What to do as Jungle Shaco when behind? (or any jungler for that matter)

Deustheproducer··1 votes·2,908 views

Hello everyone, I was just in a duo que ranked match with my girlfriend. She was playing support and I was jungling as Shaco. Now jungling is not my best role, but i took it becuase it was the only position not called. Ok so here was the situation

          We start the game and I go to blue, They have a very aggressive team comp so i decide to start safe and play safe. Right when im at blue i see 4 enemies at my red and we go down to stop them but give first blood (luckily i thought at the time they had wasted 4 flashes). So i grab red and start my route. At 3 i gank top, and before i can get there our Gankplank dies to lee sin, but leaves lee with tiny health. Im watching him as i run to lane and he goes into a brush and i q then sneak up and e him and kill him.

      So good start. Well then GP proceeds to die a lot to lee sin, which i'm not mad about, it happens. But now lee is fed. and to top it off, bot lane is forced to farm under tower. And the only lane doing good is our mid who is now 4/1/3 (or something like that) so i'm trying to gank, as per the norm with shaco that he isnt a farmer but gets gold through ganks when every time i try to gank it fails. Not that i die or teammates die but just I try to gank, fail, then retreat back to jungle. This happens for a while until i realise im level 6 when my team is level 10-11. So at this point i am way behind. Im useless. The only thing i could focus on was not dying, which when the game ended i had the least deaths and 3 kills (although i got the nickname "The Janitor").

So my question is, besides focusing on not dying. What can you even do as a jungler when you fall behind? Especially someone like shaco who depends so heavily on getting fed or becoming useless late game. And in that situation should i continue to build damage like normal or change it?

4 Comments

Senfaria2 votes

So i don't play shaco much but i do main jungle as amumu. Normally when i fall behind i farm like a bitch. Really the only thing you can do as a jungler that is behind is counter gank so make sure you are watching the map for opportunities. I hope this helps a little.

KMannnnn12 votes

For shaco, the big thing is to maintain vision control. If you can get a good ambush as shaco, even if you're behind, it'll open up a lot of options.

In the situation you gave, the best course of action would be to get some roams with your midlane and see about helping botlane get back into the game, but if they don't feel like roaming, then ward like crazy and secure as many dragons as you can. Shaco can solo dragon pretty easily, even while behind, thanks to his ult, and if you're keeping vision control in that area, you shouldn't have any problems making it happen.

However, in general, if you've fallen as many as 5 levels behind without dying, that probably just means you were wasting a lot of time on bad ganks. Sometimes there are games without good gank opportunities, and when those happen, you should just farm the jungle, or, since you're shaco, counterjungle. The worst thing to do as an early game jungler is sit in top river brush thinking "I'll fall off late game, I need to make this gank happen."

All that to say, when behind, snowball strong lanes, secure vision control, and farm/counterjungle as much as you can.

TehNACHO1 votes

Well for a start, powerfarm/splitpush like hell so at least you yourself can catch up.

Shaco is also phenomenal at non-combat objective control, so there's that.

WhereTheNamesAt1 votes

There are several things you can do to come from behind if your ganks fail: -Evaluate what you are doing wrong with your ganks and see if you can improve them by doing different tactics and see if they come more successful -You can go back in your jungle and try to power farm which usually only works well with champs that have decent clear times -If you continue to gank lanes regardless of kill or not, try to tax their lane -Be on the lookout for your team recalling or if they died. If mid or top decide (sometimes bot) to recall and you are close to their lanes try to grab up the cs. Sometimes you can even get the next wave and push your minions to the enemy's tower and pressure it causing them to lose experience and gold. Remember, there is no point in letting free gold go to waste by the tower. -Once laning phase is over and you are still behind try to just keep switching lanes and keeping the minion waves pushed about halfway or even start split-pushing (do it safe though so you don't turn into free gold for the other team)

More from Gameplay

More by Deustheproducer