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Long overdue Jungle Question

Oldwisepotato·5/16/2017, 7:31:43 PM·1 votes·302 views

As a jungle main in season 6 I am really struggling trying to get back into jungling this season. It seems the game is super early game focused right now and I just cannot compete. I know I have always not been great at early ganking but its not like I don't apply pressure at all. My best jungle is Vi but I have also played a lot of JarvanIV Graves Elise XinZhao in the past. I however feel like I cannot consistently win with any of them besides VI - although win rate is dropping on my main account lately. Used to be 80% right when season started and VI was one of the highest jungle win rate champs. Win rate has dropped to 70% now which is still high but just seems like it is much more of a struggle. I know my jungle pathing is quite predictable as I usually go red, wolves, blue, gank or blue, wolves, red, gank. However currently in mid silver elo so that doesn't really seem to matter. Maybe its the changes to jungle camps messing with me? The red side camps take me longer to clear so I know I do avoid them more than I should, which is definitely a loss in exp/gold. Even then though I just feel like if I farm at all my lanes will lose and its almost like I need to 24/7 camp. But If I do that without farming and have failed ganks then I fall behind. Just really having trouble balancing jungle farm to ganking right now.

I used to do like 2 camps then try to go for a gank if I could. I realize there isn't a perfect ratio or scenario every game but I feel like I still prioritize farming over ganking. But maybe that's wrong? Watching streamers hasn't really helped because they always have such high farm anyways and with playing better players they can't always gank as much. Just don't get how high elo junglers stomp so hard in low elo. I know I must be missing easy gank opportunities. I think part of the problem is I am really passive when I play right now. I give my enemies too much credit thinking they will get away if I gank or will see the gank coming. But honestly.... I can probably even walk over wards and there is probably 60% chance enemy won't even see it. One problem is my allies a lot of the time will be really slow to act when I gank so that does get annoying. Guess I just need to ping like 4 times before I gank... but now with ping mutes I am sure this will even back fire lol.

I don't know. For some who was super confident (at least until mid gold level) at jungling I am now afraid to even do it in silver. I got so sick of my mids feeding their asses off and roaming when they shouldn't that I started maining mid. But even there I am struggling because I suck at getting an early game lead. I am definitely still better than a majority of silver players when it comes to mid and late game, but without a lead I am still heavily team dependent. Games where I have a lead in jungle or mid or really any lane means a large increase in our chances of winning but I have just been really bad at getting leads since I came back. I know I am a little rusty but I can't imagine I lost that much. I was only gone 3 months and have been playing again for like 2 weeks fairly consistently.

I just don't know where to start lol. What should I be prioritizing as a jungler? I know I don't know as much as you high elo folks but give it to me straight. How would you approach games in silver elo? Last season Jungle was so strong I could carry by just out farming enemy. But with what seemed like a nerf earlier in the season I feel jungle is more team reliant now or at least kill reliant to get a lead to hard carry.

2 Comments

Kirius Dark5/16/2017, 8:09:19 PM1 votes

Jungle camps have become much more important to consider

  1. They spawn much slower than before so losing a camp means you're behind in exp and gold
  2. Camps also do more damage to you and take longer to clear

When you consider that then look at the enemy jungler you should have an approximate jungle path predicted for them, and rather than relying on your allies to follow up ganks just do what you're in control of and go invade. If the jungle camps have their jungler low you can get a kill on them, take the camp they were working on or send them back home to heal up. All of those are huge benefits, even if you just sent them home you can take their remaining camp and set them behind and knowing they are unable to gank any of your lanes

If you want to play more of a farm style then you need to set deep wards in their jungle so you can gank them or know when and where to take their camps when they show up on the opposite side. As long as your lanes getting ganked arent dying everytime their jungler shows up you'll take the lead by out levelling and farming. Just let your team know where you expect their jungler to be so they can prep getting ganked or help you gank their jungle

IMO that's how you become a non team reliant jungler, by playing against their jungler rather than trying to gank lanes to have them carry