I also got a Warwick on a friend's recommendation but I just can't find it in me to like him.

[Deleted]

the problem is that you rely a lot on your team mates to actually help you. I play jungle a lot and most people end up pushing to tower without wards and complain that they are getting ganked. you can try to counter gank to stop them from dying but it can be very time consuming camping a lane just to save them from ganks. you will be underleveled, underfarmed and you will miss a lot of potential kills from another lane.

more recently I have been trying to keep an eye out on who can poke well and has good mechanics. if they are winning early engagements I just camp their lane and get them fed. sure, other lanes may complain, but if you can get a good player fed, you have a high chance to win a game.

I just played a ranked game as yi with syndra vs kassadin. she was poking really well so I just kept going mid. she had about 8 kills by 10 minutes or so, while kass had no farm and was a very low level. the game was won pretty easily because she had so many kills. the other lanes were a little behind but syndra was so far ahead she made up for it.

[Deleted]

I've mained jungle since halfway through S1, currently residing in Plat 3 through jungling alone.

To be honest, you'll have to be more specific as to what you need help with.

General routes? Champion pool? Ward placements? Counterjungling? Ganking?

I can tell you though that Jax, Riven and Warwick are all very much sub-par junglers, Yi is plain overpowered these days.

Strong junglers that aren't too difficult to start with: Jarvan, Nocturne, Udyr, Xin Zhao, Zac, Nautilus, Nasus. Personally suggest you to try Jarvan.

Decent guides: Jungleology by Saintvicious
- Check out any of his Jungleology videos, they're great.

How to avoid wards

(Okay so this isn't for junglers, but I saw you like playing support as well so this is a good guide for that, it's about Lane Momentum)

[Deleted]

Thanks!

Well, when jungling I'm usually a bit lost, like, do I keep farming the small jungle adds? Until what level? Do I go to the enemy jungle?

And yea, where to place my wards is still a bit guesswork. Usually I just put them to watch for a gank on someone or near blue/red if they're close to respawn.

But I'll watch the vids you sent, maybe it'll answer my questions .

[Axethor]

You usually farm the small camps if 1) Your a farming jungler, but they aren't that popular these days and your time can be better spent ganking, which brings me to point 2) No current gank opportunities. I guess a third point would be if your laners aren't taking them, but they won't take them often in Normals and below Plat.

Counter-jungling (going into the enemy jungle and taking their shit) is high risk, high reward and best done only once comfortable in the jungle normally. You also have to take into account jungle matchups and how good your clear is. Tiger Udyr will want to invade you all day and not only take your shit, but kill you. Meanwhile Amumu will avoid a 1v1 at all costs and you can abuse him by hunting him down and forcing him off his buffs. Nunu is an asshole who will walk up to the buff you are clearing, consume/smite it, and walk away laughing while throwing snowballs.

I love jungling and would consider it my main role. It is also one of the most diverse in terms of picks and what you can do with them.

[Shiny212]

Those are all tricky junglers to play well, especially vs dangerous early junglers like Lee Sin or xin zhao. If you want to be more successful in jungle I'd suggest someone easier to farm fast with like Hecarim, or Nocturne. Don't play warwick.

[Deleted]

General routes:
Blue (lv2) > Red (smite, lv3) > Look for a gank; if no gank opportunity arises, go Double Golems > Wraiths > Look for a gank
Red (lv2) > Blue (smite, lv3) > Look for a gank; if no gank opportunity arises, go Wolves > Wraiths > Look for a gank
Blue (smiteless, lv2) > Enemy Red (smite, lv3) > Look for a gank/kill on enemy jungler
Red (smiteleess, lv2) > Enemy Blue (smite, lv3) > Look for a gank/kill on enemy jungler

When farming:
Double Golems (smite) > Wraiths > Wolves > Double Golems (smite); continue this route until you need to back/gank/whatever; a good idea is to only do double golems when Smite is available as they'd take too much time otherwise.

Grab the Wraith/Wolf camp as much as possible in-between ganks.

When ganking:
Constantly look at what the enemies buy, when they buy a ward and constantly look at when they leave the lane; where they left the lane and if they warded (look at scoreboard and minimap for this information).
Look for laners with high kill-potential when ganking. This means either high damage, a CC or good follow-up on your CC coming from your laner. It also means to look at the enemy laner, if he has high escape capability (think Nidalee post-6, Ahri post-6, Lissandra post-3, and so on) or strong potential to turn the fight even 1v2 (think Swain), then evaluate whether or not you'd be able to get the gank off, if not, the simply pressure the lane by showing up and harassing a bit while focusing ganks on other lanes.

It's all about pressure from the jungle. If you give no pressure to the enemy team, you'll most likely lose the early game for your team.

General tips:
Don't counterjungle enemy Wolf camp; it is too deep and simply not worth it. *Unless you know for a fact there's no wards and the enemy jungler is nowhere around

Remember to shove the lane completely after a successfull gank. A successfull gank means forcing the enemy laner back to base. This'll give you experience to stay in the game and shoving the lane means denying experience to the enemy laner.

Aim for level 6 @ 7-8minutes game-time. (This means if you haven't fallen behind)

Pressure your lanes, even if it means simply showing up or running through the lane. This shows the enemy laner he can't just do whatever he wants without possibly getting ganked because you're actually active.

Say you're Purple side (top-side of the map) and you see the enemy jungler ganking your top lane. You're nowhere near top to counter-gank, so go in and take enemy wraiths. Remember to leave either 3 small ones or 1 small one depending on enemy jungler, for example if the enemy jungler is Amumu who has easy AoE clear, you want to leave just 1 small wraith to deny him as much gold/xp as possible (leaving one means respawn timer wont start), however if you're up against Elise jungle, who has little AoE, you want to leave 3 small ones in order for her to waste as much time as possible getting the respawn timer to start.

Jungle timers:
Buffs (red, blue): 5minutes
Dragon: 6minutes
Baron: 7minutes

Be wary of champion dueling capabilities when counterjungling, know your champ and know the enemy champ's capabilities.

[Drikkink]

the problem is that you rely a lot on your team mates to actually help you. I play jungle a lot and most people end up pushing to tower without wards and complain that they are getting ganked. you can try to counter gank to stop them from dying but it can be very time consuming camping a lane just to save them from ganks. you will be underleveled, underfarmed and you will miss a lot of potential kills from another lane.

more recently I have been trying to keep an eye out on who can poke well and has good mechanics. if they are winning early engagements I just camp their lane and get them fed. sure, other lanes may complain, but if you can get a good player fed, you have a high chance to win a game.

I just played a ranked game as yi with syndra vs kassadin. she was poking really well so I just kept going mid. she had about 8 kills by 10 minutes or so, while kass had no farm and was a very low level. the game was won pretty easily because she had so many kills. the other lanes were a little behind but syndra was so far ahead she made up for it.

I hate people that blame junglers. I main mid but I jungle sometimes as well and when I overextend and get ganked, I know it's my fault. When I'm in a safe position and get ganked, I blame myself (and sometimes, I ask the jungler to help out with wards) for not keeping a ward up. Only time I blame other players is when I get ganked by a roaming top or bot for not calling MIA

[Duilliath]

I hate people that blame junglers. I main mid but I jungle sometimes as well and when I overextend and get ganked, I know it's my fault. When I'm in a safe position and get ganked, I blame myself (and sometimes, I ask the jungler to help out with wards) for not keeping a ward up. Only time I blame other players is when I get ganked by a roaming top or bot for not calling MIA

That's map awareness. Calling MIA is a courtesy, not a necessity. What I do loathe is when the laner does not make use of a missing opponent and instead sits last hitting on their own turret.

[Drikkink]

That's map awareness. Calling MIA is a courtesy, not a necessity. What I do loathe is when the laner does not make use of a missing opponent and instead sits last hitting on their own turret.

I'm finding that it's a lot of me + the jungler vs the world, unless there's a good bruiser top. I just see a lot of 5 minute enemy double kills in bot lane these days and my top lane farming on their turret forever.

[Deleted]

I'm finding that it's a lot of me + the jungler vs the world, unless there's a good bruiser top. I just see a lot of 5 minute enemy double kills in bot lane these days and my top lane farming on their turret forever.

So go roam bot to help them out?

[Deleted]

jungling isn't hard, ward the enemies buffs, steal their shit when you see them on the map, gank lanes when you see them pushed / know you can take them by surprise. Jungling is all about decision making and predicting, probably the easiest role in the game. Oh and counter gank if you aren't playing a strong gank championg (Nunu, Yi for example), you can completely cripple people and waste the enemy junglers time and sometimes even pick up kills.

And the most important part of all, pick up objectives once you force people out of lane, know the enemy jungler is dead / doesn't have smite etc. Biggest thing I see is someone ganks bot (just as an example) pick off the support and their ADC (doesn't even matter if you kill them. Forcing them back is good enough) and then going back to farming. You will want to try and get the bot tower or Drake (drake is generally better unless you know the enemy bot lane has a strong roaming comp (e.g. leona, thresh, blitz), and remember to time buffs/drake/baron etc.

Remember to ward your own buffs if you know the enemy is playing super aggressive and trying to pick you off in your own jungle, chances are he'll try and take your buffs if he doesn't find you, or sees you ganking a lane.

and finally, don't play scared if you're playing a champion with a lot of early game power, it's better to be over-aggressive (without being stupid like tower diving the mid laner when he has full hp) unless you know for sure the enemy jungler has warded their wraith entrance, blue entrance etc. What I've found a lot in low elo is that people have absolutely no idea how to react to being invaded early and get picked off and fall really far behind, most of the time the other laners won't even come in to help.

pretty much everything I can think about atm, typing from my phone so srry for grammar errors.


EDIT: Kind of jungle related, but try and pick champions with hard initiation / cc for yoloqueue. You will have the most success playing them, especially in low elo. Sejuani, Jarman, Xin, Lee, Zac are just a few champions I would recommend starting with.

[Lemons]

You could read this: http://na.lolesports.com/season3/spl...loud-9s-meteos

Well, when jungling I'm usually a bit lost, like, do I keep farming the small jungle adds? Until what level? Do I go to the enemy jungle?

There's no level you stop farming your jungle. Basically...if you're not trying to set up a gank or apply map pressure you should be farming your jungle. Jungle is like a jungler's lane and those mobs are your CS. You know how important it is for lanes to get CS well it's the same with junglers. You need to keep up your farm or you're going to end up crazy behind the lanes not just in gold but in levels. When I first started I put WAY too much importance on ganking. I would farm the jungle a little bit then essentially run from lane to lane looking for ganks. Sometimes...rarely in my case...that would actually work out, but I think counting on your enemy being retarded and allowing you to get a bunch of easy ganks isn't the best way to play the game.

As far as counter-jungling (i.e. going into the enemies jungle)...only do it if you know it's a sure bet. Like if the enemy jungler shows himself on the other side of the map and his lanes aren't paying attention and you can just quickly run in, kill something, and leave. Basically you need to have really good awareness of where the other team is otherwise it could end badly for you.

Also it works better on certain champions. Anyone who can trade early like Lee Sin is good at counterjungling because even if you meet the enemy jungler you might be able to straight up kill him, and Shaco, for instance, is almost defined by his ability to counter-jungle by just sitting in a bush in the enemy jungle and completely destroying the enemy jungler with 2-3 boxes.

Anyways I find jungling to be very complex. There's usually a lot you could be doing at any one moment. You just have to keep at it until you get better.

[ulf881]

just keep playing, it takes practice

[Drikkink]

(words)

I haven't done much yoloqueue but I prefer the training wheels jungles like Nunu or Fiddle. The selfheals really make them strong at early jungling and are very strong at their own thing later (Nunu as a tanky support and Fiddle as sorta AP carry)

[KONTROLA]

What cham u use for jungling?

[Deleted]

I would suggest practice as well, and finding a good jungler to work with.

Ideally a jungler needs some form of sustain, a capability to go tanky if needed and has innate CC (preferably outside their ulti). Jarvan for example fills all of these bar sustain but his jungle speed and ganking potential is very good plus he is very handy in team fights and engages across the board and doesn't have any glaring weaknesses in early, mid and late game.

[Deleted]

The most important thing being a good jungler is to set your priorities right. If you farm wolfs instead helping your teammates who are being ganked a few steps away or their tower getting destroyed, then you are bad and no amount of good ganks will help you.
Sadly there a many such jungler in lower elo who fail to help their teammates cause they want to finish killing wraiths.