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What responsibilities does the jungler actually have?

Jackman121·11/7/2018, 1:34:49 AM·2 votes·1,313 views

I remember when it seemed that every game was blamed on the jungler even when it was not really their fault, however I feel like now there has been a strange over correction where it seems like nothing is the jungler's fault and if you say otherwise you will get flamed into oblivion. In my opinions the jungler only really has a few responsibilities:

Farm Jungle camps- This one is pretty obvious. I don't think anyone disagrees with this.

Take objectives- They have smite, and they are not tied to a lane so they have much more time to solo rift or dragon

Gank lanes- Apparently this statement is controversial for some reason. I actually hear people say "ganks are optional" and I can't wrap my head around it. That is like an adc saying last hitting is optional. Yeah it is, just not if you want to win the game. I understand that its not the jungler's job to "win lane for you", but it certainly is the jungler's job to help lanes win. I get that they can't always help every lane, but when if laning phase ends and they have ganked 0 times, chances are they are losing that game.

Perhaps someone can explain this ganks are optional sentiment to me?

7 Comments

The Ecdysiast11/7/2018, 1:38:42 AM1 votes

It's a mistaken claim made by people who don't know how to play the game. The kind of people who flame when their support roams a little and get surprised when mid laners roam bot or top laners roam mid. They just don't understand that you're supposed to go all around the map, so when they play jungle they likewise think it's not their job to be roaming-- when it's everyone's job.

TheSingularity11/7/2018, 1:45:24 AM1 votes

Objective control: so baron and dragon pit including the vision control around each area
map pressure. I use this instead of gank because sometimes you don't have good lanes to gank (the enemy is already fed, your ally won't stop shoving, it's a 2v1 enemy like illaoi or heim). But applying pressure via vision control, invades or securing dragon applies pressure to everyone because they have to worry about you, as you've displayed that you are willing to go aggressive without the support of your team. Or you may be too far behind and farming will bring you back into the game more than ganking

The optional ganks mainly applies to hyper farm junglers like yi, shyvana or others who rely on level 6 like nocturne.

Bael the Riser11/7/2018, 1:50:50 AM1 votes

Its all about asserting pressure if you're Mid, Top, ADC, or Jungler. Making the enemy rotate the way you want them to rotate. If you're simply responding to what the enemy does, then for whatever reason you're not in the position of being able to assert pressure on the enemy, but the enemy is able to do so vs you.

Jungling is actually pretty complex like Support. But, it all comes down to pressure.

HeliosTheMoon11/7/2018, 2:03:14 AM1 votes

Well, there's no exact defenition, but the way I play it is that you must apply pressure all over the map, even where you aren't. You can do that by playing with your pathing, being off radar for a bit and using red/pink wards to destroy enemy wards so that they can be susceptible to ganks and will play safer.

Of course you'll want to farm jungle whenever there's nothing to do on the map or back, but it's mostly helping your team mates secure kills and make sure no one falls behind too much.

In the case that a lane is completely lost, just back off and assure an equal or greater victory on another lane, saving a lost lane is useless...

Namîste11/7/2018, 2:12:37 AM1 votes

I think the reason people blame the jungler is that they won't want to look at the reason they are doing bad as their fault.

I am in no way a good jungler and I'm still learning but there are lanes that are just not gankable. tank vs tank with no possible way of killing them? Lane way too pushed all the time? Enemy laner too fed immediately?

AlienPrimate11/7/2018, 2:19:22 AM1 votes

For the gank lanes section I think it comes down to 3 different categories. You need to be useful to your team in some way. This doesn't have to be by ganking though. The 3 things are the obvious ganking, counter jungling to try to take the enemy jungler out of the game, or simply by scaling. If you are playing someone who doesn't really have strong ganking potential like Tryndamere or Yi, you should be focussing on farming for mid-late game and only coming to lanes when there is opportunity to get gold with guaranteed kills.

Shallowillow11/7/2018, 3:23:42 AM1 votes

hi idk, i rarely jungled and it was only normals, but doesnt jungle have ward wars? and there is counter jungle right? this was hard for me to start with back then, i wanted to nid counter jungle and akali , kat, missf, etc to jungle but nerfs or misunderstanding of kit. so i just shaco jungle.

as far as kill secured, i would say you get what you get. but looking back, my bro would of let the best one to carry the team get the kill with ping assist/target? something like that(like a tip of the hat move). he knew all the the meta and social plays. this was what i explained long ago about ksing (kill stealing ) and how its different from kill secured. one is team gold(team stats) the other is theft. lets say your not carrying everyone on your back most of the time, instead your jungling or freezing lane for others, it wouldnt multiply like assists would. thus starving the support or top etc.

or idk anything, thx for this deep thought, like puzzles

goodday