Should I be taking kills as a jungler that's a scaling carry jg or should I donate.

d4rkshock·Dec 25, 2017·6 votes·3,554 views

The jungle role is like a secondary support role. Especially as a tank. For assassins, it's a carry into support. That's because assassins don't scale. Same can be said for burst divers like pantheon, Elise, xin Zhao, and nocturne. Then there's junglers that scale like shyvana, jax, and yi. I heard as jg, you want to not take the kills to climb. Anyways the thing is if you give your laners kills, they won lane assuming they didn't die and they don't need you anymore. Assassins don't want to take all the kills because their strength is fleeting. But what about the carry jg's that actually scale. Do you still donate or is it fine to take them.

27 Comments

Sona PingDec 25, 20175 votes

Don't worry about it, It doesn't actually matter that much. (outside of rare but funny examples where it is 8 to 8 but on one team all the kills are on the jg.)

TheThundersRoarDec 25, 20174 votes

There are a lot of factors that decide whether you should take the kill.

Situations where you should TAKE the kill

There's a fair chance that your laner will die or the enemy will escape.
You're behind and need the gold.
You snowball harder than your laner.

Situations where you should LEAVE the kill

Your laner needs to crush the match-up, e.g. top needs to get fed to shut down Nasus.
You plan on leaving the lane for a long time, e.g. you're top and Dragon is up in 1 minute.
You believe your laner can use the morale. Leaving kills gives people a good morale boost.

By default, I don't pay attention to who takes the kill, I just try to fuck the enemy laner up. I only pay attention if I'm planning ahead of time to leave the kill, for example if I NEED to get my laner fed. And even then, I only leave it when it's safe to do so.

Regardless of what you decide to do, here's a good rule of thumb to use: If you left the kill, tax the lane. If you took the kill, leave the lane.

LauchmelderDec 25, 20171 votes

{quoted} Regardless of what you decide to do, here's a good rule of thumb to use: If you left the kill, tax the lane. If you took the kill, leave the lane.

... unless your laner specifically pings you to help with a push so you can reset the waves before you back or take a tower. I'm fine if the jungler taxes after taking the kill, I'm not fine if he leaves me next to my own outer turret while I got no mana left to push the wave in fast enough.

Sightless66Dec 25, 20174 votes

Regardless of what you decide to do, here's a good rule of thumb to use: If you left the kill, tax the lane. If you took the kill, leave the lane.

I gotta disagree with that. Your decision of whether to stay or not should be based on whether or not you need to push the lane into tower to deny exp. Your laner will usually benefit more from having the enemy denied exp than he will from you leaving the lane and leaving him with a lane he can't fully push out. That decision should always take precedence over any concerns about taxing.

AbsoluenceDec 25, 20173 votes

Sona Ping is right on this one. It don't matter. In ranked matches, if you are JG you are better off taking the kills. They need your help because they have no idea how to beat the other team and need an advantage of some sort. It is better if you are fed because the only threat a JG gets is from another JG. The stronger you are, the better fit you are at taking any objectives on the map.

on the other hand, JG is for strategists and not rookie wannabes.

SalsonDec 25, 20173 votes

Honestly, just do your damage.

You get the kill = good Ally gets the kill = good Enemy gets saved by a random Soraka/Shen/Redemption = bad

So don't wait with spells/flash to ks, or refrain from using them to be nice. Just don't tax, especially if you get the kill.

Cat cafeDec 25, 20172 votes

Always take in solo queue.

SancreDec 25, 20172 votes

Its mostly a matter about the laner you are actually giving the kills, if you see during the match that the laner is really slow to answer to ganks, have no idea of how to hold lane or follow simple petitions like "play defensive please", you can't give it kills, or it will throw away first the lead, and then the match almost always, generally in 4 vs 5 situations, or even 1 vs 5, riven, yasuo and vayne love to do this.

On the other side, of you see that the laner knows what it is doing, go ahead and give it some kills, not many, as a good laner will use a bit of a lead to dominate the enemy and get its own kills, and you, being a scalling carry, should get as many kills as possible without leaving your team completelly underfed and weak.

Ambitious MinnowOct 26, 20191 votes

{quoted}

Its mostly a matter about the laner you are actually giving the kills, if you see during the match that the laner is really slow to answer to ganks, have no idea of how to hold lane or follow simple petitions like "play defensive please", you can't give it kills, or it will throw away first the lead, and then the match almost always, generally in 4 vs 5 situations, or even 1 vs 5, riven, yasuo and vayne love to do this.

On the other side, of you see that the laner knows what it is doing, go ahead and give it some kills, not many, as a good laner will use a bit of a lead to dominate the enemy and get its own kills, and you, being a scalling carry, should get as many kills as possible without leaving your team completelly underfed and weak.

This is the correct answer, 100%.

EschetonDec 25, 20172 votes

Take first couple, makes donating easier. On top of that, you are harder to shut down. So you are more likely to keep the gold advantage.

xxxDogmanxxxDec 27, 20172 votes

https://i.imgflip.com/21qs3d.jpg

lYUMElDec 25, 20171 votes

Personally you’d better always go scaling carry jungle if you are good enough.

z63XnLCMwXDec 25, 20171 votes

Top. Take kill. Mid. Take Kill. Bot. give kill.

Snowman ArcDec 25, 20171 votes

Just take the kill yourself. You can't rely on anyone but yourself to carry, so even if you hand a kill to your top laner, you can't be sure they will make good use of it. If you are confident in your ability to play well and carry games by yourself, then take the kills. Now, if you do not feel confident and want others to do the dirty work, happily hand them over and hope they will carry you.

Having game sense will help. Usually, what I do is I take anything I can to snowball hard since I know I will abuse every inch of advantage I have over the enemy and will translate it to a team-wide advantage by roaming, taking towers etc. After a point, I might delibirately leave kills to my team, because the % of gold they get compared to what they have already gained is more than mine, which means that it will help them much more to be stronger than me. It all comes down to experience, playstyle and the type of champions being played. A Maokai top can be fine with just taking assists and having less pressure in lane by having a dead enemy. Irelia needs the gold more so that she can hard snowball a lane and become unstoppable.

SwiftKitten88Dec 25, 20171 votes

it depends... if my laner is already winning i take it... if i can get my laner ahead i give it to them... if my laner is trash i figure its better i have the gold

Andrey0345Dec 25, 20171 votes

Whatever happens, I balance it out by taxing or not.

Andrey0345Dec 25, 20171 votes

Whatever happens, I balance it out by taxing or not.

WolfChasesDec 25, 20171 votes

It depends on which type of champion you are playing. If you play tanks like Rammus Sejuani or Zac you dont have to secure more than 2-3 kills midgame because you will scale with items and be a monster late game with insane CC but if you play champions like Kindred Khazix Evelynn Rengar or Nocturne hell you need kills as much as your laners in order to stay relevant and help your team. 2-5-22 Sejuani is worth but 2-5-22 Rengar is plain useless late game and is most likely 5 v 4 in enemy favor.

koshkyraDec 26, 20171 votes

Junglers should get the kill for the gank, and then help shove the wave WITHOUT TAXING MINIONS, and take tower with the laner imo.

warpenguin555Dec 26, 20171 votes

If Bronze, Silver, or Plat: Assume your team mates can do nothing right and you'll have to drag them kicking and screaming to the win

If Anything else: Get ahead, then donate

AR URFDec 26, 20171 votes

It depends on who your ganking IMO. General rule of thumb for me anyway is that if I get my laner 2 kills or so he won't need to be ganked as much or not at all. In other words I try not to take the kill so I can gank less.

DisulfiramDec 27, 20171 votes

Imho you should consider donating only if you're 110% sure it is a kill. Else, if the enemy might escape or get a return kill, then do your best and don't think of who'll get the kill. 1 assist+free farm is still better than 1 death and/or no kills.

XurrealDec 28, 20171 votes

In my Penta Kill Evelynn match today, I attempted to donate a kill to someone and I ended up having to turn around and go back because they couldn't finish the job, so always ALWAYS secure the kill and spare anyone's health if you can, as much of it as you can.

This is to say: Prevent your team from having to recall, prevent the chase, prevent your enemy target from any chance at all that they may make an escape.

Just secure the kill.

After the first few minutes, Farming outweighs Champion kills by a ton, especially once Tank minions start rolling out consistently. In turn, Champion kills start to fall off in Gold value the more you kill, and never increase in value (outside of killing spree bounties). That said, keep your laner in lane as long as you can, and if seemingly ks'ing them spares them several hundred Health Points, and they can stay for that farm and be healthy at the same time, they will profit.

Make sure your laner can STAY FOR THAT WAVE, BABY!

TheBlackThanatosOct 26, 20191 votes

I think it's about understanding your ally laner's abilities.

When I'm top against say my worst nightmare Illoli, or when Daruis gets a few kills on me, all i need from Jungle is just help me get them to recall due to low life just to get them off the field for a minute because it gives the opportunity to out CS them to even it up, or usually end up getting ahead because the CS evens out the $$$ but more CS usually means you've been on field for the xp gain from it too. Which makes them a level or hopefully 2 down all the while the CS evening out the money advantage they gained.

All in all, sometimes the kill is even unnecessary. Just imposing/ or helping establish time on field dominance is all the help laners who can ravage minion waves need.

NaughtyWordOct 26, 20191 votes

Broadly speaking I take every kill when I jungle EXCEPT if I can feed my ADC.

If you can get 20mins with your ADC having 2.5-3 items, that ADC is going to melt everyone. Especially true if they are an ADC that happens to go the item 3031 > item 3085 route.