Jungling in low elo.

After getting gold for the first time on an account by playing adc/top, I decided it was time to get to gold on my second account. I decided I would play jungle/mid, as I would develop skillshot proficiency and be able to shot call/ play the macro game better. But after 2 weeks of jungling, I haven't gone anywhere. I've tried elise, graves, kha zix, zac, amumu and vi. I found successes on each champion, but I also failed at times, particularly when learning how to play elise. I love playing graves and elise, but in low elo, jungling can be rather difficult as I found out. The people asking for ganks are the people that shouldn't be. The 0/3 laners, the laners that are currently too low to setup for you, or the laners that have just pushed them under the turret with no ability to successfully dive that champion, or no vision to know when the enemy jungler is nearby. But if you don't gank for these people when they ask, you are a bad jungler. In low elo, there is this mentality that everyone seems to have, where they HAVE to carry, and so in the process of trying to carry they feed. If they feed, it's the junglers fault, because the enemy jungler ganked them because they were pushed up with no wards.

I just want to write about how to setup for a gank, in particular, for those in low elo like myself. Just things to make it easier for your jungler to pull off a successful gank. I'm just going to list a bunch of things to help laners out. Don't worry, I'm also going to get onto what I did badly, or what things I needed to improve on, as I believe that others can also learn from my mistakes.

1. Pink wards. These tools are a must buy during the laning phase. Everyone must buy these. As a laner I try to buy one each time I back, even if I have one already on the map. This allows you to clear wards and give the jungler a somewhat guaranteed path to your lane. They also create situations in which you can catch people and bad spots, and will alert you of the enemy junglers presence. In the early game, your trinkets are often on cooldown, and the wards don't last too long, so you will be relying on pink wards quite a lot. Think of them as a necessity, not just an option.

2. Gap closers. If your opponent has a gap closer, try and get them to waste it and put them in a bad position, so your jungler can go in knowing they have don't have to worry about their escape. Too many times have I seen people asking the jungler to gank a Leblanc, an Ekko, a Shen etc. Without baiting their ability. Ganks are a lot harder against these people, especially in the mid lane.

3. Blowing Summoner Spells. Of course, if you blow someones flash, or if someone doesn't have flash, that puts a target on their back for the jungler to come. However, if their summoner spells are being used to kill you, and as a result you are severely behind your opponent, don't expect the jungler to gank. If you are falling well behind your opponent in CS and/or kills by a significant margin, chances are, a gank will only make things worse. Calling out what summoner spells have been blown is something I see quite regularly, which is good, but some people still don't do it, which makes their lane harder to gank, as you have less information.

4. Setting up the gank. If your champion has cc that is better for setting up than the jungler's cc, or the jungler has no hard cc, you are the one that should be setting up. If you have an ashe arrow, it is better and more reliable as an initiation than a zac e. If neither you or the jungler has hard cc, than you will be relying a lot more on the minion wave pushing against you, so they have to run back further to get to safety. Graves is a champion with little to no cc, and he is squishy, so his gank paths will be simple and rely on the positioning of the minion wave, and on the laners cc. Even an initial slow can be good, as graves can dash into auto range a little easier, to get his red buffed auto attacks to continually slow and burn the target.

5. Don't expect the jungler to have everything. Every jungler has a weakness. Elise provides a lot of early game map pressure has good single target cc and damage, but falls of drastically in the late game. Graves has a lot of damage, which extends right throughout the game, but he has no cc. Kha Zix has a lot of damage and is especially good at picking off low hp targets, but is extremely vulnerable to cc and isn't very tanky. Amumu has some important cc, but don't expect him to deal a massive amount of damage if he is building tanky. Every jungler has a weakness, but often the jungler will pick their champion to complement their team, and to fill a gap in the composition. Chances are, they are relying on you to do a specific thing, so that their job becomes easier.

Now for the things that I did poorly, or could've done better. There is a lot to think abut as a jungler, and as such, I think that whilst it might not be too mechanical, unless you are playing nidalee or lee sin, it is probably the second hardest role in league of legends. Problems that I have with jungling include tilting based off my lanes' performances, being too passive, being too aggressive, not rotating quickly enough and counter ganks.

There were games that I had little to no effect on the early game, because I was playing too passively, and it wasn't just that my teams lanes were pushed up. I wasn't counter jungling at these times, which is a poor decision on my part. When your enemy jungler ganks somewhere, there has to be a price. It could be a buff, it could be a neutral objective, it could be a tower, it could be a kill. Often I would see my lanes pushed up and think it's ungankable and keep farming my jungle, even on champions like elise, which excel at catching out the enemy jungler. I wasn't taking scuttle crabs either, which was another flaw.

Then there were games where I was overly aggressive. If a lane was hard to gank, or was asking for a gank, even though they weren't in any position to assist with the gank, I would sometimes force a gank, which would result in me being chunked down, or killed. I would sometimes get a good trade when counter jungling, then tunnel for the kill instead of taking my advantage and leaving. This is what led to me being overly passive.

There were times where I'd see a camp was up, and I'd tunnel in on it, and forget to think about where the enemy jungler is likely to be, and then fail countergank. One thing I was good at, was making plays on the opposite side of the map, but if that side was behind, or was in no position to receive a gank, then the enemy team got a free kill, or objective, and I did nothing to assist my team.

This is what I have to report on jungling in low elo as a low elo player. I have since swapped the jungle role to support, and have since been winning a lot more, as support is not only the easiest role in the game, but it's also the one role that over half the people in low elo suck at. The amount of times I see someone pick things like Ezreal support, or lux support and then not build sightstone, before blaming their jungler for not ganking, was quite appalling. I find that even if my adc is only an average adc, I can give them the tools they need to seem like a good adc, and it helps that I played adc a lot before this too, as I know what I like to have when I play adc. So yeah, jungling in low elo is too hard for me, so now I'm a mid/supp player, and now I'm climbing. GG