Carry Jungles Post-Cinderhulk

Shoopdawhoop125·Apr 7, 2015·1 votes·482 views

Before anyone starts to dissect my post, I'd like to make it absolutely clear I am speaking mostly if not entirely in the context of low-ELO soloq.

Well boys and girls, we're back to mid-S4 where tanky jungles have a hugely efficient item that rather decisively outscales the traditional "carry junglers". Kha'zix, Rengar, Master Yi have all fallen mostly to the wayside in favor of champions like Sejuani, Malphite and Amumu. My question for all the jungle mains out there: How do you carry? In Bronze and Silver if you want to win, teamwork often isn't enough. You must bend down, place the team on your back, and then struggle to convince four random, often highly toxic, players to work together so that EVERYONE can win. Personally, I'm finding it very difficult to carry efficiently with tank junglers. Shortly before the introduction of Cinderhulk, I had been playing Kha'zix a lot, and having a lot of fun putting in the effort to secure objectives and vision, knowing I was CAPABLE of single-handedly changing the course of a teamfight without having to rely solely on the situational awareness and positioning of my team. This sense of power is almost completely gone for me, and I find myself struggling to find the motivation to grind through soloq and move up the ladder.

TL;DR - Tank junglers are massively more efficient than carry-type jungles in the mid to late game, I want to know how people are carrying their way out of what has come to be known as "Elo-hell" (although I personally don't believe in the concept), since our traditional carry picks such as Kha, Yi, and Lee Sin have fallen to the side of the road.

6 Comments

BluePolarizerApr 7, 20154 votes

Master Yi: always build bruiser. Never build full damage. The reason is simple: at level 18, you have 2000 HP or so with 100 or so base armor. Build full damage, die in 3 ADC crits if you get caught by a tank's CC. Thats not hard because the tanks have AOE CC.

Yi can solo tanks easily, but in teamfights should NEVER be targetting the tanks. He should always be targetting the ADC or another squishy (usually mid, but also support and top laner if applicable). With just BoRK, Devourer and another slot efficient damage item (I usually get IE if I'm ultra-fed, LW if not, Maw if I'm against multiple APs) you already 5 shot ADCs which means 2 seconds of autoing. You then get defensive items and defensive boots. You already get 2.3 attack speed with specialized Yi runes and ult with this build, while being far tankier. Its like bruiser Fizz with 100x more damage and having a resettable E.

Played 80+ games this season, 200+ games last season as Bruiser Yi, 65% win rate.

Shoopdawhoop125Apr 7, 20152 votes

My problem with Yi may be simply from a lack of communication or experience, but I find his ganks horribly weak unless you have red AND laner cooperation or the enemy laners are ridiculously overextended. Sure, I can walk up the opponent, but I have no real method of ensuring they don't just walk away, and Yi's early burst has never particularly impressed me.

BluePolarizerApr 7, 20152 votes

Don't gank without blue smite at the very least.

Seriously. If your champ isn't good at something, stop doing it...?

If the enemy ganks fail, he's just further behind. If he succeeds, well, shit happens. I've played all these Yi games in high gold/low plat elo, including in last season plat promos, so its not that different. Junglers are better, yes, but so are laners at escaping. Yi farms way faster and scales way harder with just bilgewater than most other junglers, so all you need is to not die and not have your lanes feed too much, and you win. If all lanes are 0-5 by the time you are done with red, there is no jungler in the game that could possibly have won you the game anyways; even lee sin cannot gank all lanes before red is done. At 6, you have very high sustained damage. Use it to gank a LONG lane. Do NOT try to gank mid unless they are incredibly overextended and low, they can burst you with the exception of Zed whose ult is easy to dodge with Q or tank with W.

The real trick is to actually win with Yi when you do get gold. Here's how I think of it: you will only get the gold you need about 80% of the time. The other 20%, you'll run into a good Shaco/your team feeds like hell. The problem with most people is that when they actually do get fed, they don't buy the right things and lose anyways, and then blame it on bad team or luck. It is neither, it is them making shitty itemization decisions or having shit strategy. The way to think about itemization is this: since I'll only get the gold I need 80% of the time, I have to maximize the probability that when I actually do get the gold, I'll win most of the time. That means playing absolutely safe and having very conservative itemization. No glass cannon shit, no risky diving.

RetillinApr 7, 20151 votes

Well two things. First instead of trying to solo carry, team carry. That means Amumu/Sej/ect... You don't have to do the most damage to carry a game. Be a team player and you will rise quicker than just being a solo Q hero. Second if you just feel like you WANT to play solo Q hero, pick a champion that does what you wish at low rank. Jax/Wu/Tryn are all amazing split pushers. And that is what a solo Q hero does. Don't try to team fight high damage to carry. Just split push on one of these three. But you need a LOT of wards to do it.

So really it comes down to this. Nothing changes the flow of a team fight like Amumu/Sej ult. Nothing. You dive in and hit 2 or 3 with those ults (if you were smart enough to be where your team can follow up) it is better than having a Zed and killing one target then walking away. If you don't like playing the team orienteded style of play that wins more than loses that's fine. But melee damage dealers just are not good in large team fights, so you need to split push more with them.

Shoopdawhoop125Apr 7, 20151 votes

Thanks for the feedback, and I'll expound a little on my issue with those "team carry" tanks: teams at low elo often don't recognize a good engage, and will refuse to follow up, often because they feel them losing lane renders them completely ineffectual for the remainder of the game. I'm left isolated, often with enemy laners capable of burning me down quickly after receiving 3-4 kills in the laning phase.

On the topic of wu, I'd actually kind of forgotten about him :P . He's probably one of the closest of the viable junglers right now to the "ideal" soloq carry. High scaling, teamfight changing ult, easy engage, strong split push. I'll take another look at the ol' monkey king and see what I can do.

Please, everyone, continue to post on your personal strategies to carry in what seems to be a jungle that highly favors tanks with relatively weak ganking abilities.

RetillinApr 7, 20151 votes

There might be your problem with tanks then. You shouldn't be alone as a tank unless you are farming your jungle from the start of mid game on. (I count mid game to be about 2 full items and some outer towers gone) When I jungle I do the first upgrade to my jungle item and T1 boots. Then I get a sight stone next back. Just having those 3 wards on the map allows tanks to pick their fights and keep them safe while farming.

You seem to build well, looking at your match history except for one thing you do a lot. Don't buy hydra on a jungler. It's fine if you play top lane (or mid lane ad caster/assassin). But in the jungle the gold on it (for the damage it does) is only worth it on 1 camp. Grab hexdrinker in it's place if you are ad caster type (Kha/Wu). If you are really far ahead get an BotRK on aa champs (Rek/Vi/Xin).

Most of the solo Q or damaging junglers only need 2 dmg items. (Jungle item plus one more) Also if you look at your stats, you win a LOT when you have 10+ assists. Keep that up and you look like you'll climb rather well.