Jungle focus on the winning lanes

Communist Toast·May 20, 2016·4 votes·1,458 views

I was Jungle for one match a long time ago, I was ganking mid non-stop, successful ganks mind you, where we got the kills. meanwhile the top lane on my team was getting deaths.

both him and mid were like "go help top, why you no gank top?" I told them that it's better to gank the winning lanes and not the losing lanes, no offense meant for the top he was just getting outplayed.

they both get even more mad. the mid saying that I only care about kills or something (mind you I had the most kills on the team from ganks)

I figure it was just simple knowledge that you should help someone snowball and not help someone balance out

12 Comments

VerxintMay 20, 20164 votes

I agree, I don't get why people think they're entitled to help if they mess up and need it. The jungler has to make a call on the best way to get an advantage back, and sometimes your best hope is getting another lane ahead.

Furthermore, if you're ganking the guy who "needs help" repeatedly and he is still getting outclassed in lane, you're wasting time. And usually, the guy who says "I need ganks" will still have no idea how to win lane even if he gets ganks.

WeedTitsMay 20, 20163 votes

You're golden child. Stay gold. You're doing the right thing, don't let any fools tell you otherwise. If any opportunity presents itself, sure help them. If they already fed their lane opponent 2-3 kills, forget about it. Let them drown in their own salty tears. Odds are if they lost lane that badly, even if you could get them back to even, they would just mess it up again. Instead you help your fed guys, these guys have already proven themselves capable, have a solid lead, and due to their pressure and advantage, that alone will increase the odds of the gank resulting in a kill and being more meaningful. So let me just say this really quick in case nobody has ever heard it before lol:

Junglers are not here to win your lane for you. That's your job. Junglers are a force of nature. They see the game from a distance, as a whole. A kind jungler may gank for you if you're down a kill and set you back up in lane, but if you fail to play smart and safe when behind and you feed the enemy laner 3 kills, your jungler, like a spider with a busted leg Elise , will remove you from his team in his mind. He will probably consider heading up top to help you right before saying "lol nah, fuck that" and going to gank the lanes that have an advantage because they're more likely to result in kills. This is the general jungler solo queue mindset. They don't know you. They aren't your friends. You're either a positive kda or a negative, a winning lane or a losing one. They will treat you accordingly.

And if you don't know how to freeze a lane you straight up don't deserve ganks.

ZeroleraMay 20, 20162 votes

It depends really. Typically you want to balance out the lanes whenever possible as a jungler to ensure that none of them are losing. What you do need to ensure is that you're capable of actually doing something from ganking that lane and not just wasting your time or giving the enemy an additional target to kill.

Also if you're an early game jungler such as Lee, Elise or Panth taking the kill puts a lot of pressure on you ending the game QUICKLY. These junglers being fed late game means a lot less than your carries having that gold.

venomous frostMay 20, 20161 votes

if you take the kills on ganks, you are snowballing yourself and have to deal with the toplaner, or run down mid and take all the towers there.

Communist ToastMay 20, 20162 votes

you are snowballing both yourself and the lane you are freeing. they will get more CS, more towers, more overall gold

The DeckownerMay 20, 20161 votes

Anyone with a brain is not gonna gank for that 0/9 Riven lmao

MunchCrunchLunchMay 20, 20161 votes

upvoted. you will end up giving double kills for the losing lanes. or keep getting behind. just snowball one lane so there is some pressure on them so the enemy doesn't simply go and bulldoze the winning lane to your inhibs.

LatetotheRaceMay 20, 20161 votes

I'm sorry to say you're wrong.

Communist ToastMay 20, 20161 votes

examples of how?

lets say I help gank losing lanes, I get it so they are even, or even get the lane a few extra kills, if they were losing before chances are they are gonna lose it again after I set them to even

LatetotheRaceMay 20, 20161 votes

Alright, let's say that you successfully gank them, and they get the kill. There is no guarantee that he will perform better in lane, or even stop losing the lane. BUT you've just help shut down his laner which is a psychological benefit. Your teammate now feels like he's more successful, and ideally you've also discouraged his lane opponent. On the flipside though, you could continue to camp mid lane and allow their top lane to steamroll. Most mid laners when they fall behind are still impactful. Most assassins can still execute the ADC / squishy support, even if they've fallen behind. Also, most mages have a decent amount of CC to offer to their team.

So all in all it's NEVER acceptable to ignore a lane because it's losing. Especially if that person is unable to safely farm, you will cause more harm than good. In platinum+ games it's irrelevant because top lane is typically a stalemate, and treated as a quarantine zone by both teams.

Communist ToastMay 21, 20161 votes

that may be true, and lets say it is true for this.

if you gank a lane that is Already winning. then you just increased the enemies psychological doubt that they will win, and increase the boldness of the person that just is winning the lane.

they will now make even bolder plays which probably will pay off since they are fed.

so all in all it's Always better to support the winning lane

YOungBurrMay 21, 20161 votes

You can make a TON of arguments against this and for this. It doesn't have an exact answer, but in my personal opinion:

If the person that is being fed on the enemy team is someone who can absolutely destroy your team by themselves (any champion can do this basically, but the ones that are REALLY GOOD at it like: Riven Yasuo Darius etc), Unless you are confident enough that you can make either yourself strong enough to take this person out in fights, or make someone else strong enough to do so, you need to gank said lane. You don't need to IGNORE ALL OTHER LANES, you just need to help out a bit. HOWEVER if there is a high chance of getting doubled / tripled killed on, don't. It all comes to experience and what you think. Its super situational in my opinion, sometimes the answer is no, sometimes its yes. Another thing is if this enemy laner is pushed up and the kill is pretty much guaranteed, go for it, dont ignore the lane if you can easily shut said person down. Because if this person is too big for your team to handle, then you may have lost yourself a game because you simply did not make the right decisions on who to help in your lanes. (although I know most people will say it can be blamed on the person who actually lost the lane in the first place, a jungler's response)

From mathmatic perspective, this would be like: abc=xyz , but each game the (the given situation,)abc changes due to various factors, and the xyz (the correct/best call to make,) changes. abc=xyz can change to acd=yzx and so forth. TLDR: It honestly depends on many factors so you must be intelligent as a jungler to gauge which option you choose, either ignore the lane completely, help it slightly, or focus on it.