Hey all,
I've always noticed when Jungling, I fall behind in terms of levels.
I know the basics of jungling, ganking lanes, getting blue, etc.
I don't really have an established route and I always seem to be 1 - 2 levels behind the others when trying to Jungle.
Any tips?
Bit confused. If you're referring to falling behind your laners in levels, it's pretty natural (they get more constant farm, thus they'll be higher levelled because of it). Best trick I can think of is to just pick a quick farming jg like nid and attempt to counter-jg like crazy.
If levels are your problem, you need to figure out paths. Remember which camps you just cleared, and in which order they will respawn. If you intend to gank a lane soon (let's say top lane), you want to do the camp closer to it's opposite lane then do the other two and work your way to the gank.
Example, you just backed but you want to gank top, but your laner is pushed up. Go do wolves, gromp, then blue, and walk up to their lane. By this time the lane will have reset and you can gank easier.
What I said probably sounds a little confusing, but most of jungling is timing. You have to play enough jungle to start to get a feel for when camps respawn, or how long it takes for a lane to reset. Eventually, you start to have a cycle of farm, gank, invade, ward, objective, etc. (not always that order).
So, if you play a farm champ like Shyv, you might clear top side, then bot side, gank bot, then do drag. But if you play an early game champion, you might go straight to bot lane and do a lane gank. After that, you might decide to take tower. Everything is decision making and knowing what to do next. It takes practice.
Making the right decisions quickly means less time moving around more time doing things. This is what makes you be ahead or even in levels. Optimization is key.
you're wasting time somewhere. A failed gank can be pretty punishing in terms of gold/xp if your opponent is farming while you tried to gank. A successful gank can put you ahead in xp...so really don't waste time on ganks with little chance for success.
it's a tricky balance...you need to farm to stay relevant but if you farm too much while your opponent is pressuring lanes, you risk your entire team falling behind. I find it to be a rather intuitive role, and the best thing for that is to play more jungle games and get experience game by game.
best tip i can tell you, however, is to not let your team get in your head. 4 other people often all have individual agendas, and many times they each want you doing something different. Pinging, griefing a jungle lacking pressure. Or blaming their mistakes on you. Best to not let that get in your head...it will give you anxiety and cloud your judgment/throw off your mechanics. Best to try and realize the optimal decision you can make at any moment. Often this means leaving someone on your team to handle things themself. But if you can get a big advantage somewhere, often you can translate that to help the person you had to previously ignore
Thanks guys! Really appreciate the tips!
