I've heard a jungler say, "I'm only as strong as my weakest lane." Is that necessarily true? What signs should I look for to tell if my jungler is holding his own?
Also, with champion design, what's a "perfect" jungler look like in your mind??
The Mormonator1 votesHonestly, Elise still holds my place as the perfect jungler, with a decent amount of CC and mobility to get by. Now as far as what are good signs in a jungler, I would have to say their farm and level. They should be pretty even level's with the laners if they are ganking and assisting the team in some way. They should be way ahead if they aren't ganking at all. Junglers who rotate are a good thing to look out for. Like if they move into your lane to hold it when you go back, that's a good sign. Let's see...general pressure and warding is another good thing to look for...that's all that's coming to mind right now.
Gare Jordans2 votesHonestly, Elise still holds my place as the perfect jungler, with a decent amount of CC and mobility to get by. Now as far as what are good signs in a jungler, I would have to say their farm and level. They should be pretty even level's with the laners if they are ganking and assisting the team in some way. They should be way ahead if they aren't ganking at all. Junglers who rotate are a good thing to look out for. Like if they move into your lane to hold it when you go back, that's a good sign. Let's see...general pressure and warding is another good thing to look for...that's all that's coming to mind right now.
That's good enough! Thanks for starting off this discussion! Elise is pretty rare to see anymore...I jungle Shen (ik throwback time), but I like how he can add map pressure just by having his ult up, and may very well save a teammate. Also, I agree, ganks and lane holding are important if you want to have any sort of map pressure.
The Mormonator1 votesI just jungled shen yesterday wanted to see if he still worked XD He does still work by the way, his healing makes clearing easy and he has good ganks. I think I'm going to take tele smite next time I do it
Gare Jordans1 votesI just jungled shen yesterday wanted to see if he still worked XD He does still work by the way, his healing makes clearing easy and he has good ganks. I think I'm going to take tele smite next time I do it
Tele Smite seems kind of redundant on him though. It's not like you're being held into a lane all game, being forced to teleport back into it after you ult a diff lane. I've found that Ghost Smite works well, due to the fact that it's on a lower cooldown than flash, and can get you in range for taunts.
The Mormonator2 votesSometimes the flash taunt is needed though...but if you miss the taunt...
Champion Skin1 votesWhat jungle item do you get on Shen?
Ancient golem
? For CDR and HP
Or Madred's / feral flare 
for clear speed and a ward and some attack speed + ad (and possibly some on-hit damage)
Somethign else?
Gare Jordans1 votesWhat jungle item do you get on Shen? Ancient golem
I always choose the ancient golem simply because I'm filling the role of hyper-tank, and increasing my passive and Q damage with the bonus HP percentage. It would take too long for Shen to reach Feral Flare status because his clear times are pretty slow.
Champion Skin1 votesThe point of Wriggles would be to try and negate the slow clear as it gives a good amount of damage to monster on hit and attack speed and the only way Shen can clear camps is to stand and hit it a lot (and you also get stacks from kills/assists)
Gare Jordans1 votesI've played a couple games since reading your post as Feral Flare Shen. I have to say, with his ganking potential, he gets stacks right on time (at about 20 minutes in the game). I chose to build straight tank items after getting my wriggles and feral so my passive would hurt worse and more often. It works well. Good idea.
Capitan Rick1 votesshens clear speeeds are so abysmally bad though....
Isthia1 votesshaco is love shaco is life i am shaco's wife
junglerboy161 votesTo the statement, "I'm only as strong as my weakest lane", while that is true to an extent (you will probably lose if you have a lane that is getting 100% stomped), I would say that I will always choose to snowball two lanes ridiculously and leave one if the one is already falling behind. Having your mid and top far ahead of their counterparts will do more for your team than having all three lanes break even, so I usually gauge my level of success based on both how many lanes are ahead, as well as how far they are ahead. In terms of junglers that are good, that is a totally open statement. I personally like tank jungles for their utility and team fight power, and assassin jungles are next on my list. I know that certain junglers like elise are just really well rounded, but when they are that well rounded, it takes out some of the strategy imo. I would definitely prefer a Volibear to a Lee sin, because Volibear is to the point, you stack up your frenzy, charge in, nuke them and then frenzy chomp: job complete. Lee has too many flashy mechanics that kind of make him feel cluttered and confusing to me. In the end, the best jungled comes down to play style and preference: If you are team fight oriented, be a tank, if you want to murder people with banks, take an assassin, If you want to control objectives, take Nunu... (really nobody does it like he does lol)
Long Dong Wukong1 votesWell there's a couple different types of jungle players. It depends what you're trying to accomplish.
I play an active gank/counter gank playstyle, as opposed to a heavy counter jungle or farm playstyle, so characters that have assassin-like qualities are what I gravitate towards.
i.e. Wukong, Kha'Zix, some Elise, etc. I don't really play Flare champs because I like controlling the early game because I find it easier to convert early dominance into a snowball win. I generally take all of the buffs unless mid is winning hard without my help at all because I want to be strong enough to take whatever I want.
So champions that have the capability to carry with proper play are what I consider strong junglers, because I play to carry. I transition from carry builds into teamplay builds If I'm not carrying, but for the most part my matches are either "I went 13/3/10, we won" or "I went 3/6/4, we lost". Sometimes I'll end up with "I went 3/3/13, we won" but it isn't common for me.
Mikal Pikal1 votesKnowing when to farm, when to gank, and when to bait a countergank. I would say a jungler should be on par with support for wards placed and should have an idea where the jungler on the other team is and where he is likely to go next.
The biggest compliment as a jungler for me is when someone on the enemy team accuses me of "camping their lane"
12tales1 votesI'll start with playerwise, and move on to champwise afterwards, since the two are pretty intertwined.
To me, a jungler's duties are as follows.
A) Securing global objectives (dragon early on, baron later).
B) Preventing the enemy's jungler from getting anything done.
C) Other crap (ganking, farming, etc.)
The perfect jungler can predict their opponent's movements and always be there to countergank. They can find and abuse every opportunity to get vision in the enemy's jungle and steal camps away. The other jungler should feel powerless, because everything they attempt has been predicted and countered by their opponent. The perfect jungler can win every lane without having to show themselves because they can nullify any chance of the opponent ganking while keeping open the possibility of ganking themselves.
To me, KaKAO is the best jungler in the world. Nobody can match the early pressure he brings to the table. The series between the KTA and NWS exemplifies what makes him so great, in my opinion - playing both sides of the Elise vs. Nocturne matchup in two games, he first invades Watch as Elise and solo kills him, then in the next game baits Watch into invading him and solo kills him again.
Knowing my values as a jungler - I think that pre-nerf Evelynn was the closest thing to a perfect jungler that I've ever seen. The early pressure she could bring without even showing on the map, the vision control she could secure, and her ability to invade the enemy's jungle and kill nearly any champion 1v1 early on really exemplify what I feel a jungler should do. Her and Elise were my favorite champions by far before their nerfs, and even after in Evelynn's case.