How important is a jungler?

[Pandragon]

I have been running some new champions lately. Working on my ap character, but not finding it to fun. My friend told me to stick to what I do best, which is jungling. I have 5 or 6 champions that I jungle on, and I do very good at it. Most of the time I get first blood, and I can keep the lanes pushed back.

Is jungling important enough for me to do it fully? I have the most fun when playing LoL when I'm jungling.

[dokilar]

ive had matches that were won due to a well played jungler. playing with a jungler who knows how to properly jungle, give blue/red buffs off to proper champions, gank smart and counter jungle are in my opinion quite important.

but thats just my opinion

[Pandragon]

The biggest problem I have when it comes to being a full time jungler, is deciding which would be the best to use, for each match.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Yes, though I do suggest learning how to play well with as many champs as possible. The more diverse your experience at playing all types of champions will allow you to make better decisions when playing against others.

[Pandragon]

I pretty much know how to play every champion, just don't like playing most of them. lol

[Isrozzis]

It depends on what mode you are playing.

There are some junglers I don't use in blind pick because sometimes you just get countered by their champions, and you end up kinda useless. Skarner is a good example. You can do well when the odds are stacked against you, but if they have a whole team that can knock you away or screw with your ult, he's not the ideal jungler.

Though if you are doing draft mode you should have a better idea of what you are going up against. So you can pick and choose better. So if you see that they have say eve as their jungler, you could pick a jungler with a really strong early game and try to exploit that, since eve only starts to pick up mid to late game.

You did mention that you have the most fun jungling, and at the end of the day, LoL is a game meant for fun. So if you enjoy it, I say keep doing it. Though variety is the spice of life. It is fun to play other stuff sometimes. I main in Ranged ADs, but Jungling is my second best, so I try to mix it up a bit so I don't play the same thing too many times. Though right now, I'm really enjoying Xin Zhao for jungling.

[Deleted]

Very generally speaking:

Top/mid pick squishies? Take a tanky jungler (So mid AP burst top AP/assassin)
Top/mid has 1 tank? Take a bruiser (So, Cho'gath top normal mid)
Top/mid are both tanky? Take an assassin (Chog top Galio/vlad mid)

Top is Darius? Take a "lol press x to kill" jungler, like Maokai. Non-skillshot root and knock-up will get your top fed in no time!

[saintar]

Jungling is a VERY important role in League of Legends. Jungling provides so much to a team through many ways be it through helping lanes by ganking passing over useful buffs to your teammates and having dragon control. A jungler also usually is played by a tanky champion that can either peel for your team's carries or dive the enemy carries in teamfights. Some junglers even have a very good engage ability (amumu's bandage/Ult for example). Another huge thing a jungler brings to the table is smite. Having smite will ensure your team gets the dragons/barons if you get good at timing it, and with dragon providing ~1000 total gold to your team and Baron providing ~1500 +an insane buff the advantage is HUGE. As for jungling usefully it may take many many games to get fully acquainted with the role, but over time you WILL be able to do very well in games jungling. One thing I highly suggest is to at the very least buy one basic page of runes for jungling: 6 ad reds, 3 armor pen reds, 9 armor yellows, 9 magic resist blues, and 3 ad quintessences. The reason for needing runes as a jungler is because you take a lot of dmg in the jungle without them and you clear the jungle quicker with them as well. It also allows you to start with better starting items such as boots/regrowth/vamp scepter instead of always cloth+5.
I hope I could help! (im 1700 elo btw)

[Dundebuns]

I don't think Jungling is important as many people make out to be. If you take double top and crush that lane quickly, you can now ball a lot sooner to other lanes. If you enjoy it though, then keep on with it! I need to get back into jungling, now that friends I play with have started to bleed into my role of bruiser top!

[Duilliath]

Against a good opponent, they will just farm at turret, outlevel you and then kill you as soon as they and their jungler hit level 6 while you're level 4-5 still.

[Repefe]

I would say jungler is on par with ap carry when it comes to game impact. Very important role in early and mid game. Lanes are lost and ppl snowball based on good ganks/counter ganks. Late game ad carry takes over.

---------- Post added 2012-08-06 at 10:34 AM ----------

Against a good opponent, they will just farm at turret, outlevel you and then kill you as soon as they and their jungler hit level 6 while you're level 4-5 still.

Not to mention jungler can take both jungles which catapults him ahead of everyone in the game.

[Pandragon]

I did a game last night jungling as Shaco, my first night of pure jungling. change runes and masteries and what not. We rushed their blue buff and downed their jungler(i got the killing blow), then I proceeded to go 10-0 within the first 6 minutes or so from ganks. lol

Then I played a game as Wukong my new champ. Opponents had Nunu, well I know what he is gonna do. I went to his jungle as he came into mine. I cleared out his jungle, and my friend came into the river as I got done on their side, and we ran into Nunu, right where we knew he was gonna be(first blood), dropped him and I picked up some respawns in mine, and went back to his. Rinse and repeat.

[Axethor]

Not to mention jungler can take both jungles which catapults him ahead of everyone in the game.

He can also give away buffs earlier to his teammates.

Jungling is definitely important and if you enjoy it you should keep playing it. Jungling is my personal favorite role. The hardest part is knowing which jungler to play and when. Need a tank and you team has good killing power? Pick Moakai. Already have a tank? Pick Olaf, Jayce, or Kayle for a carry jungler.

[ZerOKami]

Jungler and Support are the roles that make the most calls ingame, very important and high priority calls. Doing those calls will let your carries and your bruiser do their jobs better. However it's hard to carry games as any of those roles. You must have plenty of options open.

[Deleted]

Junglers are very important. Who else would win your lane for you when youre too bad to win it yourself? Who would you blame for loss if there were no junglers?

Some people also doesnt seem to get the fact why jungler actually jungles. Junglers jungle so you can have two solo lanes, control dragon and buffs AND MAYBE help your lane if youre having difficulties and the jungler has time for it. They dont jungle so they can babysit your lane for you, as many people seem to think.

Good jungler can easily carry games.

[MrMayor]

Some people also doesnt seem to get the fact why jungler actually jungles. Junglers jungle so you can have two solo lanes, control dragon and buffs

Good jungler can easily carry games.

This up here pretty much covers in.

[Zeoni]

Good jungle and a good AD Carry are a pretty good start for a recipe to victory. A solid jungler that takes control of Dragons can easily turn the tides of a game. Especially if you're losing, at least if you can get your team plenty if not all of the Dragon kills it will help people who are behind get that extra global gold to work towards catching back up. And if you're winning, it helps big time with pulling away and working towards a quick victory. I typically enjoy playing more tanky jungles since you can pretty much go where you please + be able to initiate team fights at the perfect time. As far as role importance, I don't think any role is more valuable than the other as they all contribute to either a successful game or an abomination.

[Deleted]

Just had 2 tops (Xin + Olaf) versus me on Irelia. Was content with tower farming, but Shyv HAD to gank on level 2 (they were 2, I was 1) turning into a double for Xin. They pushed tower straight after that (~3 minutes) and froze lane so I couldn't farm without dying. Olaf then proceeded to jungle/gank for the most part, Xin could 1v2 anyone and my mid was too busy losing to gank top as well. How I still ended up with the most CS and best K/D ratio beats the hell out of me, but it was yet another game where I wondered how people got to level 30.

It can work fine.

[Deleted]

Jungler's dont get enough credit for how important they are. If you have a jungler, then the other team always has to play safer than they would if you had none. They can't push up in lane without risk of ganks, they might think twice about fighting incase the jungler is nearby and ready to turn the tables on them, and they have to do other simple things such as buy wards, which mean they have to use gold for them rather than on items. Alot of that threat would be taken away by having 2 people top lane, as the other team could play safe as soon as they here "ss 1 top" or "mia 1 top" etc.

That's just the basics of what they can do to put off the other team, they can also offer your team alot more. Early dragon control, buff control, and maybe even setting up a kill or two. They don't tend to get much credit for doing all those things, but when they dont do them, they sure get the grief.

For the OP, if you are good at jungling, you probably enjoy it more anyway, but if you don't feel like playing it, ignore what your friend says, and play something else for that game and enjoy yourself.

[Pandragon]

Well it's getting harder for me to jungle for some reason.

Lately when I queue and select my champion and set up for jungling I am met with stuff like this.

Someone telling me I'm an idiot for choosing to jungle and should join a lane and grow some balls.

Someone telling me theres no point in jungling, I'm just hurting the team.

Someone counter jungling me, on my team. This has been met in 2 ways.

1: The person will choose a jungler after I have locked mine in because I "instalocked" after seeing what the other 3 people are choosing.

2: the group will go into the jungle and start clearing it out before I can to force me to switch to a lane, then through out the game they will go into the jungle when they clear their lane(and not push a tower) to kill the monsters so I have nothing to kill.