[JUNGLE] So after all other roles, I am now trying to finally learn jungling - but it's so HARD!

MXXIV·Feb 10, 2015·12 votes·6,157 views

Recently, I started to try to jungle. I got executed, then laughed at. Top got ganked, I got hated at. ("report nunu 0 gank")

The problem is I really sucked. I simply don't suck like that in any other role. I can survive Veigars weak early game. I can hold top against two ranged bullies. I do everything to make sure my ADC gets farm and doesn't die. But in jungle, I only win games when my team actually rolls without me. And if they don't roll, I'm useless and only feed in late game.

I tried Master Yi, but he has no CC making ganks little complicated. I tried Nunu, but though his jugnle speed is incredible, any other jungler can just take him down, because Nunu has little damage. Now I bought Warvick but I still suck.

I always take and , with two in the begining. When my champion has good sustain I improve machette into either for CC in ganks or for dueling the other jungler. If I need health during jungle, I take . I almost allways enchant into devourer, except heroes that don't use autoatacks in fight.

So what's wrong? Why am so bad?

45 Comments

Skia AsteriFeb 10, 20157 votes

I suggest practicing your first clear the jungle in a custom game with each champion before you play them is a normal game. If it does not work out, then either there is some important trick you are missing ore your runes/masteries need to be tweaked to improve your clear.

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20151 votes

This. I do this before I ever take any new champion to the jungle in a real game.

LongFur FoxFeb 10, 20156 votes

So jungling is the role in the game that takes the most knowledge to play at a decent level. For laners you have to know your own champion and the champion played in that lane. But for jungling you need to know your own champion, his gank potential against every lane, all the lane matchups in the game you are in, your dueling power against opponent jungler, and your power to countergank/pull of a gank if you get counterganked.

You don't need to know it all, and you can survive with not knowing it all most of the time but most of your teammates are likely to not be cool headed (thinking that only they can carry the game), or not know/have considered what you have done. The best thing I can advise you is to watch streams (nightblue3 has one of the most educational league streams), but if you don't like that then here is a short rundown of what junglers do:

Farm junlgers farm all game and gank only if needed/if tey are certain to get at least one kill. On these junglers it is ok to take the kills from your lanes if you feel that the lane will not snowball from getting the kill. Farm junglers are champions like yi or udyr and even if they can carry the game if they get farmed they are not very good gankers. Note that this type of jungler is the type that laners hate, and even if you are doing what you should do they likely won't agree. "Gank junglers" try to snowball the game early and put it on lockdown before it begins. For these junglers you should only take the kill if it means you snowball from it and can get better ganks by taking the kill. Most likely you want your laners to get fed before you get obsolete. Champions in this category are lee sin, vi, j4 and so on. Tank junglers do mostly the same as gank junglers but are slightly worse at ganking and are very weak in countergank situations unless you have very good synergy with the laner. Then ther is nunu. He is just irritating and while he may not seem like it you need to be able to read the game very well if you wanna play him.

There are a few junglers who need level 6 before ganking such as warwick or diana. After they get level 6 most of them become "gank junglers". If you want my advice as a gold player on a specific jungler i can give it to you here but otherwise go watch nightblue3 and he will regularly play the "meta" junglers plus a few second tier picks such as nautilus and wukong (though i would argue wukong is in top 5)

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20154 votes

Jungling is great because you can practice your clears in a custom game with no bots and no players to see if you get executed. Plus, it helps you learn the limits of your jungler -- if you can clear 3 or 4 camps without a leash at all, you should be able to do great in game.

Also, clear order is important. Generally speaking, DO NOT DO RAPTORS on the first clear. They hit stupidly hard. Plus, their smite bonus is better for your second clear, because then you can spot wards and/or try to gank.

Usually you start either Frog (near blue) or Rock Golems (near red), and smite the big monster -- Frog gives you a damage-reflect (kind of like thornmail) and golems give you a stun every 5 attacks. Both of these will help you take a lot less damage.

As for runes, you almost always want armor seals, and I usually go at least 0/9/0 in masteries, because the reduced damage against monsters and the bonus HP are extremely useful.

Just practice in customs at first, if you're worried about trying a new champ in the jungle.

MXXIVFeb 10, 20151 votes

The worst problems are with ganks and enemy jungler. Also the right time to go for dragon. I tend to rush it, but that may be a mistake.

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20151 votes

Right, those might be the worst problems in-game, but if you can't even clear jungle in customs with no pressure from enemies, you know you need to change something. It's a threshold test.

Skia AsteriFeb 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

The worst problems are with ganks and enemy jungler. Also the right time to go for dragon. I tend to rush it, but that may be a mistake.

Early on gold from kills and towers is worth more than dragon. This is because the first, second, and fourth dragons give damage boosts based on damage already being done; therefore, you need to items for them to do much.

So grab dragon when there is nothing else to take and you are not risking anything for it. And if the other team is taking dragon, go grab kills or towers in exchange.

Water of EdenFeb 11, 20154 votes

I was a season 4 jungle main. These are the things you need to have down in order to jungle properly.

You NEED proper runes and masteries in order to jungle. That means Flat AD, Flat Armor, Scaling MR, etc. Some people run movement speed quints, but I personally don't like that for beginner junglers because it hurts your early clears. Go 21/9/0 or 9/21/0 depending on your champion. You can put 3 points in mobility in the utility tree if you like.
Know your champion like the back of your hand. Understand their mechanics, their strengths and weaknesses, their matchups, their builds, etc. Do NOT take a champion you're not familiar with into the jungle unless you're seasoned or a jungle main.
Know 3-5 junglers if you're just starting out. For beginners, I recommend Fiddlesticks, Jarvan IV, Xin Zhao, Pantheon, and Warwick. I actually climbed out of bronze with Assassin Xin Zhao. I had roughly 70 games with him under my belt, so if he's a champion you're interested in, feel free to add me and I'll show you how to play him.
Understand that you can't win all your lanes and that the lost lanes will mostly blame you for their own mistakes. I personally make sure my mid laner earns every blue I give him. If they feed, there is no way I'm giving them my blue because I don't feel like dealing with a fed, blue buffed LeBlanc or Syndra. Don't let ragers put you on tilt. Jungling is stressful.
You need near perfect map awareness and objective control. Don't gank top unless you're 5 minutes in or dragon was just killed (by either team). You know what I do when I see the enemy jungler gank top constantly? I ward dragon, wait till they go top again, and then I gank top and take dragon. Even if we lose tower, we still get something out of it so it's not all bad. I suggest playing mid lane assassins at the same time you're learning to jungle because it forces you to look for good times to gank bot and contest dragon.
Don't force objectives or overcommit to your buffs. Don't take that fight with Shaco at level 2 because you will lose. Just give him your red if you're low and can't duel him. He has kill potential on you.

I'm not saying these tips are easy, but they should definitely be a starting point of things to work on. I know it's a lot. Just don't go into ranked and jungle while you're still learning it. You might have a rough time because people are more toxic in ranked. Feel free to add me and I'll show you the ropes. :)

Rubbery SkrubFeb 10, 20152 votes

The new jungle is HARD. The monsters are stronger and the new items give you less sustain. So don't be frustrated if it takes you a while to pick up. Junglers have more priorities to consider than any laner, like when to clear a camp or gank, and which lanes to gank. Should you help the struggling lane to bring him back into the fight? Or should you snowball the lane that is already doing well? What about dragon? How soon is it up and how strong is our vision on dragon? Because the jungler isn't tied to a lane, they have a whole lot of options to choose between, which makes decision-making incredibly difficult when you're starting out trying to learn. What makes it especially difficult is that you are already level 30, so most of the other people already know their roles and will try to punish you for your weakness if they find it.

So, what I would recommend, is to play some bot games or some customs where you don't have the pressure of playing against actual people, and spend time learning the jungle. Which camps are where, which paths can I take to get where I'm going. If you have a champion that can cross walls, learn where the best places are to do that. Learn which bonuses you get from smiting specific camps. Once you become familiar with the jungle and the way it's set up, it will be much easier for you to focus on your positioning and other objectives during a real game.

AMYS GRAVEFeb 10, 20152 votes

The jungle got hard. Don't sweat the people who rage at you "i didn't get any ganks all game" because if you repeatedly gank you fall behind in gold and levels very quickly. You should gank when the opportunity arises but don't feel like you are forced to.

Know what the various smite bonuses are and use your smite to get them strategically. That alone can be tricky.

With the changes in 5.2 for most champs i would recommend upgrading machete into trailblazer at first because you can switch it out for free for stalkers or skirmishers before you enchant it.

Lastly i don't know how you are at warding but it's importance can't be understated, especially for jungling.

A good youtube channel where he tries to explain jungling that i have found helpful. He gives some good jungle specific advice.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9U_UPJLasfZYZ0icNI0vBg

EvilScotsman1974Feb 10, 20152 votes

If you really want to jungle you are going to have to grow thick skin and get used to muting people A LOT.

Blame the jungler is rampant, you are expected to be in every lane at the right time/all the time and even if you are levels behind you are expected to make the plays. Just remember you cant be everywhere at once and you are just one person and its a team game so you have to make choices that some people wont like but oh well.

anyways here are some tops for you.

The best paths to take to start you out:

Start on your bottom lane side where your adc and support are, red buff side on bottom (Blue) side of map and blue buff side if you are top (Red) side of map.

Start Krugs or gromp depending on which side and smite it straight away with the leash, from there you can either go do the other camp first or the buff, when i start Krugs i prefer doing raptors so my smite is up again for red buff and the health restore saving me a pot generally.

once you have pretty much cleared the one side you have to really decide do you want to back and upgrade your machette or go on, do you need more pots too.

There are a few junglers who can do a full clear in one run and many who have to back after doing one side.

So Far i have found Aatrox can clear fully without using a pot, Trundle i can do it using just one or sometimes 2, udyr and ww can do it just fine but most of the others it is best to clear one side then back then do a full clear.

really playing jungle is something you need practice with, as someone suggested if you want to play a jungler practice in customs or bot games it really does help out, you learn clear routes you learn your strengths you learn the champions mechanics.

I have also set up item sets for all the junglers i play (i own all but a couple) and have specific rune set ups for different types of junglers but then again i have also been jungling for a couple of years.

When i first started though i set up a smurf and played jungle at low levels and boy was that an eye opener, burning through 5 pots at the time and still dieing to a buff but once you get going and get the hang of it i switched to my main account and boy was it so much easier.

MrBuffingtonFeb 10, 20152 votes

I would recommend you check out nightblue3's stream on Twitch, he does a pretty good job teaching the basics of jungle (he pretty much goes over them every game he plays) and he also explains the high level decision making he's doing. Jungle is the most complicated role imo since you have so many decisions to make; watching other people play (especially someone like nightblue3 who will explain what he's doing) is much more helpful than just playing games. TheOddOne is also a great jungler to watch; also any pro jungler you like, though I can't say how good their commentary will be.

As far as champions, Yi and Warwick are pretty good, but they're mostly about farming (especially Yi); Warwick is more about farming as fast as you can until lvl 6, and then just ganking whenever you have a good opportunity and your ult is up; Yi is all about the late game, his ganks are pretty lackluster (unless you're using teleport as a summoner spell instead of flash; in that case you can teleport in for counterganks). Nunu is pretty complicated in terms of strategy and teamplay (mechanically he's pretty simple), so he's not a great pick for solo q imo. Xin Zhao has better ganks pre-6 if you want to try him sometime; he doesn't cost too much IP.

JC DarkOmenFeb 10, 20152 votes

Warwick is easy mode jungling, and is the first step I'd give to a new jungler. You just need to farm to 6 with him. You can either recall when you have enough money for boots and machete upgrade, or just stay out till 6. If you can't stay out til 6, you're doing something very mechanically wrong. Start with his w, not his q. Once you hit 6, use Challenging Smite ( item 3715 ) and ult, and you should be able to kill anyone along with your lane partner. After item 3718 and upgraded boots, get your item 3153 . Now you can start with situational items. If you're really behind, get item 3065 to give you massive sustain, and either item 3075 or item 3143 based on whether the main AD is from an auto attacker or caster, respectively. Other items you can try are item 3091 (actually considered core for some people), item 3172 (you should have a lot of attack speed by now, but just in case...), and item 3022 (for the kites). As jungler, always look for opportunities. Anyone pushed past halfway past the blue line in the picture below) is a target. You also control objectives. You can solo drag easily, and kinda solo Baron, though I still haven't learned his attack patterns well enough to do so. Your w is great for pushing lanes, but I usually save it for attacking turrets or inhibs themselves.

Once you're confortable with Warwick jungle, find the jungler that works best for you. Warwick is just a good starter because it's harder to die in the jungle than it is to survive. You're really just playing him to learn the role, but if you wanna main him that's fine.

Hard PenetratorFeb 11, 20152 votes

For starters don't try anything fancy, go with Xin or VI and learn your ropes. There are tons of small pointers that you should know by heart and I don't have any idea if you read them by now but generally as long as you do at least as much as opposite jungler you are fine.

I personally had hard time to learn to let some lanes go, you need to focus on lanes that can potentially carry you into mid to late, because if your bot is feeding your chances of a kill are pretty low (especially if enemy has summoners).

My absolute basic rules:

1.Gank if you can, don't force it because your teammate whines whole game. Forced gank rarely pays off and its extremely risky. Try not to gank if you are at less than 3/4 of your hp.

2.Learn how to jungle efficiently and cover your lanes. Wasting minions and xp while loosing tower hp hurts.

3.If you can't gank at least ward this lane and ping suspicious activity.

4.If you fail your gank don't leave this lane forever, try try to gank it again or ask for help from mid. Top laners know how terrifying 3man ganks are.

Learn to judge actual power of lanes. For example, your bot lane killed adc but burned absolutely everything they had. Enemy Janna is at 1/3 hp, your bot is at 20% each. Looks like easy kill 3vs1. You are going in with flash under turret, suddenly she is using exhaust and flash, slows you tower and kills you, enemy jungler appears behind your adc and support and whipes them out. Suddenly its 3 for 1 and you feel terrible. You could just let go...
Learn when and where to initate. If you go tanky, your team actually depends on, don't let then down, don't play passive if you are ahead, don't be too aggressive if you are behind. Look for opportunities and pics. Think before you act.
Mute toxic players that jump on you for smallest mistakes, focus on your game, not on your chat that makes you feel worse and worse with every word you read.

Deep Terror NamiFeb 10, 20151 votes

Don't worry; it's always funny when someone is executed by monsters/minions.

Just read lots of jungle guides, and spectate high elo games to watch the jungler.

MXXIVFeb 10, 20151 votes

I must say that I find spectating too boring. I understand I miss a lot of hints, but man, it's 30 minutes :)

But yes, I have read a lot of guides. Took me to realise that you don't have to last-hit monsters with smite to get the bonus :D

Deep Terror NamiFeb 10, 20151 votes

Nightblue3 teaches jungling on his Twitch channel. Would be a little more exciting at the cost of watching exactly what you want.

FyreNinjaFeb 11, 20151 votes

{quoted}

I must say that I find spectating too boring. I understand I miss a lot of hints, but man, it's 30 minutes :)

But yes, I have read a lot of guides. Took me to realise that you don't have to last-hit monsters with smite to get the bonus :D

Watch games on youtube. You can speed up the video, or just watch the first 5 minutes or whatever

MrSc0ttyFeb 10, 20151 votes

my big suggestion is try a power ganker, not a weakling like Nunu or Lee. That's where the fun is at. IMO the easiest jungler who I really started to have lots of gleeful fun with was Fiddlesticks-there is absolutely nothing like launching a gank with dat crowstorm and watching people explode.

now me personally I trend more towards the tank end of things because I LOVE landing huge ccs. Sejuani and Nautilus tend to be my favorite with their insane ganks, but if you're more of a damage dealer I'd say reach for an early pressure assassin, theyre WAYYY more fun than the master yis. Most assassins can be played in the jungle and if you're proficient with them at mid, you just have to learn their jungle farming patterns. Khazix, Rengar, even guys like Fizz and Akali make good junglers.

MrSc0ttyFeb 10, 20151 votes

Another tip! If you want to give up a little late game strength for some easing of the early game jungling pain, try a half-defense/offense half-utility mastery tree. Get the extra gold at start, the CDR, the pot/buff duration and the biscuits. Starting with machete and three biscuits is a hell of a lot better than machete two pots, and while you pay for it a teeny bit late game (oh no what will I do without my extra 2.5% bonus armor and mr...) your early game is wayyyy more forgivng.

Dr JarjarbinksFeb 10, 20151 votes

Let me start by saying I dont play on SR but I have 1600 aram wins so Im not a noob either. I won't be providing a jungle guide, this is a more generalised response.

That said, the best way to get better at pretty much anything is learning from your own experiences and mistakes. You say that when you played nunu you found he couldnt 1v1 the enemy jungler. So the lesson was you should avoid going toe to toe with the enemy jungler when you play nunu, NOT that you shouldnt play nunu. Maybe if nunus' strength is fast clearing you should focus on stealing enemy camps while avoiding a 1v1 fight. If enemy jungler invades and takes a camp because his champ could kill you, while he does that you run over and take 2 of his camps because while you can't fight him you can clear faster so you play to your strength.

You see? Instead of moving on to another jungler you should have played the next game with nunu having learned from the last and trying new strats. Now obviously if you dont like playing nunu you don't have to Im just saying I dont think you are giving yourself enough time playing to get better naturally.

Edit: Also I can't stress enough how little you should pay attention to those who flame you. I have been flamed in games where I am by far the best player. You need to understand that people will flame you for reasons that have nothing to do with you. The other dangerous kind of flaming is when some kid has read what some pro has said and now they are MISAPPLYING something which is, or was, true. You see? They will quote a pro player without having ANY real understanding of what they are saying. They are just parroting what is to them meaningless words.

MXXIVFeb 10, 20151 votes

That's what I did with Nunu. I bought sightstone asap, warded my lanes to prevent ganks and then stole enemy jungle every time possible. Also with Nunu I could rush dragon really quickly. It's not that I was not seeing Nunu's potential. But it didn't assure victory as much as I hoped it would.

Dr JarjarbinksFeb 10, 20151 votes

Well if you are asking for assured victories I think you gonna be disappointed ;)

MXXIVFeb 10, 20151 votes

No, I'm asking how to be helpful. That assures victory. But denying enemy jungle didn't change much in the game.

Dr JarjarbinksFeb 10, 20151 votes

No, helping does not assure victory. Helping helps.

Just because denying enemy jungle didn't help that games doesn't mean it's not a good strat. If the enemy jungler is a kill type AND hes getting kills I can see that counter jungling may not have mattered. In a game where the enemy jungler needs camps because hes not getting kills, for whatever reason, then it might be an OP strat. You don't seem to have given yourself enough time to know the difference.

Il stop now. More helpful ppl are responding anywho.

youngjake93Feb 10, 20151 votes

{quoted}

Recently, I started to try to jungle. I got executed, then laughed at. Top got ganked, I got hated at. ("report nunu 0 gank")

I tried Master Yi, but he has no CC making ganks little complicated. I tried Nunu, but though his jugnle speed is incredible, any other jungler can just take him down, because Nunu has little damage. Now I bought Warvick but I still suck. I almost allways enchant into devourer, except heroes that don't use autoatacks in fight.

So what's wrong? Why am so bad?

Nunu is a very niche pick in that he is only good at supporting the ADC, making the enemy jungler a non-impact and neutral objective control. In solo queue you rarely should be dedicating your jungler to such a role. It is not a bad idea in duo queue or 5v5 where there is a little more coordination though.

Master Yi can't really duel without Skirmishers and being fed, he is a carry that only gets dueling potential after a lot of items. Also, he can't really gank well without Stalkers. In order to succeed with him you have to gank/fight at the right moments to get fed and also time your Q and Meditate properly.

Warwick is only really worth a champion slot after level 17 at this point. He was hit heavily with nerfs to the point where the only time he isn't outclassed is after the game has already been basically decided. If you can coordinate with laners to play safely and to chain their CC properly after your ult on ganks, then he can be effective, but again this is a lot of coordination to ask out of solo queue.

Devourer is like Warwick, it is only really worth an item slot after the game has already been won or lost. Warrior gives a huge power spike which allows you to snowball whereas Devourer makes you slightly weaker than everyone else for a large portion of the game. In order to carry in solo queue, you usually need to snowball in the jungle, not just farm or every lane could lose.

Pantheon is a really easy to pick up snowball champion and Lee Sin is a really popular snowball champion. Fiddlesticks, Vi, Jarvan and Wu Kong are all fairly good standard junglers with late-game assets. Sejuani and Amumu are probably the two junglers right now that don't need to snowball at all to crush teamfights. Poppy arguably outclasses Warwick as a hypercarry farm jungler. Udyr and Jax can provide a lot of split put pressure mid and late game, while having good clear speeds and OK ganks.

If you just sit in the jungle and farm in this meta, most likely enemy lanes will snowball and you won't be able to fight them because you will be 3 levels lower than them by default. Either snowball the lanes or make sure your champion does something worthwhile in the mid-game. Also, yes the jungle is hard. It takes a lot more effort and strategy to succeed than before rather than just being the free-farm lane for people that can't CS.

Silents429Feb 10, 20151 votes

Eh. I mained WW pretty much from S3 to middle of S4. He really shouldn't be picked right now unless you are having issues sustaining in the jungle.

Nunu is okaaay, but he really isn't anything crazy, he is mostly just their to annoy the enemy team.

I think you should try Trundle, Maokai, Pantheon, or Volibear.

One of those, they clear well, and gank pretty nicely, and scale into the late game well.

-Jungle Main-

MXXIVFeb 10, 20151 votes

I actually already wasted all my IP for the jungling champions and runes. Why shouldn't I pick warvick?

Silents429Feb 10, 20152 votes

He doesn't teach very good jungling habbits, and It took some effort to get rid of those old habbits, You CANNOT. Gank pre 6, your clear time, even if its sustained, is still pretty slow.

He was praised back then for his level 6 ganks being strong, but since they gutted his ult, it now has like a 2 minute cooldown at level 1 and less damage, so basically you gank even less, and it isn't nearly as reliable because your laner buddy better react to it fast enough.

He -can- solo dragon but it has been so much better to just a successful gank bot lane and then come take the dragon with 3 people instead of risking it alone. Most people who go against a warwick are usually frequently warding and keeping tabs to make sure you aren't taking it alone. At least in my elo they are.

And once you get to the late game, you got some tank items, an offensive weapon here and their, you can do fine in a duel, but your screwed if the enemy has any CC, because its a death sentence trying to ult them, and with Thresh and Janna being frequent picks, not a good idea.

I am not saying you can't do well with him, like if your team relies on attack speed and scales with it, like an ADC, fiora, jax etc. Then your W is going to be a monster steroid in team fights, but he doesn't really fit anywhere else, and he really needs a rework.

Nunu is a fine pick, just not something I would recommend for newbie junglers, But E the enemy, and W your laner and thats pretty much it for ganks.

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20152 votes

-Jungle **Tank **Main-

ftfy

In all seriousness, jungle tanks can be great, and in many games they're the only tanks on either team. I personally love Nautilus and Sejuani.

Silents429Feb 10, 20151 votes

But Trundle and Pantheon aren't tanks

Kitten of EvilFeb 10, 20151 votes

Trundle is tanky-ish, but yeah Pantheon's sort of an outlier. Still, Mao and Voli are tanky!

I only said that because your list (aside from Pantheon) seems to have more of a late-game and defense focus than the current top picks of J4, Lee and Vi, who are all bruisers.

Silents429Feb 10, 20154 votes

Well I only listed junglers that would work for new people. The full list is.

JarvanIV Fiddlesticks Hecarim Maokai Nocturne Nautilus Nunu Pantheon Trundle Volibear Warwick XinZhao Yorick

And while most of them can get pretty beefy in HP and tank stats, they aren't all tanks.

PartholonianFeb 11, 20151 votes

Amumu Chogath DrMundo Elise Evelynn Khazix LeeSin Nasus Rammus RekSai Rengar Sejuani Shaco Skarner Udyr Zac I don't think your "full list" is very full.

Silents429Feb 11, 20153 votes

I was talking about champions I play..

Knight SoIaire Feb 10, 20151 votes

your masteries need to involve stuff like feast and bladed armor thats for sure

also early ganks arent so popular now so consider taking the trailblazer and switching it into warrior once you have the components for the enchant or need to gank

also some tips you start gromp or krugs most of the time, you start by smiting it and then fighting it you dont touch the birds early since they will skinn you you back to base as soon as you have enough gold for the jungle item

preferable first clear is

krugh/gromp with smite, buff, wolfs base

HalofireFeb 10, 20151 votes

As a jungle main, yes, jungling is difficult to get into. It's very different from laning, and you have to know your limits. I suggest practicing in custom games first; get the clearing down before you try to add ganking to the equation.

Right now a lot of junglers are fairly weak and have some trouble clearing the jungle the first time. Unlike before the changes, you can't clear your entire jungle and still gank. Keeping up in level with laners is difficult or impossible, making ganks risky unless you know when and how to go in. So it's tough.

Especially coming into the new jungle as a new jungler.

I recommend Warrior over Devourer in general, unless you feel like farming the jungle more than ganking, because generally in a gank you burn all your skills on a retreating enemy, rather than sit there autoattacking them. There are exceptions, like Warwick and Shyvana, but that's my stance on it.

Warding is important too; warding your jungle and the river will result in nasty surprised for enemy junglers, because they don't get a jump on you, and your team will often respond to seeing the enemy in your jungle, because the small paths often mean free kills on a jungler caught out. Similarly, you don't want to be caught out in the enemy jungle, so make sure to either get Raptors buff before going in, or save a flash or similar skill.

When you gank, unless you're tanky and the enemy is low, wait until they're pushed halfway or more down the lane, and hope they haven't warded. Usually pinging your team will make them back off and let the enemy push a little bit so you can gank. Holding lanes is a good way to supplement jungle experience and gold, because you level slower in the jungle than in lane, and don't be afraid to tax mid or top a minion or two after a gank.

And as for taking Dragon, wait until your bot lane pushes to tower, or gank it if needed, before going to dragon. Make sure you can and do secure the crab; the movement speed will help leaving, both for laners to get back, and in case the enemy team is coming to check on/ward Dragon.

In general, as a jungler you have a lot of objectives and options of what to do, and it's often difficult to make a decision on what to do, so that's where the trouble comes in for a new jungler; a veteran jungler can make those decisions more efficiently and to a greater gain. For now you have to slog through figuring it out the hard way.

BudupopsFeb 10, 20151 votes

hmm prob shouldnt learn how to jg at lvl 30

lDontLiftIcarryFeb 11, 20151 votes

you're wasting gold on finishing jungle item too late into the game if it takes you more than 12 minutes to get jungle item. Forget it. Get an HP item as a tank. or a major damage item (pick axe-tiamat) as an assassin/damage jungler (example would be shaco jungle would get a tiamat) Nunu would be a tank. So you'd get a gaints belt and boots. you'd be able to show up to counter gank press R maybe get a kill but at the very least prevent your team from dieing with your solid zoning as a good nunu does.

you need to play your champions to their strengths. junglers each have a strength and you need to play them into that strength and only for that strength dont try to play something that doesn't make sense Like going AP nunu jungle would be insanely hard to do with the low gold you get.

junglerboy16Feb 11, 20151 votes

The issue that you seem to be facing is that you are under the standard delusion most lane mains face, which is "the jungle's job is to gank lanes." As Nunu, your banks absolutely suck, but that is not the reason to ever pick Nunu. You pick him for hard core counterjungling with your consume so that you can make the enemy junglier irrelevant to the game, and then become a utility tank late game. Master Yi as a champion shouldn't waste time ganking unless there is literally a free kill sitting in your lap. You should be hard clearing the jungle until late game so you can carry. If you want somebody who can gank really well, pick Pantheon. He is simple to learn, easy to play, and generally pretty strong right now. The other thing is that Devourer is REALLY weak right now except when you can power farm it for late game (like on Udyr or Yi). Generally, if you even want to think about ganking, take any other enchantment, since their stats are all much more potent early on when ganking is the most important.

Just like you know how to get through Veigar's early game, you need to learn exactly what every jungled is good at and what they are bad at, and this is FAR more important to jungling than knowing a champion is in lane. Jungle is THE hardest role to play strategically, since you have to track objectives, lanes, ganks, warding, the enemy jungler, and everything in between. You should expect to suck the first few times really, just like the first few times you played veigar I bet you had a hard time, or the first time you ADCed your kiting was bad, etc. If you want a really strong tank jungler, pick up Amumu. If you want a carry jungler, pick up Udyr and check out Trick2g on youtube (that guy is basically the Udyr Guru), I'f you want an AP junglier, pick Fiddlesticks. If you want a fighter with banks, pick Pantheon or J4. You have to know how to use your champion when you jungle more so than ANY other lane, since you have the single highest impact of everyone all game long.

lxlLilybellelxlFeb 11, 20151 votes

I'm in the same boat trying to learn how to jungle, instead i just get flamed by my team for trying to learn a role. I effectively gave up and now call "anything but jungle"

AkolineFeb 11, 20151 votes

get Warwick this guy can clear the entire jungle without ever recalling and still having most his health on the first clear. put devourer on your jungle item and use your w in team fights and watch the stacks roll in.

KingsgraveFeb 11, 20151 votes

Get Attack Speed runes. Get both Attack Speed Reds and Quints if you are really having difficulty clearing.

NagirahFeb 11, 20151 votes

I have never played jungle and never will... planning to keep it that way, because nothing it includes seems fun and if you do the slightest mistake, people rage at you. The new jungle is way too hard too and none of the champs I like can viably jungle. How do people do it? I'm seriously interested.

VantoothFeb 11, 20151 votes

So as someone who love jungle and his first moba game ever was in the jungle (back in DoTa in W3) I'll just give some tips.

Do not enchant , now you can switch for free so take something that has a better use for late game. Same for poacher but this one is really a niche and shouldn't be picked unless your enemy's jungle is literally your's.
If you have problem ganking, you can try getting boots before trying (just going with jungle item isn't the best). Ask your team to initiate before you pop out, it's much easier to land a kill.
Look for over-pushed lanes. If you can't gank because, your allies does give you opportunities or whatever reason, you should ward and keep track of the enemy jungler and try to either counter-gank or counter jungle while he's ganking. Keep track of objective like dragon, if you see your team is pushing a tower and if you go you think you can take it down go right ahead.
Ganking doesn't mean get a kill, just showing up in lane/landing a harass will relieve pressure for your laner and is great. If you force him to recall and/or burn flash nice. Also, if he burn flash just go around as if you were going away and come back ~1m later and gank most people don't expect it for some reason.

Hope any of this helped, but as it said try reading guides and guides for your junglers help a lot. Also learn the path and your healthiness in the jungle in custom. You can try to watch a jungle stream to get ganks idea.

More advanced jungling include pulling monster to reduce clear time by a few seconds 1~2 per camps in average.